Do microscopes make keyboards filthy? Does satellite imagery deplete ozone? Do CT scans cause brain cancer?
Science reveals secrets about the universe, and the revelations of science only create problems to the extent that knowing about problems causes emotional discomfort.
Technology is a means to science and therefore a means to revealing secrets. As technology becomes ever more advanced, it inevitably exposes secrets that hurt. And as we’ve seen already this century, technology increasingly reveals secrets about our own personal lives.
But who are we to suppose our own secrets are more precious than any other in the universe? Can technology somehow overlook character flaws on its way to explaining the rest of the cosmos?
If not, how will we ultimately judge character when everyone’s skeletons are behind glass doors?
Perhaps the concept of good character will be recast to describe those who keep secrets best. Let’s hope we don’t run out of secrets.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Be careful with your analogies. CT scanners do give those scanned quite a wallop of X-rays and that could cause all sorts of cancers.
Also, you sound like a lawyer when you say this: “Perhaps the concept of good character will be recast to describe those who keep secrets best. Let’s hope we don’t run out of secrets.”
While keeping secrets can, in some contexts, be one indication of a good character, it’s not one of the best indications. Integrity, honesty, kindness, courage and the like rate higher. Courage is particularly important because, without it, any other virtues are likely to fail under pressure.
Lawyers are so big on keeping secrets, including secrets that should come out but end up under non-disclosure agreements. Silence often seems to be the only virtue the profession values. Integrity? No. Honesty? Certainly not! Kindness? Never. And courage? No one will run from potential trouble faster than many lawyers. When I go lawyer hunting, guts is the first thing I look for.
I also doubt technology is revealing that many new secrets about our characters. What’s happening is that the strangle-hold a few once had on what stories come out has ended. As some have pointed out, in the 1960s, what was “news” in this country was what Walter Cronkite found interesting when he read the NY Times.
Today that’s no longer true. Technology has rendered those few gatekeepers on that crowded little island in the Hudson irrelevant. That’s what’s making secrets harder to keep. It is also making illusion of character where there’s no character harder to maintain, as John Edwards has discovered.
I really like your comments on character. I agree those things should be held above the ability to keep secrets. The question is whether people can value those things enough to forgive more superficial identity flaws.