Lesson 6: Overcoming Technological Violence

Rebuilding culture is not something that is consciously done. You don’t gather people to design a culture. It naturally develops over many years as guidance for a group’s life.

In an oral society, culture is the lifestyle and customs resulting from living together geographically. These are enforced and sustained by leaders, group pressure, and foundational stories.

As civilizations mature, a written society supplements but does not replace the oral. Literary and scriptural canons support culture. Cultural values are taught in educational organizations.

In the new electronic society, the problems of time and distance are overcome by worldwide technological systems. However, a global culture has yet to appear, partially because people think they can live independently of one another. All they need is the money to buy the services these systems supply. Traditional values and canons are regarded as old-fashioned parochial ideas that are now in the way of progress.

One consequence has been the loss of the cultural components that once controlled violence. Promoting proper language and activity is a chief function of any culture. That is why many of us are dismayed that violent words and actions have become acceptable in much of our present-day society.

Christians should be especially upset as the Bible points to violence filling the world when describing humanity’s rejection of God’s will. Moses stemmed this cycle of blood vengeance by restricting it to an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Jesus halted it altogether with forgiveness of your enemies.

Secular societies did much the same with a money economy. People can sue for personal damages and even accept money when a life is lost.

All of this is challenged when some church groups support using violence to establish a Christian society and when capitalistic competition promotes economic violence. As Donald Trump professes, everything now depends on mastering the art of the deal so you make a profit.

The cycle of violence begetting violence is uncontrolled when winning at any cost becomes the way to success. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, the powerful get stronger and the weak lose everything. Wealthy corporations eat up small businesses. Large nations inflict genocide on weaker states.

What can be done to control violence in our day? As I mentioned, we cannot gather a committee to draw up a culture. However, we can raise our voices to critique what is going on and champion constructive values. If enough of us do that well, a new global culture might develop.

It well could be that cooperation is the value we need to promote in the foreseeable future. Competition played a valuable role in the past, but it has led to division in our technological society. Unregulated competition threatens deadly violence.

Tags: Building Cultural Values, Christian Guidance for Rebuilding Cultural Values, Christian Voice in Technological Society, Conflict between Technology and Culture, Economic Violence, Featured Technology and Culture, Technology Disregards Culture, Technology Exempt from Cultural Values, Unregulated Capitalism, Unregulated Competition