Our Computer Dilemma, Still

This article first appeared in the May 2024 edition of The Catholic Worker, the newspaper of the New York Catholic Worker. Follow this link to subscribe to the print edition.

In December of 1983 The Catholic Worker published an article by Katherine Temple, known as Kassie, called, “Our Computer Dilemma.” I’m drawn to this article because today, forty-one years later, we have some technological dilemmas of our own, most notably the conversation around Instagram. In October of 2022, the NYCW entered into the online space more intentionally by launching our own Instagram page.

In her article Kassie responds to the fact that Maryhouse had recently acquired a home computer in order to increase efficiency in mailing out the paper: with a computer the address labels could be printed out. She wrote: “Everywhere I’ve gone recently, the conversation seems to turn at some point to the computer…. Throughout it all, I took a rather dim view, sensing that something is being lost in what we are becoming.” When Kassie wrote this, on a typewriter, she never could have imagined a world of the MetaVerse, X/Twitter, ChatGPT, Instagram, etc. As for myself, reading this article in 2024, with my laptop next to the printed word, I am pondering what Kassie was concerned about losing. However, given my own positionality it’s impossible for me to relate, or to even understand the depths of her “dim view.” In other words, I’m swimming within a world of technology, so much so that I often have to remind myself that this, our technological world, is water.

I was born fourteen years after that article was written, and I grew up with technology as a consistent part of my existence. I remember getting my first cell phone when I was in middle school, an HTC Android. For a while, I was the coolest kid on the block as all my friends watched and waited for the device to slowly load up the internet. I remember having a desktop computer in my room, where I would burn songs I had purchased for 99 cents on Itunes onto CDs to listen to in the car. It was on this computer that I also created my Facebook account when I turned thirteen years old.

As a matter of fact, I recently went all the way back on my Facebook timeline to find my first post. Doing so I was reminded of the “truth is” trend, when my friends and I all used to post our class schedules and how the platform is used to celebrate birthdays each year. I am also confronted with memories of friends who have drifted away and comments from loved ones who have since passed from this life. This journey into the depths of my Facebook account was a surprisingly emotional one. All of this was to find that I posted the following, on April 22, 2010, which was a Thursday: “cant wait for the weekend.”

This is not a mere digression so as to share with you all my personal history online, rather it is to demonstrate how my life is inextricably bound with technology. Looking back now, I feel that whatever Kassie feared losing due to the computer has been lost. And while the technological issue is one in which intergenerational dialogue is most crucially needed, it is also quite difficult to relate and to connect across these differences in the way we relate to technology. This makes it difficult for Millennials, Gen Zers and now Gen Alphas to engage with Gen X or the Baby Boom generation when they say, still today, that we must resist or disengage from technology.

For those of us born into a digital era, to resist technology would be, at some level, to resist our very selves. Therefore, rather than questioning whether or not we should engage with technology, I wonder instead how we can raise questions for our movement, and our newspaper, in light of the realization that technology has already invaded our lives, in order to faithfully reimagine a right relationship to technology.

As longtime readers of this paper will know, Kassie was a student of Jacques Ellul who was a French philosopher, theologian, sociologist and Christian anarchist. Ellul has had a great impact on the NYCW thanks to Kassie. To many, it seems that Ellul’s fears about the way in which society would be impacted negatively by technology have arrived. This can be seen in the increased automation of jobs, taking away the dignity of physical labor. It can also be seen through AI’s development and use anywhere from educational institutions to medical labs to police departments. Even utilizing facial recognition on smartphones has become a subconscious daily act for many people. We recently welcomed Frank Panopoulus who gave a Friday Night Meeting and pointed out the idolatry of Transhumanism, the belief that humans can evolve beyond our physical limitations thanks to technologies. All of these technological advances are a part of a broader “technique” which Ellul pinpointed through his work.

In his book Hyperreality, Frank Mulder explains Jacques Ellul’s use of the word “technique” as “not so much a certain technology as a whole social system that is rationally pressing onward towards more efficiency, more means, in every sphere.” Ellul was deeply concerned by the increased role technology played within society, and the lack of critical examination of said technology. In an article entitled “In Your Face-Book” from May of 2011 Carmen Trotta postulated that Ellul “believed it was immediately necessary for a critical mass of the people to critique, that is, constructively criticize with intent to alter, technology’s developments.” Ultimately Ellul saw religious faith as the last bastion in a world becoming more and more transfixed with technology. He was quoted as saying the following in a 1981 interview: “I describe a world with no exit, convinced that God accompanies [humanity] throughout history.”

