“Technologically man is a giant, morally a pygmy” Discuss.
‘Man does not live by bread alone. This is a popular maxim. If a man does not live by bread alone, what else does he need to make him live a man? That is the crux of the discussion.
Who is a giant? Literally giant is a person of huge physical proportions and extraordinary powers and strength. Fables say that there were such persons having the strength of hundreds of men. Thus Hercules was a famous epic figure with immeasurable strength that he could lift a mountain on his shoulders. Swift speaks of such giants of Brobdingnag in his ‘Gullivers Travels’. Children’s stories are very often replete with the exploits of giants.
Now, how is technology a giant? Well just look at the super fortresses going at supersonic speed and carrying hundreds of passengers? Consider the giant powerhouses producing millions and millions of watts of power. Even the earthmover, the tractor, the excavators, and so on are all instances of a mechanical giant. Modern production depends on these mechanical giants.
The knowledge and possession of these machines have made man a giant indeed. Technology is the off-shoot of applied science and with technology, man today commands limitless power. Otherwise, how can mango and land on the moon? The power behind the Apollo Spacecrafts is something stupendous and breathtaking. Man is adding to his power by a very large measure to the extent that humanity is afraid and apprehensive of the future because of the technological man.
Man has grown technologically, but not grown in his moral stature. That is really lamentable. To be moral is to be concerned with right and wrong conduct or duty to one’s neighbor and to conform to conscience if not the law in the matter of practicing virtue. The man stands apart from other creatures, not because of appearance or strength or beauty but because he is moral and hence spiritual. The man knows his duty to others and in his evolution from primitive nature into what he is today he has grown morally. Various institutions are in existence and do
function because they are basically moral and conform to the moral code. When the dictum says ‘Thou shall not steal or covet another’s wife’ it is morality that is involved. All the religions of the world enjoin on man this conduct.
The Sum and Substance of the Sermon on the Mount is nothing but a directive for moral conduct. Every language of the world has some books or others prescribing moral conduct. But, does man heed to them? What do we see around us today? Have we grown wiser and saner? Has the past history taught us the right behavior? When one considers questions like this one is forced to face the sorrowful conclusion that man continues to be barbarous. Two great wars were fought in the course of this century, still, man has not given up warring. Look at Southwest, Asia. Where the world is almost sitting on a powder keg and the smoke there can develop into a huge conflagration and consume all that are very near and dear, One will simply shudder to think of such a possibility. What does all this mean? Man is a pygmy morally.
The Pygmy is the shortest of human beings and pygmies live in Equatorial Africa. Just as a pygmy is short in physical stature, so too is a man in moral stature. The more one looks at the contemporary world and how governments and, individuals behave, one will agree with the wisecrack who said, “that the apes might one day disown man as being their successors”. To win physical power over nature’s forces, man has lost Heaven, and morally the degeneration has set in and the Promised Land appears to be far, far away. With the degeneration in morality, all the institutions that man has striven to build in the course of several centuries would be lost in the morasses of immorality. The world should realize that man does not live by bread alone. Once he loses his soul all his achievements will be like jewelry on a dead body.
