Techno-Demonology

A summary of:
Szerszynski, B. (2006). Techno-demonology: Naming, Understanding together with Redeeming the A/Human Agencies amongst Which We Share Our World. Ecotheology, 11.1, pp. 57-75.

This newspaper is incredibly interesting. It attempts to empathize the ways inwards which “technologies increasingly aspect upwards us every bit indifferent or malign agencies” (57). This is what fascinates me: I meet engineering every bit existence amoral, hence indifferent to our needs together with values, together with that the to a greater extent than nosotros engage amongst them (as amoral entities), the to a greater extent than impairment it does to us, the to a greater extent than it weakens our feel of morality together with confuse our value set.

The writer makes an of import distinction betwixt 2 kinds of technologies: “elementals (stoicheia)”, i.e. “technical systems which own got boot the bucket treated every bit ends inwards themselves, together with own got hence started to command human action”, together with “powers (dynameis)”, i.e. “technologies whose unanticipated side-effects overwhelm their intended purposes” (57). The deviation is that the erstwhile tin live said to live “in control” together with the latter is non (59); or only about other way of putting it: the erstwhile “occurs when engineering seems to succeed inwards securing the future, inwards imposing certainty on our dealings amongst nature”; together with the latter “manifests itself when it fails to do so” (61). Elementals “take flat when basic principles of existence boot the bucket treated every bit ends rather than agency together with used to orient life: when technique becomes such a dominant flat of acting together with thinking that it becomes an autonomous, self-determining system” (61). Ellul would delineate this sort of engineering every bit existence ‘self-directing’ (61); together with hither no i human has much command over steering this procedure (62). For Ellul, this is when ‘technique’ comes to dominate our lives, seemingly “indifferen[t] to empirical, existent human projects together with happiness” (62). And inwards contrast to this, in that place are times when “technology is experienced non every bit a deterministic system, but every bit a capricious agency” (64) – what the writer calls dynamis. In this form, it tin own got consequences no i could own got predicted.

The yell for together with the ground for invoking this ‘neologism’ of demonic engineering (notably, non unlike from Robert W. Daly’s term ‘spectres of technology’ (62)) is that our technologies could live understood every bit having agency, “as forces which operate inwards the natural together with human footing that are neither natural nor nether human control” (58). This is non to say, he hastens to add, that this forcefulness is inherently evil (58); nor is it non an undefeatable foe (59).

It is of import for the writer that nosotros contextualize these techno-demons: how do they arise? This has to do amongst the hope of engineering every bit articulated inwards his book: “promising to liberate humanity from the contingency together with finitude of creaturely existence” (60). It began when nosotros attempted to subjugate techne to logos, together with from this engineering was understood inwards “sublime terms” together with “became a flat of idolatry” (65). The irony is that the “Enlightenment projection of delivering humanity from bondage to supernatural agencies… gave flat together with powerfulness to novel forms of a/human agency which own got come upwards to threaten human freedom” (65). In before times, engineering was inferior, hence it could non pose much of a danger (65); nor had they whatever “inherent purpose”, “so could non impose this piece of job on their users” (65). Contrast this to now, when the “sublime unconditionedness of modern technological systems thereby allowed them to offering a flat of this-worldly salvation past times removing dubiety from human affairs – but a salvation that inwards practise has arguably subtracted from human liberty every bit much every bit it has added” (66). The key hither is that inwards worshiping engineering (specifically elementals), nosotros becomes slaves to it.

It’s slightly different amongst dynamis. These own got risen to demons because, every bit Hannah Arendt argues, “with novel technologies the principal fashion of activity is non making but acting…, amongst the effect of increasing rather than decreasing the animacy of matter” (66-7). With novel technologies, nosotros are “starting to ‘act’ into nature” (67), together with inwards a feel nosotros are the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

And lastly, acre it’s all good together with expert to empathize how these techno-demons came to be, it is far to a greater extent than exciting (and what I desire to do i time the sociology department of my PhD is nicely polished) to “restore engineering to its rightful house inwards creation” (57). Happily, the writer seems to recall nosotros own got the powerfulness to do so! And fifty-fifty to a greater extent than joyfully, he has a cute term for this: “techno-exorcism” (60).

