By Chris Highland
Chris is a teacher, writer, and humanist celebrant living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. In this article, he reflects on his initial scepticism towards the iPhone and its perceived role in a self-absorbed society. As he explores the concept further, he draws parallels between Apple's innovation and humanism, suggesting that humanism could serve as a “device” for fostering interconnectedness and inclusive communities, much like the iPhone does for technology.
I have to admit an early resistance to buying an iPhone, and not just because of the high price. As I heard of this incredible new technology, it rang in my head as a very self-serving distraction for a very self-absorbed society. An ego-stroker, a status statement. I-I-I. Then, of course, I learned more, by paying the high price of attention. Wowed by the pocket-sized invention, I became more receptive to the real reason Steve Jobs called his expensive new toy an iPhone. “According to Jobs in 1998, the ‘i’ in ‘iMac’ (and thereafter ‘iPod’, ‘iPhone’ and ‘iPad’) stands for internet, individual, instruct, inform, and inspire” (Wikipedia). I’ve also heard that the “i” refers to integrated with the internet. Now that I make daily use of many Apple devices, I would find it difficult to manage without the “inter-nature” of these amazing machines.
I’m not selling Apple products, or even suggesting everyone needs to pick one or more Apples from the Tree of Technology. What I’m interested in is the model for humanist innovation and interconnection. As the human body is an integrated “inner-net”, an essentially closed system that has to function as a whole – one living mechanised structure – so the Body of Humanity continually seeks, at our best times, for wholeness. Religions succeed or fail in their efforts to coalesce groups into cohesive units; what is called “spirituality” is imagined to be an experience of deeper relation to co-believers wired to the unseen. Yet, as I see it, humanism as a practical philosophy suggests a much wider and inclusive cohesive force, a kind of “device” to “instruct, inform and inspire”. Humanism offers something no faith-based mechanism (constructed of scriptures, dogmas, rituals, etc.) presents: an open line for knowledge and kinship simultaneously inter-connected. It is built with natural, rather than artificial, intelligence, continually presenting potential pathways that no longer depend on the institutional hardware or supernatural software of religion.
The term “device” is related to “devise.” A device is a tool or implement, an appliance or apparatus “adapted for a particular purpose”, something to “produce a particular effect”, such as a literary or rhetorical device. Can humanism be useful in this way? A device adapted to each cultural context with a particular purpose – but what purpose, what aim? This is where the term devise comes into play. “To plan or invent (a complex procedure, system, or mechanism) by careful thought”. The humanist becomes an individual through the invention, we might say, of community (in my view, there is no such thing as a solitary humanist). This requires interactive planning to produce a common outcome. In other words, through careful devising, the humanist practises a collaborative strategy, devising creative ways to employ the device of a humanistic social ethic. Both device and devise share the same Latin root meaning “divided”. As I see it, humanism steps directly into the divides with the particular aim to bridge, even heal, the divisions, if at all possible.
One current example of the “healing bridge” of humanism concerns an extremely divisive issue. In classes I teach on “Christian Nationalism”, we expose resistance to integration as an originating factor in the expansion of Christian supremacy in the US. The growth of racially-segregated religious schools nurtured the roots of today’s resistance to free and inclusive public schools. The growth of home-schooling and current Supreme Court sanctioning of taxpayer-funded religious schools threatens both secular education and true freedom of religion. Humanists, and progressives in the faith community, are essential voices speaking out against these attempts to undermine integrated knowledge and kinship. I would argue this iHumanist and iReligious hook-up is the “device” we need to devise an inventive, even revolutionary, way forward.
Consider the alternative to this approach which we might call “I to I” (eye to eye): non-theists and theists continue down divergent paths, abandoning communication and cooperation. Integration of knowledge and kinship is given up in favour of the same old defensive and self-absorbed bubbles of belief. A true humanistic collaboration remains a broken device. This is our challenge, if we choose to repair and restore the iHuman.
In 2004, Steve Jobs pulled together a team of 1,000 to build the iPhone, revealing the finished product in 2007. Think of the integration of skills necessary to create something that was far more than a telephone. Engineers and designers each chose to “boot up” and “log in” as members of an active iTeam, working as a living network of brainpower focused on one goal: incarnated imagination.
Lest the reader think this is too idealistic or dreamy, I lift my iPhone and remind us how it takes an iTeam to design, engineer and market the “product”, which is nothing less than our future.
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