Forget technological messiahs, nothing can save us except ourselves. Technology is us, an extension of who we are, as greedy, stupid and violent, or as wise. Pulled further and further out of our biological matrix, we risk becoming orphans of our technology. And there’s a need to qualify what is meant by ‘ourselves’ here. The search for community must go beyond the dualism of individualism and communitarianism, beyond the polarity of capitalism and socialism, insofar as these ideologies concern merely the terms of which the Earth is possessed and its spoils divided up. The problem with these systems is not that they are materialistic but that they are not material enough. They make 'man' the measure of all things. There is more to life than this. We need a reference point that is more expansive than individual or group expressions of ego.
And we need more than our technological powers, we need to engage our moral capacities and see ourselves in the face of the other, and not just human life, but human and natural communities together. We need that transcendental hope to draw us out of our minimal selves into the maximal community of life.