In today’s modern, everyday world, humans have been spoiled by technology. An excellent example of our spoilage can be found in the average young adult in the United States. This young adult does not deal with the horrors of what an industrial society has produced, like nuclear bombs. This young adult takes for granted everything the industrial society has constructed for them. So much has become mass produced, generalized, and packaged so prettily for us that self-identity and knowledge through experience has been seemingly lost. This idea is epitomized in the concept of Google. We type in just a few words and expect to have hundreds of thousands of pages of information pop up, numbered, ranked by the percent likelihood of a match, color-coded by keyword, and hyperlinks available, all within 0.13 seconds. By skipping the hands-on experience and cutting corners, we are missing the opportunity to enrich our lives. This predicament is further exuberated because this generation knows nothing different. We need someone to point out how there is something wrong, something lacking, in our lives. If this is not pointed out and a solution personally sought after, one can expect consequences. Our obsession with technology created through the industrial spirit will lead to our demise.

According to Tillich, man has created a problem for himself that originated from the spirit of the industry. In theory, “man is supposed to be the master of his world and of himself” (46). In practice, however, man has traveled beyond this objective and instead has made himself a mere “object among objects” in his world. As a result, man has reached a stage of “emptiness and meaninglessness, of dehumanization and estrangement” (46) leading to his eventual downfall. In short, the spirit of the industry has carried man to where he wanted to end, and then beyond into a territory of things. Things that, because of the industrial society, are over-productive. For example, what started as a crude bomb developed into an effective tool in war. If it had ended there, the world would be so different today. But the encouraging shove of the industrial spirit and movement has carried this bomb past a realistic stage, to a point where one nuclear bomb can be the downfall of entire mass-populated cities. Man’s infatuation with the industrial spirit has lead, and will continue to lead, to man’s downfall.

Tillich also believes that in order to regain meaning in life and become individuals once again, man must rely on the creativity of the courageous. Man must turn to those that turn culture into tangible representations. Man must turn to artists, authors, architectures, musicians, and the like. These select, though courageous enough to show man what is wrong, do not necessarily have all of the answers to correct the problems. They merely state the problem and man must rely on himself to seek the answers.

One such courageous soul is Robert Frost, who wrote the poem “Out, Out-.” Frost uses the example of a young boy to point out to the audience a flaw in man’s reliance on the industrial society. Though the description of the nameless young child is vaguely described to the reader, one’s heart still aches for the child who lost his life to a saw while doing his daily task. Robert Frost uses this scenario to detail how man’s reliance on technology for a livelihood results in death. In the case of the young child, the death is quite literal. The boy died after losing a limb to a saw which was more thoroughly described, particularly personified with beast-like details, than the boy himself. On a grander level, Frost is telling the world something is wrong. The reliance on technology by man is causing death, be it literal, as in this case, or emotional, as in others.

Robert Frost made an example of the young boy who relied upon technology developed by the forceful industrial society for a livelihood. However, this point is lost if man does not heed the warning and then change his ways. Frost has stated a predicament and, according to Tillich’s theories, it is now up to each individual man to find an answer.

Another poet, Charles Bukowski, also makes a point using a man who is reliant upon technology for his livelihood in his poem “drunk with the Buddha.” Though the man featured in Bukowski’s poem does not suffer a literal death, he faces another monster just as daunting, if not more: emotional death. Charles Bukowski’s poem is focused on a poet who is suffering from writer’s block. The poet expects to find inspiration while sitting dolefully at a typewriter, as if the typewriter is expected to be the ultimate fountain of revelation. As with the poem by Robert Frost, the machine, a result of the industrial society, is personified into something more detailed than the human protagonist the poem features. When the typewriter expectantly fails to provide a novel set of ideas for the poet, he sinks further into an emotional death, aided by alcohol.

One particular stanza in Charles Bukowski’s “drunk with the Buddha” further details the numbing effect of the industrial society on man: “we still search the walls for answers that will not arrive” (lines 13-14). Brave Bukowski is showing an example of how man now expects everything to cater to his needs now that he has mastered technology. He is making the point that answers to life cannot be found in the walls; to find these answers, one must be out in the world individually and independently seeking to find his own answers. Walls are not magic 8 balls that will reveal one’s fate. Man must be “the master of his world and of himself” (46). Man’s reliance on technology because of the industrial movement will only lead to his demise. Charles Bukowski has observed this for himself and articulated it in his poem. It is now up to man to interpret these observations and seek on his own for answers.

In conclusion, men like Charles Bukowski and Robert Frost need to continue using whatever outlets are available to communicate the predicament arising from man’s dependence on technology. However, these men can only do so much. After a problem is exposed, it is up to the rest of humanity to obtain answers.