[pf] Resurgence magazine; Langdon Winner on technological change.

· If I were you, I wouldn't allow the current "war" and "security"
red-herrings to distract you from major long-term changes. After all,
invasions of country, privacy, and person, however deplorable, have been
going on since time immemorial.

· The effects of over-consumption (driven by greed) and micro-technology,
will have major effects on your children's children, long after the US's
current foreign adventure is just a footnote in history.

· If anyone gets Resurgence (UK) {ISSN 0034-5970}:
http://www.gn.apc.org/resurgence/read.htm ,
 the paper edition of issue 208, read the feature article by Langdon Winner:
QUESTIONING THE UNQUESTIONED
- The question is “Why are we developing this technology in the first place?”

· It contains:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  Modern technology is driven by the aspiration of instrumental improvement
in every conceivable setting without limit ... can be measured as miles per
hour, bushels per hectare or hamburgers per hour.
  .. one seldom hears the word 'progress' used in polite company these days.
  There are two flaws in the programme of ongoing instrumental improvement.
First ... fascination with technical means begins to eliminate any care
about ends.
Another ... an eagerness to forget everything about context. In education
today ... less commonly asked are some basic questions like: "What are the
ends of education in the first place?"
  The quest for technical improvement has spread rapidly ...Technology goes
where it has never been. And whatever it touches it transforms,
restructures and redefines. ... a colonization of the whole world. This is
the heart of globalization — the universal penetration of the passion for
instrumental improvement.
  The most drastic domains for colonisation of this kind are precisely the
ones that have been sheltered from intrusion in the past. Today the genomes
of all species have been targeted. ... Personal identity and conditions of
well-being are targeted.
  The improvements sought are best achieved by continual change ... human
relationships must also be fleeting, team-centred and rapidly decomposable.
... render[s] loyalty to others obsolete.
  Current fashions of social theory tell us that the world is populated by
... entities composed of complex mixtures of artificial and natural parts.
... anyone's being is not by any means given, stable, or worthy of respect,
but highly flexible, subject to a wide range of interpretations and,
indeed, a variety of projects in technical modification. ... The idea that
anything might be left alone because it has an integrity in being is a
thoroughly risible, outmoded concept in some circles. .. howls of
post-modern laughter.
  Increasingly, I believe that those who raise questions about justice,
democracy, and sustainability in technological changes in the global
economy will have to confront  the prophets of flexible, deconstructable
futures, many of whom work in Humanities departments but who are no longer
humanists in any meaningful sense.
  - Which practices, human relationships, social institutions and ways of
being do we wish to foster?
  - What ends and purposes ought to orient our activity?
  Asking these questions one immediately becomes a critic of technology,
or, more precisely, of our technology-centred, technology-obsessed social
and economic systems. If one were to announce, "I'm a music critic" — or an
art critic, or a literary critic — people would never answer, "oh, you're
just anti-music" — or anti-art, or anti-literature. But if you say you're a
technology critic, people immediately attribute motives most vile. This is
testamant to the almost religious enchantment that at peresnt surround
matters technological.
  Young people are especially important in the dialogue ahead. These days
the young are targeted as markets, enlisted early on to join the vast herd
of unthinking technology boosters.
  What kinds of human being do we want to be? What relationship to the
biosphere do we want to have? What kind of society do we want to build?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
sent-on by David.
David MacClement [davd @ ihug.co.nz] (remove spaces)
http://davd.tripod.com/GrRR-011102_titles.html#top
http://www.geocities.com/davd.geo/index.html#top
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