The Internet: A Revolution in Human Conscience 5

Several years ago, in a Purim edition of their bulletin, Holy Blossom Temple, Canada made a front page announcement, complete with pictures, that Prince Charles and Princess Diana were coming to visit Holy Blossom. They got a call from the R.C.M.P. saying that they should have been informed; because they had to provide security. Why does the R.C.M.P. read the Holy Blossom bulletin? If we are capable of total surveillance, we must do it. This is a very frightening look at an Internet world, although Ellul wrote before computers and the Internet.

The Roman Catholic paleontologist and theologian Teilhard de Chardin , in The Phenomenon of Man, takes a positive view of technology. He sees evolution as positive; it creates mind and spirit. We have reached a stage where mind is collective; humans must think and work together. No one mind can grasp all that is known. Thus humanity will rise to a point of necessary cooperation in a collective mind. This will lead to the“omega point” which is human salvation. In a similar vein, Jeremy Rifkin in The Empathic Civilization speculates that evolution can lead to a civilization of empathy. Just as for Teilhard de Chardin , there is a certain inevitability as technology requires cooperation and empathy. On the other hand, Rifkin , also, refers to Jean M. Twenge , in her book Generation Me, who says that research shows that young people born in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, are the most narcissistic generation in history. A civilization of empathy may be coming, but, right now, our culture is filled with narcissm. In the book Habits of the Heart, a study of American culture by a team headed by Robert N. Bellah , they report a meeting with a woman named Sheila who referred to her religion as“Sheilaism”, exquisitely designed to reflect her and meet her every need. How much of liberal Judaism ’s a-la-cart approach plays into Sheilaism, a religion, not about God , but about me, meeting my needs, self defined, with no obligations? This is a liberal problem that plays into the narcissism of our culture, and it is difficult to believe that