The Crisis of Technology and the Basis of Hope

By Harold Hatt
TECHNOLOGY WAS ONCE the dominant, although not the exclusive
basis of hope. Suddenly technology ushered Western civilization into an
ecological crisis. And so, technology became a significant, although not the
sole, cause of the problem of hope.
In this study I want to explore the problem of hope from the perspec
tives of film study and theology.
One of the prominent issues in film theory concerns the relation of the
film image to the real world, or of the reel world to the real one. "Can a
film faithfully represent the real? If a film reproduces the real, can it at
the same time be art? Is it artistically desirable to create a film that represents the real?"1
In classic film theory, with Arnheim and Kracauer representing opposing poles, "reality" has been understood almost exclusively in terms of
"physical reality." More recent developments have broadened the meaning. For example, phenomenology introduces a sense of the term "world"
which is not restricted to the physical world, but which includes non-empirical realities. Dudley Andrew has aptly referred to "The Neglected Tradi
tion of Phenomenology in Film Theory."2 It is this phenomenological,
rather than physiological, sense of the term "world" that \ am employing
when I talk about "the world film creates."3 The filmmaker expresses his
or her artistic vision in the creation of a world.
Stanley Kubrick is a master of the art of creating worlds. Each world
is consistently developed, with few lapses. And it is developed with all the
filmmaker's resourceslighting, sound, mise-en-scne, etc. If one attends
only to the plot, a great deal of Kubrick's communication is overlooked.
1. Allan Casebier, Film Appreciation (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1976), p. 84.
2. Wide Angle, II, No. 2, 44-49; cf. Dudley Andrew, The Major Film Theories (New Yorjs:
Oxford, 1976), chap. 9 and "The Gravity of Sunrise,9' Quarterly Review of Film Studies, II, No. 3
(Aug., 1977), 35(^387.
3. This phrase is the title of chap. 6 of Casebier's Film Appreciation. This is a helpful
chapter on the concept of the "world" of a film in general, and it includes a discussion of Kubrick,
in particular, on pp. 106-110. For more philosophical treatment of the world of film, see George
W, linden, Reflections on the Screen (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1970).

+ Harold Hatt is Professor of Theology at the Graduate Seminary of Phil

lipe University. His paper was presented at the 1980 meeting of the
Association of Disciples for Theological Discussion.
(43)

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Encounter

Spartac s is properly disowned by Kubrick because this creation of a world

is not carried out consistently. I concur with Kolker's remark concerning
Stanley Kubrick in which he says:
what I find of most interest in his work is the way he organizes a complex
spatial realm that encloses his characters and expresses their state of being.
For in Kubrick's films we learn more about a character from the way that
character inhabits a particular space than (with the exception of Dr.
Strangelove) from what that character says.4
In drawing the parameters of this inquiry, I want to draw one more
boundary line. To the problem of hope and the world of Kubrick I want to
bring the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr. I am concerned to explore what
goes on within the triangle joining these three points.
There are two grounds on which a dialogue between Kubrick and Niebuhr concerning the problem of hope can be established. One is formal,
the other is material.
The formal ground is Niebuhr's preference for the dramatic/historical
over the scientific/rational."' The material ground is the challenge of sentimental idealism and romanticism with a realistic interpretation of the human situation
The "SK" that theologians have known is Soren Kierkegaard. It is my
hope that this paper will help to establish Stanley Kubrick as another SK
with whom theologians may engage in meaningful dialogue.
In order to structure this dialogue and to move it along, I turn to John
Wiley Nelson who identifies five basic concerns which constitute a belief
system:
1. Shared views of what is unsatisfactory about present experience.
2. Shared views about the source of that unsatisfactory situation.
3. Shared views of the nature of the delivering force through which the
source of evil is defeated.
4. Shared views of what a resolved situation would look like.
5. Shared views of the "Way," or the path to follow, to this perfection,
if such a catechism is necessary.6
These concerns can also be expressed in the form of questions:
4. Robert Phillips Kolker, A Cinema of Loneliness (New York: Oxford University Press,
1980), p. 72. In this regard, Kolker observes an influence from Orson Welles, although he also
discusses several contrasts between the mise-en-scne of Welles and Kubrick, ibid,, pp. 72-78.
5. Cf. especially The Self and the Dramas of History (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1955).
6. Your God is Alive and Well and Appearing in Popular Culture (Philadelphia: Westminster
Press 1976) pp. 20-21. See pp. 21-25 for Wiley's elaboration of these concerns and the entire
book for the application of them to popular culture.

