Musing on McLaren's emc: Machines

This is in fact the eighteenth in a periodic series of reflections on Brian D. McLaren's everything must change (I discovered two tenths yesterday). Quotations used by kind permission of the author, with page citations from the edition featured on the Emerging Church Reading List to your right. 

"Machines are the quintessential modern metaphor, meaning they reflect the habit of the mind in modern Western societies to describe things by comparing them to machines or mechanisms. As modern Western people, when we find objective, impersonal, universal laws-- the kind that run machines-- we tend to feel we have found the deepest truth about things, from physics (thanks to Sir Isaac Newton with his laws on the mechanisms of physics) to biology (thanks to Gregor Mendel with his genetic mechanisms or Charles Darwin in biology with his evolutionary mechanisms) . . . from psychology (thanks to B. F. Skinner with his mechanisms of operant conditioning or Sigmund Freud with his psychosexual aggressive mechanisms) to religion (thanks to gospel 'formulas' such as 'the four spiritual laws,' which are actually four spiritual mechanisms)" (pp. 53-54).

To appreciate the modern quality of machine metaphors, just think for a moment of all the metaphors we use that derive from the physical movements of our earliest ancestors. They used to catch animals; now we catch colds and drifts of meaning. They used to bring up fish from the sea, now we bring up bad memories and children. They used to chase birds; now we chase dreams. They used to walk great distances; now we walk the talk or "walk in love as Christ loved us." They used to throw spears; now we throw parties. They used to run for cover; now we run for office (and then run for cover and cover up our mistakes).

However fun or fascinating it may be to trace our physical metaphors to their origins, they do in fact bear (another physical metaphor) a direct relationship to real physical actions. On the other hand (another physical metaphor), machine metaphors are dehumanizing and can reinforce a sense that we are victims of drives and forces outside our control, rendering personal responsibility illusory.

In the previous chapter, Brian quotes Einstein's famous dictum that "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it" (p. 49). This begs the question whether we can solve the problem of "solution deadlock" by employing the core metaphor of Machine.

Let's find out.

This is in fact the eighteenth in a periodic series of reflections on Brian D. McLaren's everything must change (I discovered two tenths yesterday). Quotations used by kind permission of the author, with page citations from the edition featured on the Emerging Church Reading List to your right. 

"Machines are the quintessential modern metaphor, meaning they reflect the habit of the mind in modern Western societies to describe things by comparing them to machines or mechanisms. As modern Western people, when we find objective, impersonal, universal laws-- the kind that run machines-- we tend to feel we have found the deepest truth about things, from physics (thanks to Sir Isaac Newton with his laws on the mechanisms of physics) to biology (thanks to Gregor Mendel with his genetic mechanisms or Charles Darwin in biology with his evolutionary mechanisms) . . . from psychology (thanks to B. F. Skinner with his mechanisms of operant conditioning or Sigmund Freud with his psychosexual aggressive mechanisms) to religion (thanks to gospel 'formulas' such as 'the four spiritual laws,' which are actually four spiritual mechanisms)" (pp. 53-54).

To appreciate the modern quality of machine metaphors, just think for a moment of all the metaphors we use that derive from the physical movements of our earliest ancestors. They used to catch animals; now we catch colds and drifts of meaning. They used to bring up fish from the sea, now we bring up bad memories and children. They used to chase birds; now we chase dreams. They used to walk great distances; now we walk the talk or "walk in love as Christ loved us." They used to throw spears; now we throw parties. They used to run for cover; now we run for office (and then run for cover and cover up our mistakes).

However fun or fascinating it may be to trace our physical metaphors to their origins, they do in fact bear (another physical metaphor) a direct relationship to real physical actions. On the other hand (another physical metaphor), machine metaphors are dehumanizing and can reinforce a sense that we are victims of drives and forces outside our control, rendering personal responsibility illusory.

In the previous chapter, Brian quotes Einstein's famous dictum that "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it" (p. 49). This begs the question whether we can solve the problem of "solution deadlock" by employing the core metaphor of Machine.

Let's find out.