"Humanist Among Machines": Arnold J. Toynbee, Technology, and the Humanities

Over at Aeon, a British-based online magazine, Stanford historian Ian P. Beacock offers his take on scholars today might take from the legacy of Arnold J. Toynbee–namely, an anthropologist's curiosity towards the world outside of the ivory tower and a dispassionate, critical attitude towards the application of technology towards the humanities. "We're optimistic," writes Beacock,

that scientific thinking can explain the world, certain that the solutions to most of our problems are a quick technological fix away. We've begun to treat vexing social and political dilemmas as simple design flaws, mistakes to be rectified through a technocratic combination of data science and gadgetry. Progress is no longer a dirty word. The most influential prophets of this creed are in Silicon Valley in California, where, to the tune of billions of dollars, the tech industry tells a Whiggish tale about the digital ascent of humanity: from our benighted times, we'll emerge into a brighter future, a happier and more open society in which everything has been measured and engineered into a state of perfect efficiency.

And we're buying it. We're eager to optimise our workouts, our sleep patterns, our pregnancies, our policing tactics, our taxi services, and our airline pilots. Even the academy is intrigued. From spatial history to the neurohumanities, digital methods are the rage. Lecture halls have been targeted for disruption by massive open online courses (MOOCs). Sometimes it seems as though there's little that can't be explained by scientific thinking or improved upon through digital innovation.

What are the humanities for at such moments, when we're so sure of ourselves and our capacity to remake the world? Toynbee wrestled with this question for decades. He was as curious as anyone about the latest discoveries and innovations, but he rejected the notion that science could explain or improve everything. And his thoughtful criticism of technology reminds us that poets and historians, artists and scholars must be proud, vocal champions of the humanities as a moral project – especially at moments of breakneck scientific progress. Fluent in the language of crisis and decline, casting about for ways to defend ourselves, today's humanists could use a little inspiration. We need our spines stiffened. Toynbee might be a man to do it.

Check out the full piece here, or, for more of Beacock's writing on the humanities, his website