works of art andmusic nowmake use of new technologies. So, in the beauty intended by the one who
uses new technical instruments and in the contemplation of such beauty, a quantum leap occurs,
resulting in a fulfilment which is uniquelyhuman.
104. Yet it must also be recognized that nuclear energy, biotechnology, information technology,
knowledge of our DNA, and many other abilities which we have acquired, have given us tremendous
power. More precisely, they have given those with the knowledge, and especially the economic
resources to use them, an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world.
Never has humanity had such power over itself, yet nothing ensures that it will be used wisely,
particularlywhenwe consider how it is currently being used. We need but think of the nuclear bombs
dropped in themiddle of the twentieth century, or the array of technologywhichNazism, Communism
and other totalitarian regimes have employed to kill millions of people, to say nothing of the
increasingly deadly arsenal of weapons available for modern warfare. In whose hands does all this
power lie, orwill it eventuallyendup? It is extremely risky for a small part of humanity to have it.
105. There is a tendency to believe that every increase in power means “an increase of ‘progress’
itself”, an advance in “security, usefulness, welfare and vigour;…an assimilation of new values into
the stream of culture”,
83
as if reality, goodness and truth automatically flow from technological and
economic power as such. The fact is that “contemporary man has not been trained to use power
well”,
84
because our immense technological development has not been accompanied by a development
in human responsibility, values and conscience. Each age tends to have only ameagre awareness of its
own limitations. It is possible that we do not grasp the gravity of the challenges now before us. “The
risk is growing day by day that man will not use his power as he should”; in effect, “power is never
considered in terms of the responsibility of choicewhich is inherent in freedom” since its “only norms
are taken from alleged necessity, from either utility or security”.
85
But human beings are not
completely autonomous. Our freedom fades when it is handed over to the blind forces of the
unconscious, of immediate needs, of self-interest, and of violence. In this sense, we stand naked and
exposed in the face of our ever-increasing power, lacking the wherewithal to control it. We have
83
ROMANOGUARDINI,
Das Ende der Neuzeit
, 9th ed., Würzburg, 1965, 87 (English:
The End of the Modern World
,
Wilmington, 1998, 82).
84
Ibid.
85
Ibid., 87-88 (
TheEnd of theModernWorld,
83).
