Think Like An Evangelical: Developing a Social Imagination in the Age of AI
In the late nineteenth century, the explosion of technological innovation known as the American Industrial Revolution created all kinds of existential questions and concerns. While there were many opinions and schools of thought on how society should move forward, four main groups emerged. Their actions, I believe, are worth exploring as we all find ourselves in the beginning stages of the next great technological revolution, one dominated by algorithmic media and AI.
Group 1: Opportunistic Industrialists.
This age old class of wealthy, opportunistic industrialists saw ordinary citizens as nothing more than a means to produce the most profit with the highest margins in order to line their own coffers.
Group 2: Ordinary People.
The second group were the millions of ordinary citizens those industrialists exploited, a working class with virtually no rights when it came to wages, education, health care, age requirements, or housing.
Group 3: Angry Artisans.
Also known as Luddites, these rioting creative craftsmen would band together and sneak around by night destroying the machines that stole their craft away from them in a brash attempt to thwart technology’s inevitable march forward.
Group 4: Reformers.
Comprised of those with strong moral beliefs and a deep sense of human dignity, this group took it upon themselves to stand up for their ordinary fellow humans and persuade the government to create common sense solutions to the clear societal shift that was occurring. Many reformers were part of a new flavor of Christianity called Evangelicalism which placed a high value on the worth and autonomy of ordinary individuals and their families. As a result they pressed the government to temper the U.S. from being controlled solely by the free market, electing leaders who would create social regulations like 8-hour work days, child labor laws, public education, common parks, and women’s equality.
Having grown up an Evangelical (someone who now considers themselves an “EXvangelical”), I’ve spent most of my adulthood distancing myself from the brand image its become. It’s therefore pretty ironic that I write these next few words:
Perhaps the best way to navigate the technological revolution we find ourselves facing right now, is in fact to think like an Evangelical…at least one from the nineteenth century.
Hear me out!
Luddites, artists who refused to accept reality and therefore burned their energy trying to destroy it, were profoundly unsuccessful. But those reformers (who, to be clear, included many people who weren’t Evangelicals as well) spent their imagination on ways to ensure the health and wellness of their fellow human beings and ultimately created lasting, impactful change.
The first Industrial Revolution required that ordinary people’s physical wellbeing be taken care of in order to work alongside technology. This next revolution requires that we push to take care of humanity’s mental wellbeing. The Industrial Age punished people’s bones and lungs, put them in tenement apartments with unsanitary conditions, and reduced them to apparatus. Today’s tech confronts our need for community and belonging, deafens our ability to think critically and independently, and confuses our sense of “self” apart from our virtual expressions. Like the Industrial Revolution it’s causing us once again to reassess those ideals we value most and reverse engineer solutions from there.
First though we must realize we’ve arrived at that pivotal point.
Poem Pairing:
Mill Doors by Carl Sandburg