Technology and the (Post)Modern World: 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- "when machines make decisions.
  4. The World System: exploitation of the third world
  5. Magnifies and Intensifies Social Conflict- Hormones to promote milk production, location of Nuclear power plants, etc.
    6.

Computer Technology as a Key Element of Modern Social Relationships

  1. Sustaining economic development, and the Private Corporation
  2. Central element in personal identity
  3. Primary feature of both social integration and stratification.
    4.

Technology as a Cultural Element

  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

So: What is Technology?

(Robert McGinn in STS and THA)

Technics: The products of human fabrication. A computer.

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

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

A Total Societal Enterprise: Technology as a Social Institution

Characteristic Aspects of Technology as an Activity-Form:

  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
    8.
  1. Knowledge of how to do things
  2. Knowledge of the resources
  3. Knowledge linking 1 and 2 to accomplish a specific goal
    4.
  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
    4.
  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
    4.

And, Finally: Technology is Value-Laden