The Ghost in the Net

The Ghost in the Net

by: Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.

However far modern science and technology have fallen short of their inherent possibilities, they have taught mankind at least one lesson: Nothing is impossible.

Today, the degradation of the inner life is symbolized by the fact that the only place sacred from interruption is the private toilet.

By his very success in inventing laboursaving devices, modern man has manufactured an abyss of boredom that only the privileged classes in earlier civilizations have ever fathomed.

For most Americans, progress means accepting what is new because it is new, and discarding what is old because it is old.

I would die happy if I knew that on my tombstone could be written these words, ‘this man was an absolute fool. None of the disastrous things that he reluctantly predicted ever came to pass!ก

Lewis Mumford (18951990)

Dear Sam,

We begin our series on great personalities of the 20th century with Lewis Mumford. Of course, this is only an excuse to develop our own ideas. Those who are interested in the ideas of กourก characters can go to the nearest bookstore and read directly form the fountain. Anyway, for the sake of those who are not acquainted with Mumford, I will draw a brief biography.

Lewis Mumford was born in 1895 (the same year Xrays were discovered by Roentgen and the Dreyfus affair was another significant กsuccessก). Mumford started his career in the US Patent Office (overseeing กcement and concreteก), which gave him a first person insight into technological innovation processes. Later he made contact with his late master Patrick Geddes (and other great thinkers like Victor Branford). These encounters converted him into a generalist. His writing career extended over six decades in which he made significant contributions to the literature of history, philosophy, art, and architectural criticism. Perhaps best known for his work on urban planning and the study of technology, Mumford was cofounder of the Regional Planning Association of America and, for 32 years, wrote the กSky Lineก column on architecture for the New Yorker. He served on the faculties of several institutions, including Stanford university, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT, and was appointed to the New York City Board of Higher Education. He received many awards, as the National Medal for Literature and The National Medal for the Arts.

His first literary work was ‘the Story of Utopiasก, which advanced one of the major themes of his life: the utopian (technological) literature and its impact on human development. After some other minor works (which included a beautiful book on Herman Melville, 1929), he published his first great opus, ‘technics and Civilization (1934)ก, one of the first historical works on technology. It was even incorporated in the curricula of technological institutes, like Cal tech, the first technological university to have a historical course. This book was, though with some doubts, technologically oriented. After the war, his point of view, regarding this as well as other matters, changed somewhat. In 1938 he presented ‘the Culture of Citiesก, the first work pertaining to the other leitmotif of his life: urbanism and architecture. In the forties and fifties, Mumford produced sevearl works on the กhuman conditionก, sanity, city development and arts. In 1961 appeared another major work of his, ‘the city in Historyก, a complete survey of the city and its cycles.

In the กdecisive yearsก, during the sixties, Mumford wrote, in our humble opinion, his major work: ‘the Myth of the Machineก. It was partly based on the ideas of Oswald Spengler as refined by Alfred Toynbee, and, distilling nearly sixty years of investigation, Lewis Mumford brings to a head his radical revisions of the stale popular conceptions of human and technological progress. ‘the Mythก is a fully developed historical explanation of the irrationalities that have undermined the highest achievements of modern technology speed, mass production, automation, instant communication, and remote control. These have inevitably brought about pollution, waste, ecological disruption and human extermination. And he makes a comparison part historical and part artistic between the state machine of the Pyramid Age and the global cybernetic technomachine of our กstrange daysก (the Pentagon of Power).

As the generalist work of Mumford covers practically all fields of knowledge, I propose to you to focus our dialogue on the problem of technology and life (with some linkage to his other major field: urbanism). Indeed, this is a hot topic nowadays (the กmad cow diseaseก issue).

Highlights of this theme are:

Mumford discussion of cybernetics and the กautomation of automationก (Wiener)

Mumfordกs polemics with McLuhan and the audiovisual tribe a humbug, in LM words

And especially, his proposal to change the actual megatechnology into the life plenitude of organic polytechnology anticipating the ecological views of today.

As you are interested in technological media (i.e. your essay on the Internet), here is a first strike courtesy Mr. Mumford:

ก…. It is to replace human autonomy in every form by an uptodate electronic model of the megamachine. The mass media, he demonstrates, are กput out before they are thought outก. In fact, ‘their being put out tends to cancel the possibility of their being thought out at allก. Precisely. Here McLuhan gives the whole show away. Because every technical apparatus is an extension of man´s bodily organs, including his brain, this peripheral structure, by Mcluhan´s analysis, must, by its very mass and ubiquity, replace all autonomous needs or desires: since now for us ‘technology is a part our bodiesก, no detachment or divorce is possible. กOnce we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulations of those who would try to benefit from taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don´t really have any rights (read autonomy) leftก ก.

