Contemporary technology is so tightly tied to industry, government, and the structures of economic power that changes in direction will be difficult to achieve. Further, we must press ahead in the name of the human adventure. Good citizens today now leave their screens at work only to be guided by robots in their cars that tell them the most efficient route to drive home. In this instance we have sought to be more literal than on other occasions when technique has been rendered as technology and socit technicienne as technological society. 2 The French text mis-titles this volume Sept essais. Inevitably, the implementation of such systems strengthens the central statethe only actor in the process capable of clearing all obstacles to the one best way. Ellul believed that the first act of freedom a citizen can exercise is to recognize the necessity of understanding technique and its colonizing powers. Carl Mitcham and Jim Grote (New York: University Press of America, 1984). Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., April 10, 2023. John W. Staudenmaier, Technologys Storytellers (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985), p. 16. Just as Marx deftly outlined how capitalism threw up new social classes, political institutions and economic powers in the 19th century, Ellul charted the ascent of technology and its impact on politics, society and economics in the 20th. Peter G. Makukhin , Obviously, Kaczynskis actions should not be laid at the feet of Ellul; Kaczynski had a history of mental illness, and in any case Ellul was just one of several technology critics the future terrorist read (others included Rachel Carson and Lewis Mumford). Once armed with one (or all three) of these introductory texts, one is well poised to begin wrestling with the genuine item. . The Human Person Flourishing Technology in Terms of Science - Quizlet But often the institutional biases associated with expertise are more subtle. Executive Summary Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI)a general purpose technology affecting many industrieshas been focused on advances in machine learning, which we recast as a quality-adjusted drop in the price of prediction. He examines the ramifications of genetic control, not only the now common measures of birth control and artificial insemination, but also the effect on the genetic pool of the increasing numbers of genetically poor individuals. Any product or process can be made safer, but always at an economic cost. As an example consider Norman Faramelli, an engineer with theological training, who writes in a framework of christian ideas: stewardship of creation, concern for the dispossessed, and awareness of the corrupting influence of power. Engineering was once considered heavy and dirty work unsuitable for women, but long after it became a clean and intellectual profession, there are still few women in it. Main theologians who do not totally reject technology criticize its tendency to generate a Promethean pride and a quest for unlimited power. Technology can contribute to the enrichment of human life and the flowering of creativity. STAS Reviewerr.docx - Chapter 7 - The Human Person Economic Policy for Artificial Intelligence - Innovation Policy and the It does systematically impose distinctive forms on all areas of life, but these can be modified through political processes. The digerati also promised that digital technologies would usher in a new era of decentralization and undo what mechanical technologies have already done: centralize everything into big companies, big boxes and big government. Mitcham and Grote. Decisions will be made on rational-technical grounds, marking the end of ideology. There will be a general consensus on social values; experts will coordinate social planning, using rational techniques such as decision theory and systems analysis. He remains the most revolutionary, prophetic and dangerous voice of this or any century. Rational order is everywhere imposed at the expense of spontaneity and freedom. They believe that society is basically sinful. Studs Terkel and others have found in interviews that resentment, frustration, and a sense of powerlessness are widespread among American industrial workers. Here was an inspiring vision of a planetary future in which technology and spiritual development would be linked together. Once we allow technology to define the good life, we have excluded many important human values from consideration. 4 Uncontrollability. Economic growth and lower prices for consumers are often more important than additional safety, and absolute safety is an illusory goal. . My copy of EllulsThe Technological Societyhas yellowed with age, but it remains one of the most important books I own. We should err on the side of caution, adopting policies designed to avert catastrophe rather than to maximize short-run benefits. They can sell their labor as a commodity, but their work is not a meaningful form of self-expression. Alvin Weinberg, Can Technology Replace Social Engineering, in Technology and the Future, ed. 4. I admire these critics for defending individuality and choice in the face of standardization and bureaucracy. 2. 27. Toxic wastes may contaminate groundwater decades after they have been buried. In addition, the bicycle carried cultural meanings, affecting a person's self-image and social status. The dense and discursive work lays out in 500 pages how technique became for civilization what British colonialism was for parts of 19th-century Africa: a force of total domination. See for example Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine, vol. 47. 26. These authors say that social justice and environmental protection should not be ignored, but they must not be allowed to jeopardize economic goals. 28. Resilience is a program of Post Carbon Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the world transition away from fossil fuels and build sustainable, resilient communities. Individual choice has a wider scope today than ever before because technology has produced new options not previously available and a greater range of products and services. 