Greatness and Wretchedness, Distraction, Diversion, and Despair

Blaise Pascal on Technology and the Human Condition on the 362nd anniversary of his death

Gracious reader,

Many of you who have been part of this community for some time know of my deep affection for Blaise Pascal, a thinker whom I believe remains vastly underrated, yet whose ideas have much to offer us today.

I recently wrote a reflection on and summary of Pascal's work for two esteemed friends and thinkers—Jonathan Haidt and Sherry Turkle—whose intellectual pursuits I felt could greatly benefit from Pascal's insights.

In this reflection, I focus on Pascal's critique of techne—the Greek word for “knowing” and “making,” which serves as the root of our modern word "technology." Pascal was notably skeptical of the scientific revolution and the unbridled faith in reason championed by his elder and contemporary, René Descartes.

Both Haidt and Turkle are prominent voices in the growing movement of “tech skepticism” today, and Pascal, nearly four centuries ago, was a forerunner of this perspective. Haidt’s new bestselling book, The Anxious Generation, explores the dangers of technology-driven childhoods. Meanwhile, Turkle’s forthcoming book examines how artificial intelligence, far from being benign, is in many ways overshadowing and irrevocably altering our humanity.

I encourage you to delve into Pascal’s wisdom by reading his Pensées and discover his timeless reflections for yourself.

Who Was Pascal?

Note: All text in italics is Pascal in his own words.

Blaise Pascal (June 19, 1623 – August 19, 1662) was a brilliant French mathematician, polymath, and scientist. His genius was evident from a young age—he invented the first calculator, designed the first Parisian transit system, and even had a unit of pressure measurement (the "pascal") named after him. Despite his remarkable intellect, Pascal was frail and sickly throughout his life, which gave him a profound understanding of the fragility of the human condition.

Raised as a Jansenist, a branch of Catholicism with a strict, almost fundamentalist approach, Pascal underwent a radical conversion experience that deeply transformed his faith and his life.

First, he quit science. Literally. He abandoned his scientific pursuits, including his inventions, never to return to them.

Second, his pursuit of God became so intense that he chose an extreme and isolated lifestyle. He confined himself to a windowless room and would only see others while wearing a belt of nails, which he would tighten to inflict pain if he found himself enjoying their company too much, thinking it distracted him from God.

It was in this windowless room that Pascal wrote his Pensées, a collection of aphorisms and reflections on the most important aspects of life. These musings were found on hundreds of scraps of paper and compiled into a book by his sister after his death. Pascal intended to write a comprehensive work of Christian apologetics aimed at an audience increasingly captivated by reason and progress, but he passed away before he could complete it. [Side note: The Pensées are organized differently by various editors. We have no way of knowing how Pascal intended to structure his book, as he died before finishing the project.]

Third, although he had led a life dominated by reason and intellectual pursuits as a genius, scientist, and inventor, his conversion convinced him that the mind was not the ultimate measure of humanity. There was far more to being human—particularly matters of the heart.

Pascal grew critical of the intellectual giant of his day, René Descartes, the philosophical rationalist and father of the Enlightenment, who championed reason over what he saw as religious superstition. While Descartes famously declared, "I think, therefore I am," elevating reason above all, Pascal believed there was much more to human existence. He thought Descartes was overly confident in things that ultimately didn't matter—namely, the supremacy of reason—and insufficiently confident in things that did—namely, the existence of God.

In one aphorism, Pascal remarks that Descartes's work is "useless and uncertain."

Pascal continues, "I cannot pardon Descartes; he would have liked, in all of his philosophy, to do without God; but he couldn’t prevent himself from giving Him a flick to put the world in motion; after that, he no longer has anything to do with God." (Pensée 887)

For Pascal, knowledge of God was the most important thing in life, and one couldn’t reason their way to God. Instead, one needed the heart to know God, as well as many of life’s most essential truths.

Science could answer the "what" questions, but it couldn’t address the most important "why" questions. For that, one needed faith and the heart. One of my favorite aphorisms of Pascal’s is, “The heart has reasons which reason cannot understand.”

Pascal vs. the Scientific Revolution

Descartes was an early proponent of technological progress, believing that reason and scientific advancement would inevitably lead to a better world. Pascal, however, recognized the limitations of reason and the concept of "progress." He understood that the human condition—marked by both greatness and wretchedness—was unchanging. While progress might improve us materially, it could never address our spiritual needs. For Pascal, only God could do that. In this way, Pascal was an original tech-skeptic.

