Media, Information and Technoculture 2500A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Monism, Langdon Winner, United Nations Mission In Sudan
20 Dec 2016
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Document Summary
Technique is a mode of problem solving characterized by the use of rationality and efficiency to determine the one best way of accomplishing a given task. Technique can sometimes refer to technology, but is not actually technology; instead, technology represents the rational and efficient ideal toward which technique is always striving. Hence, as a mode of problem solving, technique will use machinery how and when it needs to in order to fulfill its goal of accomplishing a task in the most rational and efficient manner. Technique, therefore, is not machinery, but it does transform everything it touches so that it begins to run like a machine . At first, it does not sound like a good idea. In the 21st century, we prefer and cherish it as we want our lives to run efficiently. Each new system, design, technology developed to attain the goal of finding the 1 best way of doing something is simply an expression of technique.
