When the journey is the destination

Flights to nowhere and third spaces.

Jamie Mulvaney

Jamie is Associate Minister at Holy Trinity Clapham, London.

A large airport window silhouettes a bench at which one person sits.

Suganth on Unsplash.

'It's not about the destination. It's the journey.' Spare a thought for the British Airways passengers who left Heathrow to Houston, only to land back where they started at nine hours later. It's probably a little bit about the destination too.

Even though BA195 was already flying over Newfoundland when the technical issue was raised, it made more sense to fix one of its Rolls Royce engines back at the ranch. In November an Air New Zealand flight also had a 'flight to nowhere' that lasted eleven hours. I'm not sure that's quite what T.S. Eliot meant when he wrote:

'We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.’

Being stuck somewhere you don't want to be, let alone finding yourself back where you began, is a tad more prosaic. The never-ending journey can feel like a destination in itself. Which is exactly where you don't want to be.

Airports and airplanes are neutral territory, not dissimilar to 'third places' as coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg. Home is the first place, workplace is the second, and then there's the third space in our lives. Some of the characteristics are shared: a neutral ground without obligations, a leveller where status doesn't matter, and also where conversation is the main activity. Clearly Oldenburg wasn't thinking of the tube and Londoners where the chat is minimal! Airports and airplanes are also not completely levelling, when a delay or diversion means some can wait well up in the pointy end of the plane or in exclusive lounges.

Everybody knows each other's name, they celebrate together, mourn together - a compelling mixture of conviction, compassion and community.

The other day I turned on the TV, a re-run of Cheers appeared, about the eponymous bar in Boston where characters from different backgrounds and perspectives mingle. My toddler asked 'What's that?' I thought better than beginning to explain the concept of a third place. Or drinking. But we're all trying to get somewhere in life. Whether that's to get ahead, or even if it's just away from it all: to a bar or a holiday. So, the frustration of being stationary and sedentary in life when you're supposed to be having upward momentum can be even more challenging than the inconvenience of being up in the air and flying backwards.

But the Christian message is that the destination and the journey are actually inseparable.

Firstly, the church, if small enough, like Cheers, is a place 'where everybody knows your name'. I was recently at a church on a council estate and next to a prison. Everybody knows each other's name, they celebrate together, mourn together - a compelling mixture of conviction, compassion and community. In larger churches, much like most 'third places' you won't know everybody's name, but there is the commonality of having the same destination in mind. The sceptic might say it's simply a ticket to heaven, but the picture the Bible paints of the eternal reality is distinctly mirrored in the week-by-week journey: a liminal place where every people from every tribe and nation gather. It's a place where we can be propelled into the future.

Then there's the cross itself. The gospel writer Luke says that 'Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem'. He had his destination in mind. And on the cross there was finality for Jesus. But there was also an onward journey to come. Could it be that what the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus opens up for us is not just an eternal destiny in the future, but a journey today where keeping company with God is the destination too?

Perhaps that's what entering a church can mean for us today: to cross the threshold into the future, and to know the place for the first time.

Explainer

Culture

Digital

16 July 2024

6 min read

Tech has changed: it’s no longer natural or neutral

The first in a three-part series exploring the implications of technology.

James Lawrence

James is Canon Missioner at Blackburn Cathedral. He researches technology and theology at Oxford University.

A caveman holding a hammer looks at a bench on which are a broken bicycle and a laptop.

Nick Jones/Midjourney.ai.

My son was born in February last year and it seems that every day he is developing new skills or facial expressions and adorable quirks. Just the other day he was playing with some wooden blocks and when they inevitably fell over, he let out the most adorable giggle. As you can guess I immediately reached for my phone so that I could capture the moment. Moments like this happen all the time in the life of a modern parent- we want to share with our spouse, family, and friends or just capture the moment for ourselves because it’s something we treasure. And yet, in this series of articles I would like to consider this moment, and the thousands like it that take place in a technological society, and ask: is everything as benign as it seems?

There are two ideas that often come up whenever people talk about technology. The first is that technology is basically ‘neutral’, that technology only becomes good or bad depending on what you are doing with it. “Look at a hammer,” someone might say, “there is nothing intrinsically good or bad about this hammer, only the end result is good or bad depending on whether I’m using it to hit nails or people!” On this reading of technology, the only important questions relate to the consequences of use.

