Technology into Mythology

Right now, it is the most beautiful, talked-about piece of engineering in the world. It shot towards the centre of the earth and back nearly forty times, like a magic bullet, on a rescue mission that was almost mythical in its intent and eventual success. Whoever named it Phoenix knew exactly what he was doing and this tiny capsule – with the radius of a bicycle wheel – should rank above space rockets and submarines in its importance to humanity. Small is indeed beautiful.
But then, miniaturisation has long been the benchmark of technological progress – just witness the microprocessor! Here, I am not going to calculate how many of these things can sit on the head of a pin. Instead, I marvel at how a piece of metal, two inches by one half, can store all the work I have ever done; manuscripts, articles, photos, drawings, college work, correspondence, in short, everything. And my memory device is far from being the most powerful. Truly, these things are the contemporary equivalent of the magic wand. It is no wonder they are being incorporated into jewellery and carried as talismans. After all, a man’s work is his gold and technology becomes mythology.
With machines that fly and ones that dive, doors that open and shut free of human contact, and gadgets that give us seemingly telepathic powers of communication, it is worth pondering whether our plethora of super-power devices isn’t the contemporary fulfilment of age-old legend. More than one self-help guru has written: what we can conceive and believe, we can truly achieve.
Yea, the Phoenix may have risen but miniaturisation does have a downside. Right now, the entire nation seems to be licking its collective lips at the prospect of that age-old behemoth and public institution, the library, reduced to a trestle table laid with grubby, dog-eared tomes for public borrowing, at the entrance to pubs and supermarkets, and staffed by ‘volunteers’. My library is a grand, purpose-built building containing a comprehensive collection of the literature and learning of our times, presided over by paid librarians and their qualified assistants. Such places truly are mythical – may they not vanish into myth…