We have a technological mindset, Pope Francis has said, and Martin Heidegger before him, and it is the mindset, not the technology, that is the problem. Heidegger called it Gestell: the worldview that turns everything into an object to be used, whenever it is wanted. A river must be dammed, to produce hydroelectricity consistently. A forest must be felled, to produce fuel, or furniture, or paper. Land must be levelled, to produce speedy travel. Creatures and the soil must be packaged as if they were machines, and enhanced, injected, sprayed, and transported to produce food, whenever and wherever it is wanted. Everything is in standing reserve; everything is utilitarian. And, Heidegger argues, what must follow is the turning of humanity, too, into standing reserve, as we serve the production line and become, ourselves, as interchangeable as the machine parts we handle.

¶ 1:23 AM