This place in North Wales is very interesting. It is one among many industrial ruins of the area, similar to those old mining sites and furnaces in Cornwall. It makes me think about doing and undoing technology.
Maybe an interactionist approach to technology studies would coin the term "Doing Technology" (like doing gender). In an earlier post I have written about the problem of undoing technology.
When talking to friends about this, they would ask me "Why would someone want to do that?"
For a while I had no answer but the Taoist story about the old man and the well, who abstains from technology for the sake of his being in touch with the Tao.
My friends would identify this answer as just one of my turns.
However, I still love that story and today I'd say that while technology seems to make life better, it keeps us away from things. Marxist theory would call this "Entfremdung".
We gain weight more easily, we don't make things ourselves and lose the sense for their value, we have weapons to kill more people with less effort and we lose orientation in a world full of technological options.
On the other hand there are undeniable advantages. Prolonged life, health, opportunities to experience the world, a virtual world in addition to the real one (without which these lines would not make much sense), new possibilities of interaction and entertainment.
But it all comes with the mentioned price.
So I will end this post with some questions?
Can we find a balance between being in touch with nature and the manifold faces of technology?
Do we have a choice?
Will AC/DC's "Who made who" be the anthem of the next generation?
Is there a light at the end of the technology tunnel?
Can we chose to refrain from the grapes of technological wrath?
Can we undo technology?
Is it an evolutionary process?
Do we actually need to do so?
Where does this progress take us?
Can we undo technology?
Can we undo...
Can we...
Can...
?
No comments:
Post a Comment