If we are to wage revolution rather than uprising, then in the process we must develop a new techne. What is techne? Techne is a Greek word, from which we get our words “technology” and “technique”. The Greeks used techne to refer to practical activity of any sort. That a poet was a master of imagery and that a quarryman was an expert in the grain of rocks would both be referred to by “techne”. Techne is work. Techne is how we get things done—how we get anything done. To call for a new techne is to call for a new handle for us to grasp. To call for a new techne is to call for a new way of dealing, a new approach to the mountain. Let the revolutionary cry out: in life and in death, my dealings are as yet unmade.
Technology is a component of techne. But technology is not about machines. The physical nature and complex construction—this makes a car into a machine. It becomes technology only in use. A change in techne must bring about a change in technology. This might not be a change in the physical nature of the machine, but it will mean a change in our relationship to the machines, a change in how we use them.
Techne contains within it the way the world presents itself to us. Presentation is the passive element of techne. When we turn toward the world, our techne lies before us like a handle. That the revolution has not occurred means that this handle looks like iron to us. If we are to unchain the world, we must make this handle, our dealings, look like clay. We must make all things show themselves in their potentiality. Only then can we learn revolution.
The first step in softening our dealings is changing them. Where to? Where we want to go. The revolution is a slave to our desire, not a master to be served by desire. For all the myriad activities of life, we must change them and hold them, we must take some up high and throw others down, we must smash machines and build machines, we must tear at the veil and sew together our wounds, and in doing this, we will begin to see the world as a playground for techne, where our bodies run free in the open fields.