In “Our Computer Dilemma” Kassie raises a few dilemmas that the computer purchased by the community in 1983 brought out. Most pertinent for us to consider is the following: “Peter Maurin taught us about pure means and the Church’s teaching about not accepting the lesser of two evils. Is it possible to propagate the dignity of manual labor if the only means available is a computer?” In May of 2011, Ted Walker posed a question which echoes Kassie’s stated dilemma: “How do we let go of solving such problems, of realizing that human relationships will never be, and never should be, efficient or even rational?” Both of these questions point to the necessity of working with one’s hands in community, and questioning how technology could render work, community and personal relationships obsolete. I resonate with these concerns as I raise the following question: how can we engage in an increasingly online world without losing touch with the physicality of the Works of Mercy?

As I ponder the Corporal Works of Mercy it is clear that recent technologies have aided our ability to complete them. Videochat technologies enable us to visit prisoners, and to visit the sick. During the fall of 2020 countless people connected to their loved ones who were dying of Covid-19 through means of technology when we were not permitted in-person visits. Live coverage of the genocide in Gaza has enabled us all to see clearly those who are suffering, giving us the opportunity to bear witness to the tragedy in solidarity actions in our city and around the country. Though the revolution will not be televised, it’s been made clear in recent years that it will be livestreamed. Ultimately we hope that somehow watching horror unfold on your phone will lead one to connect in an embodied way.

We must also mention the spiritual sustenance that TV Mass, and other ways of virtual worship have provided many of us during the pandemic, especially the sick and elderly who are homebound. For many, technology provides an access point to the world when they are not physically or mentally able to go out. Jane often raises a prayer at Vespers or Mass for those who are so totally alone that they have no one to pray with or to pray for them, and that the Catholic Worker remembers its duty to them. Technology has no doubt aided our ability to reach people and places we could have not previously dreamed of.

I was recently surprised to come across a video of Jim Keady confronting Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, about the conditions of workers in Indonesia on my Instagram FYP (For You Page). This video, which had 25,000 likes and countless more views, said nothing about Jim and his legacy of decades of activism on behalf of the factory workers. The top comment, with 3,000 likes, reads: “I bet the inter viewer won’t actually do anything about it either.”

To me, this embodies the worst of social media, and of technology writ large: when real life encounters are stripped from their context in order to create content and gain views. In this scenario social media becomes the end and the means all wrapped into one. As my friend Jim Robinson texted me “Social media is a good tool/bridge but when it becomes the whole shebang that’s when we get into trouble.” This is why I don’t blame the person who ignorantly commented that “the interviewer” wouldn’t do anything about it, because the purpose of that video and the algorithm did not intend to educate about Jim Keady’s activism.

“You can’t use impersonal means to bring about a more personal way of being,” Kassie stated in 1990. Yes it’s true that the pervading logic of technology like Instagram is ultimately impersonal and efficient. It cares more about views than about who’s viewing. But if our vision of personalism is not able to engage more deeply with the technology which pervades our society then has it not failed? Even if we were to completely disengage our community from tech, how would we provide hospitality to others who are engaged with it?

Our Instagram page has a following of 1,400 people and counting, each one with a name and a story. Through it we have made many friends. We have met people face to face who have connected with us through videos we post inviting people to join us for Friday Night Meetings. We have made and fostered connections to community centers, mutual aid groups, and artistic spaces thanks to Instagram DM’s (direct messages). We have had volunteers come to us thanks to Instagram, and visitors who stay with us for some period of time. Because of all this I have seen the ways in which engaging on Instagram, a seemingly impersonal platform, has allowed us to create personal friendships IRL (in real life).

In large part due to Kassie’s legacy, the NYCW community has a hesitant, at times hard line, stance when it comes to engaging, or not, with any form of technology. The computer, and our Instagram, provide us with important possibilities to engage. It’s still possible for us to resist efficiency in our relationships with one another, to slow down in this city that constantly tells us to speed up. It’s still possible for us to point each other towards communities of love and of resistance. To live authentically as a community in our modern era we must engage these technologies which have already embedded themselves into our daily existence. Rather than resisting technology altogether, we are called to act within these spaces while attempting to understand their implications. As we continue developing our stance towards social media and other technologies, we must critically engage with the living philosophy of our movement while forging the path ahead.

You can read Katherine Temple’s original essay, “Our Computer Dilemma,” at the Catholic News Archives.

The cover image is a screenshot of the New York Catholic Worker’s Instagram page.