Promethean gap

The Promethean gap (German: prometheisches Gefälle) is a concept concerning the relations of humans and technology and a growing "asynchronization" between them.[1] In popular formulations, the gap refers to an inability or incapacity of human faculties to imagine the effects of the technologies that humans produce, specifically the negative effects.[1] The concept originated with philosopher Günther Anders in the 1950s and for him, an extreme test case was the atomic bomb and its use at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, a symbol of the larger technology revolution that the 20th century was witnessing.[2] The gap has been extended to and understood within multiple variations – a gap between production and ideology; production and imagination; production and need; production and use; technology and the body; doing and imagining; and doing and feeling.[3][4][5][6] The gap can also be seen in areas such as law and in the actions of legislatures and policymakers.[7]

Various authors use different words to explain Gefälle, accordingly resulting in Promethean divide,[8] Promethean disjunction,[9] Promethean discrepancy,[10] Promethean gradient,[11] Promethean slope,[12] Promethean decline,[13] Promethean incline,[14] Promethean disparity,[15] Promethean lag,[14] and Promethean differential.[16]

Origin

Günther Anders (1902–1992), born in Germany and of Jewish descent, attempted to conceptualize the discrepancy between humans and technology based on his observations and hands-on experience as an émigré in the United States, and his general theoretical background in Marxist concepts such as substructure and superstructure.[17][18][19] In the United States, he did various jobs. He was a tutor, a factory worker, and even a Hollywood costume designer.[20] By the 1950s conceptualizing this discrepancy had become an important and pervasive part of his writings and would remain a feature of his work until his death.[18][21] In the 1980s he would go on to call his philosophy a philosophy of discrepancy (Diskrepanzphilosophie).[18][22]

The first published usage of the phrase was in the first volume of Andres's book The Outdatedness of Human Beings (German: Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen) published in the German language in 1956.[23] Gunther uses exaggeration when explaining the concept of the Promethean gap and the associated concepts of Promethean shame (and pride) and states that there is a necessity and urgency for the exaggeration. Human "blindness" amidst the increasing gradient demanded it. The aim then became to expand humans' capacity and ability to imagine.[24][25] In Burning Conscience (1961), letters between US airman Claude Eatherly and Gunther, Gunther writes,[26]

your task consists in bridging the gap that exists between your two faculties... to level off the incline... you have to violently widen the narrow capacity of your imagination (and the even narrower one of your feelings) until imagination and feeling become capable to grasp and to realize the enormity of your doings; until you are capable to seize and conceive, to accept or reject it—in short: your task is: to widen your moral fantasy.[27]

Gunther considered the service members of the US Army Air Forces unit 509th Composite Group, which conducted the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and of which Eatherly was a part, as an example of people affected by the Promethean gap.[28] Along with the atomic bombings, Auschwitz (representing the Holocaust) was an example from the same time period, both represented technology enabled conditions of large scale mechanized death, a new era which required conceptualizing as a basis of future prevention.[29] Gunther took these two examples of advances in civilization under the same umbrella of mechanization, taking note that the atomic bombings and Auschwitz differed in a key point of distance between the individuals involved which accordingly influenced his interaction with the atomic bombings.[30] An increasingly networked technologization is seeing increasing sophistication in all forms which our human faculties are unable to keep up with, we are "unable to imagine the things we make", an inversion of before.[31]

Prometheus
Prometheus carrying fire

The word "Promethean" has been taken from the Greek myth of Prometheus.[1] There are a number of stories attached to him along with variations of the stories.[32]

Prometheus, a Titan and a trickster, created primitive versions of humanity. He created them in the image of the Greek gods, however Zeus limited the powers of humanity. Following this, Prometheus tricked Zeus, at least twice. The first deception by Prometheus resulted in Zeus confiscating fire from humanity. Prometheus, in retaliation, stole fire from Mount Olympus and gave it back to humanity. When humanity flourished once again and Zeus saw that they had been given fire, he eternally punished Prometheus. Anders uses this story as symbolism, where the fire is modern technology and the eternal punishment given to Prometheus the negative consequences.[1]

The convergence of the variations in the story is the gift of fire. Through this gift, humanity can now play its own tricks, for both good or bad.[32] In variations of the story, Heracles unchains Prometheus,[1] and the story of Pandora and her jar follows.[33]

