LISA DAGUE, TIMES OF THE TECHNOCULTURE (Chapter 3)

"It is a common conceit to imagine that one’s own times are of unprecedented historical importance. Indeed, this century it sometimes seems that just about every decade has made some claim or other for its singular contribution." (63)

1. Rhetorical terms and the cycles of ‘Futurism’

Futurism revived in the late 1970’s

Dizzyingly optimistic claims for the future mixed with warnings

1980’s developments turned out pedestrian uses

Rhetoric cooled off

Mid 1990’s return of Futurism à là Gore, Gates, and Bangemann

3 dimensions of "technological utopianism:"

postmodern identities

biology & machine fusion

chaos & complexity theory = ‘control without authority’

2. The various responses to new technology:

Designation	View of Technology	Objections	Proponents
Benign	It will make everything better		Nicholas Negroponte
Spectacle	Awesome, awful, and awe-full	Public limited to the role of consumers Ignores social choices that produced the technology History becomes a series of technological innovations	James Callaghan
Neutral	Asocial, a tool offering choices Irresistible		Bill Gates
Inevitability	Must be adopted (quickly) The hidden hand in development	Implied objectivity Promotes industrialization Removes tech. from debate Disregard for social consequences	Futurists Peter Large Anthony Hyman David Dickson
The past in the future	Return of a golden age, an electronic village Liberating	Retrospective ruralism in England easily discredited and re-appropriated	‘Practopian’ Alvin Toffler James Martin
Neo-McLuhanism	‘Electronic sublime’ End of ‘Gutenberg Galaxy’ Global village	Metaphor of contradiction: ‘body electric,’ industrial in the rural mythos	Marshall McLuhan James Martin Sam Fedida Rex Malik & …
Determinism	The motor of history Determining factor of society Alien and benign (ET)	Humans must adapt, not technology Excludes social factors & history Quantitative manner Creates acquiescence/apathy	Supports current futurism Burkitt & Williams

"Because so very much comment on ICTs unquestioningly adopts this, in our view profoundly misleading, framework, it has been a primary objective of our work over the past twenty years to present an alternative, more socially and historically sensitive approach to informational and technological change." (74-75)

3. Theory of the information age and the power of the "symbolic analyst"

1. emphasis on education in arguments implies changed characteristics of the occupational structure, not such a major ‘revolution’
2. Harold Perkins points out that professionals have been on the rise for 100 years at least; these workers comprise only 30% of total labor force; based more on privilege than knowledge
3. Anthony Giddens’ view of the ‘High Modern Era;’ there is a general trend for traditional, bounded societies to move toward more human choice; a wider social process that affects everyone
4. Daniel Bell’s discredited goods to service economy theory is being revisited

1. Theory of theoretical knowledge

View: Daniel Bell reasons that people used to innovate through tinkering and problem solving (serendipitously), but now science makes a theoretical starting point possible and necessary. This is also true in the political and social sciences and innovations

Critique: Robins and Webster attack the definition of ‘theoretical knowledge’

Max Weber’s definition: purposive action, abstract knowledge, leads to learning rules and procedures

Given that definition the author’s question what is so new about ‘theoretical knowledge

"People see change as the continuation of familiar patterns even amidst continuous adjustment and innovation, and as such a fundamental hollowness of much ‘progress’ is exposed. Thoreau’s complaint, made in the mid-nineteenth century, that ‘progress’ has brought improved means for unimproved ends remains valid today." (84)

2. Questions:

1. What would an improved end be?
2. Do the authors underestimate the amount of conflict in the process of globalization? Do they adequately view how information technologies may be contributing to the contestation of that process?
3. Is techno-utopia connected to modern science paradigms?