On Existence On Technology

Since human beings stepped into technological age, existence on technology has been a fundamental existing mode. Existence on technology is a great progress in human being's existence and a necessary stage in liberating human beings. But we can not ignore the new contradictions and predicament of existence on technology. Our practical choice should be like this: we can neither refuse existence on technology nor ignore the crisis and problems of existence on technology, and we should pursue a kind of existence which can fully realize the positive values of existence on technology as well as avoiding its negative ones, that is green-technological existence.How is it possible to realize green- technological existence? To answer this question, we must exploit deeply the emergence, development, and inherent contradicts of existence on technology. Due to the complexity of existence itself, especially because humans existing process itself is a cultural one, culture is fundamentally the metaphisical base of human existence. So, to exploit and research existence on technology, we should not simply make a simple criticism as like angel or devil, but, deep into the culture which lead and dominate the existence mode, expliot and explore the cultural nature of how existence on technology is possible and how it is progressing. Thereby, for the research of the emergence, development and contradiction of existence on technology, as well as the research of the possibilities from existence on technology towards green existence on technology, the inherent connection between culture and existence is an essencial consideration.Culture can not only be regarded as all the civilizational results created by human beings and humanizational process but also a spiritual wholeness of ideology of existing attitudes and existing base. Its core content is outlook and values. It is concerned with the latter interpretation of culture in this article. Culture, as a kind of outlook and values, is the spiritual source and metaphysics of civilization and existence, is a live force to participate in and lead to existence, and is a spiritual drive of human activity paradigm and social personality.Existence on technology, as a substancial progress of human existence since history, is a transcendence over natural existence, is a proactive existence of human over nature in the true sense, is an existence based on objectivity and universality in pursuit of certainty, is an existence based on natural laws and in order to realize the maximization of the exchange of materials, and is an independent existence of human beings based on humans'reliance on materials. Existence on technology can be directly manifested as technologization, materialization and secularization of practice. As to the connection between culture and existence, technologism is the fundamental cultural belief and profound cultural base of existence on technology. In contrast to naturalism, which is the base of naturalist existence, technologism established a scientific outlook, founded a value system of recognition and reformation of objects by subjects and material utinitarianism, thus laid down a ground for existence on technology.Existence on technology, as part of historical stage in human existence history, has a vaviety of values. On the one hand, it laid a material base and premise for huamn and social development, promoted the world-wide universal interaction, incresed human'free or leisure time, therefore greatly expanded the human existence space; on the other hand, it broadened the gap between human and nature , caused the repression of human by technological and material logic, led to human pro-machanicalization, regression of life practical wisdom, and routinization of social life, triggered the simultaneous increase between countersubjective effect and subjective effect and their impredictibility. This, in a large degree, has a lot to do with disenchantment caused by technologism, with oppositional relations between human and nature as of their dominant and governing roles, with the value system of material utilitarianism. While technologism opened a world of mathematics and utility, it also concealed a world of aesthetics and meaningfulness, so the effecting existence on technology cannot eventually realize the transcendence of human beings. Therefore there is a contrasting reflexivity in existence on technology and technologism, that is, its inner contradiction, self negation: it pursued certainty with great efforts while its existence became uncertain: it tried to confirm individual subjectivity while it produed greater new dependence, dependent on technology and materials: it pursued human's dominance over outer world while outer world dominated human on a larger scale and to a larger extent: it made laws for the world with ration while the world of social life demonstrated a strong irrationality instead: it confirmed the significance of the other world while nihilism became pravailing: etc. Facing the refexivity, modern philosophy made a Faustian breakthrough, became the major significant ideological sources for existence transcendance and new cultural forms.Not only was existence on technology a necessary stage of existing history, but also it was an existence needed to be transcended. It's a necessary choice of human existence to go from exitence on technology to green-technological existence. green-technological existence pursued the unification of technology and aesthetics in which human dealt with nature: from human opposotional existence opposite to the world to human existing within the world; from human being being not himself to human returning to himself; from human's single facet to human's manifoldness; from the seperation of human life's experience and transcendance to their fusion and convergence. To realize existent transcendence from existence on technology to green-technological existence, it cannot only rely on the invention and applicaton of green technology; it also needs the transformaton from technologism to harmonious and aesthetic culture. Harmonious and aesthetic culture is the Aufheben and transcendence over technologism, with its basic content as outlook of hominizational world, mature anthrocentrism, a value system with the wholeness of man as its ultimate goals, the social outlook of rational harmony, as well as an organic unification of cultural attitudes like diognosis and nurture, hearing and appreciation between human and nature, it inherited the rationality and truthseeking spirits of technologist culture, efficiency and rationalizational consciousness or awareness, attitudes of universalism and objectivism, and at the same time neutralized technology with arts, tried to get the accordance of horizontal and longititudinal transcendence. Harmonious and aesthetic culture is the cultural base of green-technological existence.The Gestalt transformation from technologism to harmonious and aesthetic culture cannot go without a new cultural enlightment. The new enlightment is a cultural enlightment based on rational consciouseness of existence on technology reflexity. It does not establish enlightment as a new God of life, but is a technologism criticism based on critical rationality; it's not a cultural sermon or preachment but a cultural awareness. Its primary task lies in the following: the reflection of technologism, returning from disenchantment to enchantment, the new discovery of humanizational culture and the establishment of man's ultimate values. To implement the new cultural enlightment, it is necessary to re-understand human activities, human life and human itself both in real life and cultural ideology, to unify or integrate objectivity and non-objectivity, everyday life and non-everyday life, to set up a new image of human being of poem, of society, of responsibility. Contemporary cultural enlightment has become a hard epoch task because the cultural spirits advocated by modern enlightment movement has become a new God, and also because of retrogression of rationalspirits and loss of independent individual personality of contemporary intellectuals.It can not be independent of China's context to investigate the possibilities from existence on technology to green existence on technology. China, as a developing country, on the one hand, has to face the challenge of postmodern society or knowledge economy society, to take the modern transformation of society as its fundamental task. On the other hand, it has to shun from the western modern paradox, green-technological existence is its choice of exsitence wothout any doubt. It is our important cultural subject we have to confront in the course of modernization to construct a cultural mode corresponding to green-technological existence.The article is made up of the following seven chapters: chapter one gives a general servey of the issues, scopes, grounds, significance and methodology of the research. Chapter two gives a general exposition of the emergence, modern demonstration and characteristics of existence on technology. Chapter three illustates the cultural basis of existence on technology and explains the birth, the major contents and the cultural essence of technologism. Chapter four analizes the contenporary essence, manifold values of existence on technology, reveals the interactions between existence on technology and culture and its significance and limits. Chapter five explains the reflexitivity of existence on technology and modern philosophical cultural criticism of existence on technology. Chapter six explores the cultural road of transcendance of existence on technology, proposes a possible existence (green-technological existence) and its cultural premise, and makes a stress on the characteristics of harmonious and aesthetic culture and its significance for green-technological existence. The last chapter, chapter seven briefly illustrates the choices of China's existence and the principle tasks for modern cultural construction with Chinese charactristics.