Policy, Tech and the human Encapsulation in Shame
I first came across Günther Anders through the CBC podcast Ideas, hosted by Nahlah Ayed. One episode mentioned his work, and something about the way he described the human relationship to technology immediately caught my attention. I went searching for more and found his book The Obsolescence of Man, originally published in 1956. Anders was a German philosopher who fled Nazi Germany and later became one of the most important critics of technology’s impact on human agency.
What drew me in was how directly his ideas connect to concepts we work with at the Waterloo STEAM Academy. Especially the loss of agency individuals experience when systems become too large, too rigid, or too technologically advanced for people to meaningfully influence. Anders argues that modern technology has outpaced our moral and imaginative capacities, leaving humans feeling inferior to their own creations. He calls this Promethean Shame: the sense that our machines, systems, and institutions are more capable than we are, and that we no longer measure up.
He also introduces the Promethean Gap, the widening distance between what humans can create and what they can ethically comprehend or control. That gap is exactly what we see when individuals lose agency inside large bureaucratic systems such as schools, governments, and financial institutions.
How this connects to policy and everyday life
One of Anders’ most relevant insights is how technology and large systems encourage written policy to replace human understanding. Instead of people trying to understand each other’s situations, institutions default to rules, procedures, and automated responses. Anders warns that this shift creates a “mass‑man” culture where individuals become passive recipients of decisions rather than active participants in their own lives .
You can see this clearly in how we treat people facing financial hardship.
A person may have been a high earner, a strong contributor, someone with assets and responsibilities. Then a crisis hits; illness, job loss, or emotional disruption. Their liabilities catch up, debt grows, and suddenly they lose access to equity and financial tools. If this leads to homelessness, the situation becomes even more severe.
But instead of asking, “What happened, and how can we help you get back to stability?” banks and institutions often respond with punishment: fees, penalties, and rigid policies. It’s the perfect example of Promethean Shame at the institutional level. Within theses large systems decision makers cannot imagine creative solutions, cannot see the human story, and cannot recognize that helping someone recover, is a mutual benefit.
If that person regains stability, the bank regains a customer. The community regains a contributor. The economy regains a participant. Yet policy overrides imagination.
How this shapes political and social divides
Anders’ ideas also help explain a modern phenomenon: people disagreeing with policies they morally support simply because the idea is presented by an institution or political group they feel alienated from.
This is another form of Promethean Shame. When people feel overshadowed or excluded by large systems that can be technological, governmental, or bureaucratic in nature and effect. I believe we can all imagine how it leads to a loss of trust. We may agree with the moral principle, but reject it because we believe the agency promoting it does not represent us.
The divide becomes less about the idea and more about agency:
Do I feel like I am part of this system?
Do I feel seen by it?
Do I believe it understands me?
When the answer is no, people resist, even when moral alignment exists.
We can equate this to the mass transformation of human capacity into getters and setters. We are our own agents of controlled access.
