Technology, Modernity, and Democracy

* Book: Technology, Modernity, and Democracy. Essays by Andrew Feenberg. Rowman and Littlefield, 2018

URL =

Description

"This important collection of essays by Andrew Feenberg presents his critical theory of technology, an innovative approach to philosophy and sociology of technology based on a synthesis of ideas drawn from STS and Frankfurt School Critical Theory. - According to critical theory of technology, technologies are neither neutral nor deterministic, but are encoded with specific socio-economic values and interests. Feenberg explores how they can be developed and adapted to more or less democratic values and institutions, and how their future is subject to social action, negotiation and reinterpretation. Technologies bring with them a particular "rationality," sets of rules and implied ways of behaving and thinking which, despite their profound influence on institutions, ideas and actions, can be transformed in a process of democratic rationalization. Feenberg argues that the emergence of human communication on the Internet and the environmental movement offer abundant examples of public interventions that have reshaped technologies originally designed for different purposes. This volume includes chapters on citizenship and critical theory of technology, philosophy of technology and modernity, and Heidegger and Marcuse, two of the most prominent philosophers of technology."

Reading notes by Michel Bauwens

In 2006, I printed out various essays by Andrew Feenberg, which may not be identical to those chosen in this 2018 selection, but will nevertheless be informative about Andrew Feenberg's general approach and ideas. His general aim seems to be to apply Critical Theory to an understanding of technology.

As noted in a seperate note on a essay,

- i.e. Reflections on the Role of Technology in the 20th Century

Feenberg divides the philosophy of technology in two camps:

   - 1) a dystopian, held by Heidegger and Marcuse, and now by Baudrillard and Virilio and Albert Bergman. In some ways, they reflect a nostalgia for a idealized past
   - 2) it is this that is rejected by the non-modern or the postmodern approaces. According to these actors, like Bruno Latour and Donna Harraway, we have gone through dystopia and have come out on the other side

Feenberg also gives a double definition of modernity:

   - 1) as opposed to tradition, and thus referring to the accomplishments of science and technology, which are universal, though they first appearded in the West
   - 2) as the expression of a particular 'Western' tradition, but which is 'masquerading' as universalism, and has been charged by postmodernism for doing so

- Feenberg notes the powerlessness of the postmodern critique, and proposes to go more deeply by using a Critical Theory of Technology.

Feenberg's approach starts from a series of methodological assumptions, described here under four principiples:

- 1) HERMENEUTIC CONSTRUCTIVISM

- Technology is not the product of a unique technical rationality, but of a combination of technical and social factors, which should be studied not only with the empirical methods of the social sciences, but also with the interpretative methods of the humanities. The latter to uncover the meaning of technological objects.

- 2) HISTORICISM

- How the professions have defined history, blinds them to the deep impact of public opinion. Technology is far more able to incorporate social values.

- 3) TECHNICAL DEMOCRACY

- A democratic public sphere sensitive to technical affairs is a necessity and is already shown to exist in the concern for environmental and biotechnical matters. Also important is the 're-appropriation' of.technology by users.

- 4) META THEORY

- Technologies decontextualize objects and then recontextualize them, a process which is differentiation in modernity (and not in premodernity ?). This allows for a deconstructive critique of technology and therefore shows a freedom from determinism.

In the introduction to the Chinese translation of his book on 'Alternative Modernity', Feenberg argues against technological determinism. Technology is not driven by a universal rationality but by social actors, and thus it has become part of democratic decision-making and wants to release the hitherto 'subjugated knowledge'.

Critical Theory Essay

Feenberg distinguishes between essentialist critiques of technology (Heidegger, Mumford, Marcuse), which qre often anti-modern, from the constructiist studies of technology, often seen as uncritical. His aim is to combine the strength of both, in a Instrumentalization Theory

Instrumentalization Theory

Instrumentalization Theory holds that technology must be analyzed from two levels:

   - 1)  at the level of our original functional relation to reality,  i.e. attention to the de-worldling of objects, torn from their original context, subject to control and manipulation
   - 2) at the level of design and implementation

The primary level simplifies objects for incorporation in a device, while the secondary level integrates the simplified objects to a natural and social environment.

Analysis of the first level is inspired by categories introduced by Heidegger and other substantivists critics - but without its anti-modernism, while analyses at the second level is inspired by the empirical stud of technology in a constructivist vein.

Constructivism presupposes that there are different solutions to technological problems, which reflects the different interests of the various actors involved, but usually favors isolated experts working for the corporate and political elites. It denies efficiency is the primary method of meta-ranking. "Technology is 'undetermined' by the criterion of efficiency". Technical codes already incorporate the dominant values and interests, and 'hide' them. Marx had already discovered the impersonal domination inherent in capitalism which differs from the personal domination of earlier social formations.

He did not foresee the extension of the technical mgt of human resources to the entire social field: "The whole life environment of society comes under the rule of technique.". Feenberg calls this the operational autonomy of management, which does not integrate subordinated actors in decision-making. It reproduces itself through technology. But this technology is only one possible path of development, truncated as it is by the demands of power.

A different power structure would bring differential technological paths into existence. There is no such thing as technology as such. Therefore, Feenberg calls for a democratic movement in the technical sphere to create alliances that would take into account the destructive effects of the technology on human beings and the environment.

