Blog 2

Pro-Tech or Anti-Tech?

Richard Brautigan's "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace,” describes nature and technology together in some sort of fashion. It could be noting that technology is becoming one with nature and living in complete harmony with it. It is also possible that the poem is completely dipping into total sarcasm, hinting that technology is taking over nature. The way one can interpret if the poem has a pro-technology message or an anti-technology message depends on how one wants to construe the evidence.

If this poem has an anti-technology message, it states the message completely sarcastically. The lines “(the sooner the better)” (2) and “(right now, please)” (10) hint technology is growing way too fast, and technology is taking over the natural ecological system. In the first stanza, he wants to “think of a cybernetic meadow/where mammals and computers/live together mutually/in programming harmony.” This could note that nature and technology cannot live perfectly with each other because it is either one or the other; in this case, it could be that technology is overrunning nature. The “cybernetic forest” the speaker is talking about “where deer stroll peacefully past computers” could be talking about an e-waste dumping site, but I’m not sure if they existed back then.

If this poem has a pro-technology message, it could not be more obvious. Lines 2 and 10 note that the new technological world is growing, and the speaker is ready to welcome it in. The last stanza could be saying that technology is becoming part of nature, being “joined back to nature” (19). One would say that it is so becoming part of nature that everything is being “watched over by machines of loving grace” (23). Since technology is so powerful, it can "watch over" life.

I would say that the tone for the poem would be against technology because not all of nature can be in harmony with electronics. Animals, plants, even some humans are not “tech-savvy” and/or cannot keep up with the newer and ever-growing technology. If e-waste dumping sites existed, they would be “part of nature” in a “cybernetic forest filled with pines and electronics.”