User:Charlie/Do Artifacts Have Politics? - Notes

Lieslescht ☺ Text: Do Artifacts Have Politics? by Langdon Winner (bootleg library)

Summary & Notes

Introduction

The idea that technological artifacts (e.g. machines, structures, and systems) can be political, i.e. 'embody specific forms of power and authority', is a persistent source of contention in societal discourse surrounding technology.

L. Mumford, in Technology and Culture - Every technology always falls into and reinforces one-of-two opposed political forms:

• Authoritarian technology: System-centered, powerful but unstable
• Democratic technology: Human-centered, weak, yet resourceful and durable

Categorizing technologies as such is an argument often used in discussion about the political impact of energy production technologies. For example, nuclear power plants are most often categorized as authoritarian, since its implementation in a nation-state will always require the existence of a strict hierarchical power structure able to hold absolute control of the technology, in order to keep it safe. Vice versa, nuclear power plants will always reinforce the establishment of authoritarian power and facilitate its (ab)use as a tool for political control.

In contrast, solar energy is usually categorized as a technology more compatible with democratic and decentralized political structures, since "everyone has access to the sun".

Note: Solar Energy may in theory be 'more compatible [with democracy] than centralized technologies with social equity, freedom and cultural pluralism', yet in practice, has largely failed to do so. The sun may be accessible to all, but its energy only to the few who can afford to buy it back from privatized solar energy firms. The full potential of solar energy is continuously undermined by the power structures embedded in our economic system. A system profiting from marketing solar energy as this "emancipatory technology", whilst further pushing the narrative of individual responsibility, and for the most part, evading to implement large-scale solar energy projects. (1)

'The factory system, automobile, telephone, radio, television, the space program, and of course nuclear power itself have all at one time or another been described as democratizing, liberating forces.'

Throughout history, proponents of new emerging technologies have used political language and the promise of socio-political change as an advertising vehicle. Whether the technologies in question did turn out to be a revolutionary force in society, or whether they fell short of it. After all, technological advancements do have the ability to fundamentally reshape and influence the norms and political power structures within societies (e.g.: industrial production, warfare and communication).

The idea that certain technologies in themselves may be geared towards certain political agendas, more than others, is usually refuted with the argument that: It is primarily the systems in which the technology exists that affect whether, and how a technology becomes a political instrument. This theory of "the social determination of technology" is a rebuttal to the idea of technological determinism, the reductionist belief that singular technologies embed and are predestined to bring forth certain political agendas, and not so much their circumstances.

'Those who have not recognized the ways in which technologies are shaped by social and economic forces have not gotten very far.'(Clear dis by the author.)

However, social determination of technology has its own blind-spots and often tends to neglect the inherent mechanics and potentials of technologies in their analyses. In recent times, this 'lack of insight' has increasingly been supplemented by the theory of technological politics. A combination of believes which centers critical examination of technology, its attributes and how these attributes directly impact and interplay with our sociotechnical systems and material culture.'This perspective identifies certain technologies as political phenomena in their own right.'

From here, the text explores historical examples of: Technologies which were either chosen and implemented to serve a specific (political) goal, or on the other hand, technologies that seem as inadvertently possessing certain political attributes.

Technical Arrangements as Forms of Order

Word Stew Entries ✎

• Technological determinism
• Material Culture
• Panegyric
• Diosyncracy
• Salutary

Annotation Index

✍ = Link to annotation & notes

Text = Quote/Excerpt from source text

✎ = Word Stew (Personal Glossary)

= Summary of source text/Paraphrasing

References

The Limits of Green Energy Under Capitalism [1]