The Human Condition: Greatness and Wretchedness

Pascal had a dual view of human nature, holding both a high and low regard for humanity.

He held a high view because, as a Christian and theist, he believed that humanity is the pinnacle of God’s creation, the only beings made in the image of God (imago Dei). Here is one of my favorite Pensées illustrating Pascal’s high view of humanity:

347. Man is only a reed, the weakest thing in nature; but he’s a thinking reed. To wipe him out, there’s no need for the whole universe to take up arms against him—a vapor, a drop of water, is enough to kill him. But if the universe did wipe him out, man would still be nobler than his killer because he knows that he is dying and that the universe has the upper hand; the universe knows nothing of this. So all our dignity consists in thought. That’s what we must rely on—not on space and time, which are too big for us to fill. So let us work at thinking well; that’s the driving force of morality.

Pascal also held a low view of humanity, knowing that man is fallen, separated from God by sin, and driven by self-love, which in turn causes self-harm and harm to others.

There’s an irony in our wretchedness: the very fact that we recognize our misery and seek to divert ourselves from it is proof of our greatness.

Pascal writes:

430. The greatness and the misery of man are so evident that the true religion must teach us both that there is some great source of greatness in man and that there is a great source of misery.

397. The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be miserable. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is, then, being miserable to know oneself to be miserable; but it is also being great to know that one is miserable.

389. All these same miseries prove man’s greatness. They are the miseries of a great lord, of a deposed king.

399. We are not miserable without feeling it. A ruined house is not miserable. Only man is miserable. I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. (quoted in Latin from Lamentations 3:1)

Here are a few lines about man’s wretched natural state:

Human life is thus only a perpetual illusion; all we do is deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does behind our backs. Human society is grounded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each person knew what his friend said about him in his absence, even if he said it sincerely and dispassionately. That’s what man is, then: disguise, lying, and hypocrisy, in himself and in relation to others. He doesn’t want to be told the truth; he avoids telling it to others; and all these dispositions—so far removed from justice and reason—have a natural root in his heart. (Excerpted from Pensée 100)

693. When I see the blindness and the misery of man, when I regard the whole silent universe and man without light, left to himself, as though lost in this little corner of the universe, not knowing who has put him there, what he has come to do, or what will become of him at death, and incapable of all knowledge, I become terrified, like a man carried in his sleep to a dreadful desert island and waking without knowing where he is and with no means of escape. And this makes me wonder how people in such a wretched condition don’t fall into despair. I see around me other persons who are like me; I ask them whether they are better informed than I am; and they tell me that they are not. These wretched lost beings don’t despair because they have looked around them, seen some pleasing objects, and have given and attached themselves to those. Speaking for myself, I haven’t been able to attach myself to them; and, considering how strongly it appears that there’s something more than what I see, I have explored whether this something more, this God, hasn’t left some sign of himself.

417. This twofold nature of man is so evident that some have thought that we had two souls. It seemed to them that a single undivided subject couldn’t undergo such variations—such sudden variations—from inordinate self-satisfaction to a dreadful dejection of heart.

418. It is dangerous to make man see too clearly how greatly he resembles the beasts without showing him his greatness. It is also dangerous to make him see his greatness too clearly, apart from his vileness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both. But it is very advantageous to show him both.

Man should not think that he is on a level either with the brutes or with the angels, nor must he be ignorant of both aspects of his nature. He must know both.

419. I won’t allow man to rest content with either one of the aspects of his nature; I want him to be without a firm floor and without rest.

420. If he exalts himself, I humble him; if he humbles himself, I exalt him; and I always contradict him, till he understands that he is an incomprehensible monster.

The Human Condition: Distraction, Diversion, Despair

So, what’s the answer to the wretchedness of the human condition?

Pascal observes that we find our wretchedness intolerable, so we distract ourselves from facing it. He insightfully notes that we tell ourselves stories about finding meaning and ultimate happiness in the next promotion, conquest, relationship, purchase, or trip. Yet, we are often surprised to discover that any satisfaction we gain is fleeting. It never lasts.

Why?

Because it’s not supposed to. It’s all a distraction—a diversion to keep us from confronting the sad state of the human condition.

In Pensées 139, Pascal provides a powerful example of this with the image of a gambler. The gambler wouldn’t want just the winnings handed to him, nor would he want to play the game without stakes. What he craves is the diversion—the combination of the game and the potential winnings completes the distraction.

