Technology, in our DNA?

Whether you like it or not, technological advances have always captured our imagination in folk lore and reality. Last Saturday I saw John Oliver from the Daily Show at Bailey Hall perform his stand-up comedy routine. In the midst he described a hilarious bit in which he ruined Fox News’ telecast of the last space shuttle launch in Florida by accidentally cursing in front of their camera. Oliver confessed his obscenities were simply the only reaction he could muster to the most amazing thing he had ever witnessed. He explained that “It was almost ungodly” to witness people fighting gravity and even God to venture into the heavens where humans aren’t naturally built to inhabit.

Visualizing Oliver’s rant made me consider several points from the readings this week. Cosgrove’s article made me think about whether the American landscape was an American invention or a European imposition on the landscape? I think early urban centers where people congregated were European in their ancestry, but as the U.S. won its independence, the most democratic allocation of power was to plot the land in a decentralized way through grid systems and using natural barriers such as large rivers. Even if lands were not completely explored, wealth was awarded through property.

Cosgrove’s article made me think about the give and take that occurs between technology and landscape. Large American rives enabled deforestation on massive scales that caused vast environmental degradation, but also helped the United States attain economic and militaristic superiority. As the U.S. grew, the vastness of the continent created enormous infrastructural problems. To overcome these hardships created by landscape, I would argue that people’s fortitude, creativity and ambition was put to the test. The railroad and telegraph are closely associated with moving west. These two advances enabled people to experience the landscape and send information, resources and people like never before.

Another increase in technology has been the airplane. No other vehicle, besides its cousin the spaceship, has allowed mankind to view our planet like never before. The plane has cut travel by severe margins, making trips that took months and years in the past to mere hours. The airplane has allowed us to rationalize our actions on a global scale.

While landscape can provide the hardship and vehicle by which human ingenuity propels technological advancement, a culture’s mode of production is the driver. For instance in the Web article, the author describes how several ranchers, Joseph Glidden and Jacob Haish, invented barbed wire as a response to the lack of wood needed for fence building. In this wonderful case of technological discovery, the landscape presented a particular challenge for these ranchers. Because their mode of production was incumbent on creating a productive landscape for monetary and social prowess, they invented ways to propel this within the constraints of the landscape that they were in. People had lived on the plains for thousands of years, but did not invent the barbed wire fence – not because they weren’t smart enough, but because they were not driven to as part of a capitalistic society.

The question has to be asked then, is humankind smart enough to prevail over everything nature can throw at it? It seems that at our core essence, landscape presented a challenge to human ancestors when they first climbed down from the trees in search of food. Just as it does today, the landscapes of then presented many challenges. Those early hominoids had the presence of mind to be creative and overcome. Today this continues in the face of environmental disaster. Technological advancement has not only created a mess environmentally, but has also given us the means to understand the scale of this destruction. Inevitably, our creative ability to use our minds to create ways to overcome hardships we encounter in the landscapes we inhabit will probably save us – if history is any indication. Perhaps it’s simply in our DNA?

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