Once upon a time, according to Umberto Galimberti, technology was placed at the service of man and could be said to be good or bad depending on the use made of it. Today, technology no longer has a modest dimension and is difficult to “subjugate”. Technology has expanded incredibly, becoming the undisputed protagonist of the present and the future. Technology is no longer a mere instrument (means) of history. Man is a mere ‘official’ of technology. Efficiency is the most important parameter for measuring man.
Today, our ability to “do” is greater than our ability to foresee the effects of our doing[1]. At the technical level we are moving blindly. Man has lost the Promethean virtue of foresight. The gods of ancient Greece had chained Prometheus. Prometheus had given men the gift of technology. In ancient Greece, technology was subordinate to nature. Technological man has ‘unleashed’ Prometheus[2] without having a precise understanding of the limits of what he has unleashed[3].
According to Martin Heidegger, to calculating thought “the world appears as an object, an object to which calculating thought launches its assaults, which, it is believed, nothing can oppose. Nature is transformed into a single gigantic reservoir, it becomes the source of the energy that modern technology and industry need”[4] .
Science is not pure. Technique is not a simple application of science. The opposite is true. Technique is the essence of science. Science does not look at the world to contemplate it. Science looks at the world to manipulate it[5]. For Galimberti the essence of Humanism is science. With science, man becomes “dominator et possessor mundi”[6].
The historical passage is that from means to ends. From technology (old means) for man (old end) we have passed to man (new means) for technology (new end).
[1] U. Galimberti, «La tecnica ci mangia l’anima», intervista rilasciata a Il Dubbio (Carlo Fusi), 23 aprile 2019.
[2] U. Galimberti, La Sfida di Prometeo – L’Occidente e il senso del limite, Feltrinelli, 2010, 531.
[3] In tal senso M. Heidegger in una lezione del 1955, L’Abbandono (1959) : «Il mondo si trasforma in un completo dominio della tecnica. Di gran lunga più inquietante è che l’uomo non è affatto preparato a questo radicale mutamento del mondo». Interessante, sempre in argomento, è il saggio di F. Sollazzo, Heidegger e la tecnica. Una introduzione (contenuto in Martin Heidegger, La questione della tecnica, edizioni goWere, 2017).
[4] M. Heidegger, L’Abbandono (Titolo originale “Gelassenheit“. Traduzione e note di Adriano Fabris), Il Melangolo, 34. Inoltre in argomento: M. Heidegger, La questione della tecnica, in Saggi e discorsi, a cura di G. Vattimo, Mursia, Milano, 1976.
[5] C. Brambilla, La scienza sotto accusa, La Repubblica, 27 maggio 2003.
[6] U. Galimberti, «La tecnica ci mangia l’anima», intervista rilasciata a Il Dubbio (Carlo Fusi), 23 aprile 2019: «La tecnica è ormai diventata il soggetto del mondo e gli uomini si sono trasformati in apparati di questa tecnica. Il grande capovolgimento sta qui… Se la tecnica diventa il canone universale per realizzare qualsiasi scopo, non è più uno strumento bensì il primo e pervasivo scopo di esistenza».
