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One of cinema’s most celebrated transitions, from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” flawlessly embodies an idea referred to as the technological sublime. Initially, we observe a furious primate striking one of its companions with a discovered bone; he has only recently grasped that bones possess such utility, and he flings his implement skyward in triumph. We track the bone’s ascent as it rotates against the pristine blue heavens. Abruptly, we leap to outer space, millennia into the ape’s future. The bone has transformed into a sophisticated satellite, drifting past Earth’s curvature. Across the subsequent minutes, as a spacecraft connects with an orbiting station, we witness the magnitude of humanity’s advancement.
Should you have encountered any speculative fiction, you’ve undergone the technological sublime—the sensation of wonder, interwoven with apprehension, that can arise as a response to the all-encompassing scope of technological progression. Perhaps you have gazed in astonishment at the vast cyber-cityscapes of “Blade Runner,” or at the unbelievably lofty, foliage-like extraterrestrial vessels in “Arrival.” Within the cascading emerald code of “The Matrix,” you may have perceived a hint of revelation—or perhaps Ava, the remarkably lovely android portrayed by Alicia Vikander in “Ex Machina,” has sparked some conception of what it could entail to transcend human limitations. In each of these instances, technology feels immense, peculiar, persistent, yet also intellectually stimulating and enticing—an invigorating surge that will envelop you.
These are imaginings concerning a yet-to-be-realized tomorrow. However, the technological sublime is present in our reality as well. Several decades ago, during my time in primary school, we witnessed the space shuttle’s ascent from Cape Canaveral, spellbound by the potency of its thrusters even on our classroom’s diminutive screen. Presently, throngs gather to observe towering SpaceX accelerators return to the planet, where they are seized by colossal mechanical appendages. Rocketry presents as futuristic, yet its contemporary iteration spans a century—and consequently, when we are enthralled by it, we are enthralled not by an invention but by an established fact. As I journey to The New Yorker’s headquarters, situated within One World Trade Center, I frequently incline my gaze to follow the building’s surfaces as they extend skyward toward its summit. Such design evokes a metropolis of the future, yet it exists within the present moment, and the innovations that enable its existence—steel infrastructures and glass exteriors, climate-control systems and elevators—date back to the nineteenth century. We inhabit, and have inhabited for an extended duration, a technologically advanced epoch.
“The sublime” represents an age-old notion. At the very least, it signifies an especially transporting aesthetic occurrence, potentially the paramount kind. The author of “On the Sublime,” a two-thousand-year-old Greek work, linked it to timeless literary brilliance—the variety evoked by a phrase such as “Let there be light.” During the eighteenth century, the concept underwent a shift, when philosophers connected it to the sphere of nature. Within a foundational treatise, “A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful,” Edmund Burke differentiated between two categories of aesthetic experience: a gratifying, non-intimidating form of beauty (consider a blossom, or a verse), and a more unsettling form of beauty, which we might confront when standing before a resounding cascade or an infinite stretch of desert. The cascade and the desert render us insignificant; they are indifferent to our existence; they possess the capacity to extinguish us. Nevertheless, we perceive them as sublime, provided we can value their force from a secure distance. The sensation of sublimity, Burke documented, is “not pleasure, but a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquility tinged with terror.” The sublime invokes in us “astonishment,” he proceeded, as well as “awe, reverence, and respect.”
Relative to the natural embodiment of the sublime, the technological variant has consistently felt somewhat inferior. The historian Perry Miller, who initially definitively characterized the technological sublime during the nineteen-sixties, regarded it as a distinctly American phenomenon. Our nationwide allegiance to capitalism and manufacturing had merged with our moral zeal, he contended, to engender a civic faith predicated upon awe-inspiring technological masterpieces. One detriment of venerating technologies, naturally, resides in their propensity, unlike conventional sacred artifacts, to become outdated, even antiquated, as they age. Miller noted that the steamboat formerly incited sentiments of technological sublimity: it constituted “a subject of ecstasy for its sheer majesty and might, especially for its stately progress at night, blazing with light through the swamps and forests of Nature.” At present, it represents an attraction at Disney World.
