Fighting is the greatest male art, until artifice and device: Odysseus. That is how the young man is able to overcome his predators. Technology – even the use of frog toxins – is the metaphor for progress beyond the state of brute conflict.
Yet we know technology may lead to disaster. The point is that any progressive knowledge, if used in a regressive way; i.e., if applied to the world just according to the old ( and inappropriate) ways, becomes brutish and regressive itself. I think nuclear power could be a good example of such. We are lucky that we did not become the paradigm in the universe for self-destruction.
We also see the Spaniards coming upon the scene and can remember their employing new knowledge – an entire New World – in old ways: force, compulsion, slavery, intolerance, etc. and they go from being a return of the white god to devils.
All new knowledge requires application in new ways and new ethics and new moralities which are improvements over the old morals. The measure of “improvement in morals” is the freedom of the spirit: if new information enslaves us to fear, hate, and distrust, it is operating within the confines of an out-of-date ethics.
New wine forcibly placed into old wineskins: they come apart and the new wine spills onto the ground and is wasted.
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