[Air-L] Technology as ideologically neutral?
Neal Thomas
neal at hivemedia.ca
Tue Jul 10 15:35:46 PDT 2012
Hi everyone;
Just wanted to chime in late with a few more notable references:
http://bit.ly/MfJUcq
Habermas wrote an influential piece in debate with Marcuse, in his book
Towards a Rational Society. It's entitled 'Technology and Science as
Ideology', and was later the focus of an important critique in
Feenberg's (already mentioned) Questioning Technology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Simondon
Feenberg makes occasional use of the philosopher Gilbert Simondon's
theory of "concretization", as a way of understanding the relationship
between experience and technological development, and the terms under
which technical functions are reconciled with wider social contexts or
environments. However one might opt to connect the concept up to
ideology, Simondon takes a fascinating approach to technology in general
-- arguing that we individuate technology, and our selves, by
coordinating social, phenomenal and technical potentials in ways that
regulate difference, in what he calls technical 'ensembles'. There are
English translations of his works floating around the web, as well as
this collection that may be of interest, released in January:
http://www.euppublishing.com/book/9780748645251
http://bit.ly/NgZ8kw
Lorenzo Simpson's Technology, Time and the Conversations of Modernity
may also be of use, particularly in any discussion that concerns the
relationship between ideology and the temporalities produced by digital
technologies.
http://www.generation-online.org/p/fpvirno10.htm
Marx's 'Fragment on Machines' in the Grundrisse is another important
piece of writing, which develops a line of thinking around the
relationship between ever-improving industrial processes and living
labour. For example: "The development of fixed capital indicates to what
degree general social knowledge has become a *direct force of
production*, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of
social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect
and been transformed in accordance with it." The above link is Paolo
Virno developing his own account of the 'general intellect' from out of
this work.
Finally, also worth mentioning is the work of critical historian David
Noble. Books like Forces of Production and Progress Without People
contain important historical research as to why social processes (and
the ideologies they enact, in struggles between different actors) can be
far more revealing than the approach that presumes technology to be
ideologically neutral.
Best,
Neal Thomas, Ph.D
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Communication Studies
UNC Chapel Hill
http://www.hivemedia.ca/
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