The Crisis of Technology and the Basis of Hope

45

1. What is the nature of the problem?

2. What is the source of the problem?
3. Who or what will deliver us?
4. To what are we delivered?
5. What is the way to follow?
In this paper, I will explore only the response to questions three, four
and five. Kubrick and Niebuhr deal with the first two questions, but there
is not space to develop those answers in this paper.
The Deliverer for the Crisis
Who or what will deliver us? In popular culture, the deliverer has
traditionally been an individual "messiah." Institutions fail, be they the
sheriff, the police force or the church, but individuals come through. But
times have been changing. The quick draw or the flying fists are not quite
so effective in a technological age. And so, many have looked to technology as our savior.
Kubrick critiques three basic forms of technology. Dr. Strangelove
(1963) indicts the technology of national defense, such as that which computes with Herman Kahn and the Pentagon. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
indicts the more constructive technology of space travel, which is beloved by
our astronauts and promoted by our beleaguered NASA. A Clockwork
Orange (1971) indicts the behaviorist technology of behavior and society,
so dear to the heart of B. F. Skinner and his behaviorist ilk.
In Dr. Strangelove, technology is portrayed as devastating and people
are portrayed as complacent about the devastation. In 2001, technology is
portrayed as devitalizing, and people are portrayed as quiescent because of
the devitalization. In Clockwork Orange, technology is portrayed as devaluating, and people are portrayed as decadent as a consequence of their
devaluation.
The characters in Dr. Strangelove are illogical. They talk in clichs
and jargon that are quite out of touch with reality. The characters in 2001
are also out of touch with their reality. Their environment is awesome but
they take it as banal. They are certainly not illogical; quite possibly they
are hyperlogical. They are consistently insensitive. The characters in
Clockwork Orange are neither illogical nor hyperlogical; they are alogical.
They feel no need to develop a logical rationalization for doing what they
want to do and they are certainly not going to let the constraints of logical
reasoning inhibit them.
Three false hopes for deliverance are exposed in these filmsnational
defense, the conquest of space, and social enginering. The false hopes in

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these films reflect the movement of the decade of the 60's. The 60's started
with the Cold War spreading its chill over one and all. Dr. Strangelove
deals with this mood. But, under John F. Kennedy, the mood was soon
transformed to a more hopeful one. He called us to new frontiers, and the
race for space pre-empted the arms race, 2001 deals with this mentality.
But the dream of Camelot was shattered by nightmares. The 60's became
the decade of assassinations. Prosperity increased, but so did unemployment and poverty. Resentment grew against any and all establishments,
with their privileged positions. With racial demonstrations and protests
against the Vietnam war, a tumultuous time was had by all. Clockwork
Orange expresses the mood of this phase.
Technology for National Defense
The world of Dr. Strangelove is the world of advancedindeed, ultimatemilitary technology. The three basic locations are Burpelson Air
Force Base, a SAC B-52 bomber, and the War Room. Although the goingson in these locations assume a surreal quality, each setting is portrayed
realistically. The most striking example of this is the expense and care
involved in constructing a mock B-52. This was done on the basis of photographs in aviation magazines, and without the cooperation of the U. S. Air
Force, which was rather suspicious of the enterprise.
Each of these three locations is filmed in a different, and appropriate,
style. The bomber is filmed in hand held, newsreel style, with rapid cutting. The war room is filmed with stable camera and with establishing
shots before we move in for significant detail. The filming of Burpelson
Air Force Base is more varied. There is a strong newsreel quality to the
sequence in which it is attacked, but at other times it is filmed more in the
style employed for the war room. And this mixture is appropriate because
it is Burpelson that is the location that calls for the bomber to attack and
that resists the efforts of the war room to call off the attack. It is, as it
were, the war room under the command of the insane and it is the attack
bomber that does not have to wait upon a code in order to swing into action.
Niebuhr's The Structure of Nations and Empires7 is subtitled "A study
of the recurring patterns and problems of the political order in relation to
the unique problems of the nuclear age." Chapter 16 on "The Cold War
and the Nuclear Dilemma" is particularly pertinent to Dr. Strangelove.
There is a lot of historical and theological material in which Niebuhr takes
a run at the subject. One might contend that when push comes to shove
7. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Structure of Nations and Empires (New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1959).

