Intwo

For this assignment, we were to read two readings and comment on three passages from them. The readings were:

1. Culture + Technology – Jennifer Daryl Slack & Macgregor Wise
2. Values and Valuing – Adapted from Carl Mitcham, ed., Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics

Both very interesting, the readings touched on many aspects of culture in regard to technology. Despite their americentricity, they both conveyed how the past has lead us to the state that we are currently in. They also (more so in Culture + Technology) offer relationships between events and arguments for why these events have taken place.

The first passage is the following:

We are persuaded by progress because we are persuaded by the logic (logos) of the argument that it is better to be efficient, rational, and scientific. We are also persuaded by the logic and ethic (ethos) of the argument of evolution (we trust science and scientists) that progress is inevitable, And finally. we are persuaded by the deeply emotional argument (pathos) of the sublime; persuaded by our own feelings of fear, awe, and expectation.

What I am interested in within this passage has little to do with logos and ethos and most to do with pathos or the sublime. I feel as though humans inherently have addictive personalities. I think that this is an addiction to the sublime. At a point in time, we changed from a species of hunter / gatherers (which metaphorically, all other species on earth are) to a species that would take control our their destiny through creation. As creators it is seen that we were taking the role of god (whatever your interpretation of that is), and god is something that has never truly been understood (if it were, I don’t believe that there would be religious wars). Thus, there is a sense of fear in that we have never actually understood the repercussions of our creative mind.

Despite the fear associated with creative developments, and despite the reasoning behind them (survival, utopia, progress) we have always maintained a tendency to create. I feel as though this tendency is an addiction. As if the apple on the tree of knowledge was laced with something that we cannot let go of, and if it will lead us to the demise of humanity, we will continue to create until that time. Not that it will, but I just feel as though our addiction is that strong.

I don’t feel as though this addiction should be seen as a negative aspect of humanity. I also don’t feel that all people are addicted in the same way. The things that we make can substitute the feelings of sublime, for example cigarettes give a feeling of fear (the may harm us), awe (they enhance a moment by altering your sensory perception of that moment), and expectation (the result of smoking may be harmful, but it may not, you won’t know until it does or you die). Thus, people feel vicariously sublime through the objects that we create.

I would agree that the persuasion of progress in it’s current state is as Slack & Wise put it, but I feel as though the sublime is stronger than we are lead to believe. The logos and ethos may change, but the pathos will not.

Second:

Langdon Winner explains that technological determinism is a belief that depends on two hypotheses:

1. that belief that the technical base of a society is the fundamental condition affecting all patterns of social existence and
2. that belief that technological change is the single most important source of change in society.

I struggle with these ideas a lot. I feel as though the reason that I can’t quite grasp how I feel about them has something to do with my limitation in understanding scale and time. In fact, time itself is something that we have a very hard time with. We create time by mapping it to causal events. There are a few problems with that:

1. Our only true understanding of anything is through a moment. Anything beyond the current moment is modelled though our perception or our memory. The moment is a multiplication of sensory experience, pragmatic rationalization, and historical referencing. At no point in time have we been able to recreate this experience for a moment that is not the current one. Thus, we don’t truly understand the past.
2. History is communicated through an event based narrative. It reinforces the notion of linear causality, and though we can rationalize it pragmatically, we cannot understand it. We can make attempts to re-create it so that we have have better visual references to make sense of it, but we still cannot experience it.
3. The further that you move away from the current moment, the further or more different the experience would be. Thus, the farther back in time that we think about, the less we can understand.
4. Our social existence has been documented upon the technical base of society, beyond that even our rational is speculation about how that moment would feel.

So, as we know it, these are true, but it is impossible for us to know otherwise. As much as I can think about it, to attempt to know if this technological deterministic view is true or right or good, at this point in time, I can’t.

Third:

If technology is conceived as a matter of control and dependence, of Master and Slave, it is set apart from human culture, treated as autonomous, then either blamed or praised. Either we have control over technology, or it has control over us; the effects in either case can be conceived as either worthy of praise or blame.

Throughout history, I really wonder if this conundrum has been so prevalent as it is now. When new tools were more explicitly beneficial, did people still blame them? For example, when the carriage was invented and people discovered that they could carry much more and much faster than ever before, did they dispute it and say that they liked walking with a heavy load? Did they blame it for taking away the pace that they were so used to or was it embraced as a welcome alternative to the ways that they were used to?

To me, it seems that this invention would be hard to blame, but it is hard for me to understand their experience. But, on the chance that the notion of blame did not always exist, I wonder if it something that is increasing. The blame and praise of our inventions is possibly an artifact of the intent that is put into them. For many reasons, we make things for betterment, but for many other reasons we make them for other reasons. The other reasons often have more to do with ego and self than betterment of their environment. I sure hope that we can achieve a level of culture that create things only for betterment, and in which the things that we create are considerate to every aspect of their environment.

That sounds like a long road, and I am sure it won’t be bricked with gold.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 6:55 pm and is filed under humanity, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.