Technology and values
Rick Nelson, Chief Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 7/1/2007 2:00:00 AM
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Technology is neutral; it's how we use it that's good or bad. That's been the view of various luminaries, including the physicist and engineer Simon Ramo and the management consultant Peter Drucker. Writing in the Winter 2006 edition of IEEE Technology and Society, Norman Balabanian collects several versions of the “technology is value-free” aphorism—and then demolishes them, asserting that “this litany of the happy technologist” constitutes an ideology of technology designed to mask the intentions of the political and economic forces behind technology development and deployment.
| Read more about technology and values and link to additional sources of information in Rick's blog, "Voting for harmonious technology." |
The problem, writes Balabanian, is that the “we” to which technology-neutral proponents ascribe responsibility does not exist as a collective entity: “Surely it's some specific minds that shape technology, not an abstract 'mind'.” Those minds, he suggests, reside in corporations seeking profit and market share. He cites as an example the refrigerator, whose arrival brought about the demise of neighborhood markets in favor of supermarkets to which people drive to buy a week's worth of perishable goods.
He emphasizes that he is not passing judgment on refrigerators—he's only noting that the neighborhood market is no longer an option for most consumers, and he contends that consumers had no vote in the decision to entrench the supermarket/refrigerator society.
Balabanian advocates a “harmonious technology,” which “would be responsive to direct social needs and would not require a hierarchical, exploitative, and alienating relationship among human beings.”
What might such a harmonious technology look like? In the Summer 2007 IEEE Technology and Society, Jameson M. Wetmore presents a possible picture in “Amish Technology.” Wetmore dispels the stereotype that the Amish eschew technology. They adopt it when they collectively decide it will help their community. For example, Amish dairy farmers use electrically cooled and stirred bulk milk tanks to comply with state regulations. Amish adults will not drive cars but will accept rides. In fact, the resistance to cars, Wetmore writes, stemmed in part from a 1907 ad that described them not as modes of transportation but as “the king of sports and the queen of amusements”—luxuries not in keeping with the Amish lifestyle.
Unlike Drucker and Ramo, the Amish ascribe values (usually negative ones) to technology and adopt it way too sparingly. Balabanian suggests the rest of us are forced to adopt it way too rapidly. Unfortunately, he doesn't explain how to achieve his “harmonious technology.” Perhaps the best we can do is keep in mind that we are voting whenever we choose to develop, market, or purchase a technological product—and our votes shouldn't be value-free.
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