He relies on De Certeau for this account of democratic resistances, because he incorporates the viewpoints of those subordinated to technical management, something Heidegger fails to do. An example is pollution control for automobiles, something implemented only after a political subject arose who demanded it to be mandatory. The same failure can be seen in the anti-modernist critics of the de-worldization seen in computerization and internetization, for example as online education. They see only a 'terminal subject', i.e. user, being controlled.

They do not see what the subjects are doing in the technological lifeworld, and the meanings, processes and relations they are constructing:

- "As computer networks developed, communication functions were often introduced by users." The collective itself re-constituted itself around the contested formation of the computer." (Latour)

Box on Michel de Certeau:

Michel de Certeau "offers an interesting interpretation of Foucault's theory of power, which can be applied to highlight the two-sided nature of technology. He distinguishes between:

   - 1) the strategies of groups with an institutional base from which to exercise power and
   - 2) the tactics of those subjects to that power who improvise micropolitical resistances

An example of this would be the reaction to online education. The first force is that of administrators who want to introduce to automate and deskill their workforce of teachers and so make education a more profitable business. Traditionalists, as a second force oppose this and succeed in slowing down, but not stopping the trend. The third force, humanistic faculty and students, however, changes the nature of online education by insisting on the integration of human communication in these projects.

Box: Review of the technical concepts used by Feenberg, by Philip Brey:

- Technology is the sum of rational means employed in a society. - Rationality implies the application of formal rules, to some domain of experience. Rationalization is the process of making some domain conform to such a standard of rationality. - Modernity is the building of a rational society. Therefore, it does not have to coincide with the current institutions, and a alternative to modernity could be imagined (as long as rationalization defines its cultural horizon.). An alternative modernity could be based on different standards of rationalization. - Technological rationality is embodied in the design of machines. Technological design is the key to the effectiveness of establishing hegemonies under the current horizon of rationalization. - Feenberg's expanded definitions allow for different versions of social technology to exist. Feenberg distinguishes therefore the traditionalists who aim for a return to premodernity, the proponents of an alternative modernity, such as himself or Latour, and the postmodern tradition. - Technical code consists of the features of the design of technical artefacts which incorporate the hegemonic values of capitalist rationalisation. Subversive rationalisation can alter the codes.

Essay: What is the philosophy of technology ?

Science is concerned with truth (and hence: epistemological issues), while technology is concerned with usefulness (hence, it seeks to control). Scientific-technological rationality has become our culture, and the philosophy of technology is the self-awareness of this form of society.

It started with the Greeks who saw the human as a laboring animal at work at transforming nature. They distinguished 'physis', i.e. nature that creates itself, from 'poeiesis', the act of producing something , i.e. artefacts. Techne is the knowledge associated with a specific form of poiesis, such as medicine. They also distinguished 'existence' (that is: being itself), and 'essence' ('what' it is). In poiesis, a thing is first an essence, as an idea in the maker, before it comes into existence. This essence belongs to the techne and is therefore independent of the maker. In nature, essence and existence co-exist. But Plato posited that their essence existed independently in an ideal plane. Thus the inherent purpose that the Greeks saw in techne, was also inherent to nature. The universe was therefore full of meaning and intention, and could be known by man. The important conclusion is: "We humans are not masters of nature, but work with its potential to bring a meaningful world to fruition."

The next big step (17th-18th cy), comes with Descartes and Bacon, where it is said "humans would become masters and possessors of nature" and "knowledge is power". Clearly this was a break with the Greek tradition. The essence of things was no longer 'within nature', not something we discover but something we create. Yet, because of the underlying vision of a mechanistic universe, technology is still the model of being. "Great ontology survived the defeat of its principles". However, physics has made place for 'stuff', that we modern humans can use as raw materials. Since we can subjectively choose our purposes, modernity no longer knows where it is going. Because technology now can do great harm, the optimism about progress is dead!

Quadrant of Four Technology Theories

The philosophy of technology has emerged as a critique. The four quadrants (see box) exemplify these current trends.

   - Instrumentalism is the dominant view: we choose our purpose then make value-neutral tools to get there.
   - Determinism says that we have no control because technology has its own logic as an expression of human knowledge.
   - Substantivism argues that technology is a value in itself, that it functions like a religious choice, excluding other alternatives. 

Once a society chooses a technological path, it will be dedicated to values such as efficiency and power, and traditional values can not survive. Determinism and substantivism are closely related but the former are usually optimists (such as Marx), while the latter are usually pessimists.

• The Quadrant:

- Technology can be: Autonomous vs Human Controlled

- and Neutral (means and ends are separated)vs Value Laden (means and end are related)

This gives us four posssibilities:

       - Neutral + Autonomous: Determinism (modernization theory)
       - Neutral + Humanly Controlled: Instrumentalism (liberal faith in progress)
       - Value-laden + Autonomous: Subtantivism (means and ends linked in through systems)
       - Value-Laden and Human Controlled: Critical Theory (choice of alternative means-ends systems)

Box on Heidegger:

"Technology constitutes a new type of cultural system that restructures the entire social world as an object of control." It invades everything and it is inescapable. The only possibility is retreat. "Only a God can save us."

Heidegger contrasts the Greek craftsman who brings the truth out of the material, from the modern engineer who completely obliterates it. He 'de-worlds' his material to make it fit his plan. According to Feenberg, Heidegger's critique is at such a high level of abstraction, that it cannot distinguish between atomic bombs and agriculture.