Mr. Epstein is not the first to claim that secular phenomena have become religions (the list grows every year), but to him, America’s obsessions with the workplace, sports, CrossFit, etc. are half-hearted at best. It’s a cult. Technology, on the other hand, is the religion of today’s world, says Epstein, replacing all other influences on our lives. And we are all believers, whether we are willing or not. For example, you can choose to make CrossFit a central force in your life, providing community, meaning, and a sense of purpose. However, the penalties for avoiding CrossFit are minor or non-existent. Not if you opt out of social media, refuse to buy a smartphone, or keep your banking transactions analog. In Epstein’s framework, one would only do such a thing if one were essentially a heretic or a “non-believer” of technology.
The metaphors that Epstein unpacks over some 300 pages are at times unwieldy. Although he admits that technology as religion is not a perfect analogy, he believes it is the best way to explain the overall impact of technology on our lives.
And Epstein doesn’t believe technology will lead us to paradise. In his view, the technology industry is in need of serious correction. In response to the excesses of religion, reformers, humanists, agnostics, and atheists have emerged around the world. We’re seeing a similar backlash against Silicon Valley’s excesses: smartphone addiction, the teen mental health crisis, and more.
Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Why do you think technology has become a theology or religion rather than an industry or culture?
This is an unusual rhetorical choice, to say the least. Just defining religion is complicated. There is no single definition that applies to all existing religions. But I think there are many ways in which thinking about technology as a religion can be helpful.
Let’s think about some of the things that religions do, especially colonization and religious conversion. Christianity, Islam, and even Buddhism are religions that have done so much to change people’s beliefs, customs, and identities that they have brought about global change.
Religions tend to encompass communities of people with some overlapping common customs, rituals that help bind them together, and a sense that they are part of a common whole rather than just different individuals. Helps give. they tell stories. Stories explain what happened in the past to explain what is good and bad in the present and where we are all going in the future.
They also make claims and judgments about what is good or bad, immoral or moral, to get people to do certain things and not others. And they have groups and hierarchies. They often have visions of a beautiful or terrifying future, depending on the choices you make in life.
I believe technology has everything I just mentioned.
I understand that this is a big ask for readers who are thinking, “Hey, please let me use email in peace.” But my point is, remember that in traditional religion, not everyone is the pope. Not everyone is a cloaked theologian. There are mendicant monks and ascetic monks. There is a black-hatted rabbi who has been immersed in Talmudic texts his entire life. And the rest of us are just members of the faith. We’re just trying to live our lives.
Greg Epstein was elected president of Harvard University’s 40 chaplains in 2021. CODY O’LAUGHLIN/NYT
What exactly is a tech agnostic? For example, I’m guessing you’re referring to someone who doesn’t insist on using only Apple or Microsoft products.
It’s certainly a play on words, isn’t it? But while I think tech-agnostics already exist to a large degree, it becomes a more self-aware category for people who are or want to be thoughtful about the role technology plays in our society. I hope so. Still alive today.
A tech agnostic is someone who doesn’t believe in technology. They don’t believe that technology is all good and all powerful. But they also do not deny that technology has great power over our lives and society, and that there may be aspects of it worth believing in.
In my daily life and career, I am a professional atheist. But I’m not an atheist when it comes to tech religion. Because it’s hard to deny that emerging technologies are changing some aspects of our lives for the better.
Do you think technology uniquely fits the definition of religion and theology, unlike other aspects of life that are compared to religion?
No, it’s not unique. And this is the important point. There’s a section near the beginning of the book where you start asking your friends on Facebook and elsewhere. “What’s like religion to you in your life?” And people come up with all sorts of fun things. Nike sneakers, Bardolatri (worship of William Shakespeare), South Asian movies, duck hunting. we have all these. Baseball is definitely a religion to me. This time of year is baseball’s high holiday.
That’s a very expansive view of religion.
As you know, psychologist Jonathan Haidt wrote an extensive meditation on the University of Virginia football team as a religious experience in his 2012 book, The Righteous Mind. In his book, he argues that there is a difference between personal and collective rituals. The University of Virginia football game is a very collective affair. But that doesn’t necessarily make sense, right? Even if you follow the football team, you don’t know what to do when a loved one dies, gets sick, or worries about war.
Do you really think technology will do that?
Yes, but not necessarily in a healthy way.
Religion leads people down a certain path. Sometimes that path can be very helpful and inspirational. Religion has a mix of beneficial and harmful elements, although sometimes this is not the case, and sometimes more so. Now let’s consider how technology functions in human life.
Still, some readers may argue that calling technology a religion is a stretch.
I’m not asking people to take the leap to technology as if it were officially a religion. What I am saying is that we need to recognize that what technology represents in our lives and society is much more than just a form of capitalism. I have much grander ambitions than that. Religions are powerful, even if you’re not a believer, because they have both elite ideologues and ordinary believers.
We all use our devices, right? We all do. We are all converted into their software. So what I’m asking the reader to do is to do a thought experiment. Think about yourself as we go about our busy lives, interacting with technology hundreds of times a day. Keeping in mind that this is a kind of religion, what insights can we gain from it? What aspects of religion are worth believing in and which are not? Which practices do I feel are consistent with my own values? Also, do I feel that what I do as a technology practitioner aligns with who I want to be and how I live my life? Which of the following do you feel is a contradiction?
One of the main points of this book is to call for technological reform. So how do we start? Who is our Martin Luther?
Please remember. In reality, Martin Luther did not lead the Reformation, and his Reformation was not all that perfect. But the reforms were ultimately based on a grassroots determination that the religious authorities of the time were overly controlling and imposing their worldview on others. And so, slowly but surely, a kind of democratic path for Christianity followed.
Part of that, he argues, has already been started by people mentioned in the book, like Tristan Harris, a former persuasion technology specialist at Google who rebelled and founded the Center for Humane Tech. There may be some people.
Harris is an interesting example of this. Because he is undergoing a kind of “deconversion.” But I’m also very interested in grassroots people and communities who don’t come from places of power. In other words, these are people whose lives have been adversely affected by the power of technology, and who are united to say, “We are here.” You can do better. we have to do better. ”
These are some of the people who I think are the leaders of (technology) reform. In fact, I would say that the vast majority of the best leaders of healthy, humane technology change are women, people of color, or both. Not because these people are inherently better than white men like me, but because they are forced to think more seriously about what a better technological society is. They have a more fundamentalist side of techno-religion than I do.
As you know, much of the world’s technology is made for people like me, who have had to live with the worst effects and who have brilliantly envisioned alternatives. People who are not made to be. In fact, we can fight back against bad ideas and bad technology. We don’t need to destroy all technology to achieve outcomes far better than what we currently face.
Christine Mehta can be reached at christine.mehta@globe.com.
