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October 27, 2005
Technological Determinism
I'm not quite sure whether or not I have a really good grasp on what technological determinism means, but from the reading I take it to mean that advancements in technology allow us change socially. For example, we were only able embrace photographic images and have them make up such a huge part of our culture because the chemical and mechanical elements need to produce photographs were present.
An argument against technological determinism is that it is society that determines which technological advancements come along, therefore society is indirectly responsible for social change, and technology is simply the middle man between the two.
Evidence to support this argument is that the technique of perspective existed before its first use, but society at the time chose not to employ this technique because of social standards. For example, the Egyptians were more interested in representing objects according to their importance (more important objects are bigger).
I think that technological determinism is too much of a simplification of how the world works. It only examines how social change comes about, but neglects to examine how technological advancements come about.
Posted by lcissullivan at October 27, 2005 10:08 PM