Assignment 5

Technology Matters by David Nye engages in questions regarding our society and technology. He debates the true definition of technology and whether technology shapes us, or we it. Is technology creating social uniformity or diversity, destroying jobs or creating jobs? Are advanced technologies making us more insecure, or secure? Is technology expanding our minds, or creating us to be dependant on a machine? Is it improving our lives, or limiting our very existence? Throughout the book Nye never directly gives an answer to these questions, but he uses many sources to help support his questions. He gives adequate facts and references to support why he has developed these questions and he helps the reader begin analyzing these questions as well as possible answers and solutions to this ongoing technological debate.
One of Nye’s main focuses is the impact that technology is having on society and cultures. He often asks, does technology control us? He refers to the term “technocracy” to show how technology is beginning to become as powerful as our government. He also worries about the impacts that technology is having on our culture. Technology seems to be a driving force that is compelling society to change. Nye writes that “ The public has an appetite for proclamations that new technologies have beneficent “natural” effects with little government intervention or public planning. Externalist arguments attribute to a technology as a dominant place with society, without focusing much on invention or technical details” (27). Nye uses the source of Jacques Ellul to show a more severe and pessimistic view of technology. “ Jacques Ellul paid little attention to the origins of individual inventions, but argued instead that an abstract “Technique” had permeated all aspects of society and had become the new “milieu” that Western societies substituted for Nature. Readers of Ellul’s book The Technological Society were told that “Technique was an autonomous and unrelenting substitution of means for ends. Modern society’s vast ensemble of techniques had become self-endangering and had accelerated out of humanity’s control.” (28). When reading Ellul’s book you can take a close look at what she meant when she said “Technique”. “Standardization creates impersonality, in the sense that organization relies more on methods and instructions than on individuals. We thus have all the marks of a technique. What are the consequences? The first is that the problems created by mechanical technique will be heightened to a degree yet incalculable, as a result of the application of technique to administration and to all spheres of life. Toynbee believes that this organization which is succeeding technique is in some way a counterbalance to it, and a remedy (and that is a comforting view of history). But it seems to me that the exact opposite is true, that this development adds to the technical problems by offering a partial solution to old problems, itself based on the very methods that created the problems in the first place. This is the age-old procedure of digging a new hole to fill up the old one.”(12). think that Ellul is absolutely correct in this statement. The affects of new technology on our society and environment is incalculable. There is no way of knowing the affects that these new inventions will have on us over time. We create new technologies to fix problems, which in turn cause more problems. There are many scenarios which we do not take into consideration. For example, we create huge boats to transport goods such as oil, but do not think of the affects on the ocean and marine life when that huge boat tips over and spills its oil into the ocean. We learned how to use asbestos building materials to help prevent fires, which in turn ended up causing health problems. We also created pesticides to help with agriculture, however the pesticides got into our water and created many other problems. We did not consider the affect that cars, huge corporate buildings, or even aerosol cans would have on the o-zone layer. We also never considered how new technologies would impact society and our desire to be involved in our communities or politics.
In “Technology Matters” Nye talks about how technology is causing people to become less involved in society. After a long hard day of work, people would rather escape to a fantasy world through TV entertainment. “If most people find processes, images and sounds more diverting, more absorbing, than civic life and self-government, what becomes of the everyday life of parties, interest groups, and movements, the debates, demands and alliances that make democracy happen? The political scientist Robert Putnam made a similar argument in Bowling Alone, concluding that intensive use of the media undermines civic life. It seemed that the more people relied on television as the primary form of entertainment, the more they disengaged from political life.” (153). Putnam gives many statistics to support why he has come to this conclusion in his book.
“At the conclusion of the twentieth century, ordinary Americans shared this sense of civic malaise. We were reasonably content about our economic prospects, hardly a surprise after an expansion of unprecedented length, but we were not equally convinced that we were on the right track morally or culturally. Of baby boomers interviewed in 1987, 53 percent thought their parents' generation was better in terms of "being a concerned citizen, involved in helping others in the community," as compared with only 21 percent who thought their own generation was better. Fully 77 percent said the nation was worse off because of "less involvement in community activities." In 1992 three-quarters of the U.S. workforce said that "the breakdown of community" and "selfishness" were "serious" or "extremely serious" problems in America. In 1996 only 8 percent of all Americans said that "the honesty and integrity of the average American" were improving, as compared with 50 percent of us who thought we were becoming less trustworthy. Those of us who said that people had become less civil over the preceding ten years outnumbered those who thought people had become more civil, 80 percent to 12 percent. In several surveys in 1999 two-thirds of Americans said that America's civic life had weakened in recent years, that social and moral values were higher when they were growing up, and that our society was focused more on the individual than the community. More than 80 percent said there should be more emphasis on community, even if that put more demands on individuals. Americans' concern about weakening community bonds may be misplaced or exaggerated, but a decent respect for the opinion of our fellow citizens suggests that we should explore the issue more thoroughly.” (14). We all watch shows and movies about communities and families back in the day. These families seem perfect. They always eat dinner together at the kitchen table (never in front of the TV) and discuss important topics and events going on at the time. When the father came home from a long day at work, he would sit down in his chair and read the newspaper. Now, after a long hard day of work, we would rather come home and put on the TV or a movie. It is our way of relaxing and forgetting about our stressful or tiring day. We do not want to hear about the negative things on the news or in the paper.
After reading Nye and other resources I have raised some new questions. I wonder how technology has impacted the “everyday family”. Is it because of technology that it seems less common for a family to get together every night for a family dinner? I would also like to take a closer look at how technology is affecting communication. Parents often complain that they never can have a good conversation with their children because they are always on the internet, listening to their I-pod, or playing video games. However, we now have cell phones, text messaging, aim, live internet video chat, and countless other forms of communication that appear to make it easier than ever to communicate with each other. Does it really matter that we now send e-mails instead of writing letters? I think it would be very interesting to look at these new forms of communication and see if they are having a negative impact on society. I think it would be interesting to look at this through the eyes of an older and younger generation. Just because it’s not the traditional way of communication, is it wrong? The stakeholders I would look at is the middleclass American who has access to these technologies but is not a complete expert with these technologies. I would also look at middleclass American who did not grow up with these technologies and compare how it is shaping these generations lives. I think through taking a deeper look at these technologies, I will find new positive or negative examples of technologies we created to fix problems and improve future generations as well as their possible benefits or harms down the road.