Comment: The Role of Technology in Society and the Need ...

Comment: The Role of Technology in Society and the Need for Historical Perspective Author(s): A. Hunter Dupree Reviewed work(s): Source: Technology and Culture, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Oct., 1969), pp. 528-534 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of the Society for the History of Technology Stable URL: . Accessed: 03/04/2012 09:42 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@.

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COMMENT:THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN SOCIETY AND THE NEED FOR HISTORICALPERSPECTIVE

A. HUNTER DUPREE

The uniquecontributionthehistorianof technologyandsocietycan hopetomakeisto injectachronologicadlimensionH. encehistorianasre not likelyto fit well amongthosewho see technologyeitherasanunalloyedblessingor as an unmitigatedcurse.Historianhs ave,despitea lackof firmmethodologicaalssumptionbs,eenpilingup empiricaelvidencethattechnologyhasbeenawell-recognizefdactorinsocialchange notonlybackto theIndustriaRlevolutionbutalsobackatleastto OlduvaiGorgeandtheendof thePleistocengelaciationH. owever,themost unlikelyconclusionthey couldpossiblydrawfromthischronological sequenceistheonewhichMestheneattributetso them-thattechnology as suchis not worthyof specialnotice.Perhapsthe econometricians haverubbedout the accelerationof productivitysincethe 1880sand havedenieda changein timeperiodbetweeninventionandadoptionof technologicaclomponentisn recentdecadesT. he historianis interested in preciselythosesocial,cultural,psychologicala,ndpoliticaleffects whichrenderthe conclusionosf the econometricianeslegantexercises, beautifuiln theirway but divorcedfromthe choiceswhichmenand womenfixedintimehavealwayshadto make.

Fortheunderstandinogf contemporarsyociety,technologyisworthy of suchspecialnoticethata programontechnologyandsocietycannot affordto overlookthepossibilitythatimportanetlementisn thepresent interactionbetweentechnologyandsocietytookshapelongbeforethe 20thcentury.Evenif oneacceptsMesthene'psropositionthatthecontemporarysituationis qualitativeldyifferenftromthatof pastsocieties, thewayis stillopento usethenewinsightsourpresentechnologyand plightgiveusto reexamintehepastwitheyesbetterfocusedto understand the natureof technology in its interactionswith society in any period.Two leadingideas of the presentscene-the systems approach and ecologicalbalance-have the possibilityof combiningto elucidate the natureof technology and innovation,but these ideas need a long timespanto test themselvesadequately.

DR.DUPREEp,rofessorof history at Brown University, is the author of Asa Gray, Science in the Federal Government, and Science and the Emergence of Modern America.

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The frameworkof the history of technology as now practicedis the child of the IndustrialRevolutionand the patentsystem.The effect of the patentwas to focus the history of technology on the individualinventor as the potentialentrepreneur-innovatoarnd alsoto focus on the individualmechanicaldevice ratherthan the system as the unit of innovation.The structuringof the whole concept of technologicalchange arounddiscretemechanicalarrangementsas the unit of innovationhas persistedto the present and was almost unchallengeduntil recently. Since almostevery systems innovationhas certaincrucial components without which it could not operateandcertaincomponentswhich were alreadyavailablefrom the existingstock of technology, the patent-inventor-inventionformulationhas a certainutility. Thomas A. Edison was dealingwith a systems problemin substitutingelectricity for gas lighting in the early 1880s,but he rightly focused on the inventionof the high-resistanceincandescentfilamentin a glass-enclosedvacuumas the componentwhich was most dramaticallynecessaryfor the whole systemto operate.Thereforehe found it most persuasiveand also most in tune with the patentsystem of rewardand developmentto describe himselfas the inventorof the discretecomponent.The historyof technology has laboredmightily to trace the history of some of the thousandsof componentsandto unravelthe thorny problemsof priorityand prestigeinvolvedin the title inventor.Yet evenanothergenerationof industriouswork on such a programwould still be unableto help Mesthene very much in unravelingthe relationof technology to society in the late 20th century, the period of the greatestmultiplicity of components.