Within “The Machine in the Garden,” dating from 1964, Leo Marx illustrated how, as the nation expanded, the “rhetoric of the technological sublime” had masked objections to novel technology. It had enabled techno-optimists to assert that there existed a spiritual dimension—an elevation—to the thoroughness with which industrialization would encroach upon a long-cherished vision of a pastoral America. Three decades subsequently, within “American Technological Sublime,” David E. Nye scrutinized the commonplace manners in which we revere technology—factory excursions; spectacular performances featuring light displays; observation platforms atop skyscrapers—and lauded its democratic essence. We all exist at a remove from God, yet we possess the capability to journey within jets, possess iPhones, obtain mRNA vaccinations, and converse with ChatGPT. A multitude of the most extraordinary technologies remain accessible to all.
However, when considering technology, does the term “sublime” genuinely represent the appropriate descriptor? When burgeoning technologies elicit awe and trepidation, are those feelings valid? Or do they simply constitute outcomes of sci-fi infatuation or corporate endorsement, fabricated by Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and fellow tech magnates seeking to persuade us that smartphones, domestic robots, or neural interfaces embody the second advent? All of this appears plausible—and nonetheless the technological sublime can still manifest as a genuine response to the world we occupy, which is molded by technology across every stratum, in ways that challenge our capacity to imagine or govern.
It’s alluring to declare that technology lacks naturalness—that it’s crafted by us—and that this represents a foundational manner in which the technological sublime diverges from its natural equivalent. Yet a perspective exists from which technology isn’t entirely human-made. Within “Oppenheimer,” everyone senses wonder and apprehension regarding the prospect of the atomic bomb. The sources of apprehension are conspicuous. Wonder accompanies the fascinations of physics. The bomb is rendered feasible via human insights into the essence of reality; fission’s capacity to obliterate everything originates from our newly attained comprehension of how everything is assembled. Nature and humankind intermingle, and this constitutes a fraction of what inspires astonishment.
It remains feasible to extend this line of reasoning further, and to suggest that technology possesses an inherent autonomy—that it assumes a role in its own inception. Within an influential treatise, “What Technology Wants,” Kevin Kelly depicts the entirety of our technical systems as “the technium” and contends that this “organism-like” aggregation harbors “tendencies.” “We humans want certain things from the technium, but at the same time there is an inherent bias in the technium outside of our wants,” Kelly records. For one factor, “technology will head in certain directions because physics, mathematics, and realities of innovation constrain possibilities”; for another, technology itself tends to advance in manners that amplify efficiency, “evolvability,” and other advantageous attributes. For these rationales, Kelly asserts, were we to visit extraterrestrial civilizations, we would likely discover that they possessed at least some analogous technologies: “Any civilization that invents nuclear power,” for instance, “will hit upon a small set of workable solutions.” In this vein, technology doesn’t merely constitute something we devise; it also resembles a domain that we explore. It brims with phenomena—such as the atom bomb—that are destined to be unveiled.
The natural iteration of the sublime incorporates a degree of intricacy. We desire to encounter reality, yet securely. By positioning ourselves behind the barrier, we can value the force of Niagara Falls as an aesthetic consideration, whereas if we were within the current and destined for the precipice, we would experience solely dread. Technological sublimity, analogously, mandates barriers. These can manifest as both concrete—we observe automobile racing from behind barricades—and intellectual. Via comprehending our technologies, we acquire the means to govern them, thereby enhancing their safety. And yet a technology that is entirely regulated lacks a sublime frisson. Driving formerly embodied technological sublimity: Americans harbored such affection for internal-combustion automobiles that the Beach Boys could compose songs regarding them, and it proved thrilling to function as a mechanic, to assimilate the intricacies of the perpetually evolving automobile. It could even appear glamorous to perish in an automotive collision, as portrayed in the teen-tragedy ballads of the nineteen-fifties and sixties (“Leader of the Pack,” “Dead Man’s Curve,” “Tell Laura I Love Her,” et cetera). Presently, operating a vehicle is monotonous. The emerging sublime resides within driverless automobiles. You experience awe and apprehension when relinquishing your grasp upon the steering wheel.
