Varför vara "negativ"?

I ett teknofilt samhälle som fortfarande genomsyras av fantasigrundad framstegstro, är det inte svårt att bli anklagad för att vara "negativ". Nej, "positiv" ska man vara! Särskilt till uppfinningar, nyheter och förändringar. Och helst inte till det som kanske hotas av allt nytt. För många blir det därför lite vagt upprörande om man, som jag ofta gör, hävdar att en sådan trosviss inställning långsiktigt är direkt destruktiv. Få har formulerat vikten av att vara negaiv, mitt bland alla positiva, bättre än Hans Jonas i boken The Imperative of Responsibility från 1984 (den engelska utgåvan):

The 'technological imperative' [...] is indeed unquestionable in its anthropological primacy and integral to the human condition. But it needs no advocates in the Western world [...]: intoxication has taken its place. As things are with us, the technological drive takes care of itself -- no less through the pressures of its self-created necessities than through the lure of its promises, the short-term rewards of each step, and not least through its feedback-coupling with the progress of science. [...] In the headlong rush, the perils of excess become uppermost. This necessitates an ethical emphasis which, we hope, is as temporary as the condition it has to countreract. But there is also a timeless precedence of 'thou shalt not' over 'thou shalt' in ethics. Warning off from evil has always [...] been more urgent and peremptory than the positive 'thou shalt´with its disputable concepts of moral perfection. To keep free of guilt comes first in moral duties, the more so when the temptations to guilt become more powerful."

/Per