Technology Together With The Graphic Symbol Of Contemporary Life

A summary of:
Borgmann, A. (1984). Technology together with the Character of Contemporary Life: H5N1 Philosophical Inquiry. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL.

“…it is widely admitted that at that spot is a occupation of orientation inwards the technologically advanced countries…. Science may live a necessary status of disorientation. But to repeat an before point, it is non the line of piece of work of science, inwards its key feel as a trunk of laws together with theories, to ascertain the weather that are prominent together with abiding together with permit us to live at abode inwards the world. Disorientation is the result, at to the lowest degree approximately, of a for sure way inwards which nosotros select upward amongst reality, together with the loss of the traditional points of reference may non live experienced as debilitating at all” (79).

Borgmann suggests that the ills of monastic state may inwards fact live to a greater extent than intimately linked amongst engineering scientific discipline – or to a greater extent than aptly, the mindset that comes along amongst engineering scientific discipline – than nosotros induce got thought. One of the sources of this illness mightiness live that engineering scientific discipline forces us to abstract; these abstractions Pb to alienation (in the Marxist sense). He argues that theoria – the (Aristotelian) calm together with resourceful vision of the globe – is eclipsed past times the ascent of the modern catamenia (6). He clearly argues that spell engineering scientific discipline together with scientific discipline are oftentimes considered 2 aspects of the same enterprise, this is fatally misleading (15). What is the nature of the engineering scientific discipline mindset? – that “the lamentable chaos of the contemporary globe results from our failure to bear the scientific enterprise to its conclusion past times explaining together with shaping human behaviour according to the best available scientific knowledge” (28). Scientific progress is ever couched as liberation from, non liberation for (29) (think of Fromm). Hans Jonas argues that “modern scientific discipline has non alone withdrawn its back upward of established globe views but promoted their dissolution together with the institution of an choice vision. The world’s cosmic architecture is denied together with replaced past times the interplanetary space manifold of 1 homogenous substrate. Manipulation together with novelty are integral parts of this promotion, together with it has engineering scientific discipline as an inevitable if non immediate consequence. Technology ceaselessly transforms the globe along abstract together with artificial lines” (29). And some debate that technology’s ability is threatening to our well-being: “For Schumacher it is a thing of uncomplicated inspection that engineering scientific discipline is non alone morally objectionable but leads to psychological stresses which threaten to tear the cloth of society” (145).

The writer defines engineering scientific discipline “as the feature way inwards which nosotros today select upward amongst the world” (35). He argues that this mindset originated inwards the Enlightenment. The hope of engineering scientific discipline is firstly to salvage us from burdens, together with to brand us comfortable (41): “‘Relief became possible from the drudgery of threshing wheat, earthworks dirt, carrying water, breaking rocks, sawing wood, washing clothes, and, indoors, spinning together with weaving together with sewing; many of the laborious tasks of living were beingness made easier past times the middle of the 19th century. Relief from toil does non necessarily hateful a amend higher life; nevertheless, whatsoever endeavour to acquire at the pregnant of American engineering scientific discipline must give a prominent house to machines that induce got lifted burdens from the shoulders of millions of private beings’” (Ferguson: 37). This is what Szerszynski would telephone phone the hope of infinitude. And of course of didactics it is a fallacy: : “One may live concerned whether engineering scientific discipline tin hope to live successful on its ain terms, whether liberation inwards 1 house volition non impose novel burdens inwards another. This is Wiesner’s concern when he says: ‘In this enormously complex world, each large-scale technological advance has costs, side effects oftentimes unanticipated’” (38-9). Here nosotros encounter Szerszynski’s dynameis. And furthermore, engineering scientific discipline does non real seem to brand us happier: “It turns out that avowed happiness appears to decline as technological affluence rises” (124).

The hope of engineering scientific discipline “guilds together with veils the shaping of the modern world” (39) inwards this way: “The hope presents the grapheme of the technological enterprise inwards broad together with ambiguous outline, i.e., as the full general procurement of freedom together with prosperity inwards the principled together with effective way that is derived from modern science. Thus it keeps our aspirations acquaint together with out of focus at the same time” (39). In fact, our novel aspirations cash inwards one's chips the values of technology: that the globe live rendered unto us inwards a way that is “instantaneous, ubiquitous, safe, together with easy” (41).

