You Have The Right To Take The Stairs
Beginning the argument for a less efficient lifestyle
It was a tepid 80-something degrees in New York City. I was on the 9th floor and had been waiting unusually long for the elevator to arrive. When the doors finally slid open, the reason for its delay was readily apparent. It was packed with bodies, many of them contorted in strange positions to avoid even the slightest uninvited contact with a fellow passenger. The atmosphere in the elevator was stiff, and not just because of the heat. It was clear that stopping at my floor was felt as unwelcome punishment for the poor souls who had been taken hostage by the busy and sweltering elevator. No one wanted me to try and squeeze in - they just wanted to get to the first floor without heat stroke. “It’s alright. I’ll take the stairs,” I said with an unearned air of magnanimity. By the time I descended to ground level, their elevator had still not arrived.
This somewhat banal occasion revisited me several times after reading one of ’s newsletters about slow learning. In the newsletter, he shared a manifesto written by the International Training Centre which contains a lighthearted “bill of rights” for their community. This got me thinking, “What would a personal life manifesto, written by me and for me, look like?” Despite months of thinking, the only personal maxim I have settled on came from this experience with the elevator. Let me explain.
For the last few years, I have been gripped by the thoughts and writings of individuals like Marshall Mcluhan, Ivan Illich, and Jacques Ellul. While their approaches and intentions differ from one another, each of them had a unique talent for amplifying the quiet influences that technology and society exert on individual behavior. One of the most striking concepts is what Jacques Ellul called technique. Technique was explained wonderfully by L.M. Sacasas in his recent newsletter on , where he defined it as the “relentless drive to optimize all human experience for efficiency” or “the search for the one best way.” Technique generates a powerful tendency to shun anything that does not conform to a pursuit of total efficiency. Therefore, technique fosters an appetite for that which is swift, automated, or scalable; but avoids those things which are slow, unproductive, or lack maximum usefulness. After being exposed to this perspective, it becomes difficult to unsee it in quotidian society.
When cities spend millions of dollars and endure years of construction to save four minutes of travel time; when hospitals make blanket mandates regarding the kind of treatment a doctor can provide a patient; when a health-centric consumer spends hundreds of dollars on supplements for marginal fitness improvements; or when I get frustrated because fingerprint ID isn’t working and I have to actually type in my four digit password to unlock my phone - technique is at work. Technique is the expediting, convenience-izing, or productivity-izing of everything, everywhere, all the time. It’s the mindset that makes growth the assumed mission of everything human. It makes expansion the benchmark for human happiness and progress the measuring stick of worth.
Of course, efficiency and optimization are not themselves harmful goals nor are they inherently moral concepts. However, harmful consequences and immoral behavior are often justified because of the total allegiance that technique demands. This is because technique is a powerful type of ideology. Any ideology, whether it be religious, political, or economic, follows the same pattern of absolutism in its decision making. When ideology takes root, it eliminates the tension that should exist between the plethora of human virtues and replaces it with effortless surrender to whatever objective the ideology deems supreme.
The dynamic process of determining what to do in any given situation is then subverted by a pre-decided set of actions. Ideology prescribes the same methodology for every scenario, regardless of how inconsistent it is with material reality. In other words, ideology is incapable of producing novel responses. It’s similar to doing algebra with a zero in the equation. When factored into the calculus which humans are supposed to perform when making complex decisions, it hijacks every problem and produces the same solution: zero. For those doing ethical or existential calculus under the influence of technique, any computation that does not yield the answer of advancement, progress, or optimization is immediately considered incorrect. Productivity becomes the sole measurement of good, whether it be for a piece of tech, an organization, a process, or a person. This is fundamentally opposed to the freedom which is necessary for humans to delight in life. By monopolizing the measurement for meaning and happiness, technique robs individuals of the wherewithal to choose an alternative way of life. This idea is what brings me back to my elevator anecdote.
There was something both amusing and sad about the number of melting individuals crammed into that tiny elevator. Everyone had somewhere to be and everyone likely had an expectation of getting there in the most efficient way possible. When traveling in New York City, the elevator is the most efficient method ninety-nine percent of the time. Not only does it save a physically taxing trek upon a staircase, but it is quicker, and frees you up to do something else useful (by “something else useful” I mean checking your phone, of course). It is unlikely that the man who got on the elevator before me was looking forward to being the final sardine in the flying tin can; but he had somewhere to be and his expectation of swift transport was frustrated by those with the audacity to live on a higher floor than him. Therefore, he subjected himself to the torture of the descending furnace in order to get to ground level “efficiently.” Technique had to be obeyed, even at the cost of his quality of life.
