«We have succeeded in making enormous progress in medicine, chemistry, physics, technology and information technology, in almost all the fields in which we commit ourselves to. The only field in which it seems to me that we have not made progress is the ethical one. Perhaps it is because we are not committed». The relationship between technology and ethics is the focus of Gino Strada’s speech in front of the Campus Party audience today, July 26. The problem, “is that we believe that ethics is a piece of furniture, instead it is the foundation of our way of living together. We can be hyperconnected, but if there is no ethics that connection is useless“.
The founder of Emergency clarifies: I am a surgeon, not a specialist. Try to avoid sociological, political and economic analyzes. But in fact, then he talks about it, always starting from his field experience, which among other things (he tells) is in turn born of a concrete experience: “Emergency was born from one encounter with war victim 30 years ago, when I was a working as a surgeon for the Red Cross”.
“When I say ethics, the first place is the way we see, practice and imagine our being together. How can we continue to tolerate the existence of war among ourselves on our planet despite the evidence that war can only mean evil? It is stupid, cruel, and uneconomical. It is a boomerang, it is not only a homicidal thing but also a suicidal madness”. And, as if that were not enough, in addition to waging war between us, we also make it to our habitat, and “a species that behaves like this is destined for extinction”.
Attention: Gino Strada is not a pessimist, indeed. The problem to be faced, especially by young people, is “how to transform the dream into a project”. So, how can we actually turn into reality what is written in the Italian Constitution (Italy repudiates war), rather than in the Declaration of Human Rights? Continuing to reiterate it, Gino Strada says: «in this global village I am convinced that the majority of the inhabitants do not even want to hear about the war. But the rulers do the same. And how do you make them understand that citizens think differently? It would be a nice step forward”.
The technology, he continues, serves to communicate in real time and we can all know what is happening on the other side of the world, even in great detail. And then, he asks himself, “why can’t we let the presidents know that 99.98% of its citizens are against war?” The speech, admits Strada himself, is actually complex. He quotes a sentence from Einstein (“we have built the atomic bomb, but a mouse would never build a mouse trap”) to emphasize the depth of the subject (not only related to war, but to the relationship between technology and ethics).
The rejection, without appeal, goes to politics, to the ruling classes, and to intellectuals who, evidently, fail to be effective. On the other side of the scale, the strength of the ideas of the citizens of the world. “When we spend years in conflict situations, we necessarily ask ourselves questions. And it turns out that there are also answers. The answer for us was to deeply understand the absurdity, the falsity, the nonsense of the war. And this reflection has led us to understand how to do our job better “. Now, we should try to understand “why nonsense is becoming the current policy”.