1965), and The Responsibility of the Christian in a World of Technology, in Science and Religion, ed. Darrell Fasching, The Dialectic of Apocalypse and Utopia in the Theological Ethics of Jacques Ellul, in Research in Philosophy and Technology, vol. The dominant class will be scientists, engineers, and technical experts; the dominant institutions will be intellectual ones (universities, industrial laboratories, and research institutes). Ellul also defined the key characteristics of technology. endobj I am most sympathetic with the contextualists, though I am indebted to many of the insights of the pessimists. This position has much in common with the Catholic view and shares its understanding that God is at work in history, society, and nature as well as in personal life and the church. 25. But in 1954 Ellul saw the beast emerging in infant form. La technique's advances through a combination of its own logic and Man's greed/quest for power. One must eventually read attentively a great number of pages of Elluls writing before finally coming again to a clear understanding of Elluls arguments. They were confident about human reason, scientific and technological knowledge, and social progress. In any case, Ellul is better at tearing down than building up, write Greenman, Schuchardt, and Toly. The city is the place where technique excludes all forms of natural reality. It is often easier to find a technical fix for a social problem than to try to change human behavior or get agreement on political policies.13, Florman urges us to rely on the judgment of experts in decisions about technology. Three years ago, almost no one had heard of the polycrisis. Philosophy of Technology (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1988), defines technology as the practical implementation of intelligence and argues that intelligence itself has both practical and theoretical forms. The Pentagon of Power (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1967 and 1969). The deployment of technology is primarily a function of the marketplace. Commitment to justice within nations also requires a more serious analysis of the distribution of the fonts and benefits of technology. 1). The staff members of regulatory agencies, in turn, are mainly recruited from the industries they are supposed to regulate. I have found much of utility in the book and also much to criticize. Frederick Ferr (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1990). 46. Schuurman was also a contributor to Stephen Monsma, ed., Responsible Technology: A Christian Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986). In a world of limited resources, it also appears impossible for all nations to sustain the standards of living of industrial nations today, much less the higher standards that industrial nations expect in the future. Contextualism is most common among our third group, those who see technology as an ambiguous instrument of social power. His relative obscurity has many roots. The French critic was the first to note that technologies build upon each other and therefore centralize power and control. 16. Join a vibrant community of students and scholars For example, U.S. legislation supporting railroads and public mass transit systems was blocked by a coalition of auto manufacturers, insurance companies, oil companies, labor unions, and the highway construction industry. Machines, whether mechanical or digital, arent interested in truth, beauty or justice. Others spend their entire professional lives in the technosphere of artifacts, machines, electronics, and computers, cut off from the world of nature. 1972); Robert Schrag, Ten Thousand Working Days (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1978); William A. Faunce, Problems of an Industrial Society, 2d ed. Education Virtualization Prospects In Pessimistic Light Of Policy will influence the impact on two key dimensions: diffusion and consequences. I concluded that the strong program among sociologists and philosophers of science carries this historical and cultural relativism too far, and I defended a reformulated understanding of objectivity, which gives a major role to empirical data while acknowledging the influence of society on interpretive paradigms. Technological progress creates more problems. - According to Ellul's pessimistic arguments are: 1. technological progress has a price 2. technological progress creates more problems 3. technological progress creates damaging effects 4. technological progress creates unpredictable devastating effects TECHNOLOGICAL OPTIMISM - This view is strongly supported by technologists and engineers and The passions it provokes which exist in everybody are amplified. Technology leads to rational and efficient organization, which requires fragmentation, specialization, speed, the maximization of output. Note that contextualism allows for a two-way interaction between technology and society. His subsequent books, especially The Political Illusion (1965) and Propaganda (1962), further develop and refine elements . And even with all the luxuries and tools technique has brought to our work and home lives, we can feel no real security because there is always the possibility that automation or some other aspect of technique will render us redundant. Read him. We have let technology define the good life in terms of production and consumption, and we have ended with mindless labor and mindless leisure. Ellul had no formal training in theology, but this may have contributed to his originality. This contrasts strongly with the greater work autonomy, job satisfaction, and commitment to work found in the professions, skilled trades, and family-owned farms.21, Other features of technological development since World War II have evoked widespread concern. Sojourners could readily devote an issue to himand did just . The worker becomes the servant of the machine, adjusting to its schedule and tempo, adapting to its requirements. Ellul wasnt just worried about the impact of a single gadget such as the television or the phone but the phenomenon of technical convergence., He feared the impact of systems or complexes of techniques on human society and warned the result could only be an operational totalitarianism., Convergence, he wrote, is a completely spontaneous phenomenon, representing a normal stage in the evolution of technique.. Second, environmental destruction is symptomatic of a deeper problem: alienation from nature. 