From: "Karl Carlile" <expresspost-AT-tinet.ie>
Subject: M-TH: Technotheology.....
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 20:38:20 -0700


"Capitalist technology is a contradiction. The capitalist technological
structure is a unity of contradictory opposites. It contains within
itself both positive and negative aspects." (Karl Carlile)
 
JAMES: The point of this mental distinction between the oppressive
relations of production and the potentially liberating forces of
production, is that, having distinguished these in thought, social
revolution goes on to distinguish them in fact.

KARL: This is an admission by you that under capitalism, in general,
there does not exist a distinction between "the oppressive relations of
production and the potentially liberating forces of production…in
fact". Again you undercut your own argument here: If there is no
distinction between these two forms under capitalism, except under the
rather exotic conditions of social revolution, then this can only mean
that technology is capitalist and has the imprint of that relation on
it. Indeed there may be a type of idealism built into this conception
of yours: the conceptual distinction giving birth to the factual
distinction. However I don't want to make a pudding out of this. So I
will stop at that.

JAMES: You are of course quite right to say that 'production per se'
always takes place under determinate social relations. But technologies
are not necessarily specific to these (the substance of the question at
issue). In London you can see part of the original Roman wall that
surrounded the city. The bricks are tesellated in much the same way
that bricklayers lay them today. Of course, the Romans could not have 
mobilised the resources to create the internet, or even electricity.
But on the other hand, once a technology is developed it can be used
under  any social conditions, as long as it is appropriate. There is no
need to  reinvent the wheel.

KARL: Yes! I don't disagree with the general drift of the above
remarks. However they hardly constitute a refutation of my argument
since it had little to do with these remarks of yours. I shall attempt
a simple but provisional outline of my argument:

The technology introduced and developed by capitalism is a capitalist
technology. Imprinted on it are the traits of capitalist social
relations of production. Consequently the limits of capitalist
relations are incorporated into capitalist technology qua technology.
This is not tantamount to saying that capitalist technology  has no
positive aspects. It was never my intention to suggest this nor did I. 

Capitalist technology is a contradictory technology that contains both
positive and negative aspects. Some would say it is a contradictory
unity. Under communist society there will take place a transformation
of technology in such a way as to reflect communist relations. In other
words this communist technology will have imprinted on it, its
"physicality" ( I am not happy with this term), communist relations.
There is nothing metaphysical about this. There is nothing to be afraid
of here James. This does not mean that capitalist technology, in toto,
is to be scrapped. Needless to say the positive aspects of capitalist
technology may be retained and even developed. However the entire
character of communist technology will have a richer quality to that of
capitalist technology. There obtains a discontinuity between these
technological modes.

Communism is not a mere matter of replacing capitalist relations with
communist relations while there is no essential change in the
technological framework. Again this does not mean that specific
components or aspects of capitalist technology will not be retained and
even developed. However the communist technology as a whole will be
qualitatively different from capitalist technology. Indeed it would be
impossible to insert contemporary technology into a communist
community. Contemporary technology requires the system of social
relations to which it corresponds: capitalist relations. A
contradictory technology for a contradictory social system!

If technology is to develop beyond its present structure communist
relations are indispensable. In line with what Marx said the present
social forms are fetters on technological development. Given the
restrictions imposed on technology by the present social form the
contradictory nature of technology grows relentlessly. Its positive
character grows hand in hand with its negative character in a
contradictory unity. Technology assumes an increasingly contradictory
and bizarre character. In order that technology can further develop in
a new and richer way it is necessary that value relations in the form
of capital are abolished and replaced by communist relations. The
conflict between technology and the present relations of production
expresses itself in the growing contradictory character of technology:
its liberatory and yet oppressive aspects. Thus this conflict beaten
technology and capital does not just express itself in the form of
economic crises but also in the form of environmental  "crises"  etc.
The problems of capitalism are both social and technological. 

It is this that "marxism" has tended to miss which is why or how it has
been, in a sense, outflanked by the green and other petty bourgeois
movements. In may ways "marxism" has been guilty of turning technology
into a transcendental force that escapes the limits of history. In this
way it has expanded technology into the new god. For marxism  not the
Christian god but technology is the key insurance policy.

In contrast to this I am saying that technology is historical and
thereby limited and thereby imperfect and even messy. Technology does
not escape the laws of contradiction. Technology is a historical,
limited and contradictory feature of history. It is not a transcendent
teleologically driven demiurge dressed out in Artistotelian-Hegelian
drag. 

The view that technology is some kind of unitary teleological force
that immanently develops producing a sequence of social forms
culminating in the communist social form is a technist problematic that
reflects itself in the bankruptcy of "marxism" as it exists today: its
failure to connect up with the working class in any substantively
subversive way.

You James stress the one big continuous story. There is not even for
you the discontinuity that we get in the King James bible between the
Old and the New Testament. No! One big long boring story! Oh but
perhaps I am wrong! There is BM and AM. In contrast to  theology I say
that history is discontinuous, that technology develops in a
discontinuous way. I stress discontinuity between the technology of
capitalism and the technology of communism. If you like there takes
place a technological "paradigm switch" or whatever the hell you want
to call it.

Greetings, 
Karl



Postscript: In discussing capitalist technology I was speaking in
general terms. My references were intended within the context of
capitalist technology as a whole. The were not intended for specific
referencing: to this and that individual piece or component of
capitalist technology: a Heideggerian hammer, a Heartfieldian helium
filled airship and my greatgranny's baldy head…

Just as I was arguing in the context of capitalism in general, as a
social system, I was arguing in the context of capitalist technology in
general.







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