“Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee.”
This is the first sentence of E. M. Forster’s 1909 science fiction story, “The Machine Stops.” Forster shows in frightening detail how a civilization will trade responsibility for comfort provided for them by an all-powerful, all-knowing Machine. Inside this one room, like a cell of a honeycomb, our protagonist can take a bath, take a nap, listen to music, give a lecture, and communicate with whomever she pleases–all at the press of this or that button.
Sounds like a modern-day smart home. How long will it be until we have drones delivering our pizza and Oculus-like technology to place us anywhere in the world without leaving our armchairs?
Forster’s short story creates a dystopian world around this very idea–extraordinarily prescient for a pre-World War One era.
Here’s the story in a series of what-ifs:
What if the surface of the Earth was uninhabitable and so progress became defined as ‘whatever will do a better job taking care of me?
What if you become so dependent on pressing buttons to satisfy desires that strength is considered a ‘demerit’?
What if original ideas become dangerous because any ‘taint of personality’ implies destabilizing the system?
What if the Machine controls your life and you are glad that it does?
What if the Machine stops?
Forster provides a bleak answer. Like frogs in a pot of water when the heat is slowly raised, we’ll remain complacent because complacency is all we know. The Machine is breaking–the air doesn’t circulate, the music stops playing–and what happens? Problems ” . .. were bitterly complained of at first, and then acquiesced in and forgotten. Things went from bad to worse unchallenged.”
Thus, humankind ends not with a bang but with a whimper.
Sink, Sank, Sunk
“Humanity, in its desire for comfort, had overreached itself. It had exploited the riches of nature too far. Quietly and complacently, it was sinking into decadence, and progress had come to mean the progress of the Machine.”
I like the phrase ‘sinking into decadence.’ It’s a bit of a reality check in today’s world where it feels like technology is undermining skills that humans have used to build the very civilization capable of producing said technology. Prioritizing comfort does not make a productive individual, family, community, country, etc.
Productive in what way, you might ask. Because we’ve all seen the motivational videos about CEOs and fitness gurus waking up at 4:15 in the morning and checking off more to-dos before lunch than most people get to in a week. The other day I was mindlessly scrolling through my news feed and came across an article about a man who claimed to have trained his body to sleep only 30 minutes a day. 30 minutes? I have some questions. But the reason he gave for forcing his body into his routine was simple. “I wanted more time.”
Respect to all those disciplining themselves to do good work. But are we doing God’s work? We can be endlessly productive yet never produce anything we can take with us beyond the grave.
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” Matthew 16:26
Matthew 16:26
Why So Distracted?
So what does it mean to avoid ‘sinking into decadence’ as a follower of Christ? What does it mean to work? What does it mean to rest? Because there does have to be a balance. Just as we were created for work, we were also meant to ‘enter God’s rest,’ as it says in Hebrews.
As a college student, it can be hard to find that balance. Unfulfilled obligations eat away at the pleasure of rest to the point where I feel the need to complete those obligations to feel deserving of any amount of relaxation. Whether they’re personal obligations like writing this blog or obligations for professors like watching a three-hour movie from 1915, or just cleaning up around the apartment, there’s always something to do. So rest is important. It disconnects you from the material world, at least for a little while, and allows you to reorient yourself as someone who is serving the Lord and not men.
Coincidentally, disconnecting from the material world is a great way to avoid sinking into decadence. The less time you spend thinking about your haves and have-nots, the less time you’ll spend trying to even the count, and the more time you’ll have to do God’s will.
Take the story of Martha and Mary in the gospel of Luke. Martha is described as “distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.” A distraction. That’s what the material world–money, profession, social status–really is. One giant distraction that provides us with pleasures in the moment so we don’t think about the pleasure we could have for eternity with Christ. “You are worried and upset about many things,” Jesus says to Martha. “But few things are needed–or indeed only one.” This is how I see working for the Lord: tuning our ears to His voice and answering His call, wherever it takes us. There’s a sluggard, there’s a Martha, and then there’s a Mary. Choose wisely.
Who Do You Serve?
It matters who you work for. Your labor is benefiting whoever is above you. Are they abusing their position? Using it to pander or exploit? Is there an amount of money that would help you forget that fact? It matters who you work for. They’re not just hiring your labor. They’re hiring your validation, your consent. Choose wisely.
Humans have an unfortunate legacy of seeking unearned benefits. When we don’t put our faith and trust in God to provide for us, we turn to our fellow man to satisfy our wants.
History is chock-full of one group of people enslaving another group to do their will, whether it be building pyramids or picking cotton. We want the benefits of labor without doing the actual work. It’s a tale as old as time. And for thousands of years, the majority of the world saw no problem with it. The strong had as much right to conquer the weak as predators had to kill their prey. It was nature. Christianity destroyed this paradigm by insisting that all are equal in the eyes of God, that we should treat one another as we would like to be treated.
Today, despite living in a post-Christian age, the values of the Bible are so infused into the foundation of the West, that the idea of forcing another to do our will is abhorrent. Believers and non-believers alike agree on this. But did this change our appetite for the crop without the reaping? I don’t think so. Instead of human labor, many Americans now rely on technology to boost productivity. I’m not saying we should go back to the stone age. Technology is a tool; it solves efficiency problems, giving humans time and energy to tackle bigger and better things. It can also nurture slothful lifestyles.
Case in point: social media algorithms are designed to give us those hits of dopamine whenever we receive a notification, a text, hit milestones of likes, etc. That’s the same center of the brain being activated as you might expect from a hard workout or completing a challenging goal you’d set for yourself. When you’re addicted to receiving the crop the internet reaps, whether it be pornography or social media, you’re literally getting the satisfaction you would get from actual labor without any of the results to show for it. Honest work, then, loses its appeal. Why choose to sweat when technology is already providing you with the neurological reward?
Forster’s story takes this to a whole new level. The horror aspect comes in when the machine begins to fail and the characters realize they’ve become a slave to what was supposed to be serving them.
“We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralyzed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it.”
If work is simply a means to survival, the dreaded 9-5 slog to buy a car, pay the mortgage, equip ourselves with all the modern appliances, then it’s not hard to imagine people jettisoning their job if everything they needed was provided at the press of the button. If satisfaction in the material world is guaranteed, there will be no motivation to work under the work-to-survive mentality.
We have to work for something, nay, someone greater.
Good and Faithful Servant
As I discussed earlier, material satisfaction isn’t true satisfaction. Jesus proclaimed himself the bread of life because he knew our souls needed to be fed more than our stomachs. When spirituality is excised from practicality, all we’re left with is the world, and leaning fully into what the world provides leads us to despair.
The best definition of despair I’ve come across is in Ronald H. Nash’s book, Faith and Reason. Nash writes, “Despair is essentially enthusiasm that has gone astray, that has lost its bearings; it is zeal for things that either disappear when they are most wanted or fail to deliver all that they seem to promise.”
Despair is when college graduates enter the workforce with the sole ambition of making enough money to be ‘happy,’ because that’s what the world told them growing up. Get a good job, a nice house, maybe a family, and you’ll be happy.
I’m not the first person to say this, but if happiness and pleasure are your highest aim, you will be miserable a lot of the time. Nothing but God’s love can fill the hole so many try to fill with material things. As C. S. Lewis so beautifully put it: “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”
The Machine might take care of you; social safety nets might expand to the point where hard work becomes pointless. Some version of “How we have advanced!” might be the common rallying cry.
But someday, the Machine will stop; there will be a new heaven and a new earth. And all those who have given their lives to Christ, who have worked unashamed for his glory, will hear the words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”