I cannot judge him too harshly, however. If he had not gotten on the elevator, I would have done the same thing as him. Plus, his sacrifice is what inspired the only line in my personal bill of rights. It is a mantra to remind me of my freedom to live a non-technique manner:
I have the right to take the stairs.
Marshall Mcluhan often remarked that overuse of a single medium would ultimately undermine its intended purpose. For instance, a single lightbulb provides increased visibility in a dark room; but a thousand light bulbs would be blinding. Cars provide fast transport from one destination to another, except when too many cars produce rush-hour traffic. Elevators are great for getting from one floor to another, unless everyone else is trying to do the same thing. Recently, one of my senior work colleagues was telling me about his secret to “getting more work done than those young bucks coming from those fancy colleges.” He said, “Don’t email someone and wait for them to respond to you three days later. Pick up a damn telephone and give them a call yourself!” I have applied his advice and, admittedly, it is solid gold. Emails were designed to provide swift, organized, and trackable communication - but an overflowing inbox is a death sentence for all of the above. In most workplaces, email is less productive than phone calls despite being a technically more advanced technology. This demonstrates the threshold that Mcluhan talked about. When this threshold is passed, it triggers a reversal of the desired effect of any technology.
This leads to one of the other vicious attributes of technique. No solution is perpetually scalable nor is it invariably relevant. Therefore, technique demands the rapid multiplication and implementation of new solutions to “improve” the old, but each new wave of solutions inherits a shorter lifespan. The incredible rate at which so-called “technological revolutions'' occur in modern society is an artifact of this exponentially accelerating cannibalistic cycle. It is the bionic dragon eating its own mechanical tail.
It was important to highlight this, because I don’t want my silly elevator anecdote misinterpreted. When I remarked that I arrived at ground level before my neighbors, I did not mean it as a declaration of triumph. I am unwilling to even label it as a happy accident. Having the right to take the stairs is not an encouragement to think more creatively about how to be efficient. This would still be playing by the rules set by technique. Having the right to take the stairs is about undoing the impulse for efficiency altogether. It is a reminder that one has the freedom to not choose the most convenient, efficient, or optimized pathway through life. The inconvenient, the slow, the inefficient, and the prolix is always an option. The lens which sees the world exclusively in terms of progress is only one lens out of an infinite number of potential lenses. While it may be true (although I am not sure it is) that the instinct for development is a part of human nature, there is nothing in reality itself that obliges us to always obey this instinct absolutely.
This begs the question: what are the benefits of taking the stairs rather than the elevator?
I would argue that the first benefit is a reviving of a certain kind of sanity which is desperately yearned for by many Westerners. In the same newsletter mentioned above, Sacasas ponders whether the merciless oppression of optimization “necessarily yields a mental health crisis by generating unattainable goals and unsustainable pressures to, quite literally, measure up.” I think this is correct. Many of my friends confess to a sort of collective existential crisis, the source of which remains frustratingly elusive. I am certainly not immune to this either. In my first newsletter on Prolix, I draw on David Foster Wallace’s “water” analogy to discuss the invisible environments around us. Technique is one of the strongest currents in the water, but being caught in this current is avoidable provided that we are willing to swim elsewhere. Taking the proverbial stairs (mixing metaphors now) is how you swim elsewhere.
Secondly, it strikes me how the most precious and worthwhile elements of life are often incompatible with the aims of technique. Patience, for example, is an obsolete virtue in a world dominated by the dictums of technique; but patience is absolutely essential for someone interested in discovering the beauty of art, friendship, or presence. Optimization can drive improvement, but only patience can give birth to wholeness. Technique attempts to banish suffering by invention, but patience can transcend suffering altogether.
To be clear, I am not arguing for a way of life that always takes the stairs nor should taking the stairs be chosen solely as a means of being counter-cultural. This would just be a bad ideology created in opposition to another bad ideology. Rather, the right to take the stairs is about guarding one’s capacity for choice, just as much as it is about the actual choice itself. I believe that conscious awareness of the influence of technique is directly proportional to the degree of personal freedom felt by an individual. This is a freedom that I am dedicated to protecting for both myself and my friends.
There will be more discussion on this topic in the future, but I hope that this serves as an enjoyable introduction to the concept. Perhaps the next time you feel the overwhelming drive for productivity, output, and greater efficiency, you can find pause in the reminder:
You have the right to take the stairs.
Sincerely,
Bradley