The Time’s Silent Caesura: Technology As a Matter of Thought

Abstract

The article is a reflection on the book by Alexander Mikhailovsky “The Pendulum of Modernity: Discussions about Technology in Germany”. Being the first edition in Russian, giving such a detailed and expanded presentation of the proposed topic, this book allows us to ask a number of questions. The first question is of a purely formal, genre nature: is the proposed book a textbook and why? Then a number of more significant questions arise: how do discussions about technology relate to technical progress itself? What do we do when we criticize modern technological achievements or trust them unconditionally? How does the “technology” of the early 20th century differ from modern “digital” technology? What intellectual resources do we have in the modern world, when humanity voluntarily and often without due reflection entrusts its present and future (as well as the past) to the care of technology (primarily “digital technologies”, artificial intelligence etc.)? Among other things, Mikhailovsky’s concept itself, based on the metaphor of pendulum oscillations recorded by an oscilloscope, has a predictive resource: despite the fundamental difference between “mechanical” and “digital” technology, the waves of rising hopes and falling expectations regarding technology continue. The article also touches upon the issue of national and political contexts: we are talking about German thought, which covers, among other things, the period of the Third Reich. As the current political situation shows, the hopes and failures of that time have not disappeared into the past; on the contrary, having received a “second wind”, they have once again become relevant in the current political and international agenda — not only at the European, but at the global level. Turning to discussions about technology in the 20th century, we in a sense deal with not only our present, but also our future.