Our Technologies, Our Selves

By David Kraemer

I remember well when, not too many years ago, various technology-seduced prognosticators predicted that, given the increasing ubiquity of the VCR, the widespread practice of “going to the movies” would soon be nothing more than a memory.  Yet now, at the beginning of a new year, we look back at 2002 as the movie theater industry’s most successful year ever as measured by box office receipts.  Why were the technology prophets so wrong?  Why the vast gap between predicted trends and actual, lived habits? 

The simple answer is that the technology prognosticators have forgotten the lessons of sociology/anthropology 101.  Had they remembered those lessons, they would have been mindful of the fact that, whatever technology might theoretically facilitate, we remain, at our core, social animals.  This is not to deny that there are those among us who would prefer to live a solitary existence; nor is it to deny that some of us may even succeed at living in almost total isolation.  It is simply to acknowledge that as a species (that is, in our conglomeration if not necessarily as individuals) we need to live in societies.  This is a quality of our creaturely nature, and it will not be undone, at least in the short-term, by any newfangled technology.  This accounts for the continuing popularity of the social practice of watching movies in movie theaters, despite the availability of an asocial alternative. 

The foundational quality of our social nature will be obvious if we only consider ourselves from the perspective of evolutionary theory.  This theory holds that, considered over the long-term, what we do as a species can best be understood if we interpret it as a strategy of survival.  We may not be conscious of our survival strategies, nor need they obviously serve as such, but when we step back and view ourselves from “outside the cage” (as though we were on exhibit in a zoo), we quickly recognize that we are motivated by our need to survive.  And this is true not only of our biological selves, but of our social and cultural selves as well.  Indeed, it has been argued that the very fact that we are both social and cultural beings is a product of our collective struggle to survive. 

How does our sociability facilitate our survival?  The answer follows from the efficiency brought about by the division of labor.  Simply put, if every one of us had to do everything that is required to insure our own individual survival, very few of us would succeed.  By cooperating with one another and dividing the labors of survival (producing clothes, food, shelter, etc.), many more of us are able to survive, thus facilitating the survival of the species.   

But if cooperation is essential to survival, we need to create a social basis for this cooperation that can counter the antisocial tendencies that are also at work in every breast. This we do through rituals of cooperation, that is, through a culture, which facilitates and preserves our individual formation as members of cooperative societies.  Or, to put it another way, watching movies together may not insure our survival, but our culturally sanctioned habit of watching movies (and concerts and plays and sporting events) together makes it more likely that we will cooperate sufficiently to survive. 

Of course, a central expression of these cultural rituals of cooperation is our religions.  A challenging and, to my mind, persuasive argument for this interpretation of religion as a phenomenon is articulated by David Sloan Wilson in his recent book, Darwin’s Cathedral (Chicago, 2002).  (Note: I do not mean to suggest that this is the only reasonable interpretation of religion, just that it is an essential interpretation, one that should take its place beside other, more conventional interpretations.)  Wilson shows in detail how our cooperation in societies is facilitated by religion.  Indeed, he notes that religion is so pervasive in human societies that it must be viewed as (among other things) an adaptive strategy.  How else might one explain its ubiquity? 

I confess that it is my reading of this book that has encouraged me to look at the success of the movie theater through (slightly) different lenses.  I have long understood the social nature of our humanity.  I have just not understood why this is so.  In this respect, Wilson has helped me.  So, my advice to the prophets of the new technological sciences:  go ahead and prognosticate.  But don’t fail to account for the insights of your colleagues in the scientific study of evolution.  If you do, you will go wrong.  If, on the other hand, you are mindful of their wisdoms, you will be far more likely to predict correctly how we will use our new technologies.  The rule is this: playing games alone may be amusing, but playing games together is more essential to our species’ life and destiny.  And for this reason, it should come as no surprise that, for almost all of us, social games are a heck of a lot more fun.

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