general term for the processes by which human beings fashion
tools and machines to increase their control and understanding of
the material environment. The term is derived from the Greek words tekhnf, which
refers to an art or craft, and logia, meaning an
area of study; thus, technology means, literally, the study, or
science, of crafting.
Many historians of science argue not only that technology
is an essential condition of advanced, industrial civilization but
also that the rate of technological change has developed its own
momentum in recent centuries. Innovations now seem to appear at
a rate that increases geometrically, without respect to geographical
limits or political systems. These innovations tend to transform
traditional cultural systems, frequently with unexpected social
consequences. Thus technology can be conceived as both a creative
and a destructive process.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
The meanings of the terms science and technology have
changed significantly from one generation to another. More similarities
than differences, however, can be found between the terms.
Both science and technology imply a thinking process, both
are concerned with causal relationships in the material world, and
both employ an experimental methodology that results in empirical
demonstrations that can be verified by repetition (see SCIENTIFIC
METHOD,). Science, at least in theory, is less concerned with
the practicality of its results and more concerned with the development
of general laws, but in practice science and technology are inextricably
involved with each other. The varying interplay of the two can be
observed in the historical development of such practitioners as
chemists, engineers, physicists, astronomers, carpenters, potters,
and many other specialists. Differing educational requirements,
social status, vocabulary, methodology, and types of rewards, as
well as institutional objectives and professional goals, contribute
to such distinctions as can be made between the activities of scientists
and technologists; but throughout history the practitioners of “pure” science
have made many practical as well as theoretical contributions.
Indeed, the concept that science provides the ideas for technological
innovations and that pure research is therefore essential for any
significant advancement in industrial civilization is essentially
a myth. Most of the greatest changes in industrial civilization
cannot be traced to the laboratory. Fundamental tools and processes
in the fields of MECHANICS,, CHEMISTRY,, ASTRONOMY,, METALLURGY,,
and HYDRAULICS, (qq.v.) were developed
before the laws governing their functions were discovered. The STEAM
ENGINE, (q.v.), for example, was commonplace before the science
of THERMODYNAMICS, (q.v.) elucidated
the physical principles underlying its operations.
In recent years a sharp value distinction has grown up between
science and technology. Advances in science have frequently had
their bitter opponents, but today many people have come to fear
technology much more than science. For these people, science may
be perceived as a serene, objective source for understanding the
eternal laws of nature, whereas the practical manifestations of
technology in the modern world now seem to them to be out of control.
ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL TECHNOLOGY
Technology has been a dialectical and cumulative process at
the center of human experience. It is perhaps best understood in
a historical context that traces the evolution of early humans from
a period of very simple tools to the complex, large-scale networks
that influence most of contemporary human life. For the sake of simplicity,
the following account focuses primarily on developments in the Western
world, but major contributions from other cultures are also indicated.
Early Technology.
The earliest known human artifacts are hand-ax flints found
in Africa, western Asia, and Europe. They date from about 250,000 bc,
and they serve to define the beginning of the STONE
AGE, (q.v.). The first toolmakers were nomadic groups of hunters
who used the sharp edges of stone to cut their food and to prepare
clothing and shelter. By about 100,000 bc the graves of hominid
ancestors of modern humans (see HUMAN
EVOLUTION,) contained pear-shaped axes, scrapers, knives, and
other stone instruments indicating that the original hand ax had
become a tool for making tools. The use of tools can be observed
in many members of the animal kingdom, but this capacity for creating
tools to craft other tools distinguishes humans from all other animals.
The next big step in the history of technology was the control
of fire. By striking flint against pyrites to produce sparks, people
could kindle fires at will, thereby freeing themselves from the
necessity of perpetuating fires obtained from natural sources. Besides
the obvious benefits of light and heat, fire was also used to bake
clay pots, producing heat-resistant vessels that were then used
for cooking grains and for brewing and fermenting. Fired pottery
later provided the crucibles in which metals could be refined. Advanced
thought processes may well have first developed around the hearth,
and it was there that the first domesticated animal, the dog, was
tamed.
