Another class is DONE. Woo Hoo. Three down, one more class to go.
This is the final exam for 5369. For it, we were to select one article from several presented and apply the theories of technology (and their philosophers) to the article.
I selected the article “Cormac McCarthy’s Typewriter Brings $254,500 …

One day, I want my voice (within academic discourse) to be as good as Johnson’s. Was reading a plethora of articles and books over the last four or five days and began to wonder where “voice” was within academic writing, and then I sat and began to read Johnson again …

There is so much that can be said about these chapters.
Johnson’s discussion on “dumbing down” is an interesting one, and it instantly made me think about composition courses. Out of frustration or because some institutions actually think it’s for the students’ benefit, some institutions seem to “dumb down” composition courses, …

I dig Johnson. For many reasons, but specifically because he writes in a way that is easy for me to understand for…and because he’s so audience-centered in his approach.
In the preface of Johnson’s work, we get a brief overview of other fields’ contributions to the question Johnson initially poses: What …

Chapter 55 ~ “Democratic Rationalization: Technology, Power, and Freedom” by Andrew Feenberg (revised – 1992)
Reading chapter 55 was like reading a Who’s Who in the Philosophy of Technology. Many guest stars, to include Ellul, Heidegger, Marcuse, even hackers, make an appearance in this piece; I will say that it feels appropriate to …

Chapter 37 ~ “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century” by Donna Haraway
Haraway argues for a connection amongst feminism, socialism, and materialism through the image of the cyborg, a blend of machine and organism, both a creature of social reality and of fiction.
Through this image …

Chapter 35 ~ “The New Forms of Control” by Herbert Marcuse (1964)
“A comfortable, smooth, reasonable, democratic unfreedom prevails in advanced industrial civilization, a token of technical progress” (405).
In the earlier stages of industrial society, according to Marcuse, rights and liberties were an extreme importance; but now, they are losing their …

Chapter 34 ~ “Do Machines Make History?” by Robert L. Heilbroner (1967)
Heilbroner’s goal in this piece is to answer the question, “Does the effect of technology determine the nature of the socioeconomic order?”
This, he rightly notes, is a large task to handle, so he focuses on two stages:
1- Can we …

Chapter 54 ~ “Technology: The Opiate of the Intellectuals, with the Author’s 2000 Perspective” by John McDermott
McDermott doesn’t waste much time attacking Mesthene for his middle of the road approach in discussing technology and society. Although McDermott does believe Mesthene “is anti-capitalist in spirit” (a spirit shared by McDermott), he …

Chapter 53 ~ “The Social Impact of Technological Change” by Emmanuel G. Mesthene (1967)
In our age (age being 1967), Mesthene saw two major differences from any other age:
1- We dispose of a lot of physical power
2- We are beginning to think and act upon the realization of #1
Because of these two …

Chapter 52 ~ “Anti Anticonstructivism or Laying the Fears of Langdon Winner to Rest” by Mark Elam, with Langdon Winner’s Reply (1994)
The first part of this piece is a write-up by Elam in which he discusses Winner’s anticonstructivist stance. Looking at Geertz and his thoughts on the “harmful pattern of intellectual …

Chapter 51 ~ “Luddism as Epistemology” by Langdon Winner (1977)
Winner begins his piece with a brief discussion of various suggestions (from Goodman, Bookchin, Marcuse, and Ellul) on how we can eliminate the problems that technology has brought (“brought” being a weak work in that we actually brought the technology into …

Chapter 50 ~ “Notes toward a Neo-Luddite Manifesto” by Chellis Glendinning (1990)
Though there are those that believed Luddites were “reckless machine-smashers,” that’s not the complete picture for Glendinning. Luddites were fighting against a capitalistic society bred on power, resources, and wealth while trying to support their view of a world …

Chapter 49 ~ “Panopticism” by Michel Foucault (1978)
Foucault begins with a discussion about the plague and what happened in a town when the plague arose.
1- strict spatial partitioning
2- ceaseless inspection
3- strict purification
It is a town of segmented discipline. The chaos and uncertainty of the plague demanded a power structure be …