The Crisis of Technology and the Basis of Hope

47

or when pushing the button comes to the mushroom cloudnuclear warfare

is where the issue of nations and empires is. But this is not Niebuhr's point
of view. On the contrary, Niebuhr's study "was prompted by the conviction that our generation, which faced the seemingly novel perplexities of
the nuclear stalemate and of our encounter with the new secular religion of
communism, might be tempted to forget the lessons which the past history of
man offers every new generation."8 And so, Niebuhr sets the "present perplexities" in the context of "perennial patterns."9
Niebuhr grants that there are some radically novel features of the
present. We have had opposing empires before, but in the current contest
between alliances each has roughly equal power to destroy the other. This
is the nuclear stalemate. It is a no-win situation, which could tragically become a both-lose situation. But the way to prevent that tragic outcome
seems paradoxically to be willing to risk it and to let the opponent know
that you are prepared to meet annihilating force with annihilating force.
The balance of power has become the balance of terror. This changes the
relationship. For example, surprise is no advantage. You want your opponent to know what your capability is, because your intention is not to take
advantage, but to deter your opponent from acting. Nevertheless, Niebuhr
sticks to his guns, if I may be permitted to use this metaphor in this context.
Niebuhr insists: "If mankind should have the good fortune to avoid the
ultimate and suicidal holocaust, it will be necessary to turn from the unprecedented factors of our situation, which have naturally preoccupied us,
to the perennial and constant factors, which have emerged in all imperial
and national rivalries through the ages."10 The risks are greater and the
margin of error is slimmer, but Niebuhr sees this as a new phase in the
power struggles that have been a part of human relations throughout history.
The nuclear crisis has accentuated, but not changed, the ambiguous character
of the political arena. This is Niebuhr's way of taking account of the moral
ambiguities that are central to his understanding of the source and nature
of our crisis.
By way of contrast, Kubrick eschews all of the calculation of Niebuhr,
and goes directly to explore the possibility of miscalculation. If we must
have the capacity to retaliate, and to do so quickly, then retaliation may be
set in motion by miscalculation. This miscalculation could occur in the
8. Ibid., p. ix. He continues: "I thought the temptation to overestimate the novelty of the
present situation was paricularly great in a young nation, suddenly flung to a position of world
responsibility by its great power," ibid. Cf. ibid., p. 9, and Reinhold Niebuhr, "How My Mind
Has Changed," in How My Mind Has Changed, ed. by Harold E. Fey (Cleveland: World, 1961),
pp. 116-132, reprinted from The Christian Century.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., p. 11.

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Encounter

sophisticated support devices, but Kubrick lodges it in the mind of one to

whom control of these devices is given. The breakdown he explores is not
in the technology itself, but in the technocrat. This is Kubrick's way of
taking account of the ambiguities of our crisis.
In one sense, Kubrick's approach seems to me to be more on target, if
I may use this metaphor in this context, than Niebuhr's approach. There is
something disturbing about Niebuhr's historical deliberations and careful
calculations in response to a situation which is fraught with impersonal and
demonic calculations and rife with the possibility of tragic and devastating
miscalculations. Like Kubrick's characters, Niebuhr seems to be oblivious
to the folly of dealing with an insane situation as if everything were normal.
Kubrick is sound in his decision to approach by going right to the heart of
the farce by means of a vicious caricature of our folly. His film is still
savagely true and it is still diabolically funny. His absurdist perspective
is a tour de farce.
And yet, there is a fatalism about Kubrick's approach that brings us
back to Niebuhr. President Muffley's frustrated attempts to work out a
solution with Premier Kissoff, while the big board in the War Room displays their failure, is the kind of situation that Niebuhr describes as one "in
which the hopes of liberalism for a universal community have been ironically
fulfilled and refuted."11
For me, Kubrick drives to the heart of the matter, exposing the fatal
flaw of our policy of deterrence. Niebuhr provides both perspective and
resources for rethinking the situation. The two together perform the function that Paul Ricoeur attributes to the parables. Kubrick's ferocious caricature disorients in order that Niebuhr's deliberate calculations might reorient.
Technology for Space Exploration
The majesty of space flight and the excitement of encountering the unknown was capturing the public imagination in the 60's. Kubrick transported us to a time when space flight was routine. The audience might
sense the majesty of space, but the characters in the film are bored and banal. Space flight is beautifully choreographed, but is long and tedious for
the crew. The technology of space travel was a tremendous accomplishment
of computers, but the people who worked with these machines had become
machine-like.
And Kubrick creates a sterile setting to match. He has visualized the
achievements and the cost of our technology. We see display screens and
11. Niebuhr, "How My Mind Has Changed," p. 131.