Borgmann makes a indicate nigh the necessity of engineering scientific discipline to conceal its means, to acquaint itself (falsely) as an unmediated experience (Ryan) to the user: Technology’s effect is insidious: “The covert of the mechanism together with the disburdening grapheme of the device cash inwards one's chips manus inwards hand. If the mechanism were forcefully present, it would eo ipso brand claims on our faculties. If claims are felt to live onerous together with are thus removed, together with so so is the machinery. H5N1 commodity is genuinely available when it tin live enjoyed as a mere end, unencumbered past times means” (44). This is why Stuart Walker’s piece of work is so radical. When he makes a metronome, for example, past times literally binding a battery to a stone so that it is exposed, he is bespeak us to enquiry how nosotros experience nigh the pollution of nature past times technology; together with if nosotros don’t similar what nosotros see, non but embrace it upward past times concealing it inwards a battery case, but do something nigh it.

Much of what Borgmann writes nigh has to do amongst Marxist concepts similar alienation together with fetishization. He writes that, “Devices…dissolve the coherent together with engaging grapheme of the pretechnological globe of things. In a device, the relatedness of the globe is replaced past times a machinery, but the mechanism is concealed, together with the commodities, which are made available past times a device, are enjoyed without the encumbrance of or the appointment amongst a context” (47). And also, people are unwilling or unable to repair their technological devices, which leads to waste. And wastefulness is the necessary byproduct of making things carefree (47).

An of import term for Borgmann is the ‘device paradigm’ (49). This tin live seen when “Commodities together with their consumption constitute the professed destination of the technological enterprise” (48). This breeds commodity fetishism, where people “‘search for satisfaction of their needs inwards the jungle of commodities’ (William Leiss)” (54).

The other real of import thought inwards Borgmann’s piece of work is that of opposite adaptation, defined past times Winner as “the adjustment of human ends to represent the grapheme of the available means” (60); together with as Borgmann writes, “Winner’s notion of opposite adaptation implies that inwards engineering scientific discipline way sometimes create upward one's take heed ends together with thus people cash inwards one's chips enslaved past times their servant” (61). In this mode, Winner writes, “Abstract full general ends – health, safety, comfort, nutrition, shelter, mobility, happiness, together with so forth – cash inwards one's chips highly instrument-specific. The wishing to displace nigh becomes the wishing to possess an automobile; the demand to communicate becomes the necessity of having telephone service; the demand to swallow becomes a demand for a refrigerator, stove, together with convenient supermarket” (62).

And again, this comes dorsum to Ellul’s ideas nigh the idolization of la technique: Borgmann writes, “Commodities permit no appointment together with atrophy the fullness of our capacities…. In paraphrasing Ellul, Winner remarks: ‘The master ends induce got atrophied; monastic state has accepted the ability of technique inwards all areas of life; social decisions are right away based upon the validity of instrumental modes of evaluation; the ends are restricted to suit the requirements of techniques of functioning together with of measurement’” (62).

In constituent three, Borgmann attempts to address how nosotros tin brand changes. One necessary stride is to insert humility into our technological development: to take heed to nature together with larn from it that nosotros must “accept together with to bound engineering scientific discipline inwards a principled together with sensible way” (195-6?). And some other must is that nosotros brand a social commitment to changing the grapheme of technology: “the to a greater extent than strongly nosotros feel together with the to a greater extent than clearly nosotros sympathise the coherence together with the grapheme of technology, the to a greater extent than evident it becomes to us that engineering scientific discipline must live countered past times an as patterned together with social commitment, i.e., past times a practice” (208). He explains further: “Countering engineering scientific discipline through a do is to select concern human relationship of our susceptibility to technological distraction, together with it is also to engage the particularly human strength of comprehension, i.e., the ability to select inwards the globe inwards its extent together with significance together with to answer through an enduring commitment. Practically a focal do comes into beingness through resoluteness, either an explicit resolution where 1 vows regularly to engage inwards a focal activity from this solar daytime on or inwards a to a greater extent than implicit resolve that is nurtured past times a focal thing inwards favorable circumstances together with matures into a settled custom” (210).