Early technologies were not centered only on practical tools.
Colorful minerals were pulverized to make pigments that were then
applied to the human body, to clay utensils, and to baskets, clothing,
and other objects. In their search for pigments, early peoples discovered
the green mineral malachite and the blue mineral azurite. When these
copper-containing ores were hammered they did not turn to powder
but bent instead, and they could be polished but not chipped. Because
of these qualities, small bits of copper were soon made into jewelry.
Early peoples also learned that if this material was repeatedly
hammered and put into a fire, it would not split or crack. This
process of relieving metal stress, called annealing, eventually
brought human civilizations out of the Stone Age—particularly
when, about 3000 bc, people also found that alloying tin
with copper produces bronze (see BRONZE
AGE,). Bronze is not only more malleable than copper but also
holds a better edge, a quality necessary for such objects as swords
and sickles.
Although copper deposits existed in the foothills of Syria
and Turkey, at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates, the largest
deposits of copper in the ancient world were found on the island
of Crete. With the development of seaworthy ships that could reach
this extremely valuable resource, Knossos on Crete became a wealthy
mining center during the Bronze Age.
Rise of agriculture.
By the time of the Bronze Age, the human societies that dotted
every continent had long since made a number of other technological
advances. They had developed barbed spears, the bow and arrow, animal-oil
lamps, and bone needles for making containers and clothing. They
had also embarked on a major cultural revolution; the shift from
nomadic hunting and herding societies to the more settled practice
of agriculture.
Farming communities first emerged following the end of the
most recent ice age, about 10,000 bc. Their traces can
be found in widely scattered areas, from southeastern Asia to Mexico.
The most famous ones occur in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) near the
temperate and fertile river valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates.
The loose soil in this fertile crescent was easily scratched for
planting, and an abundance of trees was available for firewood.
By 5000 bc, farming communities were established
in areas known today as Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan,
Greece, and the islands of Crete and Cyprus. Agricultural societies
in these places constructed stone buildings, used the sickle to
harvest grain, developed a primitive plowstick, and advanced their
skills in metalworking. Trade in flint also began. By 4000 bc,
farming had spread westward from these centers to the Danube River
in central Europe, southward to the Mediterranean shores of Africa
(including the Nile River), and eastward to the Indus Valley.
Development of the Nile River valley led to other technological
advances. In that valley, the river floods in the early spring.
A system of irrigation and canals had to be developed to water the
crops during the growing seasons, when insufficient rain falls.
Land ownership had to be redetermined each year by a system of surveying,
because property markers often were lost during the floods. The
Tigris and Euphrates valleys presented other technological problems.
Floods came later in the growing season, so that people had to master
the craft of building dikes and flood barriers.
Other early developments.
To assist the efficient transportation of minerals for the
growing copper-working industry, two-wheeled carts were constructed;
the oldest wheels yet found date from about 3500 bc, in
Mesopotamia (see WHEEL,).
The yoke, which was used with the plow, was adapted to these first
land vehicles. The most frequently employed carriers of goods, however,
were reed boats and wood rafts, also first observed in Mesopotamia
and Egypt (see BOATS
AND BOATBUILDING.). An important result of trade in pottery,
metals, and raw materials was the creation of a mark, or seal, used
to identify individual creators or owners. Other marks, made with
a wedge-shaped reed on soft clay, were devised in Mesopotamia to
record commercial transactions. These so-called CUNEIFORM (q.v.)
inscriptions were the first form of true writing to be preserved.
Human technology also began to manifest another of its effects:
major alteration of the environment. Water management has already
been mentioned, but other practices effected greater changes. For
example, the demand for firewood led to deforestation, and the overgrazing
of sheep and cattle caused fewer new trees to grow in the thin soils
of the region. Thus, animal domestication, single-crop agriculture,
deforestation, and periodic floods brought about the gradual appearance
of desert areas.
