Year: 1394

A couple who broke a modern taboo

Sara and Gabriel Chrisman have committed a great sin.

They are researchers interested in the Victorian era near the end of the nineteenth century and like this particular period so much that have decided to “live in it“. About five years ago, they purchased a 19th century-built house in Port Townsend, Washington State and got rid of most (or all) of the contemporary tools and gadgets and replaced them with things such as icebox, mechanical clock, fountain pen, and oil lamp. They have lived a Victorian life since then.

You may think of their attempt as interesting, funny, in vain, or irrelevant. Nevertheless, you most likely agree with me that trying to live by Victorian tools is a harmless and innocent hobby that should not make anyone angry. However, although most people treat Sara and Gabriel with respect, there are a few who do their best to make their lives as miserable as they can. These are people who swear at their face or send them hate letters with death threats. It seems that some people simply cannot tolerate what Sara and Gabriel do, that is, living a happy life in such a way that seems to be very different from the rest of us.

But why? What is the reason for such anger, violence and irrational behavior? What is in Sara and Gabriel’s way of life that makes it so unacceptable in the eyes of some?

I tend to agree with John Greer that it has something to do with the fact that this couple have broken one of the prevalent taboos of the contemporary modern cultures. They, by choosing to live a Victorian life, have shown that it is ultimately up to each of us to select the set of tools by which we would like to live. In other words, they tell us that we are free to choose or reject any of the advanced contemporary technologies.

But the idea that we can actually chose the technologies that shape our living style is a modern taboo. You cannot say or do such things as “we have a choice in accepting or rejecting advanced often professionally prescribed technologies”, because by saying so, you are implying that we have genuine choice, hence, there is a real possibility of not choosing some or all of the advanced technologies.

Sara and Gabriel has broken this taboo in an irrefutable way. Their practical message to others is not “hey! you should also join us and live a Victorian lifestyle!”, but is something more radical. They are saying “instead of following the lead of professional marketers and technology brokers you can take control of your own life. You can choose!”.

The idea that one is free to accept or reject advanced technologies is a modern taboo. The view that one can live without TV, computer, smart phone, cars, etc. is a “modern heresy” and whoever commit such a heresy, in words or deed, will face punishment: they shall be violently humiliated and marginalized.

But Sara and Gabriel are also interesting from another perspective. In choosing a less material and energy intensive life style, they join the pioneers who acknowledge the demise of the epoch of abundance of concentrated energy, resources and wastefulness. Don’t let their 19th century living style deceit you; they are neither seeking to move back in time nor try to act as present-day Luddites, but, through radical reduction of their material and energy consumption they have their gaze toward future. Sara and Gabriel based on the material heritage of their own culture have taken a brave step toward exploring ancient and new ways of being human and less wasteful.

The rise of the system era

This short text is inspired (and in part summarized) by Ivan Illich’s view on the history of tools and the rise of a new epoch which according to him, the concept of the system represents. I have freely paraphrased, summarized, and modified the text as narrated here.[1]

One of the key concepts of our age is the concept of “system”. System, not in the sense that we refer to “system of thought” or “system of bookkeeping”, but rather in the sense that was first used in the science of cybernetics. System, in this sense, is a metaphor for the world of the computer, genetic engineering, and information technology. The rise of a system-based worldview represents the end of an era, which Ivan Illich calls “the age of instrumentality”, and the beginning of a new epoch. The age of instrumentality was an era in which our relationship to the outside world was mediated and shaped via our tools. Tool, in the vocabulary of Ivan Illich, encompasses a wide-ranging meaning and refers to any engineered device. Before the beginning of the age of system, the key characteristic of tools was their distinctness and disconnectedness from their users. Something which Ivan Illich refers to as “distality” or being “distal”. But in systems, there is no such distality.

Before the 12th century, tools were considered as extensions of the human body. However, gradually since that time, a clear border between the tools and their users was formed. This marked the rise of the age of instrumentality (tools as distal instruments). However, in systems, this distinction is removed. The human becomes part of the system and operates within the system.

Insofar as there is a distality between human and her tools, tools can encompass some of the intentions of its user. Tools are subjected to our free will and act as instruments that help us to achieve our intended purpose. For example, a knife, depending on the intention of its user, can be used for preparing food, self-defense, or decorating a garden.

But this is not true for systems. Whatever purpose they are designed for, they encompass us. The user of the system, not only operates within it but also follows the function which the system is designed for. In other words, a system does not follow the intention of its user, but only operates according to the nature of its design. Our use of a system is done within its parameters.

The importance of this change is due to the impact that it will have on our view of ourselves and our surrounding world. When the world is viewed as a vast and interconnected system, which covers the microscopic realm of cells and the macroscopic realm of the biosphere; the earth, as an external reality on which we are standing, disappears from beneath our feet. The system is a fundamentally abstract concept. It is not based on any stepping stone, and there is no external point of reference on which we can stand and allow us to look at it from outside or to influence it.

Within a period of one or two generations, the computer has become a key metaphor for our awareness towards ourselves and the world. The same way that the invention of the wheel allowed us to speak of “wheel of fate”, or the invention of writing allowed us to speak of the “book of nature”, the rise of computer allows us to have a cybernetic view of the world: world as network, as eco-system, as a genetic text.

This new image of the world is deeply changing us. We are no more standing with one foot in the world and one foot outside it, as we did previously as the readers of the book of nature or people with written destinies. Instead, we have become part of the system.

  1. Illich, I., 2000. Corruption of Christianity. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Toronto, Ont. ↩