A Comparison of a Heidegger and McLuhan on the Relation Between Humans and Technology

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A Comparison of a Heidegger and McLuhan on the Relation between Humans and Technology
Introduction
The inception of modern technologies and technological platforms has played an influential role in fueling the advancement of e-commerce and the way people interact in the world of business. However, the impacts of these developments have not only been felt in the scope of business but also in other areas of human development such as social interactions. However, the existing technological media call for inclusion of proper laws and regulatory frameworks to ensure functional effectiveness. Marshall McLuhan considers enhancement, obsolescence, reversal, and retrieval as the four laws governing the operational effectiveness of the media as a form of technology. The law of enhancement makes it a requirement that for efficiency, any form of technology needs to extend and/or amplify the user’s faculty. The law of obsolescence reveals that when one aspect of experience undergoes higher levels of development and intensification, there are tendencies that another area will be diminished. On the other hand, the law of reversal reveals that every form of technology is highly capable of reversing its attributes in instances where it is pushed to the extremes of its operational confines. Lastly, the law of retrieval reveals that the composition of any technological medium is a replica of other media that existed in previous occasions. Based on McLuhan’s perspective, the current electronic media technologies play an essential role in compelling people’s commitments and participations to the remedies of their actions. Therefore, people are faced with the difficulty of working as unconnected entities in the current technological world.
Comparatively, Martin Heidegger upholds the ideology that the underlying roles of technology and technological platforms should not be considered to be “technological”. He reveals that instead, the essence of technology needs to be considered as “an essential reflection upon technology and a decisive confrontation, happening in the realm of art” (Heidegger, ). Therefore, based on Heidegger’s point of view, there are tendencies that people will enhance their capabilities of sharing the true meaning of technology through adoption of frameworks that allow for contemplating over the underlying essence of varied media. The current study seeks to undertake a critical comparative analysis of the ideologies put forth by Heidegger and McLuhan on the relation between humans and technology. Therefore, the paper analyzes how the two scholars view the essence and explanations of technology, the other aspects of human existence that Heidegger relates to his way of questioning about technology. The paper will also analyze what McLuhan means when he says, “the medium is the message,” and the ways through which technology plays a role in changing the sensory-perceptual and social aspects of human beings based on the perspectives of McLuhan.
Differences between Heidegger’s Question on the Essence of Technology as a Means to an End and a Human Activity
Heidegger and McLuhan depict multiple differences on the essence of technology. While Heidegger upholds the ideology that technology changes human relations; McLuhan upholds the view that such novelties only change the pace and patterns of human ties. Heidegger reveals that technology needs not to be considered as an end but as a means to the desired end. In his opinion, Heidegger states that technological platforms are meant to prepare people for the purposes of creating a free relationship to the underlying novelties. Considering the fact that “the essence of technology is by no means anything technological” (Heidegger 4), Heidegger takes his scholarly works as an avenue of explaining that all forms of media as well as their underlying novelties are essential realms of art. This explains why the philosopher deviates from the conventional description of technology to adopt the ideology that proper questioning of media novelties is the only way an individual would ensure that he is well prepared to present the truth. The scholar demystifies that as “long as we represent technology as an instrument, we remain held fast in the will to master it. We press on past the essence of technology. When, however, we ask how the instrumental comes to presence as a kind of causality, then we experience this coming to presence as the destining of a revealing” (Heidegger 32-3).
In the viewpoints of Heidegger, the underlying role of media technology needs not to be considered as instrumental or technological. On the contrary, Heidegger demystifies that technology should only be considered as a tool of ordered revealing that enjoys higher levels of independence from human actions. Consequently, the relationship that is established between humans and technology is not based on the ways through which the desired end is made or manipulated but rather on the effectiveness of these entities in sharing the revelation. The philosopher reveals, “Since man drives technology forward, he takes part in ordering as a way of revealing. But the unco...