Prescriptive Technology (Wordhole)

The term is used in Ursula Franklin's lecture The Real World of Technology, in which "prescriptive technologies" oppose "holistic technologies". Example: a form of "prescriptive technology" was used in Chinese bronze casting in 1200 BCE. The production required the skills of model makers, clay workers; metal workers, each of which had a specific set of tools and disciplines. This specialism represented a division of labour. Franklin makes the point that the workers naturalized their activities, so it was assumed there was only one procedure to make clay molds or work with metal.

How we use the term

The “internalization” of a subject position (and of a discourse) engendered by prescriptive technology relates to Foucault's disciplinary societies and Deleuze's control societies. In a Marxist reading, "Prescriptive technologies” operate at the level of ideology (they are disguised in plain sight).