Here are a few lines from Pascal that illustrate this idea:

141. Men spend their time following a ball or a hare; it is the pleasure even of kings.

39. I sometimes think about the distractions that men pursue—the pains and perils they expose themselves to at court or in war—giving rise to so many quarrels, passions, and risky (and often bad) undertakings. I have often concluded that all men’s unhappiness comes from a single fact: men can’t stay quietly in one room. A man who has enough to live on, if he could enjoy staying at home, wouldn’t leave to go to sea or besiege a town. The only reason men are willing to pay so much for a commission in the army is that they can’t bear to stay in their hometowns. They seek conversation and gambling diversions because they find no pleasure at home. But upon closer reflection, I’ve realized that this cause of our ills is rooted in the natural miserableness of our condition—feeble, mortal, and so miserable that nothing can comfort us when we consider it up close.

Think about all possible occupations and imagine the finest position in the world—being a king. Now, imagine a king who has every satisfaction at his disposal but no diversions. If allowed to reflect on his situation, he would find that this feeble happiness cannot sustain him. He would inevitably be plagued by fears of dangers—of revolutions that may occur and of disease and death, which are certain to come. Without distractions, the king would be more miserable than the lowliest of his subjects, who plays and diverts himself. That’s why men pursue gambling, the company of women, war, and high positions in government. It’s not because they think these pursuits will bring them true happiness; they wouldn’t even take their rewards as gifts. All they want is the bustle that distracts them from their unhappy human condition.

This is why men love noise and activity so much. It’s why prison is such a horrible torture and why the pleasure of solitude is incomprehensible. The greatest source of happiness for a king is that people constantly try to divert him and procure all kinds of pleasures for him. Even as a king, thinking about himself makes him miserable.

That’s the sum of what men have discovered to make themselves happy. Philosophers, who criticize men for chasing after fleeting pleasures, don’t understand human nature. What protects us from the sight of death and calamities is not the hare but the hunt, which turns our attention away from such things. The advice given to Pyrrhus to rest now, instead of after his final victory, was deeply flawed. To tell a man to rest is to tell him to live happily. It’s to advise him to achieve a state of perfect contentment that he can contemplate at leisure without finding anything in it to distress him. Such advice misunderstands human nature entirely!

Men who naturally understand their own condition avoid rest more than anything else. They will go to great lengths to create disturbances. It’s not that they have an instinct that reveals true happiness to them. Instead, their error lies not in seeking excitement as a diversion, but in seeking it as if it could genuinely make them happy. In this sense, their pursuit is indeed a vain one. Both the critics and the criticized fail to understand human nature. When men are condemned for ardently pursuing something that cannot satisfy them, the reply they ought to make—the one they would make if they understood themselves—is that they only seek a vigorous and impetuous occupation to distract them from their condition. That’s why they choose something alluring, to charm them into a passionate pursuit. If they knew this about themselves, it would silence their critics. But they don’t, because they don’t understand their true nature. They don’t realize that what they seek is not the goal but the chase itself.

Dancing: You have to think about where to put your feet. A gentleman sincerely believes that hunting is a great and royal sport; but his beater doesn’t think so.

Men have a secret instinct that drives them to seek diversion and occupation in the world; it stems from their bitter awareness of their continual miseries. And they have another secret instinct—a remnant of the greatness of our original nature before the Fall—that tells them happiness is to be found in rest, not in tumult.

Out of these two conflicting instincts, a confused project forms, hidden deep within their souls, which leads them to aim for rest through excitement, always believing that the satisfaction they haven’t yet achieved will come once they overcome their current difficulties, and finally open the door to rest.

Key Insights from Pascal

1. Man: A Finite Being Between Two Infinities I often paraphrase this insight from Pascal: Man is a finite being caught between two infinities. As Pascal writes: “After all, what is man in nature? A nothing in comparison with the infinite, an everything in comparison with the nothing—an intermediate item between nothing and everything. Since he is infinitely far from grasping the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the nothing that he came from and the infinite that swallows him up.”

2. The Unchanging Human Condition Despite the nearly four centuries that have passed since Pascal wrote his Pensées, the human condition remains unchanged. Pascal couldn’t have imagined the scale of distractions we face today—social media, smartphones, and the internet constantly vie for our attention, especially for the young, whose minds are most malleable. Yet, his insights remain relevant: distraction was, and still is, a profound threat to our spiritual, social, emotional, and psychological well-being. The challenges we face are the same as those before us, but the context of our society has changed, amplifying these innate struggles.

