Public Lecture „Only a God Can Save Us: Technology, Ecology, and Theology in the 21st Century“
On 8 October, Aaron James Wendland, Visiting Fellow in Public Philosophy at King’s College London and Senior Research Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto, will give a public lecture at Tallinn University. In his lecture, “Only a God Can Save Us: Technology, Ecology, and Theology in the 21st Century,” he will explore Martin Heidegger’s critique of technology and the relationship between technology, ecology, and theology in the twenty-first century.
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Abstract:
In an influential essay written in the ruins of WWII, Heidegger characterizes the reduction of the natural world to resources for production and consumption as the crisis of modernity. Heidegger claims this crisis is rooted in our technological worldview, and he argues the
consequences include a loss of the sacred, the violation of nature, and the destruction of our home. When asked if there is anything we can do to combat the crisis posed by ‘planetary technology’ in a 1966 interview, Heidegger famously replied: ‘Only a god can save us.’ And while Heidegger’s analysis of modern technology has had a profound influence on cultural critics and environmental movements in the post-war period, his claim that ‘only a god can save us’ has been routinely dismissed as an empty statement that provides us with no means to counter the crisis we confront.
That said, this lecture will draw on Heidegger’s engagement with Nietzsche to show that his turn to the divine does offer a promising and potentially powerful response to the threats posed by modern technology. Specifically, this lecture will argue that, contra Nietzsche, Heidegger takes belief in god to be life affirming insofar as it forces us to check our desire for ever more production and consumption, and this suggests Heidegger’s claim that ‘only a god can save us’ serves as a call for a modern version of asceticism in which the natural world is treated as the sacred source of life on our
planet.
Brief Biography:
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Aaron James Wendland is Vision Fellow in Public Philosophy at King’s College London and Senior Research Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto. He recently published a special issue of Studia Philosophica Estonica on the Russia-Ukraine war, and his books include Wittgenstein and Heidegger, Heidegger on Technology, and Heidegger’s Being and Time: A Critical Guide. From 2018-2022, he edited a popular philosophy column, Agora, in The New Statesman, and he has written essays and produced podcasts for The New Statesman, The New York Times, The Toronto Star, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, The Moscow Times, The Kyiv Independent, and Ukraine World. In 2015, he co-founded the Centre for Philosophy and Art at King’s College London, and he has recently been writing about the Estonian art scene for Sirp, Vikerkaar, Delfi, Kunst.ee, ERR, and Estonian World.