Technology, Pessimism, and Postmodernism (Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook Book 17)

HOWARD P. SEGAL, FOR THE EDITORS In November 1979 the Humanities Department of the University of Michi­ gan's College of Engineering sponsored a symposium on ''Technology and Pessimism. " The symposium included scholars from a variety of fields and carefully balanced critics and defenders of modern technology, broadly defined. Although by this point it was hardly revolutionary to suggest that technology was no longer automatically equated with optimism and in turn with unceasing social advance, the idea of linking technology so explicitly with pessimism was bound to attract attention. Among others, John Noble Wilford, a New York Times science and technology correspondent, not only covered the symposium but also wrote about it at length in the Times the following week. As Wilford observed, "Whatever their disagreements, the participants agreed that a mood of pessimism is overtaking and may have already displaced the old optimistic view of history as a steady and cumulative expansion of human power, the idea of inevitable progress born in the Scientific and Industrial Rev­ olutions and dominant in the 19th century and for at least the first half of this century. " Such pessimism, he continued, "is fed by growing doubts about soci­ ety's ability to rein in the seemingly runaway forces of technology, though the participants conceded that in many instances technology was more the symbol than the substance of the problem. Front Matter....Pages i-vii Technology, Pessimism, and Postmodernism: Introduction....Pages 1-10 The Idea of “Technology” and Postmodern Pessimism....Pages 11-28 Technology and the Illusion of the Escape from Politics....Pages 29-37 Joseph Glanvill’s Plus Ultra and Beyond: Or How to Delay the Rise of Modern Science....Pages 39-51 A Victorian Thunderstorm: Lightning Protection and Technological Pessimism in the Nineteenth Century....Pages 53-75 When Bad Things Happen to Good Technologies: Three Phases in the Diffusion and Perception of American Telegraphy....Pages 77-92 On the Notion of Technology as Ideology: Prospects....Pages 93-113 Belated Pessimism: Technology and Twentieth-Century German Conservative Intellectuals....Pages 115-136 Time and Technology in Heidegger’s Thought....Pages 137-150 The Politics of Pessimism: Science and Technology Circa 1968....Pages 151-173 The Cultural Contradictions of High Tech: Or the Many Ironies of Contemporary Technological Optimism....Pages 175-216 Back Matter....Pages 217-218 This is the first systematic examination of the contemporary and prior connections between technological progress and pessimism over the future. If the hallmark of the Enlightenment was a firm belief in technology as a principal instrument of universal progress, the hallmark of postmodernism may well be skepticism, even despair, over technology's role in shaping our world. This book incorporates the perspectives of historians, political scientists, philosophers, and literary scholars to illuminate the origins, evolution, and influence of technological pessimism and to evaluate its long-term prospects. The volume should appeal to specialists in technology studies and the history of ideas but also to general readers concerned with these dilemmas of technological progress