Technical Imperative Analysis

Dangers of The Technical Imperative

In Comparative Religious Ethics, Darrell Fasching, Dell Dechant, and David M. Lantigua propose the innate danger of the technical imperative to the human race. In recent history, the most significant example of the “technical imperative” has been evident in the construction and use of the atomic bomb. According to the authors of Comparative Religious Ethics, the technical imperative is the idea that “if it can be done it must be done” (Fasching 46). The use of technical imperative in relation to the atomic bomb in World War II creates both a sense of inevitability for the bomb’s use and a lack of agency and responsibility for the men creating the bomb. The idea of the technical imperative creates a
John Kinsella struggles to find rational meaning to the voice in his head, asking questions about who it is and why it’s talking to him. John only truly find peace when he lets go of these questions at the end of the movie and accepts that his white knuckle approach to answering all of his questions is useless. John allows Terrance Mann to follow the baseball players alone and stays with his family, only receiving the the true reward of his experience in meeting his dad after he stops rationalizing and thinking about what the voice means. The voice that speaks to John is the living embodiment of the numinous, inspiring awe, energy and fascination in John. The voice leads John seemingly against his will initially and causes him to act in a way that seems irrational, but is in fact non-rational. John almost lets his farm slip away and seems completely insane to his brother-in-law Mark; his problems stem from attempting to rationalize something that is, by definition, outside of rational thought. When John fully accepts the non-rational aspect of the wholly other that is speaking to him and plays catch with his problem rather than pressing the voice for answers, all of his problems are solved. Field of Dreams is a story about accepting and truly understanding the numinous. The very definition of the numinous in relation to human understanding is that it cannot be understood, it is non-rational. According to Field of Dreams the only way to fully understand the numinous is to acknowledge that you cannot understand