The Crisis of Technology and the Basis of Hope

49

lights flashing in the work areas. Food is synthetic and squeezed out of
tubes. Kubrick even reveals a death to us through the reading on the monitor. How impersonal can death become? And in the recreation areas we
have an orbiting Hilton Hotel and Howard Johnson's Restaurant. Furniture
is plastic and in the latest style. And yet, it's not something you would want
to write home about. But who would want to write home when you can
place a credit card call from space to home, and with a TV screen to boot
and who cares that Mom is out anyway?
In discussing the use of technology for national defense, I came to an
appreciation of Niebuhr's deliberations concerning the conflict of powers,
after an initial feeling that this was inappropriate. Certainly the course of
history since Niebuhr's study supports his judgment. Somehow or other
we did manage to avoid doomsday, and we have been able to talk about nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear arms limitation, even though the whole
process is complicated by the sorts of factors Niebuhr insists that we must
bring into view.
Partly because of such developments, and partly because we have become accustomed to living on a nuclear power keg, we were able to move
beyond the cold war mentality, or at least the obsession with it. The arms
race yielded to the space race, and this is a much more constructive form of
competition.
With the shift from emphasis on technology for national defense to the
use of technology for space exploration, optimism and even euphoria began
to flourish. The concept of progress, which had been prominent in the evolutionary optimism of the 19th and early 20th centuries, but which had declined under the impact of two world wars and the great depression, was
making a comeback.
In respect to the hope for progress, as much as in respect to the fear of
annihilation, Niebuhr's historical perspective is apropos. He had given attention to this topic in the late 40's, culminating in the publication of Faith
and History12 in 1949. Niebuhr elaborated a theology of history which
recognized both a creative and a destructive potential in the growth of human freedom and power. Science may be marked by progress, but human
relations and collective achievements are in the historical order, not in the
natural order, and there is no guarantee of inevitable progress. "History
is the fruit and the proof of man's freedom. Historical time is to be distinguished from natural time by the unique freedom which enables man to
transcend the flux of time, holding past moments in present memory and
12. Reinhold Niebuhr, Faith and History (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949).

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Encounter

envisaging future ends of actions which are not dictated by natural

necessity."18
The 18th century's confidence in reason gave way to faith in history.
Time was not only expected to heal all wounds, but to deliver all goods. But
Niebuhr challenges this optimistic theology of history which sets it as not
merely the sphere, but the agent, of redemption. "AH the structures of history are a complex unity of the natural and the spiritual, even as individual
man exhibits this unity. History is thus a proof of the creatureliness of man
as well as of his freedom."14
History is for Niebuhr the sphere of freedom and necessity.
The ultimate question raised by the facts of freedom and necessity in
history is how human freedom is related to the patterns and structures of
historical existence. If human freedom were absolute, human actions
would create a realm of confusion. If the patterns and structures, whether
natural or historical, were absolute, human freedom would be annulled15
Modern culture has generally recognized our human relation to nature, but
has miscalculated at two points. First, it has "exaggerated the degree of
growth in human freedom and power"; and second, it has identified freedom with virtue.16
Niebuhr helps us to free ourselves of the illusion of progress. We have
not always been mindful of them, but there always have been limits to
growth, even when that growth is achieved by the use of technology to extend
human powers. We have tended to see evil as stemming from human finitude, but we have not left evil behind as we have overcome our limits through
the application of technology. Try as we will to locate it in the past, evil is
a present reality. Try as we will to transcend it, evil is a future reality.
Niebuhr's Faith and History intends to help us cope with the shattering
of our complacency. Kubrick's 2001 : A Space Odyssey intends to help us
from lapsing back into it. But Kubrick takes note of the same factors, viz.,
the exaggeration of our growth in freedom and the identification of freedom with virtue. Both caution us against sanguine hopes that will be dashed
by bitter experience. The technology that is welcomed as a liberator will
lead us into new forms of bondage.
Kubrick's choice of Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" for
the soundtrack of 2001 has appropriate connotations of Nietzsche. Kubrick's
hope is a Nietzschean hope for the apes (featured in "The Dawn of Man"
section) to evolve into humans (featured in the "Jupiter Mission" section),
13.
14.
15.
16.

Ibid., p. 55.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 56.
Ibid., p. 69. These two miscalculations are explored in chaps. 5 and 6.