Therefore let us ask the HarvardProgramon Science and Technology to takeits expertisein the modernartsbackalongthe chronological axis of history sufficientlyfar to get a perspectiveon the systemsapproach appliedto technology itself. Let us imaginethe improbable-a historianpossessedof both the systemsapproachand ecology. Let him try to definetechnology.He would takea look at Mesthene'sdefinition, "the organizationof knowledge for practicalpurposes,"and, without changingit essentially,say that technology is man'scodified ways of doing things to the environment.Such definitionsaboundin the literature, but they need translatinginto terms understandablein the late 20th century by technologicalman himself.The hypotheticalqualified modern historianof technology (not myself, but one armedwith anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics as well as systems analysis, ecology, and all the conventionalscholarlyappurtenances)might strip off all perplexitiesand complicationsto evolve a definitionsomething like this: Technology is an informationsystemwhich connectsthe spe-

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ciesof biologicalorganismsHomo sapienswith its environmentS. kipping over the vexedproblemsof animaltechnology andthe protohumanmix of tools and biologicaladaptation,the historiancan find as far back as he can see a biological organism(a system in itself, about which we know somethingfrom presentevidence) interactingwith its environment, which includesboth other organismsand the physical environment accessiblefrom the surfaceof the planetEarth.Other organisms havereacheda balancewith theirenvironmentby biologicaladaptation, but culture,in additionto biologicaladaptationh, asinterposeditself between Homo sapiensandhis environment.

Althoughonemightconceivablysee thisecologicalpositionof manin severalways-for instance,asan energytransfersystem-the presenceof languageandsociety even at the earliesthorizonmakesthe information systemthe closestanalogueof technology.Not only doesthe humanindividualtakein informationthroughhis senses,processit, and readout behaviorwhich is adaptedto the environment,but culture providesa kind of memoryunit which processesinformationflowing in from the environmenton a scale beyond any individualand storesit for future use. The conceptioncan apply both when most of the feedbackflows from the environment,forcing manto adapt,and when in more recent situationsthe quantityof feedbackflows the otherway, producingmassive changesin the environmentitself. Yet even on the earliesthorizon the feedbackflow is a closed loop and not necessarilyoverbalancedin favor of the environment.Men of earliertimes could cut down the cedarsof Lebanonwith the efficiencyof a bulldozer.

The informationsystemwhich is technology could not get very far withoutlanguage,sincethe namingof thingsmadeefficientinformation exchangewith the environmentpossible.Yet languageis not the only carrier of technologicalinformation.Tools themselvestransmitmessagesto their userseven as energy flows throughthem to the environment.Society is alsoa carrier,for fathers,mothers,and masterspasson to sons,daughters,andapprenticesinformationwhich they cannotverbalizeand which is embeddedin the skilledand practicaleye-handcoordinationof the artisanN. o wonderthatuntilthe 20thcenturythe best way to move technologicalinformationlaterallyin spacein a shorttime was to transportskilledartisans.

Only from the time of the Renaissance,and even then only peripherally,did a formalinformationcarrierin the shapeof a technological literaturedevelop. Mining was an ancient art which had gone on for centuries before Georgius Agricola's De re metallica (1556) and showed every evidence of continuingwithout the aid of that masterpiece.Althoughformalmathematicsf,or instance,seemsto put in a very late appearanceamong artisans,tools and the products of early tech-

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nology speakeloquentlyof narrowlimitsof accuracyandcoordination of complexrelationshipsby men unversedin Euclid. Indeed,some evidence indicatesa chronologicallycontinuousgrid of measurementunderlyingWesterntechnologyfromthe ancientworld to the present.

Since each generationof manmustsolve certainsystemsproblemsor perish, the technological informationis embeddedin culture groups aroundcertainfundamentaladaptivemechanisms-food, clothing, shelter, mobility, protection.Reticulationof an industrialtechnology can mask these fundamentalmechanisms,but no amount of affluencecan eliminatetheir biologicalbase.The historianof technology has here an organizingprinciplefor analyzingthe technologicalinformationwhich puts his manycomponenthistoriesinto perspective.The originof agriculture and the coming food needs of the explodingpopulationare all one subjectbecauseevery generationmusthavethe technologicalinformationto provideitself with food. McCormick'sreaperand the horse collarof the DarkAges havehadcenterstagein the historyof technology, but the magnificentunity of the history of corn, Zea Mays, in its full socialsettingwith man,is much more in tune with an approachto technology which makes food provision a system equally present in every society.

