What do we give up for the benefits of electric lighting?
Civics of Technology publishes reviews of various media—books, articles, shows, documentaries, curriculum, albums, and really anything. These reviews should put these media into conversation with our aims at CoT, such as our assumption that “technologies are not neutral and neither are the societies into which they are introduced,” our five critical questions about technology, ecological and critical perspectives, or a broader technology education lens. We hope these reviews will help educators and scholars to identify which books to read or lessons to try in their classrooms. Use our contact page or email us (dankrutka@gmail.com; mariekheath@gmail.com) to submit a review. In this post, we share our first review. All reviews will be posted on our reviews page on the site.
Bogard, Paul. (2014). The end of night: Searching for natural darkness in an age of artificial light. Back Bay Books. 352 pages. $17.99 Paperback. ISBN-13: 9780316182911.
Review by Jacob Pleasants
If you were to leave your home in the middle of the night, how dark would it be? It’s night, of course, so it is definitely going to be dark outside, but how dark, really? How many stars can you see in the sky? Can you see the Milky Way? Very few of us ever get to experience the darkness of night that existed prior to the advent of electric lighting. Even if you leave densely-populated areas, vestiges of our extremely-well-lit civilization remain.
The critical question: is that something to be concerned about? Obviously artificial lighting is (and has been) an extremely important part of human life. It’s not something that we can simply stop using. Aside from the astronomers and stargazers who can always be expected to rail against “light pollution,” what are the consequences of electric lighting for the rest of us?
These are some of the questions that Paul Bogard takes up in The End of Night. While the book begins with and to some extent focuses on the loss of our ability to see the stars, Bogard explores a wide array of ways that artificial lighting affects us. He addresses issues related to working the nightshift (what happens to our bodies when our nights are spent in brightly-lit places of work?), the safety of moving about cities at night (are our city lights really designed with safety in mind?), and consequences of artificial lighting on plants and animals. His analyses draw upon the work of a wide range of experts, and provide insightful explorations of issues that we rarely consider.
A theme that I found particularly informative was Bogard’s discussion of how and why the brightness of outdoor lights are determined. If a goal is to promote the safety of pedestrians, much of the lighting we see in public spaces is poorly designed – it’s often too bright and it’s often not lighting the right things. Seeing in the dark is about contrast rather than overall brightness, but those subtleties are rarely considered. All too often, choices about lighting are made under the assumption that more light is always better and safer (never mind the enormous evidence to the contrary). There are designers who know this, of course, and they work tirelessly to help municipalities make better choices. But challenging the assumption that brighter = better is hard.
This book is filled with interesting and provocative threads, and I cannot do justice to all of them here. More than anything, the book left me with a heightened awareness of just how much unnecessary light floods our lives. It has genuinely made me want to have less artificial light in my life – not because it will necessarily let me see more stars or sleep better (maybe it will), but because there is something aesthetically worthwhile about darkness itself. Darkness is not an evil to be vanquished, but an essential part of the human experience.
Connections to Five Critical Questions about Technology
What does society give up for the benefits of electric lighting? We give up the experience of real darkness, in addition to our access to the stars. Our society has therefore eliminated a whole dimension of human experience.
Who is harmed and who benefits from all this electric light? Many non-human animals and plants are harmed by electric lighting. Humans are harmed as well – sleep cycles disrupted and our lights do not actually create safe outdoor spaces.
What does artificial lighting need? They are resource-intensive, and immensely so. From the electricity to power them to the infrastructure itself.
What are the unintended or unexpected changes caused by electric light? More lighting does not make our world any safer or easier to navigate. Better lighting is not necessarily brighter lighting.
Why is it difficult to imagine our world without electric light? We live in a world that is so well-lit that darkness seems all the more fearsome and unsafe.
Classroom Resource: The 2011 picture book Blackout John Rocco (Author & Illustrator) offers an excellent resource for opening discussions with students about how electric/artificial lighting affects our relationship to the stars and each other.
Further Reading: Sacasas, L. M. (2021, January 28). What did we lose when we lost the stars? The Convivial Society [newsletter]. https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/what-did-we-lose-when-we-lost-the