I’ve been important to read only about of Ellul, having been warned of its opaqueness; for forthwith I’ll settle for this mini summary from Szerszynski inwards his 2005 bok: “In The Technological Society Jacques Ellul seeks to capture features of this novel technological status – both the way that engineering inwards modern guild seems to hope a this-worldly salvation past times removing dubiety from human affairs, together with its distinctive, self-reproducing dynamic…. The technical phenomenon (la technique) is a uniquely modern flat of making together with using artefacts – ‘the totality of methods rationally arrived at together with having absolute efficiency… inwards every champaign of human activity’ (1964: xxv, emphasis inwards original)” (59).

Here’s what of import for correct now: “Technology for Ellul is zilch to a greater extent than than a jeopardy made past times modern humanity – the jeopardy that it would live improve or fifty-fifty possible to supercede the ‘natural attitude’ towards objects amongst a technological attitude” (70). But Ellul also does non recall that our loss of command of engineering was inevitable (70). It was a final result of our “voluntary deed of idolatry – the elevation of a organization or establishment to an halt inwards itself” (70). Therefore, “the positive message hither is that the evolution of the practical arts demand non Pb to a province of affairs where human autonomy is over-mastered past times technological elementals” (70). The delineate a fast i on to existence “redeemed” is to honor “what Heidegger (1977) called a ‘free’ relation amongst technology, re-embedding technical systems inside non-technical values together with purposes” (70).

Wonderful! – this is what I’ve been argument nosotros demand to do!

But there’s more, namely exorcising the dynameis, together with it involves, what I am commencement to realize is a civilisation change, fifty-fifty a behavioral change. The writer mentions Ruskin’s Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century, inwards which the tempest clouds seemed to live revealing “something of what modern humans were becoming” (17): “Before nosotros tin purify the sky, Ruskin was insisting, nosotros must purify ourselves” (71).

There is a chance, the writer argues, that the to a greater extent than nosotros come upwards to realize that our “ability to arrive at effects continues to outstrip our powerfulness to command them” nosotros mightiness boot the bucket to a greater extent than cautious together with own got into line organization human relationship unintended consequences inwards developing technology. I recall business office of my PhD aims to yell for out how necessary this respite together with reflection is, because I recall nosotros own got a growing pile of evidence to demo that without this stutter-step, nosotros tin arrive at a existent mess for ourselves.

Finally, the writer argues that nosotros “need to prepare novel ways of thinking nearly techne which does non autumn into this trap [thinking nosotros are capable of reversing the fall] – to redeem the practical arts past times re-embedding them inside a larger framework of natural together with supernatural flourishing, but also past times listening to what they tell to us” (72). In this sense, the “techno-demons of jeopardy tin also serve every bit angelic messengers… [by reminding] us of the limits of technical reason” (72). We demand to own got an epiphany of humility, it would seem. Perhaps so nosotros tin teach only about way toward, non returning to, but recapturing only about of what was lost of the non-rationality of thing together with “non-technical understandings of human flourishing, incorporating ideas of beauty, judge together with contemplation” (66).

And, fascinatingly, the writer argues nosotros demand to recognize that “technologies ultimately belong to God” every bit a way of allowing them to play the “redemptive role that they tin play inwards history” (72). To Szerszynski, “the projection of democratizing together with humanizing modern technological evolution needs to live understood together with approached every bit a fundamentally theological project” (73). This complicates things slightly for me, because acre I suppose I do consider it a spiritual task, framing my PhD every bit a ‘theological project’ mightiness provoke hostility inwards the figurer scientific discipline (and design) world.