On the Notion of Technology as Ideology: Prospects

Abstract

A central feature in the history of Western modernization has been an ever-increasing reliance on technology in manufacturing services, information processing , communication, education, health care, and public administration. This reliance was anticipated and enthusiastically embraced by the early founders of modernity, especially Bacon and Descartes, and finally (much later than they would have predicted) became a reality in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Moreover, increasing technological power proved an especially valuable asset in liberal democratic societies. The surplus wealth made possible by such power appeared to allow a more egalitarian society, even if great inequalities persisted; representatives of such technical power could exhibit, publicly demonstrate, and so justify their power in ways more compatible with democratic notions of accountability; and a growing belief in the "system" of production and distribution as itself the possible object of technical expertise seemed to make possible the promise of a great collective benefit, given proper "management," arising from the individual pursuit of self-interest promoted by market economies. Since that time such an increasing dependence on technology has been perceived to create a number of political problems and controversies. Commentators came to see that this reliance had certain social costs, created difficult ethical problems, and began to alter the general framework within which political discussions took place. Such problems included: I. A greater concentration of a new sort of social power in fewer hands. Such a concentration of power might easily become inconsistent with democratic decision making. While there are deep compatibilities between democratic values and such scientific canons as the public demonstrability of knowledge claims as well as the public benefits of the ends to which Y. Ezrahi et at. (eds.). Technology, Pessimism and Postmodernism, 93-113.