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December. 19IS Nrw National BLACK MONITOR
Microscope
kind’s experience. It has its potentially
devastating dangers, too.
Implicit in the reply of the native of India I vt
at the Taj Majal to his black American JuM f
visitor is the question of what we are to do
with the mounting—indeed, staggering— f
wastes from our currently unbridled con- ■MUfIM
sumption. Federal reports were released in
the early part of this year—and then given
the “hush-hush” treatment—that not only
are our nation’s rivers in grave danger but
so also are our natural water wells, from Can ozone-destroying substances be
septic and other chemical and man-made monitered and controlled in the Amazon?
product seepage! Can the neutron bomb be policed and
properly checked in northwest or central
Siberia? Who decides what wastes—and
just how much—a lone ship may discard in
Sj&ft mid-ocean?
These are but a few of the questions with
JqSL which our advocates and advancers of
unlimited technology must wrestle. But
there are more. Some social or political
scientists who have been concerned with
muc h of Central African development are
Jg • • * , now “speaking out” against technological
jr \ W advancement as an unconditionally top-
priority item for many of the African
nations.
Slowly but surely—and perhaps too dan
gerously slow—we are coming at last to j| j
the realization that technology must be X a
limited. Or, to put it another way, we are
possibly on the verge of rediscovery that tfaywylSfyißEw
tampering with Nature has its limits!
Our flirtatious erosion of the ozone
barrier, our ali-too-easy “experimenta- Just what could possibly take precedence
tion” with storing nuclear waste, and our over more machines in the “African
unilateral explorations with the neutron wilds”? Well, the political scientists are
bomb are suggestive of but a few of the saying—and convincingly so in some
hazards of technology which we could quarters —that technological tools in “a
never hope to thoroughly police—and so nation which is no nation” is putting the
satisfyingly control—at every location on cart before the horse. Most of the newly
the globe. independent African nations are arbitrary
MONITOR Microscope Quiz
(These questions were designed for class
room and group discussions. Answers are
always more sharply or clearly defined if
PageS
they are written. It is suggested that, where
feasible, answers be made first in some
written form and then discussed.)
1) Do you believe that there should be a
kind of “world monitoring” or “censor
ship” of technological advances in any
sense of the term? Why so? Or why not?
2) In times past “Wise Men” or sages
were looked to for guidance or advice.
They were occupants of a highly honored
place. Yet today, so some polls indicate,
“newscasters” have replaced the roles of
wise men. If correct, is this progress? Is it a
good or a bad sign? What, if anything,
should be done about it?
Hneyaa given la Opentioa PUSH. OK. SCLC. NAACPor the local Urban League Ms mouth’
cross-tribal creations of former European
colonial masters. Father the tribes must be
restored or some other “national social and
political cement” created; otherwise, re
gardless of the availability of all the tech
nological tools in the world, the “nation”
cannot function as a social and political
unity. Hence internal unity—and not tech
nology—must come first.
Ironically, here at home in the United
States simply because blacks traditionally
have been “the last hired and the first
fired,” black Americans have missed out
on much of the dangerous fallout from
some technological experimentation. This
does not discount the infamous venereal
disease and birth control experiments using
blacks as subjects during the 1950’s and
1960’5. But it has become a kind of tragic—
and perhaps even inherently retributive
truism that our technological world most
greatly endangers itself.
The black peoples of Africa and the
Caribbean know ali-too-well that their
scattered populations will make relatively
ineffective or useless targets for the bomb.
Although Japan was supposedly brought to
its knees by the atomic explosions at Hiro
shima and Nagasaki, it is now well known
that the Japanese were already prepared to
surrender before we almost irresistibly
“had to” drop the bomb on the already
defeated Japanese.
But the major strategic issue in atomic,
hydrogen or neutron-type cataclysmic en
counters is where to strike with the most
telling effects on the enemies’ centers of
technology. These are, by and large,
outside of the Third World’s territories,
and are to be found in the massive popula
tion centers of Northern Europe and the
United States.
In this potentially devastating sense,
technology tends to create within its own
3) What do you feel, in terms of a sense
of urgency, about world measures regard
ing pollution? Should nations handle this
internally? Or is this a concern for world
ordinance? What should be done?
4) If there is a “subtle arrogance,”
involving grave danger to the entire world’s
ecology and survival, in much of the
American use of technology, what ought
Third World peoples and others in America
and elsewhere do about it?
5) Is there, in your view, much reason
ableness in the mounting concern for
building national unity in Africa as a prior
ity over shoring up technology? Please
(Continued from page 4.)
heartlands its own self-destructive targets.
We might conclude with a moral and a
challenge addressed especially to black
Americans and then to their compatriots of
the Third World.
As a kind of saving antidote to our late
twentieth century’s pattern of unlimited
technological “advance” and productivity,
it might well be our mission—as “out
siders,” in some degree—to emphasize a
spirit in which technology might function
within the framework of the world’s.;
inherited wisdom.
- I
This provides for a twp-fokl message or
approach. First, mankind has always co
operated with Nature and the elements—
but not sought to control them. Mankind is
a trustee of and a partner with Nature and
the elements—and is not their Lord. Hence,
it follows that we are to use technology
humanely. This means that it is only to be
used in those areas where human good
comes first and where selfish interests, or
the temporary gain, of one nation through
the employment of technology does not
take precedence over the basic good of all.
The Third World nations are the least
technologically oriented and developed.
Upon what more appropriate shoulders,
then, should be placed the burden of halt
ing the kind of technology which, if not
halted, may well halt and destroy us all?
explain your line of reasoning.
6) Do you believe that any portions of
the world will be more safe or immune than
others in the event of a nuclear holocaust?
Where will the greatest dangers lie? Should
all the world be concerned?
7) Does a technocratic or a technological
world present fresh moral problems? Could
you name a few?
8) Must human welfare necessarily take
precedence over a bolstering of the world’s
economy? Can the interests of any portion
of the world justifiably limit “technological
advancement”?