The inevitable trajectory of technology, in essence, renders the technological sublime elusive. Furthermore, it remains accurate that technologies tend to diminish in size, adopting unassuming facades. (“Technologies tend toward ubiquity and cheapness,” Kelly records.) My offspring and I occasionally engage with a “hoverball”—a miniature propeller-powered sphere that emits radiance within the shadows, and which can be manipulated to glide elegantly from individual to individual, or to emulate a boomerang’s trajectory. The hoverball provides amusement, yet lacks sublimity, and nonetheless technological sublimity lurks within it: the aerial mechanisms residing within the hoverball bear relation to those that have engendered lethal “gray zones” upon the Ukrainian battleground, into which no human can venture without risking annihilation via drone.
Standing upon the shoreline during the nocturnal hours, gazing toward the obscure, enigmatic ocean, one may readily perceive a challenge posed by something substantially grander and more ancient than oneself. The natural sublime exists as immense, conspicuous, unmistakable. Regarding technology, such junctures can emerge surreptitiously. Periodically, one might discern a surveillance camera ensconced within the recess of a chamber, and recollect that we exist under constant observation. Noticing a satellite progressing across the nocturnal expanse, one might contemplate the broadening reach of our species; ingesting your daily statin tablet, one might deliberate upon the extent to which our physical forms are engineered. Through this means, the technological sublime can manifest as a diffuse sentiment, encountered in fragments. If you qualify as a technophile, it represents something you might pursue, by continually pursuing the vanguard.
Technologists embody rationality—at a minimum, that represents the perception. However, they additionally constitute individuals, and individuals reside within culture and possess emotions, and the models through which those emotions are encountered have remained largely consistent since the era of Edmund Burke. Attend to the pronouncements of the titans of technology concerning their endeavors, and you will frequently discern the patterns of the technological sublime. A.I. researchers stationed at the “frontier labs,” for instance, articulate in somber intonations the perils posed by artificial intellect, which they surmise constitutes a sort of predestined discovery, almost a potentiality inherent within the universe, to which they function as near witnesses. The reality that they do not entirely govern these systems seemingly intensifies their awareness of existing within the presence of something sublime.
Sublimity entails an element of passiveness. Previously, I embarked upon a solitary excursion within Red Rock Canyon, situated within Nevada; the temperature surpassed one hundred degrees, and the sunlight proved blinding. Standing upon a secluded stretch of pathway overlooking a ravine, devoid of human presence and with my hydration vessel depleted, I acknowledged the precariousness of my actions. I ought to have retraced my steps promptly, but instead I remained, absorbing the ancient rust-hued canyon, experiencing both a sense of being overwhelmed and vibrantly alive. The world existed as immense, and remained indifferent to my fate, yet there I stood, comprehending this veracity. I relished the amalgamation of wonder and trepidation.
However, should this represent the manner in which we respond to technology? The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer experienced fascination regarding the juncture at which a daunting occurrence transforms into sublime; it almost appears, he speculated, as though we confront a choice between fixating upon ourselves or transcending selfhood. Adopt the latter trajectory, directed toward sublimity, and one becomes a “pure, will-less subject of knowing,” an “eternal subject”—an individual who undergoes “exaltation” at having elevated themselves beyond their confines. This sounds exceedingly theoretical, yet it constitutes an apt depiction of the sensation that accompanies standing in awe and dread of something surpassing your existence. Individuals who pursue the sublime within nature—mountaineers, scuba enthusiasts, and related cohorts—frequently remain in pursuit of it.
Sublimity does not represent a delusion. Rationales exist for why we experience it within nature, and rationales exist for why we undergo the technological iteration as well. Nevertheless, within both scenarios, it remains imperative to sever the trance. At a specific juncture, you must flee from the impending surge. You must revert to your essential being—to recall, and embrace, the reality that you constitute a singular individual endowed with agency, responsibilities, and principles. Within the sphere of nature, reverting to your essential being can prove as straightforward as withdrawing. However, within the technological realm, it assumes greater complexity, given that we govern the tempo of exploration, revelation, and innovation. Technologists retain the capacity, to a degree, to conjure the technological sublime, and consumers of technology can develop an addiction to it. But the pathway to accountability transits through disenchantment. ♦
Sourse: newyorker.com
