 Technology
The Vision
Unless otherwise noted, |
Our homeschool class on dystopian novels has come to a close. We studied two famous visions of an ugly future, and three not so famous. We read Heiland, by my friend Franklin Sanders, That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis, Anthem by Ayn Rand, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and 1984 by George Orwell. One of the questions that I frequently brought before the class was this, "Why do these men, the rulers over these hideous cultures, do what they do? What exactly are they after?" The answer was simple, yet profound. What they wanted, in each of these stories, was power. It sounds simple enough, except for this: power is supposed to be a means and not an end. We are supposed to aspire to power so that we can do this thing or that, to achieve some higher goal. Power is a tool, a technology, and should not be a teleology. Things, however, are often not as they should be, ever since man first aspired to rule himself outside the law of God. It was right after man's fall that technology is mentioned for the first time, "So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life" (Genesis 3: 24). A sword is a tool, a technology. Its aim is to either provide a powerful disincentive toward an act or acts, to stop the act or acts by destroying the one eager to perform the act, or as an instrument, a tool of judgment to punish the one who has done the forbidden thing. This is the same tool, or technology, that Paul says was given by God to the state, to act as a minister of justice. It is a tool designed to overcome the wills of the citizens. It was sin which made it necessary that there be a state in the first place. It is, given our circumstances, necessary. But it is the same sin which ought to lead us to be suspicious, and on our guard regarding the state. That is, the state can be, and usually is, evil. Our founding fathers recognized that truth and sought to create, (or rather recreate, after the model of the Hebrew republic of the Old Testament) a system which would have the strength to combat tyranny, yet not have the strength to exercise tyranny. They used three principle weapons to achieve this goal. First there was the system of checks and balances among the branches of the federal government. Their thinking was that each branch would guard its own power zealously enough to keep any of the others from growing too much. Second, the system of checks and balances among the levels of government, as codified so clearly in the 10th Amendment. If the states, the counties, the municipalities, even the people guarded their liberties against the feds, then the feds would stay in check. The third, and perhaps greatest weapon dealt with weapons, the second Amendment to the Constitution, recognizing the right of individuals to keep and bear arms. For what purpose? Yesterday I was in a local business establishment listening to the men there grumble about the outcome of the presidential election. First they grumbled about the Republicans being the party of the rich, yada, yada, yada. Then came the interesting part. These were not terribly sophisticated, nor well educated men. This was not in the big city. These were local laborers, country boys who would rather be out fishing than pulling a nail out of my tire. They opined that it was the Republicans that were always trying to scare them into thinking the feds were trying to take away their guns. "I don't mind them taking away those assault rifles, and stuff," the one gentleman said, "You can't hunt with them anyway." He was apparently under the impression that the 2nd amendment was there to make sure we could go hunting. Not so. The founders wanted the citizens to be armed, to be equipped with the technology of rebellion, to act as a check against the federal government. That's how the founding fathers founded us in the first place. The battle for freedom is at times a technological one. Whether it be the almost comical little arms race between the state troopers and the lead-foots of this world, making more and more sophisticated radar guns to outsmart more and more sophisticated radar detectors, or the real arms race between Communist aggressors and the ostensibly freedom-loving west, whether we are free or not often comes down to who has the bigger gun. The exercise of power requires the exercise of power to enforce it. What they
require of us is beside the point. Whether they are exercising financial power
through the IRS and its thugs, or One of the other frequent questions from our class was this, "How should
we respond if we find ourselves in a situation like this?" The best answer
is to never allow ourselves to get there. And for that we need tools. We must
be armed as well. We need to be equipped with knowledge about the law, both
God's and man's, refusing to give ground to spurious arguments and the laws
that come after that would alienate our inalienable God-given rights. We must
not render unto Caesar the things that are God's, whether it is our dependence
upon Him for our daily bread, or our dependence upon Him for the truth. Neither
can we forget that our children are both the ground to be taken, and the tools
of the war. They want to exercise power over them, and we will only be free
if we equip them to be free. |
