Sustainable Technologies: Paradigms and Practices

Sustainable Technologies: Paradigms and Practices

or

If I was a determinist I would want to know that which often forbids us to talk about what we cannot know.

>Jordan Parker Williams

 

Society, Nature and Technology

Position Paper II

16 November 2006

 

Are we a product of technology or is technology a product of humans? The very question itself is based on a false dichotomy.  It is based on a false paradigm or “map of human nature”, that of determinism.  We are a product of neither nature nor nurture; we are a product of choice, because there is always a space between stimulus and response, as we exercise our power to choose based on principles not reactions, the space will become larger.[i] The idea of determinism is deeply embedded into present day culture and has reinforced a culture of victimization because of the terrifying sense that if I do have choice, then I am also responsible for my present situation.  If a person can say I am what I am and I am where I am because I so choose to be there, then that person can realize a statement of:  I choose other wise.  This is an important realization of the human condition, admittedly far too often technologies are marketed with knee jerk responses to their usefulness and seem all too agreeable; but—being human allows  us to choose, even in the most overwhelming politically set trajectories, we have the power to choose.

Commonly in socio-technological studies there are two categories: 1) “technological voluntarist” advocating that social systems shape technologies and humans have a choice, voice, and control over and in technologies and their trajectories and 2) “technological determinist” who believe technology has a set path and inevitable evolution, producing artifacts along the way.

In this position paper I will look at technology through a voluntarist lens to see how sustainable paradigms and practices can evolve and how “reflexive modernization” is best to allow us to evolve to a sustainable future in which our choices in everyday decisions matter.[ii]

SUSTAINABLE CHOICES

The choices we make, determine our ability to make sustainability happen, to determine what’s best and for whom (the earth, future generations, and the masses) can be a daunting task/decision(s).  We are talking about the fundamental/early ideas and decisions that can lead to a more holistic systems thinking or in contrast short-term destructive practices, and these get played out by many decentralized corporations, business, organizations, individuals’ everyday.  So the questions to ask are: how to decide what is best? How to convince someone to do something else? How to find out what to question in the first place? What is “wrong”? How to see through the fog of our conventions and normative practices?—these everyday things can have a tremendous effect on our world, cumulatively destroying or creating.  How do we get to the goal, from here to there?  It comes down to incremental-ism, baby steps toward sustainability, becoming greener and greener, more earth friendly, more like ecosystems (no waste systems), that is our goal to affect the whole;  but we can’t get “out there” over night, we start by thinking we can or need to driven by crisis, and then we begin to evolve to it.

In Jared Diamond’s book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed he argues that the determinism can have two categories biological and cultural—and cultural entrenchment occurs where societies choose to keep living on in unsustainable manners based on cultural reasons rather that choosing to change and adapt to biological concerns.[iii] Where rational actors, who must have suspected that the destruction of resources would result in the destruction of their civilization, still stand by passively and watch their own demise[iv].  Ignoring possible choices that could result in a different culture and outcome.

 

ENTRENCHMENT (Hughes)

This is much like Hughes’ view of technology where entrenchment of social/cultural values or systems can be irreversible once enough technological momentum is gained and systems become less responsive to change, whether it be changing social values, environmental degradation, or cultural change.[v] These systems have reached a trigger point, where natural selection re-forms itself from conscious selection, of the entrenchment of a system or technology bringing it down again into an unconscious teleology, a bell curve of evolution.  Once that critical peak is reached another technology, another curve starts at “zero”, building off what has been learned, this happens because entrenchment limits innovation.

 

A CONSPIRATORIAL VISION (Haraway, Latour)

We have to question what we think of as “out of the question” especially when our quality of life is at stake, and we must be open to choosing “zero” to allow for innovation and different paths.  Bruno Latour in Opening Pandora’s Black Box states that modern knowledge and those who study it are too scattered and disconnected by their specialization—no decoders or translators or outsiders exist outside of the system to explain it and relate it to other larger common problems.[vi] These actors are critical in choosing “zero” and allowing an evolution that does not become entrenched by questioning, translating, and visioning.  The entrenchment or the questioning of entrenchment affects how we as a collective conscious can translate our problems and our knowledges gained by science into realities that are beneficial to us.  This affects how we make choices.   Latour also points to the concept ‘rule of method,’ where switching from ‘get the facts straight’ to a more strategic one of ‘choose who to believe’ or ‘look for a weak point’ can open ‘black boxes.'[vii] Which can be helpful when faced with a dominant view of anything.  Haraway in Situated Knowledges also shares this view calling out Science as a search for translation, convertibility, mobility of meanings and universality, a form of reductionism where one dominant language rules.[viii] Haraway points to a “passionate detachment” one that is similar to Heidegger’s view point of ‘conscious contemplation,’ where there is no right answer but we can keep a watchful eye for “easy relativisms and holisms built out of summing and subsuming parts.”[ix] This idea of summing and subsuming parts is representative of Heidegger’s reaction to efficiency and his concept of enframing, where if we assume, ‘essence’ is lost and we lose our consciousness.[x]

 

NONHIERARCHICAL (Feenburg).