The Crisis of Technology and the Basis of Hope

51

who in turn have hope of being transformed into the superhuman or

bermensch (introduced in the "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" section).
The last section could echo the first by being entitled "The Dawn of the
Superman." If life is evolving, then what we have now is not the final goal,
but merely a step on the way to something higher and better. 2001 certainly
seems to be Kubrick's most optimistic film.
But Kubrick, even at his most optimistic, is staunchly realistic. Both
Kubrick and Niebuhr agree that essentially optimistic views of human
progress are untenable. Human reason and technology make possible significant achievements, but even the constructive use of technology is not the
basis of our hope.
Well, perhaps we were mistaken to ignore the links between the use of
technology for aggression and its use for space travel. Perhaps we were
blind to the devitalizing consequences of our assimilation to machines. Perhaps there i yet hope if we redirect our technology from the control of machines to the control of human beings. Whether there is any hope in this
redeployment and reorientation is the concern of Kubrick's next film.
Technology of Behavior and Society
If neither technology of national defense nor technology of space travel
is the deliverer, perhaps it is technology of behavior and society to which we
should turn. Rather than exaggerate human dignity and freedom, perhaps
we need, as B. F. Skinner has recently urged, to give up these platitudes in
favor of a technology of human behavior and social engineering. What do
Kubrick and Niebuhr have to say about this proposal?
Clockwork Orange explores the application of technology to behavior.
In 2001 technology affects behavior; in Clockwork Orange it is applied to
behavior. Kubrick, unlike Skinner, is not at all enthused by the prospect.
Kubrick's gloomy vision is of a future society in which we experience an
increase of technological control and a decrease of community.
In certain respects, the cultural ambience of Clockwork Orange is an
improvement over our present technological society. But, in general, this
technological development does not satisfy the human spirit. It seems to
be out of boredom that the aggressive spirit is formed in Clockwork Orange.
And aggressiveness is the name of the game for Alex and his droogs
(buddies). They beat up a hobo, fight with another gang, fight among
themselves, and they cripple a writer and kill his wife. But when they attack the "cat lady" Alex is caught. He is jailed, and he volunteers for a
new conditioning technique in the hope of early release. The conditioning
technique makes him nauseous in the presence of violence. Unfortunately,

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the music of his beloved Ludwig von Beethoven is playing as background

music in the conditioning films, and he has aversive reaction to the music
also.
When he is pronounced "cured" and released, Alex begins a reverse
route. The hobo whom he beat up earlier now turns on Alex. The police
who come to his rescue are his former droogs, who revenge his earlier violence on them. He ends up at the home of the writer whom he had attacked
earlier. At first, the writer just sees in Alex an opportunity to embarrass
the government which supported this conditioning technique. But when he
hears Alex singing, he recognizes him as his" earlier assailant. He then tries
to get revenge by driving Alex to suicide, and almost succeeds.
A Clockwork Orange puts our hope to the test. After all, there is an
element of novelty, perhaps even of charm, in identifying with HAL the
computer. But why are we drawn to Alex, who is senselessly vicious? Even
when he likes the "right things" (such as Beethoven or the Bible), Alex likes
them for the "wrong reasons" (sex and violence).
I do not find Alex a likeable character, and I do not think he is intended to be likeable. I cannot admire his life style. The things he prides
himself on are signs of decadence rather than achievements, from my point
of view. The senselessness and violence of Alex's behavior is not, however,
gratuitous. It is intentionally heinous. And so, when we see society's response for constraining such misfits, we are able to say that as terrible as
Alex's violence may be, the violence done to him is even worse.
Hans Feldmann employs Freudian categories to exposit a juxtaposition
that runs through A Clockwork Orange.
The popular son "Singin' in the Rain," for example, is a sentimental,
sublimated expression of the same urge that is compelling Alex to the act
he commits while singing it. Beethoven's music is a "higher" expression
of the same instinctual compulsions, and when Alex attacks the healthspa proprietress with the sculpture of a phallus, she counters by swinging
a bust of the great composer at him. Political activity is also no more
than the sublimated urge to overpower all that is outside the id. The final
scene of the movie, in which the government minister attempts to win
Alex's endorsement and frees him to the strains of Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony, is perhaps overly contrived in its symbolism: the minister is
metaphorically feeding his id as he is literally feeding Alex. Yet Malcolm
McCowell's (sic) chewing performance in the scene projects all the libidinal energy that is Alex's vital characteristic and that somehow marks him
as the healthiest individual in the movie.17
17. Hans Feldmann, "Kubrick and His Discontents," Farn Quarterly, XXX, No. 1 (Fall,
1976), 16.