Urbanization.
After about 4000 bc, one of the most complex creations
of humankind appeared: the CITY, (q.v.).
From this point forward, technology cannot be described only in
terms of simple tools, agricultural advancements, and technical
processes such as metallurgy, because the city itself is a technological
system. This is evident even in the first written symbols used to
represent a city; the symbol is a circle containing networks of
lines that indicate transportation and communication systems. The
emergence of the city made possible a surplus of food and an abundance
of material wealth, which in turn made possible the institution
of holy kingship and the construction of temples, tombs, and citadels.
The accumulation of precious metals, the acquisition of the power
to build defensive walls, and the control of armies and priests
ensured the ascendancy of the king, who may be called the first urban
technologist.
The ziggurats of Mesopotamia and the pyramids of Egypt symbolize
the organizational power and the technological magnitude of the
first urban settlements. The pyramid of King Zoser (r. about 2737–2717 bc)
of Egypt was built at Saqqara by Imhotep (fl. 27th cent. bc).
The first engineer known by name, Imhotep was worshiped as one of
the gods of wisdom. The Great Pyramid of King Khufu involved the
organization of more than 100,000 workers and the cutting of 2.3
million blocks of stone, each weighing 2 to 4 metric tons. The construction
of such massive buildings and monuments, the growth of trade in
metalware, and the development of water-resource management also
brought about a standardization of measurement. In Mesopotamia the
cubit became the standard of length, and the shekel the standard
of weight. Time was measured in Egypt with a calendar that divided
the yearly cycle of seasons into months and days (see ARCHAEOASTRONOMY,).
Urbanization also stimulated a greater need for writing. The
Egyptians improved on the clumsy clay tablet by manufacturing, from
papyrus plants, a paperlike material on which they wrote in HIEROGLYPHS, (q.v.).
In addition, the city brought about a new division of labor: the
caste system. This structure provided security, status, and leisure
for an intellectual class of scribes, doctors, teachers, engineers,
magicians, and diviners; the greatest resources, however, were allotted
to the military.
The Rise of the Military.
The first cities were also, in effect, war machines, built within
walls for defense and organized for battle and conquest. Urban centers
at Ur, Nippur, Uruk, Thebes, Heliopolis, Assur, Nineveh, and Babylon
were arsenals of destructive weaponry. The goal of a military force was
to lay waste the city of its enemy. Ur, in Sumer, was not only one
of the first great cities to arise (c. 4000 bc) but also
one of the first to be destroyed (c. 2000 bc). Similarly,
in the Indus Valley far to the east, the great city of Mohenjo-daro
was founded about 2500 bc and destroyed about 1700 bc by
chariot armies from the north. This same pattern was repeated in
Peru and Ecuador in about 1000 bc and later in Central
America.
Military technology in the ancient world developed, loosely,
in three stages (see ARMY,).
In the first stage arose the infantry with its leather or copper
helmets, bows, spears, shields, and swords. This stage was followed
by the development of chariots (see CHARIOT,),
which at first were clumsy vehicles for the use of commanders. The
later addition of spokes to the wheels to lighten them (c. 2000 bc),
and a bit and bridle for the horse, made the chariot a light war
machine that could outflank enemy infantry. The third stage of ancient
military technology centered on increasing the mobility and speed
of the CAVALRY, (q.v.). The Assyrians,
with their knowledge of iron weaponry and their superb horsemanship,
dominated much of the civilized world between 1200 and 612 bc.
With the introduction of the stirrup from Asia about the 2d
century bc, horsemen were able to obtain better leverage
in fighting with swords, and they made chariot warfare obsolete.
Swift-striking cavalry units, first observed in Egypt and Persia,
became the major military forces. With their emergence came the
need for better transportation and communication systems. The Persians
were the first to set up a network of roads and posting stations
in order to rule their vast empire, which extended all the way from
the Punjab to the Mediterranean Sea.
