DIAL dial_635 Dispatch: 10-8-2011 CE: N/A Journal MSP No. No. of pages: 10 PE: Gerald 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 346 Dialog: A Journal of Theology • Volume 54, Number 4 • Winter 2011 • December Technology and the Polytheistic Mind: From Global to Planetary Theologies By Whitney A. Bauman Abstract: Assuming that human beings are, among other things, techno-sapiens, natural-cultural; and that technology-nature-culture are a part of the same emergent process of life (e.g., Martin Heidegger, Donna Haraway, Phil Hefner), this paper argues for a move from global to planetary technologies. According to Gayatri Spivak, the process of globalization is the imposition of sameness over the face of the globe. In contrast, she argues, what we need is a planetary vision of the world: one that pays attention to multi-perspectivalism and difference, and connects peoples, places, and things through those differences rather than in spite of them. In this article I argue that theological technologies of monotheism have tended to support globalization. As such, I explore the possibilities for polytheistic (or at least) polydox theological technologies of planetary becoming. Key Terms : techno-sapiens, planetarity, polydox, Haraway, Hefner, Spivak Theology as Technology Thinking on Nature tends either to insist that this otherness of nature (including human embodiment) is being transformed by technology; technological humanity dominates nature. Or thinking on nature suggests that on account of its otherness, nature may be regarded as the criticism of technology and a source of salvation; the otherness of nature escapes technological control. 1 This article explores the relationship between technology, theology, humans, and the rest of the natural world. Rather than being a form of mere instrumental control of nature, or totally other to nature, as the opening quote suggests, technology is here conceived as an emergent part of nature. Technology in its broadest sense (as techne) is an active way of knowing that transforms the world Whitney Bauman is Assistant Professor of Religion and Science at Florida International University. He is author of Theology, Creation and Environmental Ethics (2009) and co-editor of Grounding Religion: A Fieldguide to the Study of Religion and Ecology (Routeldge 2010) and Inherited Land: The Changing Grounds of Religion and Ecology (Wipf & Stock, 2011). around us in some way. In other words, it is not disinterested knowing, or a mere pondering, but it has implications for the way bodies become in the world. Putting aside the debate about whether or not a form of “disinterested” knowing exists at all, techne can be understood as a Foucauldian “regime of truth” that shapes the worlds into certain ways of being/becoming. 2 Technology, then, is not lim- ited to machines, electronics, and tools, but also includes language, values, ideas, and the politics and economics that support them. Even the religious imagination, when directed toward thinking about possibilities, creates spaces and times that might lead to real implications for bodies. In this sense, religious thinking of all kinds is also a form of technology in that it shapes the bodies and material realities of the worlds around us. Theology is then a form of technology, or so I will argue here, for good reasons. Given our C  2011 Wiley Periodicals and Dialog, Inc.