3. Science and the Material World Can't Solve Spiritual Problems In our materialistic, scientific era, there’s a tendency to believe that science, reason, and material goods can answer everything. But they can’t. We’re still unhappy; we’re still miserable. Pascal recognized centuries ago the limitations of science and reason, and these limitations continue to be revealed today. The pandemic showed how little we truly know, as the scientific community grappled with its own uncertainties. Similarly, the recent tragedy of the lost submarine exploring the Titanic reminds us that there are still frontiers on earth—not even in space—that remain mysterious and powerful, beyond our understanding. We like to think we’re sophisticated and strong, but so much of nature still eludes us.

4. The Inversion of Our Priorities We have completely inverted our priorities as a society, caring only for what we can see. Social media epitomizes this spectacle—we’ve exchanged the real for the spectacle. This inversion is especially harmful to our teens, particularly young girls who are already pressured to meet unrealistic standards of physical perfection. Social media amplifies this pressure, promoting superficiality and stifling the complexity and nuance of real life. Pascal understood that humans are both great and wretched at once—both/and. Yet today, we are conditioned to present only the good, the Instagrammable, while repressing the raw and real aspects of life. We’ve embraced a Procrustean bed that stifles originality, innovation, freedom, and true human flourishing.

5. Pascal Offers Hope Despite his keen awareness of human wretchedness, Pascal offers hope through the Christian faith—a daily re-orientation of our values against the gravitational pull of self-love and the distractions that keep us from confronting our condition. While your personal beliefs may differ, consider what hope you offer to your readers. What is your vision for a better way of being? We need hope. One idea could be to emphasize focused presence and time spent together. Encourage families to set strict screen-time limits that apply to everyone. More laughter and togetherness remind us that there is no substitute for real, meaningful time with others.

   This insight was reinforced in therapy: when I’m tempted to over-shop or fall back into maladaptive behaviors like overeating (stemming from a history of eating disorders), my therapists encourage me to reflect. What wretchedness am I running from? What emotional need am I trying to fill with these fleeting dopamine hits? What can I do instead to foster healthier connections with others that provide true and lasting fulfillment? Perhaps you can inspire a revolution of physical community and presence—embracing the true beauty of real relationships, and rejecting the false connections of social media.

Some questions for you to consider:

• What do you think of Pascal’s argument that our longing for distractions and diversions is inherent to the human condition?

• Are you persuaded that we are prone to distraction because we fear being alone with our own thoughts?

• How can we find the stillness necessary to fully realize our humanity in a world of perpetual motion?"

Please share your thoughts in the comments below, and feel free to pass this along to anyone who might be interested in celebrating Pascal’s important life and legacy.

Notes from the book tour:

• My book, The Soul of Civility launched in UK on August 5!

Looking ahead:

• Our baby boy is set to arrive somewhere around Sept 15th, so I am planning to take some time off—but have no fear. I’ve lined up some excellent writers to help infuse your life with beauty, goodness, and truth—and to help you think more clearly about our day by reviving the wisdom of the past!

• October 30- Whithworth University, virtual talk, find out more here!

• November 12- Greater Muncie Chamber of Commerce, Muncie, IN

• November 14- Berry College, Mt. Berry, GA

• November 19- Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, MI

• January 23, 2025- I am thrilled to announce that I will be speaking at Yale Law School this coming January, invited by the Crossing Divides Program, part of the Tsai Leadership Program, which is dedicated to building strong bridges across our differences.

In the news:

Thanks so much to ABC Channel6, WRTV and ABC for the conversation about how civility and basic respect for personhood are the antidotes to our crisis of division — recorded from my front porch! Click here to watch!

• Alexandra Hudson’s keynote on the main stage at FreedomFest, sharing the spotlight with esteemed figures such as Steve Forbes, Steven Pinker, Argentine President Javier Milei, and other prominent thinkers and luminaries.

• Blue Sky Podcast- Author Alexandra Hudson on Her Book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves

• How to Be a Better Human Podcast: I loved talking with Chris Duffy on his excellent TED podcast about How to be civil even if you disagree (w/ Alexandra Hudson)

• Interintellect- Watch an inspiring conversation between Lexi and Sean Hughes on the urgent issue of civility in our modern world

• The Soul of Civility featured on Indy Politics

• Finding Our Soul In Civility on Forbes.com

• TIME Magazine— What Emily Post and Daniel of Beccles Can Teach Us About Civility Today

• Civility is our eternal project- review of the soul of civility by the George W. Bush Center

Thank you for being part of our Civic Renaissance community!

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