Greek and Roman Technologies.
The Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great was overthrown and succeeded
by the empire of Greece's Alexander the Great. Greece had
first become a power through its skill in shipbuilding and trading
and by its colonization of the shores of the Mediterranean. The Greeks
defeated the Persians, in part, because of their naval power.
The Persians and Greeks also introduced a new caste into the
division of labor: slavery. By the time of Greece's Golden
Age, its civilization depended on slaves for nearly all manual labor.
Most scholars agree that in societies that practice slavery, problems
in productivity tend to be solved by increasing the number of workers
rather than by looking for new production methods or new energy
sources. Because of this, theoretical knowledge and learning in
Greece—and later in Rome—was largely separated
from physical labor and manufacturing.
This is not to say that the Greeks did not develop many new
technological ideas. People such as Archimedes, Hero of Alexandria,
Ctesibius (fl. 270–246 bc), and Ptolemy wrote
about the principles of siphons, pulleys, levers, cams, fire engines,
cogs, valves, and turbines. Some practical contributions of the Greeks
were of great importance, such as the water clock of Ctesibius,
the diptra (a surveying instrument) of Hero of Alexandria, and the
screw pump of Archimedes. Similarly, Greek shipping was improved
by Thales of Miletus, who introduced methods of navigation by triangulation,
and by Anaximander, who produced the first world map. Nevertheless,
the technological advances of the Greeks were not on a par with
their contributions to theoretical knowledge and their wide-ranging
speculations.
The Roman Empire that engulfed and succeeded that of the Greeks
was somewhat similar in this respect. The Romans, however, were
great technologists in the sense of organizing and building; they
established an urban civilization that enjoyed the first long peaceful
period in human history. The great change in engineering that occurred
in the Roman period came as a shift from building tombs, temples,
and fortifications to the construction of enormous systems of public
works. Using water-resistant cement and the principle of the arch,
Roman engineers built 70,800 km (44,000 mi) of roads across their
vast empire. They also built numerous sports arenas and public baths
and hundreds of aqueducts, sewers, and bridges. The engineer of
public works for Rome in the 1st century ad, Sextus Julius
Frontinus (c. 35–103), fought corruption and illegal practices
and took great pride in the public works that provided better sanitary conditions
for the citizens of Rome.
Roman engineers were also responsible for introducing the
water mill and for the subsequent design of undershot and overshot
water wheels, which were used to grind grain, saw wood, and cut
marble. In the military sphere, the Romans advanced technology by
improving weapons such as the javelin and the catapult (see ARTILLERY,).
Middle Ages.
The period between the fall of Rome and the Industrial Revolution—from
approximately ad 500 to 1500—is known as the Middle
Ages. Contrary to a popular image, however, this period was not “dark,” isolated,
or backward. In fact, greater technological advancements were made
in this period than during the Greek and Roman eras. (In addition,
the Byzantine and Islamic cultures that thrived during this period
were active in the areas of natural philosophy, art, literature,
and religion, and Islamic culture in particular made many scientific
contributions that would be of great importance in the European
Renaissance.) Medieval technologies do not fall into simple categories,
however, because the technology of the Middle Ages was eclectic.
Medieval society was highly adaptive, willing to acquire new ideas
and methods of production from any source—whether the cultures
of Islam and Byzantium, or China, or the far-ranging Vikings.
Warfare and agriculture.
In the area of warfare, cavalry was improved as a military
weapon with the invention of the lance and the saddle about the
4th century. These in turn led to the development of heavier armor,
the breeding of larger horses, and the building of great castles.
The introduction of crossbow and, later, gunpowder technologies
from China, where they had been developed many centuries before,
resulted in the manufacture of guns, cannons, and mortars (through
the development of the blast furnace), thereby reducing the effectiveness
of heavy shields and massive stone fortifications.
