[lbo-talk] The Neutrality of Technology

Chuck0 chuck at mutualaid.org
Mon Sep 15 21:59:38 PDT 2003

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Here is some further reading which I think explains my position that that technology isn't inherently neutral. Evidently this controversy gets around in academic circles.

Chuck0

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The Neutrality of Technology

"Whether one accepts the neutrality of technology depends on one's valuing philosophy--whether one tends toward the pragmatic and situational, or the absolute and authoritarian. Those who believe that technology is neutral argue that "guns don't kill people, people do", or that a knife can be used to "cook, kill, or cure." Those who believe the opposite counter with evidence that technology cannot be evaluated in a vacuum. Monsma (1986) argued for the "value-ladenness" of technology (chapter 3). He based his premise on two traits that he believed are common to all technological developments: (1) technological objects are unique; they are designed to function in a particular and limited way, and (2) technological objects are intertwined with their environment; they interact in unique ways with the rest of reality."

http://www.regent.edu/acad/schcom/rojc/mdic/neutral.html

----------------- Technological or Media Determinism Daniel Chandler

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/tecdet/tdet08.html

Some theorists who posit technological autonomy are also amongst the wider group of those who have insisted on the non-neutrality of technology, arguing that we cannot merely 'use' technology without also, to some extent, being influenced or 'used by' it. Jacques Ellul was one of the most prominent of such theorists. He dismissed the neutralist idea that whether technology has good or bad effects depends on how it is used and the usual kind of example, that a knife can be used to kill, cook or cure. He insists that 'technique carries with it its own effects quite apart from how it is used... No matter how it is used, it has of itself a number of positive and negative consequences. This is not just a matter of intention' (Ellul 1990, p. 35). He adds that 'technical development is neither good, bad, nor neutral' (ibid., p. 37). We become conditioned by our technological systems or environments.

----------------- Field Observations: An Interview with Wendell Berry

Fisher-Smith: What, in your opinion, are the most dangerous superstitions, as you refer to them, of modern industrial culture?

Berry: That industry will inevitably come up with solutions for the problems that it has created; that knowledge is neutral or value-free; that education is good; that education makes people better; that you can make people better by means of technological progress. Those are some of them.

Fisher-Smith: The superstition that knowledge is neutral reminds me of a discussion you and I had last month, about the Luddites in early nineteenth-century England, who broke up machines and burned factories when faced with new weaving machines which, they felt, would disrupt their way of life. I notice that the term "Luddite" has a kind of sting in popular usage...

Berry: Luddism has been far too simply defined. It doesn't mean just the hatred of machinery. Luddism has to do with a choice between the human community and technological innovation, and a Luddite is somebody who would not permit his or her community to be damaged or destroyed by the use of new machinery. The Amish, for instance, have succeeded simply by asking one question of any proposed innovation, namely: "What will this do to our community?"

That, to me, is an extremely wise question, and most of us have never learned to ask it. If we wanted to be truly progressive, if we were truly committed to improving ourselves as creatures and as members of communities, we would always ask it. I think some of us are beginning to ask it. The question isn't often spoken outright, but it lies behind a lot of these grassroots movements to save forests and rivers and neighborhoods and communities, and so on.

http://arts.envirolink.org/interviews_and_conversations/WendellBerry.html

---------------- MEGATECHNOLOGY An Interview with Jerry Mander By Scott London

How do you respond to the argument that technology is not inherently good or bad, it’s how we use it that matters.

That's the major homily of our time. And it's a very serious mistake. The idea that technology is neutral -- that it doesn't have social, political and environmental characteristics -- is really dangerous.

Consider nuclear power and solar power. Both are energy forms, but they have entirely different effects on the system. Nuclear power is an inherently centralized technology. It requires centralized military-industrial institutions. Nobody knows what to do about 250,000 years of dangerous wastes. If we were to judge energy only in terms of who uses it, that would be like saying, "Well, if some good people got together and ran the nuclear power industry, the wastes wouldn't have to be safeguarded for 250,000 years." But these things are intrinsic to the technology. It's not a question of whether good people use them.

Solar technology is the exact opposite -- it is inherently localizing. A couple of people can easily put it together, it's not expensive to use, the community can run it without having to hook up to the grid, and it has no lasting negative effects.

http://www.scottlondon.com/interviews/mander.html

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"Technique carries with it its own effects, quite apart from how it is used... No matter how it is used, it has of itself a number of positive and negative consequences." -Jacques Ellul, in [Chandler i]

The Computer, like all Technology, is Neutral

The Case Against this Statement

Name: Laura Nolan

http://www.cs.tcd.ie/tangney/ComputersAndSociety/99/StdPapers/P3-Revisited/ln.html

"It is often said that technology itself must be neutral because it is passive - does nothing without human intervention. This argument is naïve, and fails to get to the heart of the question. The fact that technology doesn't do things on its own says nothing about its neutrality. Is the gun neutral simply because it requires a human being to pull its trigger? It still remains an artifact which, by making killing so easy, encourages the act. According to anti-gun groups, for example, people are more likely to suicide or commit violence against a family member if there is a gun in the household. Accidents involving firearms are also common [see http://www.ceasefire.org, for example]. It seems difficult to make a case for the neutrality of firearms based merely on their passivity. The same argument applies to technology in general."

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Is Technoscience Neutral?

The thesis proposed in this paper is that modern technoscience is neither ‘neutral’ in the sense that it is merely a ‘means’ which can be used for the attainment of whatever end, nor autonomous in the sense that it is the sole or the most important factor determining social structures, relations and values. Instead, it is argued that technoscience is conditioned by the power relations implied by the specific set of social, political and economic institutions characterising the growth economy and the dominant social paradigm, that is, the system of beliefs, ideas and the corresponding values that are associated with these institutions.

Towards a Democratic Conception of Science and Technology TAKIS FOTOPOULOS http://www.democracynature.org/dn/vol4/fotopoulos_technology.htm

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