Q: In “Thoughts and Aphorisms” Sri Aurobindo said that machinery is an incurable barbarism. Nowadays we can see all kind of machinery. When divine order establishes on earth, what will be the role of this machinery?
ALOKDA: Machinery was meant to facilitate certain aspects of human life where man is relatively incapacitated. But instead of facilitating it has begun to replace man.
There is indeed a real danger that an excessive use of machinery may not only mechanise human life but machinise the human being, that is to say turn human beings themselves into heartless, soulless and even thoughtless machines.
Man’s efficiency is being measured more and more not by compassion, wisdom, love but by his capacity to handle machines and his ability to think and feel in terms of probabilities and algorithms. All this does not augur well.
The Divine world order will be more intuitive and less centred around machinery. The difference is between Machine as an instrument of man or man becoming helplessly dependent upon machinery.