The Cris of technology and the Basis of Hope

53

But why not sublimate? Is the conditioned behavior and state of Alex
really all that bad, especially in comparison with the uninhibited alternatives? This is a common response and a fair question.18 But I think that it
misses Kubrick's point. He is not advocating a world without restraints.
His point, to continue with Feldmann's Freudian analysis, is that the forms
of society are devised to control the impulses of the id. When a society
fails to exercise this control effectively, it is declining. So where does Alex
come in? "Alex is thus the chief manifestation of a collapsing civilization,
as well as the chief threat to the continued viability of his culture's claim
to meaningful forms."19 Moreover, Kubrick "also perceives that Alex embodies the libidinal energy which will drive the faltering human spirit
through the collapse of that civilization."'0 And that, Feldmann argues, is
why we feel sympathy for Alex.
Way back in 1932 Niebuhr published Moral Man and Immoral Society.21 Niebuhr authorized a reissue in 1960, reaffirming the central thesis,
despite the datedness of the details. That thesis is clearly stated in the "Introduction." Niebuhr defends the position "that a sharp distinction must
be drawn between the moral and social behavior of individuals and of social
groups, national, racial, and economic; and that this distinction justifies and
necessitates political policies which a purely individualistic ethic must always find embarrassing."22 "Moral Man and Immoral Society" may oversimplify the distinction, but it states the case that "individual men may be
moral in the sense that they are able to consider interests other than their
own in determining problems of conduct, and are capable, on occasion, of
preferring the advantages of others to their own."23 In groups, on the other
hand, "there is less reason to guide and to check impulse, less capacity for
self-transcendence, less ability to comprehend the needs of others and therefore more unrestrained egoism than the individuals, who compose the group,
reveal in their personal relationships."24 Such is the thesis that Niebuhr
elaborates and defends.
One elaborating statement from the "Introduction" is particularly pertinent to dialogue with Kubrick's Clockwork Orange.
18. Cf. Pauline Kael's review of Clockwork Orange in The New Yorker, Jan. 1, 1972; reprinted in Pauline Kael, Deeper Into Movies (Boston: Little, Brown), pp. 373-378.
19. Feldman, "Kubrick and His Discontents," p. 16.
20. Ibid.
21. Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Charles Scribner's Dond, 1932,
renewed 1960). Niebuhr's dialogue was with the social philosophy of John Dewey, rather than
B. F. Skinner.
22. Ibid., p. xi.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid., pp. xi-xii.

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54

The most persistent error of modern educators and moralists is the

assumption that our social difficulties are due to the failure of the social
sciences to keep pace with the physical sciences which have created our
technological civilization. The invariable implication of this assumption
is that, with a little more time, a little more adequate moral and social
pedagogy and a generally higher development of human intelligence, our
social problems will approach solution.26
Niebuhr notes that "a realistic analysis" of our life together "reveals
a constant and seemingly irreconcilable conflict between the needs of society
and the imperatives of a sensitive conscience.""0 This inevitable conflict
stems from the double focus of the moral life upon the social and personal
or individual dimensions. "From the perspective of the individual the highest ideal is unselfishness."27 In its quest for justice, society may employ
methods of control that cannot merit or gain the sanction of the individual.
The claims and moral perspectives of the society and the individual are not
mutually exclusive, but they are difficult to harmonize.28
Whereas Niebuhr deals with the complexity of cultivating the highest
possible attainment of individual unselfishness and social justice, Kubrick
explores the breakdown of this complex goal. The result is that individuals
are motivated by selfish goals and desires and society has taken social order
rather than social justice as the criterion of social policywith the rehabilitation of criminals as the key case in point.
Kubrick and Niebuhr both attack the idea that technology is our deliverer, although they employ different tactics in their critique. Niebuhr
pulls back to get things in perspective and thereby exposes the lack of reality
present in the dream of technological progress. It not only hasn't worked;
it can't. Kubrick imaginatively pushes ahead, and by so doing he reveals
the nightmare that is latent in the dream of technological progress. It not
only has not worked; it can backfire.
If we reject the hope in technology as presumptuous, it does not necessarily follow that we must lapse into despair. But we must certainly look
elsewhere for hope. If there be any hope, Kubrick and Niebuhr are convinced that we must look somewhere other than technology, regardless of
whether it be employed for national defense, space exploration, or social
control.
The Desired Situation
In popular culture, what are we looking for when the threat has been
25.
26.
27.
28.

Ibid., p. xiii.
Ibid., p. 257.
Ibid.
Ibid., cf. chap. 9.

The Crisis of Technology and the Basis of Hope

55

removed? The family, or its extensions, are marked by stability, and

orderliness.
Kubrick critiques two traditions of order, viz., the order produced by
the submission of all things to the control of reason and the order produced
by allowing the dynamic powers of life to operate uninhibited or unconstrained by reason or any other controlling force.
In the two most recent Kubrick movies there is a failure of the family,
which is the traditional hope of popular culture. In Barry Lyndon (1975),
Redmond Barry would have married for love, but he was pre-empted by a
marriage of convenience. When he marries Lady Lyndon, he is engaging
in a marriage of convenience. He shows his lack of respect on the way home
from the wedding by responding to her complaint about his pipe by blowing
smoke in her face. It is when he is seen dallying with the maid by Lady
Lyndon and her son Lord Bullingdon that his conflict with Lord Bullingdon
begins. It is heightened when Barry Lyndon and his wife have their own
child, whom Barry Lyndon spoils. The child is killed when thrown from a
horse which he has begged from his indulgent father. The family is not a
place of support but of conflict and tragedy.
In The Shining (1980) we see, again, the breakdown of the family. A
previous caretaker of the hotel had succumbed to cabin fever and had
chopped his two daughters with an ax, then murdered his wife and finally
shot his own brains out. We learn that at an earlier point Jack Torrance, in
a fit of violence, had grabbed his son and dislocated his shoulder. The boy
is traumatized with the fear that he and his mother will be the victims of
Jack's crazed rage. And this is just the foreshadowing. The family is not
a realm of love and relationship, but of frustration and rage.
The Way or Path to Follow
In discussing the "Way" toward the goal in the creed of popular culture,
Nelson notes that the dominant belief system expresses salvation in terms
of some sort of community, but that there is often joined with this a secondary system which "focuses upon a particular image of humanity as the
fulfillment of the individual. The fulfilled individual is able to control
social situations through mental and physical preparedness."20 He mentions
such popular heroes as Bogart and Wayne who are "ready" for any situation.
Kubrick's last two movies focus upon the issue of the secondary belief
system. But he does not start with an exploration of the macho type of
humanity. Kubrick instead looks back to an era which had a more cerebral
image of humanity, the age of reason. Barry Lyndon is set in the age of
29. Nelson, Your God is Alive and Well, p. 24.