Out of the necessity to preservethe fundamentaltechnologicalsystems to support life comes the immensestability (hopefully a better word than conservatism)of technologicaltradition.Especiallyif the surpluswealth of the communityis low, an experimentaal ttitudeis disastrous.Furthermore,the redesignof componentscan only take place within the confinesof a system that must maintainits adaptationwith the environmentT. herefore,innovationmeritsthe suspicionof a peasant whose culturehastaughthim throughthe hardexperienceof his ancestorsthe coursemostlikely to ensurehisharvest.

Technologicalchangeis not, however,a new phenomenon.Although the systemhuntsfor stabilityand,if the feedbackfrom the environment remainssteady,will tend toward a diminishingoscillationin technique as the traditionbecomesset, the input from the environmentis never completely free from change.Geology has seen to that, for the end of the glacialepochforced massivetechnologicalchangeandsystemsinnovationon Homo sapiens,makinghim into the innovatinganimal.When his ecological niche changes, the feedback into his culture computer tells him somethingis out of balance,and he respondsnot only with change but also with a search for a new equilibriumadaptedto the changedcondition.In this way the stabilityof cultureand the pressure for changebroughtaboutby a fluctuationin the environment(including the changes induced by the impinging human populationitself) form a tension out of which comes adaptation.Most animalshave to

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stay with one ecological niche or become extinct or evolve new biological capability,but Homo sapiensdevelopedthe ability to change niches through technologicaladaptationlong before the conventional dawn of history.No doubt the processof change often occurredover manylifetimes,and traditioncould changewithout breakingthe continuity of parent-to-childtransmissionin time. Yet not all technological changein earliertimeswas necessarilymultigenerationallyslow. A plow could spreadfar acrossEuropein a few years, and the cliff housesof MesaVerde lost theirinhabitantswithin the memoryof a singlegeneration.

Sciencehasreceivedso much praiseandblameas the primesourceof technologicalchangein the presentera that the HarvardProgramon Technology and Society cannot avoid consideringscience as a part of its field of investigation.Mesthenealmost never mentions science, to the extent of making Americanaccomplishmentsin national defense and space exploration"technologicalsuccesses."Yet his presentera is precisely the time when, if ever, science has intruded itself onto the technologicalscene. Hence, the historianmight carry his hypothetical analysisone step furtherand askif science will yield to the viewpoint of systemsanalysisandecology.

Despite many carelessmodernstatementsof the separatenessof science and technology up to the late 19th century and their intimacy thereafter,the analysisat firstglancemakesthe two appearsurprisingly similar.Science,like technology, is an informationsystem embeddedin culture.It too mediatesbetween man and his environment.It too is a socialprocessconcernedwith a memorybankwhich storesinformation and passesit from one individualto another,including those in the younger generationwho will take their places in an unbrokenchain. It too relies heavily on language.It too has embeddedin its tradition a mathematicstied to a measuringsystem.

Finally,science also has tools to supplementman'ssenses,which are in themselvescarriersof informationbeyond the verbal and mathematicalcontent of their readouts.Nothing has confused the historians of science and technology more than the fact that science floats on a bed of technology.As aninformationsystemit hashardware.Not only is science dependenton technology for the instrumentsspeciallymade to its order. It rides along on the artifacts of general technology, as when the buildingof the transcontinentarlailroadenabledbiologiststo reexplorethe trans-MississippWi est with great efficiencyand systematic results.That exampleperhapsmakesthe same point more clearly than saying that science rides along on a rocket to explorespace.The rocketis technology,but the explorationis science.

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The recognition of science and technology as kindredinformation systemsshould not, however, deter the historianfrom seeking among the similaritiesfor the differenceswhich have led these two systemsto maintainseparateidentitiesand at timesalmostto lose touch with each other. On the other hand,as at present,the two havebecome so intertwined that to recognizethe boundarybetween them is the hardproblem.