The introduction of a heavier plow that had wheels, a horizontal
plowshare, and a moldboard, among other new features, made agriculture
more productive in the Middle Ages. Three-field crop rotation and
the resulting surplus of grains were among the developments that—together
with political and social changes—led many peasants to
abandon small, individual farming plots and to adopt the successful
medieval communal pattern of open-field agriculture.
One of the most important machines of medieval times was the WINDMILL, (q.v.).
It not only increased the amount of grain ground and timber sawed;
it also produced millwrights experienced with the compound crank,
cams, and other technologies for gearing machines and linking their
parts with other devices. The spinning wheel (see SPINNING,),
introduced from India in the 13th or 14th century, improved the
production of yarn and thread for cloth and became a common machine
around the hearth. The hearth itself was transformed by the addition
of a chimney to conserve wood, which was becoming scarce because
of agricultural expansion. Farm surpluses by ad 1000 led
to an increase in trade and in the growth of cities. Within the
cities, architectural innovations of many kinds were developed, culminating
in the great Gothic cathedrals with their high walls made possible
by flying buttresses.
Transportation.
Innovations in transportation during the Middle Ages revolutionized
the spread of technologies and ideas across wide areas. Such devices
as the horseshoe, the whiffletree (for harnessing animals to wagons
effectively), and the spring carriage speeded the transfer of people
and goods. Important changes also occurred in marine technology.
The development of the deep keel, the triangular lateen sail for
greater maneuverability, and the magnetic compass (in the 13th cent.)
made sailing ships the most complex machines of the age. A school
was established by Prince Henry of Portugal to teach navigators
how to use these machines effectively. Perhaps more than did Copernicus's
astronomical theories, Prince Henry's students changed
humanity's perception of the world (see NAVIGATION,).
Other major inventions.
Two other medieval inventions, the clock and the printing
press, also have had a permanent influence on all aspects of human
life. The invention of a weight-driven clock in 1286 meant that
people would no longer live in a world structured primarily by the
daily course of the sun and the yearly change of the seasons. The
clock was also an immense aid to navigation, and the precise measurement
of time was essential for the growth of modern science.
The invention of the printing press, in turn, set off a social
revolution that is still in progress. (The Chinese had developed
both paper and printing—including textile printing—before
the 2d century ad, but these innovations did not become
generally known to the Western world until much later.) The German
printing pioneer Johann Gutenberg solved the problem of molding
movable type about 1450. Once developed, printing spread rapidly
and began to replace hand-printed texts for a wider audience. Thus,
intellectual life soon was no longer the exclusive domain of church
and court, and literacy became a necessity of urban existence.
MODERN TECHNOLOGY
By the end of the Middle Ages the technological systems called
cities had long since become a central feature of Western life.
In 1600 London and Amsterdam each had populations of more than 100,000,
and twice that number resided in Paris. Also, the Dutch, English,
Spanish, and French were beginning to develop global empires. Colonialism
and trade produced a powerful merchant class that helped to create
an increasing desire for such luxuries as wine, coffee, tea, cocoa,
and tobacco. These merchants acquired libraries, wore clothing made
of expensive fabrics and furs, and set a style of life aspired to
by the wider populace. By the beginning of the 18th century, capital
resources and banking systems were well enough established in Great Britain
to initiate investment in mass-production techniques that would
satisfy some of these middle-class aspirations.
The Industrial Revolution.
The INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, (q.v.) started
in England because that nation had the technological means, government
encouragement, and a large and varied trade network. The first factories
appeared in 1740, concentrating on textile production (see FACTORY
SYSTEM,). In 1740 the majority of English people wore woolen
garments, but within the next 100 years the scratchy, often soggy
and fungus-filled woolens were replaced by cotton—especially
after the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney, an American,
in 1793. Such English inventions as the flying shuttle and carding
machines of John Kay, the water frame of Richard Arkwright, the
spinning jenny of James Hargreaves, and the improvements in weaving
made by Samuel Crompton (1753–1827) were all integrated
with a new source of power, the steam engine, developed in England
by Thomas Newcomen, James Watt, Richard Trevithick, and in the U.S.
by Oliver Evans (1755–1819). Within a 35-year period, from the
1790s to the 1830s, more than 100,000 power looms with 9,330,000
spindles were put into service in England and Scotland.
