Society and Technology

Technology as a Driving Force of Social Change and Central Issue of Modern Life, Or: "Why Study this Stuff?"

• Impact of Machines (printing press, automobile, computers)
• Relationship to other dominant social institutions:
  1. Military: Gulf War- "smart bombs"
  2. Economic Productivity: Highest sales- top 10 corporations today, Richest People  (Bill Gates)
  3. Medicine: New cancer treatment- designer viruses. Diphtheria virus fabricated to attack on cancer cells
• Linked to major Human accomplishments
  1. The moon landing, Hubble telescope. (1)
  2. Human Genome Project
• Linked to Major Problems
  1. Global warming
  2. Ozone depletion
  3. Challenger disaster
• Technology's Rapid Advance: New Concerns and Problems
  1. Computers: Expand our contacts, but result in social isolation
  2. Survival: By-products and Technics
  3. Ethics: Quality of life, Abortion, Freedom and Privacy, Artificial Intelligence (at MIT)- "when machines make decisions, Artificial Life.
  4. The World System: exploitation of the third world
  5. Magnifies and Intensifies Social Conflict- Hormones to promote milk production, genetically altered food, location of Nuclear power plants, etc.
     1. Monsanto's Nu-Leaf Potato

And, Science and Technology Have Centrally Located Social Roles

• Science (a body of knowledge, as a particular field of study, a method for producing knowledge: an activity-form, and social institution)
  1. Combats irrationality (supernatural, metaphysical, and scientific knowledge)
  2. As an Institution: The dominant source of "Cognitive Authority" (truth)
• Technology
  1. Sustaining economic development, and the Private Corporation
  2. Central element in personal identity
  3. Primary feature of both social integration and stratification.

Technology as a Cultural Element

• Humans and Learning (versus genes): Survival
• Tools (technics): Manipulate and create environments
• Use of tools=> Cooperation and Sharing=> Communication=> Increasing complexity of Social Organizations (Division of Labor)
• (Today: Information collection, storage, and transmission is the very essence of our social reality)
• The "Revolution" of today has its roots in the processes characteristic of the Industrial Revolution: A bit of history, ala Michael Wessels-
  1. Textile industry in England- 1750: Cottage based. 5-6 yarn spinners supply 1 loom. The weaver is his own master.
  2. Demand for cloth- increases the number of weavers, spinners lag behind. 1765: Spinning Jenny.
  3. New Imbalance (lots of yarn). 1830's- Power loom: Centralization, Loss of status for the weaver, child labor. Unemployment soars- the machine is viewed as "evil." The Luddites.
  4. Powered machines, more efficient if centrally located. Steam engine allows Factories to be built in central locations- access to raw materials for production and power. Urbanization.
  5. Work was transformed. The once "proud" weaver, was now one of many workers, supervised and controlled. The tools of the trade were owned by others, and profit centralized in the hands of the owners.
  6. Demands for profit led to demand for more efficiency==> further specialization.
  7. Work, and eventually social life became Rationalized. The worker became a commodity (now our minds/intellect have become commodities). Workers become dependent on the machine.
  8. Capitalism, and its economic class system emerge as the dominant forms of socio-economic organization
• Understanding this process, we must transcend a simple argument of Technological Determinism, and place our conception of technology within a broader understanding of the social construction of reality.

So: What is Technology?

(Robert McGinn in STS and THA)

1. Technics: The products of human fabrication. A computer.

2. A Technology: The complex of knowledge, methods, etc. used in making a technic. Computer technology.

3. A Cultural Activity: An endeavor in which certain people (technologists) engage. An "Activity-Form" (See below)

4. A Total Societal Enterprise: Technology as a Social Institution

Characteristic Aspects of Technology as an Activity-Form:

• Its outputs are material versus ideational: object making and transforming
• It is Fabricative: The human actor acts on the ingredients which form the technic. (Not facilitation of biological or chemical processes
• It has a Purpose: Expanding the realm of what is humanly possible

1. Direct extension of human capacities (the five senses, etc.)
2. Qualitative innovation (space flight)
3. Risk reduction (Kevlar)
4. Improvement of Performance ("natural keyboard")
5. Substitution (sidewalk heating device)
6. Expansion of the means for expression of "inner life" (aesthetics)
7. And: Marx- facilitate adaptation to threatening environment, and/or Nietzsche- "The will to power." Transcends human finitude

• It is Resource based, expending, and perhaps extending
• It is based on a complex system of Knowledge

1. Knowledge of how to do things
2. Knowledge of the resources
3. Knowledge linking 1 and 2 to accomplish a specific goal

• It is rooted in Method

1. Selection of the best way to do something (trial and error)
2. Procedures for acquiring, assembling, and testing materials
3. A nonarbitrary order of proceeding from initial conception to final material outcome

• It is rooted in a Socio-Cultural (see: Socio-Cultural Context notes) System

1. This context provides a starting point- technology builds on what is already there
2. It is shaped by economic, political, and social interests
3. The making and using of technics occurs within a complex socio-technical system

• It is informed by the practitioner's Mind Set: Craft vs. Alienated labor

And, Finally: Technology is Value-Laden

• It serves to benefit someone
• It is valued in and of itself (Technophila)
• Its processes deny certain resources from being used elsewhere
• It is informed by those who control the institutional means for its creation
• The technics produced embody (objectify) the values and perspectives of individuals engaged in their production.

URL: http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/280/tecsoc1.html
Owner: Robert O. Keel: rok@umsl.edu
Last Updated: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 16:01