Society and Technology
- Impact of Machines (printing
press, automobile, computers)
- Relationship to other
dominant social institutions:
- Military: Gulf War-
"smart
bombs" and drones
- Economic Productivity:
Highest sales- top 10 corporations
today, Richest People
(Bill Gates)
- Medicine:
New cancer treatment- designer viruses. Diphtheria virus fabricated to
attack on cancer cells
- Linked to major Human
accomplishments
- The
moon landing, Hubble telescope. (1)
- Human
Genome Project
- Linked to Major Problems
- Global
warming (climate change)
- Ozone
depletion
- Challenger
disaster
- Technology's Rapid Advance:
New Concerns and Problems
- Computers:
Expand our contacts, but result in social isolation
- Ethics: Quality of
life, Abortion, Freedom and Privacy, Artificial
Intelligence (at MIT)-
"when machines make decisions", Artificial Life.
- The
World System: exploitation of the third world
- Magnifies and Intensifies
Social Conflict- Hormones to promote milk production, genetically altered food, location
of nuclear power plants, etc.
- Monsanto's NewLeaf
Potato (local copy)
- Flash
Mobs?
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)
- Combats irrationality
(supernatural, metaphysical, and scientific knowledge)
- As an Institution:
The dominant source of "Cognitive Authority" (truth)
- Technology
- Sustaining economic
development, and the private corporation
- Central element in
personal identity
- Primary feature of
both social integration and stratification.
- 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-
- Textile industry
in England- 1750: Cottage based. 5-6 yarn spinners supply 1 loom. The
weaver is his own master.
- Demand for cloth-
increases the number of weavers, spinners lag behind. 1765: Spinning Jenny.
- 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.
- 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.
- Work was transformed.
The once "proud" and independent weaver was now one of many supervised
and controlled workers. The tools of the trade were owned by others, and profit
centralized in the hands of the owners.
- Demands for profit
led to demand for more efficiency==> further specialization.
- 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.
- 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.
(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)
-
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.
- Direct extension of
human capacities (the five senses, etc.)
- Qualitative innovation
(space flight)
- Risk reduction (Kevlar)
- Improvement of Performance
("natural keyboard")
- Substitution (sidewalk
heating device)
- Expansion of the means
for expression of "inner life" (aesthetics)
- 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
- Knowledge of how to
do things
- Knowledge of the resources
- Knowledge linking 1
and 2 to accomplish a specific goal
- It is rooted in Method
- Selection of the best
way to do something (trial and error)
- Procedures for acquiring,
assembling, and testing materials
- 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
- This context provides
a starting point- technology builds on what is already there
- It is shaped by economic,
political, and social interests
- 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 (Technophilia)
- 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, January 27, 2016 12:05