56

Encounter

reason. And in his next movie, The Shining, Kubrick explores an irrational,
or perhaps we should say extrarational life style. Barry Lyndon asks:
What is the power and virtue of reason? And The Shining asks: What is
the power and virtue of "the shining" (beyond reason)?
The age of reason gave people rituals, codes, ranks, and so forth. But
as Redmond Barry found to his surprise and dismay, it was a world of form
without substance. He gave himself to what was generally acknowledged
to be the road to dignity and fulfillment, and it lead him to disaster and ruin.
The experience of living does not improve Redmond Barry. Rather,
it weakens and then defeats him. There is a change in his station, but not in
his nature. And it is the very qualities, along with fortune, which account
for his rise that later, along with his inability to inhibit his emotions, which
bring about his downfall. In Part One, a nobody becomes a somebody. In
Part Two, the somebody becomes a nobody. Like Alex, the events on the
way up are paralleled by those on the way down. For example, on the way
up he becomes an enforcer to make people pay their debts; on the way down,
he tris to avoid paying his own debts. But the final state is not just a return. He is worse off than before, lonely and defeated.
Redmond Barry was not corrupted by his low birth, but by high society. He had no principles of his own, and so he accepted those of his
society. He rose and fell on the basis of its values.
There was a general appreciation of the beauty of the photography of
this film, but it was often added that the film lacked substance. For example,
in her New Yorker review, Pauline Koel said of Lady Lyndon that "her hairdos change more often than her expressions." She means that as a putdown, but it may be a clue to the theme. Wigs, rouge, powder, beauty spots,
etc., are all surface. Civilized society is a veneer covering a depth which is
vicious. The duel is conducted in an orderly and civilized fashion, but it
covers over seething disorder. Lord Bullingdon diligently observes the
amenities, but he cannot control or conceal his emetic reaction.
Kubrick presents a beautiful nature as the setting for an ugly society.
The traditional movement from establishing shot to close shot is reversed in
order to submerge people in their natural environment. As the epilogue
calls to our attention, all of these people are equal now. The transience of
life has swept away all the matters which obsessed and consumed them.
If we are brutal, weak, silly, selfish creatures, covered over with a
veneer of reason, what if we exchanged a rational life style for one that
would seek to develop in terms of our vital powers? Would this lead to
self-fulfillment?
After the box office failure of Barry Lyndon, Kubrick had to have a

The Crisis of Technology and the Basis of Hope

57

commercial success in his next film. So in the period from 1975 to 1980
he worked for over three years on a film version of The Shining9 a gothic
thriller by Stephen King. And yet, there may have been more than sensationalism that attracted Kubrick to this property. Even though responding
to commercial pressures, he has not forsaken his own artistic line of inquiryhe explores the rational and then the extrarational. Nor has he
forsaken his style. The Shining is a horror film, but it is not gimmicky and
it has a definite Kubrick touch.
Actually, far from producing a commercially viable pot-boiler, Kubrick has done his own thing. In doing so, he may have slighted the commercial demands. The critical reviews are certainly mixed, but tend toward the negative. The initial box office response was strong, but not
spectacular.
The world that Kubrick creates here is the Overlook Hotel in the mountains of Colorado. Surprisingly, this was created entirely on the sound
stage, and not on location. There is a beauty to its elegant decor and its
grandeur. And yet we, like Jack Torrance and his family, feel like aliens
in it to an even greater extent than the astronauts of 2001 felt out of their
element. And the effective use of the steadicam for wide-angle tracking
and dollying shots draws us into this cavernous and threatening environment.
And our mood is intensified by the music of Penderecki, Ligeti and Bartok
on the soundtrack.
There are two people who have the gift of "the shining" or of extrarational and extra-sensory powers. One is Danny, the young son of the
Torrance family who are going to be caretakers in the hotel while it is shut
down for the winter. The other is Dick Hallorann, the head chef. In both,
the power of the shining is benevolent, and yet basically impotent to prevent
the horror it foresees from unfolding. Indeed, poor Danny is forced to experience both the horrors of the past and the impending threat of the present.
The horror includes the' irrational, but Kubrick subordinates that dimension to the personal.
The real horror of the film is expressed in Torrance's frustration. No
blood vision or demon lover or putrefying corpse is as frightening as the
moment when Wendy looks at the writing that Jack has supposedly been
working on and finds that it consists of reams of paper with the single
sentence, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," repeated in endless typographic variations.30
In Kubrick's vision, there is an evil dimension of human nature that is easily
30. Kroll, "Stanley Kubrick's Horror Show," Newsweek, May 26, 1980, p. 97.