The first differencebetween science and technology that becomes apparentis a radically different emphasison the various carriersof informationwithin the systems.While the technologicalinstrumentation carriesa freight of informationandwhile the organizationsof science work, to an extent, on the master-apprenticpeatterndominantin technology, the predominantcarrier of scientific informationis the corpus of formal literature.The linguistic channel and mathematical channelin the formalliteraturedefinethe scope of sciencein any given age. Hence the long detour from the Greeks via Alexandriaand the Arabs to Western Europe in the 13th century is mainly a matter of written texts.

The second difference,somehow linked with the first one, is that scienceis not a closed-loopfeedbacksystem.It hasinputsfrom the environment, but it channels them into the memory bank-the formal literature-withoutthe expectationon the partof a society thatadaptive behaviormustbe immediatelyforthcoming.The processof abstraction, which the scientificinformationsystembeganto accomplishin ancient times, broke the loop and relieved the system of the necessity of producing an unbrokenseriesof adaptedsystemsin all periodsto provide an ecological niche for the species. The time span availablefor the processingof informationwithin the system is greatly increased,and the numberof optionalsolutionsalsogreatlyincreased.In place of culture asa whole being the pathfor the informationsystemin a reciprocatingloop as in the case of technology, the scientificinformationsystem developedits own morelimitedandmoredisciplinedculturalmilieu in the scientific community. Solutions are stored for varying periods of timein the formalliteratureandthenretrievedby the instructionsof the scientific communitywhen certain standardsof cogency are met. Here is not the placeto discussthe complicatedrulesof priority,verificationby experimenta, ndachievementof consensusby which the scientific communityprocessesinformation.

Sufficeit to say that despitethe similaritiesof the two systems,they had divergedsignificantlyduringthe MiddleAges. When they began to interacttoward the end of that time, the scientificinformationsystem received a large input from technology, and indeed the scientists

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withoutthe help of the artisansof the Renaissancewould haveremained seriouslyhamperedby a deficientexperimentaal nd observationacl apability.

By the late 19thcentury the two systemshad againdivergedsignificantly,andnow it was the scientificinformation,with the densematrix of optionsit had developedover three centuries,which made science a majorinputinto technology.That they areboth informationsystems with a commonlinguisticandmathematicatlraditionmadetheirmating easier.At first science appearedas the bestower of components on alreadyfunctioningtechnologicalsystems.The atomicbomb might be viewedas the culminationof componentbestowalfrom scienceto technology. In the post-WorldWar II period,althoughthe flow of scienceorientedcomponentshas by no meansceased,the possibilitythat science might develop optimal systems to substitutefor whole technological systemshas become a reality. The gain in this situationis the numberof matchedcomponentsthatbecome availablerapidlyand also the possibilitythat direct control of man-environmentadaptationcan be achievedon a systemsbasisratherthan left to the closed-loopculturalinteractionsof technology.

The dangerin the situationlies in two directions.In the first place, even the most science-basedtechnologiesare still made up to a large extent of traditionaltechnologicalcomponents,some of which have remainedunchangedfor centuriesand are highly adapted,especiallyto man.They may be superiorto a scorched-earthinnovationin the name of progress.And, new or old, the systemmust continueto be respectful of the biologicalorganismthat Homo sapiensremains.The substitution of jet aircrafthasnot renderedwalking obsolete.In the second place, the dynamicsof the man-environmentadaptationis so poorly understoodthat the trade-offsof gains and losses in hasty and partial innovationof science-basedsystemsmay after the fact produce social and ecological disaster.

If the HarvardProgramon Technology and Society could use a modernapproachto the history of technology, it might be able to go a little way towardsortingout the mix of systems-some science based andsomea directheritageof man'searliestexperience-whichmakeup the totality of 20th-centurytechnology. It might also be able to avoid the extremesof unlimitedoptimismand bitter pessimismby an analysis of the middlegroundof cost andbenefit.An understandingof many differentrates of change and the relationsbetween them and a quest for balancein the man-environmentecological system might provide a standardof valuewhich would restoreto proudand anxiousmodern mana measureof both courageandrepose.

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