STS 1500 Study Guide - Final Guide: Early Modern Europe, Information Revolution, Political Freedom
18 Dec 2015
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Document Summary
Not to privilege the technology of one culture over another. All human cultures have technology, but every culture uses technology differently. People in different cultures use technology in response to three basic goals: material abundance, social order, cultural meaning. Ideology": the vision or framework that guides how people deploy technology to create power, distribute wealth, and create meaning: what constitutes a good society. A society should concentrate its technological prowess on generating more goods and services, since increasing material abundance could then be used to make choices about social and political order and about cultural meaning. Diversity: absolute monarchies of early modern europe: the most important thing was to maintain political order. Consumption and display as a means for underpinning their power. Cultural meaning: should guide how people pursue material abundance and social order. Abundance and order should be organized to support a religious state. Inherent in the idea of progress is that something gets better over time.
