Two years ago, I came across Romano Guardini’s Letters from Lake Como, a compilation of letters written by the German priest and theologian between 1923 and 1925. Although he had deep roots in Italy, Guardini moved to Germany with his family when he was a child and grew up far from the majestic surroundings of the lake. In his late thirties, Guardini returned to the land of his birth and discovered at Lake Como, facing the stillness of the water and the sublimity of the green mountains, an ideal setting for a broader reflection on the future of mankind.
As he saw the vessels sailing on Lake Como, Guardini noticed how difficult it was to master the nautical arts. Reshaping their relation to human nature, he wrote, “human beings become masters of wind and wave by fashioning wood and fitting it together and spanning linen sails.” They dominate it with increasing skill, but, at the same time, they remain “closely related to the wind and waves.” Human activity alters nature but not to an extent that it renders nature’s primal forces meaingless. Between nature and culture, there arises what we might call a creative tension (a typical structure of Guardini’s philosophical theory of polar opposition, in which a deeper unity is achieved through the interplay of contrasting yet complementary opposites).
If, however, we compare the humble vessel in the lake with the colossal ships that cross the oceans using the powers of motors and combustion, we will see a different situation. In the mechanical ship, the forces of nature are defeated and rendered powerless. For the operators of the ship, sailing no longer requires the mastery of a delicate craft, nor does it suppose a direct connection to the forces of nature. Through sunny skies and roaring storms, agitated waters and howling winds, the ship will sail, mostly indifferent to the reality around it.
Reading Guardini’s letters, I remembered my own experiences with sailing. Ever since I was a child, I have spent my summers in São Martinho do Porto, one of the crown jewels of Portugal’s West Coast. São Martinho is a two-mile long beach, stretching around a bay perfectly shaped like a shell. Because of its peculiar geography, the bay is protected from the high waves, and the water resembles the stillness of a lake. Ten miles north from São Martinho, surfers face some of the largest waves in the world, while in the bay, we get to enjoy our very own Lake Como.
Occasionally, in the summer, I have had the experience of sailing with a group of friends, all of them more skillful than myself. With them, I have learned how to notice, looking from the beach, if the wind is blowing strongly in the high sea. We study how to distribute the weight of the crew members in the vessel, and we discuss how to place the sail in order to use the winds in our favor. When sailing, the sea reveals to us secrets of unrivalled beauty that are invisible to the eyes of the mere swimmers. At the same time, it presents itself to us as a more dangerous, more formidable challenge, stubbornly resisting the possibility of being conquered by our vessel. It takes time, patience, technique, and courage to beat the sea in its own game. But, when we do so, we become both its masters and its pupils.
Somewhere between the vessels of Lake Como (and São Martinho) and the colossal transatlantic ships, as Guardini would put it, “a fluid line has been crossed” and the human relationship to nature was transformed. As Guardini recognized, the technological transformation of the twentieth century is irrevocable. There is no going backward. Instead of returning to an inaccessible past, he argued, we must foster a different sort of future: one where ethical, teleological, and religious concerns precede and guide material progress.
One hundred years ago, as he roamed the edges of Lake Como, Guardini foresaw the birth of a new world. He faced these prospects not with the pessimism of a reactionary but with genuine hope and curiosity, and he sought to advance in his letters some guidelines for the new reality in the making. He realized, for example, that everyone was celebrating the emancipatory possibilities brought by the machines, but few were considering the purpose of the newly acquired freedom. “If we do not succeed in making meaningful use of the free days,” Guardini wrote, “then the result of such freedom is negative.” As Western societies were being shaped by a utilitarian, technocratic vision of reality, Guardini struggled to expand the analysis, from a mere consideration of means and tactics to a discussion of ends and meanings.
The trends that Guardini observed in his day have only accelerated in our own. We, too, see a “a surging ahead of unleashed forces that have not yet been mastered.” Our sociability has been reshaped by social networks and by the rise of what Shoshana Zuboff has called “surveillance capitalism.” The old industrial economy, which provided many workers with stable incomes and a predictable path in life, is a distant memory. Members of the so-called professional middle class follow an uncertain career path that separates them not only from the conditions of physical production but, especially since the rise of remote work during the pandemic, from the physical office itself. At the same time, we face the looming challenges of artificial intelligence, where, once again, it seems like “a fluid line has been crossed” in our relation, both with nature and with one another.
It is no less true in our moment that, as Guardini wrote, “what we need is not less technology, but more.” If we return to Como, we should not remain stubbornly “oriented to the old world.” We might, instead, emulate Guardini by renewing the quest for a “stronger, more considered, more human technology.”