One of the most important innovations in the weaving process
was introduced in France in 1801 by Joseph Jacquard (1752–1834);
his loom used cards with holes punched in them to determine the
placement of threads in the warp. This use of punched cards inspired
the British mathematician Charles Babbage to attempt to design a
calculating machine based on the same principle. Although this machine
never became fully practical, it presaged the great computer revolution
of the 20th century (see COMPUTER,).
New labor pattern.
The Industrial Revolution brought a new pattern to the division
of labor. It created the modern factory, a technological network
whose workers were not required to be artisans and did not necessarily
possess craft skills. Because of this, the factory introduced an
impersonal remuneration process based on a wage system. As a result
of the financial hazards brought on by the economic systems that
accompanied such industrial developments, the factory also led to
the constant threat of unemployment for its workers.
The factory system was achieved only after much resistance
from the English guilds and artisans (see GUILD,),
who could see clearly the threat to their income and way of life.
In musket making, for example, gunsmiths fought the introduction
of interchangeable parts and the mass production of rifles. Nevertheless,
the factory system became a basic institution of modern technology,
and the work of men, women, and children became just another commodity
in the production process. The ultimate assembly of a product—whether
a mechanical reaper or a sewing machine—was not the work
of one person but the result of an integrated, corporate system.
This division of labor into operations that were more and more narrowly
described became the determining feature of work in the new industrial
society, with all the long hours of tedium that this entailed.
Increased pace of
innovation.
As agricultural productivity increased and medical science
developed, Western society came to have a strong belief in the desirability
of technological change despite its less pleasant aspects. Pride
and a measure of awe resulted from such engineering achievements
as the laying of the first Atlantic telegraph cable, the building
of the Suez and Panama canals, and the construction of the EIFFEL
TOWER,, the BROOKLYN BRIDGE,,
and the enormous iron passenger ship, the GREAT
EASTERN, (qq.v.). The telegraph and railroads connected most of
the major cities with one another. In the late 19th century, the
light bulb of the American inventor Thomas Alva Edison began to
replace candles and lamps, and within 30 years every industrial
nation was generating electric power for lighting and other systems.
Such 19th- and 20th-century inventions as the telephone, the
phonograph, the wireless radio, the motion picture, the automobile,
and the airplane served only to add to the nearly universal respect
that society in general felt for technology. With the development
of assembly-line mass production of automobiles and household appliances,
and the building of ever taller skyscrapers, acceptance of innovations
became not only a fact of everyday life but also a way of life in
itself. Society was being rapidly transformed by increased mobility,
rapid communication, and a deluge of available information from
mass media.
Technical education.
One of the several reasons why the U.S. became a technological
leader in the 20th century was its development of an advanced system
of technical education. Mechanical arts schools began in Philadelphia
in the 18th century, and by the end of the 19th century they had
spread to every major American city. In the 20th century, a state-based
system of vocational education provided training in basic technical
skills. Between 1862 and 1890, engineering and agricultural colleges
in every state were funded by a federal program known as the Morrill
Land Grant (see EDUCATION,
TECHNICAL,; EDUCATION, VOCATIONAL,).
In addition, since the early 1920s, every rural county in the nation
has had a federal extension office that is responsible for disseminating
information to farmers on new technologies and research (see COOPERATIVE
STATE RESEARCH, EDUCATION, AND EXTENSION SERVICE).
Reassessments of
Technology.