49. The replacement of workers by machines was intended not only to reduce labor costs but also to assert greater control by management over labor. We are impressed by Elluls critique, yet wish that he had developed more concrete alternatives. Certainly, anyone who has experienced a dramatic religious conversion (as Ellul did as a young man) is aware of the rapid and decisive reorienting of inner commitments that occurs as part of that process. Others are critical of technology, holding that it leads to alienation from nature, environmental destruction, the mechanization of human life, and the loss of human freedom. The pessimists have defended human values in a materialistic and impersonal society. The large scale of many current systems is as much the product of government subsidies, tax and credit policies, and particular corporate interests as of any inherent economies of scale. in the context of the philosophy of technology by J. Ellul. This is understandable among English speaking readers and critics due to the mistranslation of his books. If the DCs will then make a matching contribution to the revenues from their general taxa-tion, on the ground that a selective immigration pol-icy is likely to bring general externalities to the DCs, the total UN receipts from the proposed tax would rise to one billion U.S. dollars. Resistance, which is never futile, can only begin by becoming aware and bearing witness to the totalitarian nature of technological society. When wealth is distributed unevenly, the luxuries of a few people carry much more weight in the marketplace than the basic needs of many others. They claim that any problems created by technology are themselves amenable to technological solutions. Similarly, nuclear power has well-documented negative secondary effects, but can the same be said for solar power? Appropriate technology can be thought of as an attempt to achieve some of the material benefits of technology outlined in the first section without the destructive human costs discussed in the second section most of which result from large-scale centralized technologies. Wiebe Bijker, Thomas Hughes and Trevor Pinch (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987). 38. Computers and automation hold the promise of eliminating much of the monotonous work typical of earlier industrialism. See also The Place of Technology in a General Biology of Mankind, and On Looking at a Cyclotron, in The Activation of Energy (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971). In this view, technologies develop from the push of science and the pull of economic profits. They see run-away technology as an autonomous and all-embracing system that molds all of life, including the political sphere, to its requirements. This does not mean opting out of the use of technology. It is said that the technologies of the Industrial Revolution imposed their own requirements and made repetitive tasks inevitable. A knife can be used for surgery or for minder. It remains to be seen whether any distinctive legacy from Marxism will remain there after the economic and political turmoil of the early nineties. But Ferkiss thinks that economic criteria can be subordinated to such social criteria as ecological balance and human need. Niebuhr holds that the majority of Christians are in three movements that fall between the extremes of accommodation and withdrawal. George Wise, Science and Technology. Osiris, 2d ser., 1 (1985): 22946. By Vicki Robin, Fran Korten, Resilience.org, Fran Korten is former executive director, publisher and contributing editor for YES! Reactions vary, but many would agree with Bernard Gendron that in the Soviet Union workers were as alienated, factories as hierarchically organized, experts as bureaucratic, and pollution and militarism as rampant as in the United States. In this new society, according to the sociologist Daniel Bell, power will be based on knowledge rather than property. Insight and inspiration in turbulent times. The Technological Society is crammed to bursting with similar instances of wild speculation masquerading as ironclad certainty. As Ellul argues, technique has taken on a mind of its own; it is autonomous. Technique, he writes, is capable of self-generation. STAS - Different selected views on technology. - Studocu He parsed the dynamics of technology with a cold lucidity. 2 0 obj Technology assuredly fragments human communities, but in the world of technique centralization remains the norm. This volume gives me the welcome and highly useful opportunity to address Jacques Ellul's (1964 [1954]) classic work, The Technological Society, from the context of my work on social theory, the McDonaldization of society, and the age of the prosumer. See also Charles Susskind, Understanding Technology. Technology, he wrote, cant put up with human values and must necessarily don mathematical vestments. The inevitability or inherent logic of technological developments is not supported by historical studies. In many respects global society resembles the Soviet Union just prior to its collapse when hypernormalization ruled the day. It makes little difference who is nominally in controlelected politicians, technical experts, capitalist executives, or socialist managersif decisions are determined by the demands of the technical system. g\nT:{]l O@qcOV; ${ePf" t.Z1JhPb fYF(q86j, /*t+g$g6p|cb*j~F[:.HH'_ ?!VAl~%xD7AC8r\ ";&%`# Ms;-4:m#+6`L(3WBe-OHeYn6zTv \}n)C>8I6f;mO +fE7VN]jlX&>K2c. Kaleimomi told me the story as Hilo rains were dancing across Waiakea Pond. But one wonders what the Unabomber would have made of Elluls religious works. Paul Durbin (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1987), and A Christian Philosophical Perspective on Technology, in Theology and Technology, ed. It plays a vital role in these contentious, confusing times by applying timeless principles to the specific conditions and crises of our ageto what Kirk, in the inaugural issue, called the great moral and social and political and economic and literary questions of the hour.. Atdtudes of power and domination are incompatible with the humility and reverence that prayer requires.33. The article focuses on those technology-prompted changes in organizational design that affect the quality and . 