References

Citations and footnotes
  1. Fuchs 2021.
  2. Dawsey 2016, p. 146, 147, "In Obsolescence, Anders embedded the atomic bomb within his theory of the 'Promethean gap'. Not the A-bomb itself, but the broader course of mechanisation in the twentieth century had brought about this ominous cleft between industrial production and our imagination, emotions and sense of conscience. While not the original source of the discrepancy, the splitting of the atom and the new super-weapons resulting from it marked, in Anders' interpretation, a limit-case for the Gefälle".
  3. Fuchs 2021, "he ... terms the Promethean gap, an asynchronicity of humans and products. The Promethean gap entails gaps between the relations of production and ideology, production and imagination, doing and feeling, knowledge and conscience, the machine and the body ... production and needs ...".
  4. Dawsey 2016, p. 144, "The concept encompassed 'gaps' that had arisen (1) between 'making and imagining/representing'; (2) between 'doing and feeling'; (3) between 'knowledge and conscience'; (4) finally and above all, that 'between the produced instrument and the (not suited to the "body" of the instrument) body of the human being'.".
  5. Filk 2012, p. 9, "Die von Anders konstatierte A-synchronisiertheit des Menschen umfasst das Gefälle zwischen "Machen und Vorstellen", zwischen "Tun und Fühlen", zwischen "Wissen und Gewissen" sowie das Gefälle zwischen "produzierte[m] Gerät" und "Leib des Menschen" ..." (in German) DeepL Translator translation: The A-synchronizedness of the human being, as Anders states, comprises the between "doing and imagining", between "doing and feeling", between "knowledge and conscience" as well as the gap between the "produced "produced[m] device" and "body of man" ....
  6. Andres, The Obsolescence of Man 1956, p. 29, "das Gefälle zwischen Machen und Vorstellen; das zwischen Tun und Fühlen; das zwischen Wissen und Gewissen; und schließlich und vor allem das zwischen dem produzierten Gerät und dem (nicht auf den "Leib" des Geräts zugeschnittenen) Leib des Menschen". DeepL Translator translation: the difference between doing and imagining; that between doing and feeling; that between knowing and conscience; and finally, and above all, that between the produced device and the human body (which is not tailored to the "body" of the device); Andres, The Obsolescence of Man 1980, Introduction: The Three Industrial Revolutions (1979) § 3. Variations on the "Promethean Disjunction".
  7. Pardo 2021, p. 805, 806.
  8. Mayerhofer 2012.
  9. Hecker 2018; Andres, The Obsolescence of Man 1980.
  10. Schraube 2005; Costello 2014.
  11. Dawsey 2017, He later termed this gulf the "prometheische Gefälle" (Promethean gradient or Promethean gap) in The Obsolescence of Human Beings; Muller 2016, p. 12; Liessmann 2011, p. 126.
  12. Gagliardi 2017; Muller 2016, p. 12.
  13. Dijk 2000, p. 37.
  14. Toscano 2016, p. 19.
  15. Masullo 2019, p. 96.
  16. Müller 2021.
  17. Dawsey 2017, "Relying on his own experiences as a worker in the United States in the early 1940s and depending heavily on Marxist categories such as alienation and reification, he identified a growing gulf between the faculties of human beings and their modern technological creations".
  18. Dries 2012, p. 63.
  19. Skof 2011, p. 25, "Anders vermerkte, dass das Gefälle im Marxismus lediglich, zwischen den zwei Etagen "Unterbau" und "Überbau' angedeutet wurde. Es gibt noch weitere Gefälle, die bei Anders Untersuchung eine Rolle spielten" DeepL Translator translation: Anders noted that the gradient in Marxism was merely implied between the two floors "substructure" and "superstructure". There are other gradients that played a role in Anders' investigation.
  20. Dries 2012, p. 61, 62, "Im amerikanischen Exil, wo Anders als Hauslehrer, Fabrikarbeiter und in einem Kostümfundus in Hollywood seinen Lebensunterhalt mit diversen 'odd jobs' verdienen musste, brachen diese Lebensbedingungen unsanft in die philosophische Analyse" DeepL Translator translation: In American exile, where Anders had to earn his living with various "odd jobs" as a home teacher, factory worker and in a costume factory in Hollywood, these living conditions broke rudely into the philosophical analysis..
  21. Schraube 2005, p. 80, 81, "All of Anders’ writings after 1945 can be seen as variations on the theme of the 'Promethean discrepancy'".
  22. Müller 2016, p. 12.
  23. Dawsey 2017.
  24. Müller 2016, p. 15.
  25. Munster & Sylvest 2019, p. 10, 11, "Anders devised a style and method that could serve as shock therapy. Witnessing the proverbial frog in the slowly warming pot, Anders determined that soft-spoken warnings and wringing hands simply would not do. The result was his philosophy of exaggeration".
  26. Toscano 2016, p. 15-22, "the concepts he generated to explain our blindness in the face of impending... technological conditions of its own annihilation [...] "Commandments in the Atomic Age" where Andres writes of "the effect of the daily growing gap between our two faculties... to-day the capacity of out imagination...cannot compete with that of out praxis [...] your task consists...".
  27. Anders & Eatherly 1961, p. 13.
  28. Harrington 2020.
  29. Dawsey 2016, p. 144-147.
  30. Liessmann 2011, p. 127, "He regarded this not as singular barbarism, but as a specific expression of the civilizational development of the modern age. For this reason he was one of the few who considered Auschwitz and Hiroshima – for all their differences – within a single context".
  31. Liessmann 2011, p. 126-129, " '...To this extent we are inverted Utopians: whereas Utopians are unable to make the things they imagine, we are unable to imagine the things we make.' The perfectibility of technical equipment increasingly exceeds the cognitive and emotional potential of man... Man has to subordinate himself to the needs of technology".
  32. Müller 2016, p. 1.
  33. Conboy 2019.

Works cited
Primary sources
  • Anders, Günther (1956). Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen. Verlag C.H.Beck. ISBN 978-3-406-72316-2.
  • Anders, Günther; Eatherly, Claude (1961). Burning Conscience [Off Limits Für Das Gewissen]. Monthly Review Press (American edition). Original German edition Rowohlt Verlag. LCCN 62-15160.
  • Anders, Günther (2014) [1980]. The Obsolescence of Man. Vol. 2. Translated by Pérez, Josep Monter – via libcom.org. Translated in June–December 2014 from the Spanish translation: Günther Anders, La Obsolescencia del Hombre (Vol. II) Sobre la destrucción de la vida en la época de la tercera revolución industrial, tr. Josep Monter Pérez, Pre-Textos, Valencia, 2011. Originally published under the title: Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen II
Others
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