RHETOR 115 Study Guide - Quiz Guide: Superorganism, Langdon Winner, Social Forces
“Technology”: The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept, Leo Marx
Leo Marx traces the emergence of the term “technology,” focusing especially on the semantic
void created by societal and cultural changes that it came to fill. He argues that our adherence to
the contemporary belief that “technology,” which we associate with the material and artifactual
elements of large socio-technological systems, is the driving force of human history and progress
leads us to neglect the other components of, say, a railroad system, particularly the involvement
of human cognition and labor in the creation, operation, and troubleshooting of physical devices.
Our belief misrepresents the nature of these systems, and the term “technology” is rendered
vague, empty, and ultimately useless. Furthermore, “technology” is linked with the convergence
of scientific knowledge and mechanic arts, a phenomenon that glorifies scientific disciplines
such as engineering, all the while obscuring or erasing the history of early innovations made by
uneducated, untrained tinkerers. Through this, Marx challenges the idea that science is the
mastermind behind technology as well as encourages us to question the misleading visual image
conjured up, of “clean, well-educated, white male technicians” in the “more elevated social and
intellectual realm of the university” (978). The treatment of “technology” as an autonomous
agent, capable of steering and transforming the development of society, or the “reification” of
technology, is hazardous, as it threatens to replace, rather than assist and supplement human
cognition, action, morality, and politics and instills in us the notion that we lack control over our
lives and our society. In response to this danger, Marx exhorts that the human sciences must
expose this hazard and demystify the relationship between technology as we understand it and
important cognitive, technical, cultural, corporate, and humanistic components.
“Can We Define Technology?” David Nye
In this essay, David Nye points out that the modern perception of technology as “complex
systems of machines and techniques” (15) is reductive, failing to take into account the human
and social forces that spur development and change. The link between human nature and
technologies simply cannot be severed, he points out. Taking an evolutionary perspective of
“technology,” Nye uncovers the fact that tools used by humans to build upon their necessities
and produce superfluities preceded language or writing in constructing narratives. The human
tendency to thrive, rather than merely survive as animals do, led them to imagine new purposes
and achieve them by taking steps to alter the status quo. Engaged in the development of these
tools, humans not only needed to exercise their minds, but were obliged to engage their bodies. It
follows that technology refers to the objects which are fashioned as well as the skills and
knowledge for using and maintaining them. Furthermore, rather than being a mere product or
application of science, technology actually preceded scientific theorizing or explanation.
Technology, thus, is not some new-fangled idea that only came in existence after science started
putting ideas into practice. In addition, noting the dimension of gender in the social evolution of
technology, Nye reveals the shift from associating technology with the practical arts and other
fields dominated by women, to associating it with the intellectual, scientific realm which
connotes masculinity. The increasing usage of technology coincides with the marginalization of
women, as disciplines culturally defined as masculine, such as engineering, push females to the
sidelines and presume their inferior abilities or incompatibility with technological endeavors . It
can be seen that the definition of “technology” was and still is shaped by gender. Even though he
ends with a seemingly open-ended question, “Should we accept such [technological]
determinism?”, Nye has implied the dangers of doing so and urges his readers to destabilize their
assumptions about the relationships between technology and society, science, and humans.
“The Question Concerning Technology,” Martin Heidegger
Heidegger attempts to answer the question of what the essence of technology is, in order to
prepare humankind for a “free relationship” with technology and to allow us to seek out the
truth, the site of freedom. He argues that this essence is not anything technological, but a mode
of revealing that is so fundamental that we can neither choose it, nor escape it. This essence was
not a result of the Scientific Revolution, but existed well before it and will endure perpetually.
Heidegger warns of the danger of modern technology: the operation of challenging-forth, as
opposed to bringing-forth, or poesis, prevents us from unconcealing and presencing the truth.
Man may misconstrue and misinterpret the unconcealed, or confuse the correct with the true. The
mode of revealing in question, enframing, a kind of ordering and unconcealment, reduces men to
a “standing reserve,” ready to serve technological purposes and wishes, and oblivious to their
own ability to bring about prophecy. This essence of modern technology, being a destining of
revealing, threatens to drive out all other possibilities of revealing, including the form of
revealing that allows what presences to come forth into appearance, or bringing-forth. If we
merely continue the trajectory of modern technology, we only inch closer to become consumed
by this danger of enframing. Paradoxically, Heidegger notes that contained within this danger is
also a “saving power,” and we must learn to navigate it in order to be rescued and to pay
attention to the real essence of technology. He concludes by suggesting that art is a possible
solution: as a revealing that brings forth, it can foster the saving power and help us uncover the
true essence of our being.
“The Conquest of Space and the Stature of Man,” Hannah Arendt
Responding to an essay question asking whether man’s conquest of space had increased or
diminished his stature, Arendt poses a warning about the scientist’s renunciation of the common
language and sense perceptions, and his focus on what lies beyond appearances and search for
“true reality,” such as the quest to conquer space. Instead of pursuing a goal of expanding human
experience, modern science has endeavored to discover what lies beyond natural phenomena that