4 0 obj They consider technology to be predominantly beneficial, and therefore little government regulation or public policy choice is needed; consumers can influence technological development by expressing their preferences through the marketplace. Social and geographical mobility allow a greater choice of jobs and locations. It is not yet able to control its errors and dysfunctions, to react on its source and modify itself. . 21. The philosopher Hans Jonas is impressed by the new scale of technological power and its influence on events distant in time and place. The Foundation for Responsible Robotics recentlycreateda small stir by asking if sexual intimacy with robots could lead to greater social isolation.. Technique is no longer some uncertain and incomplete intermediary between humanity and the natural milieu. Teilhard's writings present us with a magnificent sweep of time from past to future. G. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990). . Alternative purposes would lead to alternative designs. Human ends are then adapted to suit the techniques available rather than the reverse. I am not a member yet (register) | They would side with our first group, those who are optimistic about technology. . It has a magnificent future if it is incorporated into God's work of creation and redemption. It is a universal mediator, producing a generalised mediation, totalizing and aspiring to totality. First, in . By turning our backs on technological change, we would be expressing our satisfaction with current world levels of hunger, disease, and privates. Ellul's own comprehensive definition is found in the preface of The Technological Society: "Technique is the totality of methods, rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity." According to Ellul, technique necessarily came into play at the Fall of man into sin. Many critics have misunderstood Elluls diagnosis of the worlds social ills via technique, because they have wrongly perceived that he was attacking technology. They hold that meaningful work is as important as economic productivity in policies for technology. With this new power over heredity, he said, we can replace the crude forces of natural selection and seize the tiller to control the direction of future evolution. He has won seven National Magazine Awards for his journalism since 1989 and top honours for investigative writing from the Association of Canadian Journalists. An excerpt from William Lovitt (New York: Harper & Row, 1977). Networks of industries with common interests form lobbies of immense political power. However, some determinists retain great optimism about the consequences of technology. His concern for humanistic values informs each . 50. Jacques pined for the life of a naval officer, but the elder Ellul insisted his son study law. Elluls issue was not with technological machines but with a society necessarily caught up in efficient methodological techniques. He, too, warned about the promise of leisure provided by the mechanization and automatization of work. Thomas Misa, How Machines Make History, and How Historians (and Others) Help Them Do So, Science, Technology & Human Values 13 (1988): 30831. Photo byJan van Boeckel, ReRun Productions, Creative Commons licensed (CC BY-SA 4.0). (Ellul never set foot in the U.S., the country where he enjoyed his widest readership. Yes I am a member (login) | The technologies needed there must be relatively inexpensive and labor-intensive. Because it explains the nightmarish hold technology has on every aspect of life, and also remains a guide to the perplexing determinism that technology imposes on life. Improved Communications. 34. Tellingly, most of these solutions involve more technology. No single one provides a comprehensive summary of his conclusions, but the best starting point remains his most famous book, The Technological Society, published in French in 1954 and in English a decade later. This is an unrelentingly grim picture. Another philosopher, Albert Borgmann, does not want to return to a pretechnological past, but he urges the selection of technologies that encourage genuine human fulfillment. 3. Cf. It is probably clear from my summary that The Technological Society is vulnerable to criticism from several angles. 49. Pace adds living things among the ordered systems (in order to include agriculture, medicine, and biotechnology), but I suggest that these are already included under the rubric of practical tasks. Frederick Ferr. With new forms of transportation, one can in a few hours travel to distant cities that once took months to reach. Technological progress creates unpredictable devastating effects. Any modification of an element has repercussions on the ensemble and modifies it. In some renditions, the ways in which technology shapes culture are forgotten while the cultural forces on technology are scrutinized. 2. According as its defenders, technology brings psychological and social benefits as well as material progress. Three views have been proposed (see Fig. Mitcham and Grote. Teaser photo credit:Jacques Ellul, the Karl Marx of the 20th century. They must fulfill basic human needs, especially for food, housing and health. 36. W. Norris Clarke, S.J., Technology and Man: A Christian Vision, in Science and Religion. ed. But technology directed to genuine human needs is a legitimate expression of humankind's creative capacities and an essential contribution to its welfare. J. Wilkinson (New York: Knopf, 1964); also The Technological System, trans. By autonomous, Ellul meant that technology had become a determining force that elicits and conditions social, political and economic change.. Paul Tillich, The Person in a Technological Society, in Social Ethics, ed. Ellul argues that technology is not an objective force that can be used for good or evil; instead, it is intrinsically neutral. Conformity to a mass society jeopardizes spontaneity and freedom. At the opposite extreme are the critics of modern technology who see it as a threat to authentic human life. With many middle-level jobs eliminated, these lower-level jobs often become dead ends for women.49 A study of three computerized industries in Britain found that women were the low-paid operators, while only men understood and controlled the equipment, and men almost never worked under the supervision of women.50. Jacques complied, completing his doctoral thesis in 1936. The concrete example of this is the city.