Sosc2080 - Technology.2 - Sept. 18, 2002

Overview of lecture:

1. What do we mean by "technology"?
2. What kinds of issues do social scientists look at when examining a technic or technology?
3. Postman's historical overview of the evolution of technology

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1. What do we mean by technology?

1.1. Start with Perrolle's definition of "tool":

Human uses OBJECT X to achieve GOAL Y

Extensions of the human body
(tools to manipulate physical world)

e.g. hammer --> a robot to investigate the inside of Khufu's great Pyramid)

and brain (tools to gather and store information) - e.g., written language --> York University libraries databases)

But might there be a problem with using term "tool" to describe ALL that we have made?

- seems an adequate term to describe a hammer (which we control) but inadequate to describe a computer (which we merely manage)

- doesn't make the connection between the object and the inventors/users

Look to Greek root of "technology"

techne = art, skill (of a person using OBJECT X)

series of words from this root:

TECHNics = "material products of human making" (according to Lewis Mumford)

TECHNique - "method for performing a task" (Perrolle, p. 11)

- Knowing how to use hammer, not necessarily how to build hammer

- Can be computer literate without knowing how computer works

TECHNologist - person designing the technic (e.g., the engineer)

TECHNological - "the sum of the ways in which a social group provide themselves with the material objects of their civilization." (Random House Dictionary)

e.g., "The landing of Apollo XI on the moon in 1969 was a great tribute to American technology."

2. What kinds of issues do social scientists look at when examining a technic or technology?

- expanding circle around the "technic" to include inventor/designer/engineers, then uers, then values of society as a whole, then natural environment.

- my case study: the sewing needle (explained in lecture)

Conclusion: a needle is not costly, not difficult, recycles materials, products have practical uses + esthetic considerations

Why has the use of this tool for this purpose waned? (not become obsolete!)

3. Helpful to take an historical overview: see Postmanâs descriptions of the 3 classifications for cultures (Technopoly: The surrender of Culture to Technology, 1992):

1. Tool-Using Cultures (up to 17 century)

tools invented to do 2 things:

solve specific urgent problems of physical life
OR to serve the symbolic world of arts, relation, ritual (see Perrolle's ideas on agricultural rituals, p. 11)

2. Technocracy

- roots in medieval European world with 3 inventions:
clock
printing press
telescope

- new relationship between "tools" and "culture" emerging faith in:
science
objectivity
the "beliefs" of technology
efficiency
standardization
progress

Characterized by 2 opposing world-views co-existing in uneasy tension:

traditional vs. technological (stronger)

Technopoly = totalitarian technocracy

- elimination of traditional values

- discrediting humanist approaches, myths, etc.) ( absolute faith in our machines·.what weâve made more valuable than who we are or were...