World War I and the Great Depression forced a sobering reassessment
of this rapid technological explosion. The development of submarines,
machine guns, battleships, and chemical warfare made increasingly
clear the destructive side of technological change. In addition,
worldwide mass unemployment and the disasters met by capitalistic
institutions in the 1930s initiated a further strong critique of
the benefits that result from technological progress.
Then, with World War II, came the development of the weapon
that has since become a general threat to life on earth: the atomic
bomb. Although national leaders often speak of the peaceful uses
of NUCLEAR ENERGY, (q.v.), nuclear
power can never be discussed without referring to its dangers as
well. Another technological outgrowth of World War II—the
development of computers and transistors and the accompanying trend
toward miniaturization—is having equally profound effects
on society as well (see MICROPROCESSOR,).
The possibilities it offers are enormous, but so are the possibilities
for invasion of privacy and for work-force displacement by automated
systems (see AUTOMATION,).
During the 1950s some observers began to warn that many other
products of technology also had harmful or destructive aspects.
Automobile exhausts, they pointed out, were polluting the atmosphere, pesticides
such as DDT were threatening the food chain, and mineral wastes
from a wide variety of industrial sources were polluting large reservoirs
of groundwater. Indeed, the physical environment has become so jammed
with technological processes that one of the major challenges of
modern society is the search for places to dump the wastes that
have been produced.
Proposed Alternatives.
Several alternatives to this contemporary technological dilemma
have been suggested. For example, one concept formally instituted
in the U.S. has been that of technology assessment. As present,
government regulatory commissions, the court systems, and the insurance industry
provide the most common means for assessing the effects of technological
innovations on human life. In the U.S., a congressional Office of
Technology Assessment was established in the late 1970s and charged
with the responsibility of evaluating the social, economic, environmental,
and health effects of projects and devices. It has been very difficult
in practice, however, to predict secondary effects of new technologies.
Many people who have little faith in comprehensive planning
and technology assessment have advanced the concept of so-called
appropriate, or intermediate, technology as an alternative to the
technological problems of the industrialized nations, and as a solution
to the problem of social dislocation caused by the transfer of advanced
technologies to developing countries. In his Small Is Beautiful (1973),
the British economist E. F. Schumacher (1911–77) stated
that—for humane, aesthetic, moral, and political reasons—the overwhelming
nature of modern technology threatens a quality of life that has
meaning, freedom of choice, a human sense of scale, and an equal
chance for justice and individual creativity. Supporters of this
viewpoint have proposed a value system in which all people recognize
that the earth's resources are limited and that human life
must be structured around a commitment to control the growth of
industry, the size of cities, and the use of energy. Restoration
and renewal of natural resources has become the technological objectives
of the appropriate-technology alternative.
Another school of thought, technological determinism, argues
that modern society is no longer living in the industrial age of
the 19th and earlier 20th centuries. They argue that postindustrial
society is already a reality, and that the complex sociotechnical
networks mediated by advanced electronics have made obsolete the
institutions of nationalistic governments, capitalistic corporations,
as well as heavily populated cities.
Outlook.
Twentieth-century technology spread from Europe and the U.S.
to other major nations such as Japan and the Soviet Union. It has
not, however, pervaded all the countries of the world, by any means.
Some so-called developing nations have never experienced the factory
system and other institutions of industrialization. The leaders
of such countries tend to feel that the acquisition of modern weapons
and new technology will provide them with power and prestige. No
one, however, can predict the religious, social, and cultural consequences
of the transfer of technologies to these countries. In fact, some
of the most severe social dislocations during recent decades have
occurred in regions where radical changes caused by technology transfer
have taken place; Uganda and Iran are two unhappy examples.
Technology has always been a major means for creating new
physical and human environments. It is possible to ask today whether
technology will also destroy the global civilization that human
beings have created. R.H.M., RAYMOND
H. MERRITT, M.A., Ph.D.
See also INVENTION,.
For further information on this topic, see the Bibliography, sections 483.
General technology–485.
Invention, 583. Automation.
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