108. The idea of promoting a different cultural paradigm and employing technology as a mere
instrument is nowadays inconceivable. The technological paradigm has become so dominant that it
would be difficult to do without its resources and even more difficult to utilize them without being
dominated by their internal logic. It has become countercultural to choose a lifestyle whose goals are
even partly independent of technology, of its costs and its power to globalize andmake us all the same.
Technology tends to absorb everything into its ironclad logic, and those who are surrounded with
technology “know full well that itmoves forward in the final analysis neither for profit nor for thewell-
being of the human race”, that “in the most radical sense of the term power is its motive – a lordship
over all”.
87
As a result, “man seizes hold of the naked elements of both nature and human nature”.
88
Our capacity to make decisions, a more genuine freedom and the space for each one’s alternative
creativityare diminished.
109. The technocratic paradigm also tends to dominate economic and political life. The economy
accepts every advance in technologywith a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative
impact on human beings. Finance overwhelms the real economy. The lessons of the global financial
crisis have not been assimilated, and we are learning all too slowly the lessons of environmental
deterioration. Some circles maintain that current economics and technology will solve all
environmental problems, and argue, in popular and non-technical terms, that the problems of global
hunger and poverty will be resolved simply by market growth. They are less concerned with certain
economic theories which today scarcely anybody dares defend, than with their actual operation in the
functioning of the economy. They may not affirm such theories with words, but nonetheless support
them with their deeds by showing no interest in more balanced levels of production, a better
distribution of wealth, concern for the environment and the rights of future generations. Their
behaviour shows that for themmaximizingprofits is enough. Yet by itself themarket cannot guarantee
integral human development and social inclusion.
89
At the same time, we have “a sort of
‘superdevelopment’ of a wasteful and consumerist kindwhich forms an unacceptable contrast with the
ongoing situations of dehumanizing deprivation”,
90
while we are all too slow in developing economic
institutions and social initiatives which can give the poor regular access to basic resources. We fail to
87
ROMANOGUARDINI,
DasEndederNeuzeit
, 63-64 (
TheEndof theModernWorld
, 56).
88
Ibid., 64 (
TheEndof theModernWorld
, 56).
89
Cf. BENEDICTXVI, Encyclical Letter
Caritas inVeritate
(29 June2009), 35:AAS101 (2009), 671.
90
Ibid., 22: p. 657.