For Borgmann, the antidote to our electrical flow technological fetishism is to plow away from producing commodities together with laid out creating “focal things”: “They are concrete, tangible, together with deep, admitting of no functional equivalents; they induce got a tradition, structure, together with musical rhythm of their own. They are unprocurable together with endure beyond our control. They engage us inwards the fullness of our capacities. And they thrive inwards a technological setting. H5N1 focal practice, generally, is the resolute together with regular dedication to a focal thing. It sponsors dependent together with science which are exercised inwards a unity of achievement together with enjoyment, of mind, body, together with the world, of myself together with others, together with inwards a social union” (219). And “one may hope that focal practices volition Pb to a deepening of charity together with compassion. Focal practices furnish a profounder commerce amongst reality together with convey us closer to that intensity of experience where the globe engages 1 painfully inwards hunger, disease, together with confinement. H5N1 focal do also discloses swain human beings to a greater extent than fully together with may brand us to a greater extent than sensitive to the plight of those persons whose integrity is violated or suppressed. In short, a life of appointment may dispel the astounding callousness that insulates the citizens of the technological societies from the well-known misery inwards much of the world” (225).

Borgmann’s notions are bolstered past times examples of people having spiritual engagements amongst technologies, such as Robert Pirsig, writer of Zen together with the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

“…Pirsig suggests that peace of take heed tin live found inwards the midst of engineering scientific discipline past times carefully attention to a technological object such as a motorcycle. The proffer is made explicit inwards the slap-up hope of the book: ‘The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably inwards the circuits of a digital figurer or the gears of a wheel transmission as he does at the top of a mount or inwards the petals of a flower.’ What makes the pronouncement so attractive is its hope of reconciling nostalgia together with technology. It tells us that nosotros tin detect a globe of peace together with repose together with live at abode non precisely inwards God’s pristine together with vanishing creation but inwards the midst of our ain creations which environs us daily” (160-1).

The lesson from this book, for Borgmann, is: “To attain harmony amongst technology…, nosotros must select upward the do of maintaining together with caring for the technological objects nigh is. This didactics responds inwards a positive way to the disengagement together with disfranchisement that beset typical technological culture” (161). This is a thing of real engaging amongst technologies on a deeper flat (“If nosotros are to challenge the dominion of technology, nosotros tin do so alone through the do of engagement’ (207)); caring for them (“A telephone phone for caring makes feel alone inside a reform proposal that recognizes together with fruitfully counters the technological vogue to disburden together with disengage us from the tending of things” (161)).

Anyone who bemoans the electrical flow nation of technological evolution risks beingness labeled a Luddite. Borgmann nips these criticisms inwards the bud amongst the next (long) explanation:

“The reform of engineering scientific discipline that has been suggested so far would prune dorsum the excesses of engineering scientific discipline together with restrain it to a supporting role. That proffer does non stalk from sick volition toward engineering scientific discipline but from the experience that at that spot are forces that rightfully claim our appointment together with genuinely grace our lives together with from the concomitant experience that to procure these things technologically is to eviscerate them; finally, it springs from the experience that that joys that engineering scientific discipline is able to furnish seem to induce got a parasitic together with voracious character: they require as a contrast pretechnological limits together with contours, together with they seem to depict vitality from the firmness of pretechnological life past times devouring together with displacing it. But the focal things together with practices that nosotros induce got considered inwards Chapters 23 together with 24 are non pretechnological, i.e., mere remnants of an before culture. Nor are they antitechnological, i.e., practices that defy or turn down technology. Rather they unfold their significance inwards an affirmative together with intelligent credence of technology. We may telephone phone them matatechnological things together with practices. As such they furnish an enduring counterposition to technology. They furnish a contrast against which the experience of specifically technological freedom together with prosperity remains live together with appreciated. Not alone do focal concerns attain their proper splendor inwards the context of technology; the context of engineering scientific discipline also is restored to the dignity of its master hope through the focal concerns at its center” (247-8).

So here, finally, nosotros acquire inwards at our target: “I wishing to insist that the destiny of the focal things, the 1 thing that matters should 1 emerge at length, is the fulcrum of change. We should mensurate the significance of the developments nigh us past times the flat to which focal concerns are starting fourth dimension to flourish openly or proceed to live inwards hiding. All other changes volition live variants of technological concerns” (248-9).