If technology is neutral, then the primary concern for users, legislators and technologists is the consequences of technology, and not the technology itself. The only way to ensure that the technology is used for good is to ensure, somehow, that more good people will use the technology for good things than bad people using it for bad things. Often this idea will present itself as a conversation about competing freedoms: very few people (with some important exceptions, see this article from Ezra Klein) are debating whether there is something intrinsically problematic about the app formerly known as Twitter, most discussion revolves around how to maintain the freedom of good users while curtailing the freedom of bad users.

We assume that these tools of social interaction like Facebook and Instagram are, in and of themselves, perfectly benign. We are encouraged to think this by massive corporations who have a vested interest in maintaining our use of their platforms, and at first glance, they seem completely harmless: what could possibly be the problem with a website in which grandma can share photos of her cat? And while the dark underbelly of these platforms has violent real-world consequences – like the rise of antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred – the solution is primarily imagined as a matter of dealing with ‘bad actors’ rather than anything intrinsically problematic with the platforms themselves.

Jobs here draws a straight-line comparison between the bicycle and the PC. As far as Jobs is concerned, there is no quantitative difference in kind between the two tools.

The second idea is related but somewhat different: Advocates of modern technology will suggest that humanity has been using technology ever since there were humans and therefore all this modern technology is not really anything to worry about. “Yes, modern technology looks scary,” someone might say, “but it’s really nothing to worry about, humans have been using tools since the Stone Age don’t you know!” This view proposes that because hammers are technology, and all technology is the same, there is, therefore, no difference between a hammer and the internet, or between the internet and a cyborg.

This second idea tends to be accompanied by an emphasis on the slow and steady evolution of technology and by highlighting the fact that at every major technological advancement there have been naysayers decrying the latest innovation. (Even Plato was suspicious of writing when that was invented). Taken as part of a very long view of human history, the technological innovations of the last 100 years seem to be a normal and natural part of the evolution of our species which has always set itself apart from the rest of the animal kingdom in its use of technology.

Steve Jobs gives a good example of this in an interview he gave about the development PC:

“I think one of the things that really separates us from the high primates is that we’re tool builders. I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condors used the least energy to move a kilometer. And humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing about a third of the way down the list… not too proud of a showing for the crown of creation… But then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And a human on a bicycle blew the condor away – completely off the top of the charts.

And that’s what a computer is to me… It’s the most remarkable tool we’ve ever come up with… It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds”

Notice that Jobs here draws a straight-line comparison between the bicycle and the PC. As far as Jobs is concerned, there is no quantitative difference in kind between the two tools: one is more complex than the other but otherwise, they are just technologies that expand human capacity. “A Bicycle for our minds” is a fascinating way to describe a computer because it implies that nothing about our minds will be changed, they’ll just be a little bit faster.

And yet, despite the attempts of thought leaders like Jobs to convince us that modern technology is entirely benign, many of us are left with a natural suspicion that there is more going on. As a priest in the Church of England, I often have conversations with parishioners and members of the public who are looking for language or a framework which describes the instinctive recognition that something has changed at some point (fairly recently) about the nature of the technology that we use, or the way that it influences our lives. That modern technology is not simply the natural extension of the sorts of tools that humans have been using since the Stone Age and that modern technology is not neutral but in significant ways has already had an effect regardless of how we might use it. How do we respond to such articulate and thoughtful people such as Steve Jobs who make a compelling case that modern technology is neutral and natural?

I often have conversations with parishioners who are looking for language or a framework which describes the instinctive recognition that something has changed about the nature of the technology that we use, or the way that it influences our lives.

Thinking back to that moment with my son when he giggles and I take a photo of him, at first glance it seems completely innocuous. But what resources are available if I did want to think more carefully about that moment (and the many like it) which suffuse my daily life? Thankfully there is a growing body of literature from philosophers and theologians who are thinking about the impact of modern technology on the human condition. In the next two articles I would like to introduce the work of Martin Heidegger, outline his criticism of modern technology, showing how he challenges the idea that technology is simply a natural extension of human capacity or a neutral tool.

Heidegger is a complex character in philosophy and in Western history. There is no getting around the fact that he was a supporter of the Nazi Party during the second world war. His politics have been widely condemned and rightly so, nevertheless, his insights on the nature of modern technology continue to this day to provide insights that are useful. His claim is that modern technology essentially and inevitably changes our relationship with the world in which we live and even with ourselves. It is this claim, and Heidegger’s suggested solution, that I will unpack in the next two articles.