‘this latter point might well be taken as a warning to disengage ourselves, as soon as possible, from the power system so menacingly described: for McLuhan it leads, rather, to a demand for unconditional surrender. กUnder electric technologyก, he observes, ‘the entire business of man becomes learning and knowingก. Apart from the fact that this is a pathetically academic picture of the potentialities of man, the kind of learning and knowing that McLuhan becomes enraptured over is precisely that which can be programmed on a computer: กWe are now in position…ก, he observes, ‘to transfer the entire show to the memory of a computerก. No better formula could be found for arresting and ultimately suppressing human development…ก

Well, this is my opening movement, Your turn, Mr. Vaknin.

Dear RCM,

Good to renew our dialogues. I will get straight to the point, or, rather, to the points. I intend to deal with each and every one of them extensively but, as is our habit, I am just mapping the territory.

1. Is it meaningful to discuss technology separate from life, as opposed to life, or compared to life? Is it not the inevitable product of life, a determinant of life and part of its definition? Francis Bacon and, centuries later, the visionary Ernst Kapp, thought of technology as a means to conquer and master nature an expression of the classic dichotomy between observer and observed. But there could be other ways of looking at it (consider, for instance, the seminal work of Friedrich Dessauer). Kapp was the first to talk of technology as กorgan projectionก (preceding McLuhan by more than a century). Freud wrote in กCivilization and its Discontentsก: กMan has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic god. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on to him and they still give him much trouble at times.ก

2. On the whole, has technology contributed to human development or arrested it?

3. Even if we accept that technology is alien to life, a foreign implant and a potential menace what frame of reference can accommodate the new convergence between life and technology (mainly medical technology and biotechnology)? What are cyborgs life or technology? What about clones? Artificial implants? Life sustaining devices (like heartkidney machines)? Future implants of chips in human brains? Designer babies, tailored to specifications by genetic engineering? What about ARTIFICIAL intelligence?

4. Is technology INhuman or Ahuman? In other words, are the main, immutable and dominant attributes of technology alien to humans, to the human spirit, or to the human brain? Is this possible at all? Is such nonhuman technology likely to be developed by artificial intelligence machines in the future? Finally, is this kind of technology automatically ANTIhuman as well? Mumfordกs classification of all technologies to polytechnic (humanfriendly) and monotechnic (human averse) springs to mind.

5. Is the impact technology has on the INDIVIDUAL necessarily identical or even comparable to the impact it has on human collectives and societies? Think Internet the answer in this case is clearly NEGATIVE.

6. Is it possible to define what is technology at all?

If we adopt Monsmaกs definition of technology (1986) as ‘the systematic treatment of an artก is art to be treated as a variant of technology? Robert Mertonกs definition is a nondefinition because it is so broad it encompasses all teleological human actions: กany complex of standardized means for attaining a predetermined resultก. Jacques Ellul resorted to tautology: ‘the totality of methods

rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency in every field of human activityก (1964). H.D. Lasswell (whose work is mainly mediarelated) proffered an operative definition: ‘the ensemble of practices by which one uses available resources to achieve certain valued endsก. It is clear how unclear and indefensible these definitions are.

7. The use of technology involves choices and the exercise of free will. Does technology enhance our ability to exercise free will or does it detract from it? Is there an inherent and insolvable contradiction between technology and ethical and moral percepts? Put more simply: is technology inherently unethical and immoral or amoral? If so, is it fatalistic, or deterministic, as Thurstein Veblen suggested (in กEngineers and the Price Systemก)? To rephrase the question; does technology DETERMINE our choices and actions? Does it CONSTRAIN our possibilities and LIMIT our potentials? We are all acquainted with utopias (and dystopias) based on technological advances (just recall the millenarian fervour with which electricity, the telegraph, railways, the radio, television and the Internet were greeted). Technology seems to shape cultures, societies, ideals and expectations. It is an ACTIVE participant in social dynamics. This is the essence of Mumfordกs กmegamachineก, the กrigid, hierarchical social organizationก. Contrast this with Dessauerกs view of technology as a kind of moral and aesthetic statement or doing, a direct way of interacting with thingsinthemselves. The latterกs views place technology neatly in the Kantian framework of categorical imperatives.

8. Is technology IN ITSELF neutral? Can the the undeniable harm caused by technology be caused, as McLuhan put it, by HUMAN misuse and abuse: ก[It] is not that there is anything good or bad about [technology] but that unconsciousness of the effect of any force is a disaster, especially a force that we have made ourselvesก. If so, why blame technology and exonerate ourselves? Displacing the blame is a classic psychological defence mechanism but it leads to fatal behavioural rigidities and pathological thinking.

Sam

About The Author

Sam Vaknin is the author of กMalignant Self Love Narcissism Revisitedก and กAfter the Rain How the West Lost the Eastก. He is a columnist in กCentral Europe Reviewก, United Press International (UPI) and ebookweb.org and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.

His web site: http://samvak.tripod.com

This article was posted on February 2, 2002

by Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.