One point brought up in the text on technology was that the term was seen as “as something degraded and in opposition to religion” by Casaubon in 1612, yet over time there has been a “gradual ascendance of science and technology as secular knowledge practices in competition with religion”. Originally, the term technology meant something pretty lowly which existed in opposition to the highly exalted religion. However, in our current time the term technology and what it stands for has risen in rank to directly compete with religion. This made me think of the way silicon valley and start-up “tech bros” are known to have an almost cult-like worship of technology and that in a sense technology has become, to some, very similar to a religion or at least a way of life. If technology has become a religion or a cult Elon Musk is no doubt one of it’s charismatic leaders. One Forbes article says of Musk, “It’s easy to forget sometimes that Musk is merely human like the rest of us. His deification in the media and by his followers often is a distraction from his role as the leader of a company that continues to lose money, burn through cash and not meet production targets.” It is very interesting to me that the author chose to use the word “deification” to refer to Musk as the term means to treat someone like a god and fits quite well into the technology as a religion narrative. Lastly, I wanted to include a link to a song by Penelope Scott called Rät which takes a critical look at the “tech cult” of silicon valley and big leaders in this industry such as Elon Musk. Since I have already written a lot I will not go much further into it, but I encourage anyone who wants to, to take a closer look at the lyrics as I find some of her commentary to be really interesting.
Elon Musk and the Dangers of Hero Worship- https://www.forbes.com/sites/karlkaufman/2018/06/30/elon-musk-and-the-dangers-of-hero-worship/?sh=115d5a31ffa4
Rät Genius Lyrics – https://genius.com/Penelope-scott-rat-lyrics
If you scroll down in the genius lyrics link there is also a video of Penelope Scott explaining a bit of her background with the song as well as explaining some lyrics.
I think that it is interesting that you discusses not just technology, but the culture that has resulted from it. I also think the parallels between religion and tech culture that you touched on are important as well. While technology has brought humanity an untold number of amazing luxuries that we all enjoy today, there have undoubtedly been negative side effects that have come along with it. Historically, any time a person is held in a “greater than human” regard, bad things tend to happen. We have to remember that even those providing us with new technology are human, and have flaws like the rest of us. Getting too wrapped up in the personal side of Silicon Valley “tech bros”, for example, distracts us from the potentially less-than exceptional technology they might be creating.
This is a beautifully written response. And thanks for linking to the song lyrics. You’re spot on about the connection between the keyword essay and the lyrics.