One of my favorite essays ever is Why I Will Not Buy A Computer by Wendell Berry. I keep it in my bedside shelf and occasionally when I'm especially cynical about work and all that, I read it and feel a tiny little flame of defiance in my heart. In it he lays out 9 criteria for introducing a new technology into his work. But there are two points specifically that stand out to me, because they put agency back into the hands of the users of technology, at least a little.
“ It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships. ”
Berry wrote this essay in 1987, years before Silicon Valley's obsession with "disruption" had come into full bloom. I find his words to be prescient: in the years since, the tech industry has always favored disruption in service of some grandiose vision of "better", "more convenient", "faster". The question that always lingers: for whom?
Many technologies I attempt to resist have already broken Berry's 9th standard - disrupting existing family and community relationships. Additionally, they have done so to the point that whatever was the prior infrastructure no longer exists -- if I delete my Facebook or Instagram, which I desperately want to and previously have, there is nothing to fallback on, no pre-existing way to keep in touch with friends and family. That statement is a little hyperbolic; of course if I really wanted to I could personally reach out to each of my relations. But I find that so many of these technologies now create a new infrastructure of social relations, one that I'm excluded from by resisting.
If I refuse certain technologies because they are not up to standard and find a gap existing in my life, then I should attempt to reuse what I already have. But I find that this outlook also has a corollary: if still this gap persists, I may be called to create something new to fill it. To date, this is the most convincing reason I have come up with to build new software.
In a reply to Berry's original essay, someone writes:
I have no quarrel with Berry because he prefers to write with pencil and paper; that is his choice. But he implies that I and others are somehow impure because we choose to write on a computer. I do not admire the energy corporations, either. Their shortcoming is not that they produce elec-tricity but how they go about it. They are poorly managed because they are blind to long-term consequences. To solve this problem, wouldn't it make more sense to correct the precise error they are making rather than simply ignore their product? I would be happy to join Berry in a protest against strip mining, but I intend to keep plugging this computer into the wall with a clear conscience.
And Berry's response to the reply:
“ But virtually all of our consumption now is extravagant, and virtually all of it consumes the world ... I do not see how anyone can [having known the environmental consequences]... plug in any appliance with a clear conscience. If [replier] can do so, that does not mean that his conscience is clear; it means that his conscience is not working. To the extent that we consume, in our present circumstances, we are guilty. To the extent that we guilty consumers are conservationists, we are absurd ... Why then is not my first duty to reduce, so far as I can, my own consumption? ”
Maybe it's my ascetic tendencies, but I find a quiet comfort in this notion. When I'm conflicted about the ethics of buying a certain product or using a gig-worker-supported convenience app, the answer is straightforward: don't. Making do with what I have re-ignites a sense of agency, whatever small, however meaningless it might be in the grander scheme.
So I find that these two ideas form a sort of mutual relationship. I should refrain from consumption and indulgence when it comes to new technologies (why do we need Apple watches again?), always suspect. When I find something lacking in my life, I should turn away from the store aisles, the Wirecutter best of lists, and first try to make do with what I already have. And only if I find this impossible should I seek to create anew that which I am searching for, careful not to ruin what is already good that exists.
On my list:
And finally my favorite line from the essay: "If the use of a computer is a new idea, then a newer idea is not to use one."