Gods vs. Gods in the Machine, or Machine Gods.

When you discard gods, you are left with Machine gods, with satanic mills that destroy everything in its way. Smart and visionary Brits who saw it coming, denounced it long time ago.

Thus, John Ruskin:

"You might have the rivers of England as pure as the crystal of the rock; so beautiful in falls, in lakes, in living pools; so full of fish that you might take them out with your hands … Or you may do always as you have done now, turn every river of England into a common sewer, so that you cannot so much as baptize an English baby but with filth… Are they not what your machine gods have produced for you?"

Or Wordsworth, who puts it even better:

Avaunt this economic rage!

What would it bring? – an iron age,

When Fact with heartless search explored

Shall be Imagination’s Lord,

And sway with absolute control

The god-like function of the Soul.

Not thus can knowledge elevate

Our nature from its fallen state.

"Not thus can knowledge elevate our nature from its fallen state." Yet, we persist with more and more instrumental knowledge that drags us deeper and deeper into the sewer, while arrogantly promising crystalline waters.

With his usual acumen, Blake recognized the narcissistic and demonic side of this instrumental knowledge: “He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio only, sees himself only.” And seeing only oneself, one ends up staring into a sewer eventually.