58

Encounter

tempted to evil, but that cannot easily be controlled by the exercise of reason
nor transcended by the uninhibited sway of the vital forces of life.
We find in Niebuhr a diagnosis which is basically similar to that of
Kubrick. Both are realistic, rather than idealistic about human nature. In
Niebuhr we also find a cure. In responding to the question of where we
want to get and how we can get there, Niebuhr calls for "The Unity of Vitality and Reason."31 In Barry Lyndon, Kubrick has presented a world in
which the vital is repressed by the rational. In The Shining, Kubrick has
presented a world in which the vital is unconstrained by the rational. Niebuhr calls for a unity of the vital and the rational. The situation for which
we hope cannot be purely rational, nor purely vital. To tell the truth, no
human community in which we live can be a product of one of these alone.
No human community is, in short, a simple construction of conscience
or reason. All communities are more or less stable or precarious harmonies of human vital capacities. They are governed by power. The
power which determines the quality of the order and harmony is not merely
the coercive and organizing power of government. That is only one of
the two aspects of social power. The other is the balance of vitalities and
forces in any given social situation. These two elements of communal
lifethe central organizing principle and power and the equilibrium of
powerare essential and perennial aspects of community organization;
and no moral or social advance can redeem society from its dependence
upon these two principles.82
So these are the two principles with which we must work and on which we
must base our hope. But "the organizing principle and power may easily
degenerate into tyranny" and "the principle of the balance of power is always pregnant with the possibility of anarchy."3" And so these are proxi*
mate, and not ultimate, grounds of hope. Our hope is not in our own ability
to resolve our dilemma, nor in our organizing principle and balaneing
power. Indeed, efforts to solve things by our own resources only introduce
evil.84 Our ultimate hope is in the grace of God, and in the divine consummation of life and history in judgment and mercy.
According to Niebuhr, it is folly to hope for an inherent force in history or to hope for our own innate resources to provide the way to the goal
we hope for. We have a hope which is for something beyond history, and
which yet fulfills rather than negates our history.
The paragraph with which Niebuhr closes The Nature and Destiny of
Man, II, is also appropriate as a way to close this section:
31.
32.
33.
34.

Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, II, 258-260.

Ibid., pp. 257-258.
Ibid., p. 258.
Ibid., p. 287.

The Crisis of Technology and the Basis of Hope

59

Thus wisdom about our destiny is dependent upon a humble recognition of the limits of our knowledge and our power. Our most reliable
understanding is the fruit of "grace" in which faith completes our ignorance without pretending to possess its certainties as knowledge; and in
which contrition mitigates our pride without destroying our hope. 85

Conclusion
If we look to more recent theological work than that of Reinhold Nie
buhr to deal with issues raised in this paper, where do we turn? Theology
of hope has the right sound to it. However, although it has much to teach us,
it is not the definitive treatment. Moltmann has remarked that his theology
relates eschatology to history whereas that of Teilhard de Chardin relates
eschatology to nature. As Walter H. Capps observes, in the contemporary
context in which environmental questions loom larger, the theology of hope
is better qualified to deal with the socio-political aspects of creating the new
age than it is to deal with the ecological^environmental aspects.36
Theology of hope is not the only theological resource for dealing with
hope. The Conference on Hope and the Future of Man, held in New York
City, October 8-10, 1971, assembled representatives from three theological
traditions that have had a special concern for the futureContinental theology of Hope, American process theology, and Teilhardian theology.87
But what we can learn from all of the systems of theology and all of
the interpretations of our crisis is that Christian hope and optimism are not
to be identified. Optimism is the belief that the projection for the future
is favorable. The current prognosis is not good. But we live in hope, and
not in optimism. The crisis of technology is a crisis for optimism but it
does not undermine the basis of hope.
35. Ibid., p. 321.
36. Walter H. Capps, Time Invades the Cathedral (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), p. 137.
37. Much of this conference is available in the book Hope and the Future of Man, ed, by
Ewert H. Cousins (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972).

^ s
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