A World to Fear

In Richard Brautigan’s poem, “All Watched over by Machines of Loving
Grace,” Brautigan leaves the reader to think where Brautigan stands on
technology: is he for it, or against it? If you interpret the poem in a
particular manner, it portrays the belief that Brautigan is anti-technology.
For example, it seems that throughout the whole poem, starting with the title,
Brautigan writes with a tone of sarcasm. At the beginning of each stanza, there
is a parenthetical separation of a separate idea being inserted into the poem,
serving to interrupt the flow of the poem. These interruptions bring forward
the longings of our society to want everything done in an instant, and our
overreliance on technology to get everyday tasks done. Similarly, Brautigan
ends his poem describing a peaceful world without labor, while we are “all
watched over by machines of loving grace.” I feel that ending the implicates
that we may come to the point akin to the Matrix films, where we are slaves of
the machine, but not by hard labor, but through our minds.

While the poem mainly gives anti-technology impressions, one could
argue that the poem actually encourages cautious use of technology. Brautigan
lively describes a utopia “where mammals and computers live together in
mutually programming harmony.” The poem could be implying that if we are not
too ambitious and gluttonous with our use of technology, we can use it to
benefit of our society, rather than the world becoming one where the will of
humans submits to that of the machines.

 

Overall, the anti-technology interpretation of the poem is the one that
I pick up on the most. It seems too easy to think that Brautigan would make
this poem advocating technology usage, mainly because of the utopia presented
in the poem. As demonstrated by our history, utopias are impossible for humans
to create, because of our own nature. The only way for a utopia to flourish is
the absence of human control within the utopia. This poem signals that a utopia
with humans and machines living in harmony would fall into the control of the
machines, which have no human emotions and act solely on logic. The machines
would most likely suck the humanity out of us or enact a tyranny of sort in
order to keep the peace. A world like that would truly be one to fear.