Nature, Culture, and the Machine
Reflections on Romano Guardini's Letters from Lake Como
Recently I was on vacation to visit my in-laws. As my boys and I waited for our red-eye flight to Boston, I started re-reading a book I first read six years ago, Romano Guardini’s Letters from Lake Como. When I say re-read I am, perhaps, speaking too strongly. In truth, the first time I read it, I picked it up because it was short and would help me hit my reading goal for the year (something I plan to write on soon). I can say with absolute certainty that I looked at every page and most of the words, but I cannot say I properly read it. So, while on vacation I decided to remedy that. This past week, back home, I finally read the last few letters and Guardini’s address, which draws to a close the book, “The Machine and Humanity.”
The book is a fascinating one, dense despite it’s short length, filled with reflections about nature and culture, tools and machines, and how humanity has and will continue to develop. While on vacation in his homeland in northern Italy, he notes how it has not yet, in 1923, been overtaken by industrialization as Germany and other northern European countries have. This kicks off a series of letters reflecting on human culture and how true human culture is meant to be one that uses nature, yes, but also works alongside it. As I was reading, I thought of King Charles III’s 10 Principles of Place where he recommends that the materials used to build a city should come from the area where the city is being built so that it will fit the landscape.
Culture, for Guardini in the early letters, happens when natural resources are used in ways that are still fitting to their natural context. In the final address he distinguishes from machines things he calls contrivances. These are simple machines that utilize natural forces as they occur in order to produce something. A water mill uses water’s natural flowing tendency to turn the mill. This is more than a tool. A tool for Guardini, getting his ideas from Heidegger, is an extension of our own natural abilities. My fist or palm can strike things with a certain amount of force. A rock in the hand can do so without (or at least with less) injury to myself. A rock attached to a stick is more efficient yet and also remains an extension of my natural ability. A contrivance is no longer an extension of my natural abilities but uses nature to mimic what I or nature itself can do but on both a larger and more controlled scale. Machines, however, are different still. For Guardini, the machine divorces nature from its context. We are no longer the film version of Dr. Frankenstein waiting for a lightning bolt to strike and start our machine. Now we have found a way to generate electricity and use it purely for our purposes.
This turn to the machine has been a turn away from culture, at least as Guardini understands the true human culture of the past. And this is something he laments, for with that remove from nature which does not include nature also comes a remove from culture. So, what are we to do? This is where things get interesting. You might expect Guardini to say that we need to eschew the machine and return to the culture of the past. But this is not what he says. In his ninth and final letter, Guardini tells us that we cannot ignore or even say no to the world, the age, in which we live. We have to accept that we now live in a world of machines. We cannot go back. But saying yes to our age does not mean accepting it uncritically, accepting all potential outcomes.
The final part of this book is Guardini’s address, “The Machine and Humanity,” which was delivered at the Munich College of Technology. It is here he denotes the differences between tools, contrivances, and machines. His point in it all, however, is to remind those future engineers and technicians of what human culture is, where it really comes from, and the possibilities, both good and ill that may come about from the technical advances of the age. He talks about cities being made for cars and for radios. He knows nothing yet of how cellular phones, internet, and more would change the shape of our cities, how being able to do so much from home would cause the decay of many public spaces.
Throughout this address, Guardini warns of what will happen as we divorce ourselves from what happens. This is the nature of the machine. It removes the human from the product, it is a barrier between the one producing and the thing produced. This kind of separation also stands behind why people feel so empowered to vent their spleen on the internet, even when not anonymous. They cannot see the person they hate and so it becomes easier to hate them. But again, we cannot take up the hammer, Ezekiel, and smash the machines. They will not go away. What we need, says Guardini, is the imagination to view the world differently, where the machines are given their proper place by us, not by themselves. He hopes for some kind of “intellectual council of nations,” which might take up the philosophical, and ultimately theological, questions surrounding machines and their use, putting limits on them. If we could do this, he believes we might be able to see humanity in a new way, one that might lead us closer to our true end. He recognizes this cannot really happen, but perhaps if we set up the ideal we can come to real “insights and deeds.”
What Guardini would say were he alive today I am not sure. To see machines now producing “art” so that they not only take the place of natural processes or aspects of utility but venture into the world of leisure, of liturgy, would likely send him into fresh reflections. But what I do know is this: If we want solutions to these problems we need to recognize that the answer will not come from those who build the machines or those who sell them or even those who use them the most. The answer will come from those whose job it is to think about what it means to be human, what culture is, what nature is, what tools, contrivances, and machines really are. In short, it will require those who are dedicated to the life of the mind in concert with those who make, sell, and use these machines, but without politics or economics (as it is understood today) being the primary concerns, but life itself as the primary concern. In order to do that, we need to educate people in the life of the mind. The more who are capable of it, the more we will have to dedicate themselves to it. And then, insofar as history and time are concerned, we might just stand a chance. Then, something new and wonderful might come forward. But even if we fail, if culture collapses, we at least know that is not the end. But the millions who would suffer (likely billions) do not leave me in place of complacency.