Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 20:46:54 -0800
From: Doug Keachie <keachie-AT-swland.org>
Subject: Re: Totalitarianism is latent in technology




Lev Lafayette wrote:

> >
> Hey Steve, nice thread you've started....
>
> Totalitarianism as latent in technology? On the first level I'd say yes, from
> a phenomenological perspective. Heidegger, and McLuhan afterwards, was very
> aware that because technology amplifies perception in an instrumental way, it
> also alters perception and thinking (Heidegger's 'enframing'). Human beings
> cannot surpass that, because in order to do so they would have to be masters
> of their own existence; something which technology itself disproves.
>
> This is of course most appropriate for instrumental technologies. An extreme
> disagreement between two people might even up with one or both with a bloody
> nose. Add guns to the equation and injuries are probably going to be more
> severe. Instrumental technologies amplify the effects of moral decisions as
> well.
>
> The question I'll pose is whether this sort of analysis remains true for
> communication technologies. Is it possible that in the act of mediation itself
> that the possibility exists for *improved* moral decisions? Further, how do we
> then differentiate between communication and information technologies?.
>
> > steve.demos wrote that Paul Virilio wrote:
> >       "Totalitarianism is latent in technology. It was not merely
> >       Hitler or Mussolini who were totalitarian, or the Pharaohs as
> >       far as I am concerned. Totalitarianism is already present in
> >       the technical object."
> >
>
> Solidarite,

OK, how about a totalitarian stethescope ?    telescope ?   vacine ?    book ?
agriculture ?  pottery ?

Seems to me the concept is a bit broad.   Leads to the kind of thinking such has
occurred in California where you can no longer shoot a puma (mountain lion),
current pop around 20,000 and growing, even if one of them is stalking and eating
one of the 100 last big horn sheep that we have.  Big horn sheep are down from 350
to 100, because the people watching out for them haven't learned one of the basic
rules of the West, as in the Old West, the 3 S rule,  shoot,  shovel, and shut up.

Keachie

>
>
> --
> Lev Lafayette. lev-AT-ariel.unimelb.edu.au http://ariel.unimelb.edu.au/~lev
> * Electorate Officer for Neil Cole, MLA for Melbourne, Parliament of Victoria.
> * Thesis in progress: 'A Social Theory of the Internet'. Ashworth Centre
> for Social Theory, University of Melbourne.
> * President of Mimesis, Inc. An association promoting roleplaying systems.
>
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