Feenburg writes that as modern societies depend on technology, it requires an authoritarian hierarchy.[xi] In his ‘critical theory of technology’, he emphasizes an “alternative approach of contextual aspects of technology ignored by the dominant view,” where nonhierarchical models that cater to more than one solution allow social actors to choose appropriate technologies.[xii] This is similar to how Donna Haraway represents Situated Knowledges, she notes that “the only way to find a larger vision is to be somewhere particular”, rather than in the everywhere of relativism and totalization, which denies responsibility and critical inquiry and most importantly choice.[xiii] Haraway also states that the most preferred perspective is a ‘subjugated’ one—seeing from the bottom seems to be the most “adequate, sustained, objective, transforming account of the world.”[xiv]

 

MORE DEMOCRATIC (Winner)
Langdon Winner follows suit in the idea that technology and science are not neutral, and what matters is how societies choose to use technologies.[xv] Winner also privileges that some technologies and ways of thinking about technology are more democratic and are more compatible with certain types of social relations.[xvi] He gives the example of nuclear energy, a centralized power system versus solar energy, a decentralized power system—where solar allows for more democratic and less inherent authoritarian hierarchies.  He also notes that some systems lend themselves to not limiting civil liberties, laying out that some systems create more sustainable outcomes and give people more choice than others.[xvii]

 

STEWARDSHIP vs. DETERMINISM (Bijker and Law and Beck)
In the introductory essay The Social Shaping of Technology by Weibe E. Bijker and John Law they site Ulrich Beck’s ‘reflexive modernization,’ where progress is a co-evolved “process that is actively, and democratically, shaped.”[xviii] Coalescing the political process with the activities and goals of the citizen initiatives, this seems like a strong way to achieve a more sustainable, responsive future. [xix] This is an example of a future of stewardship allowing multiple agendas and priorities of a different nature—free from positivist’s view points, which often forbid us to talk about what we cannot know.  Stewardship relies on plurism, cultivating different and many viewpoints, while remaining humble, in contrast a determinist view is usually about a singular teleology—successive leaps of individual genius, rather than a new culture of simultaneity.

 

WHAT IS A SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGY ?(Heidegger)

This is a hard question to answer but as Heidegger first started to hint  that modern technology can easily take us for a ride and we lose touch with ourselves and the earth, but at the same time we can use technology for our own benefit.[xx] We can see an example of this from the website of the Development Center for Appropriate Technology, we see their mission statement is aligned with this idea of simultaneity and choice:

We envision a world where communities thrive and are built in harmony with nature, because people understand the consequences of their choices and make decisions for their own and the Earth’s benefit.[xxi]

In the end, it’s really about considering more than one agenda simultaneously and making the best choice for a sustainable future that you define as a world citizen.

 

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[i] Covey, Stephen R., The 8^th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness. (New York: Free Press, 2004): Chap.1.

[ii] Weibe E. Bijker and John Law, “General Introduction,” Shaping Technology/Building Society (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992)

[iii] Diamond, Jared, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Suceed. (New York: Penguin Group, 2005): Prologue

[iv] Diamond, Jared, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Suceed. (New York: Penguin Group, 2005): Prologue

[v] Thomas Hughes, “Technological Momentum,” Does Technology Drive History: The Dilemma of

Technological Determinism, Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx, Eds. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994): p 101-114.

[vi] Latour, Bruno, “Opening Pandora’s Balck Box,” in Science in Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987): p 16.

[vii] Latour, Bruno, “Opening Pandora’s Black Box,” in Science in Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987): p 8.

[viii] Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Priviledge of Partial Perspective” in Technology and the Politics of Knowledge, Andrew Feenburg and Alastair Hannay, Eds., (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995): p 179.

[ix] Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Questioon in Feminism and the Priviledge of Partial Perspective” in Technology and the Politics of Knowledge, Andrew Feenburg and Alastair Hannay, Eds., (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995): p175-194.

[x] Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology,” The Question Concerning Technology and OtherEssays (New York: Harper and Rowe, 1977): p 115-154.

[xi] Andrew Feenburg, “Subversive Rationalization: Technology, Power, and Democracy,” in Technology and the Politics of Knowledge, Andrew Feenburg and Alastair Hannay, Eds., (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995): p 2.

[xii] Andrew Feenburg, “Subversive Rationalization: Technology, Power, and Democracy,” in Technology and the Politics of Knowledge, Andrew Feenburg and Alastair Hannay, Eds., (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995): p 4.

[xiii] Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Priviledge of Partial Perspective” in Technology and the Politics of Knowledge, Andrew Feenburg and Alastair Hannay, Eds., (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995): p175-194.

[xiv] Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Priviledge of Partial Perspective” in Technology and the Politics of Knowledge, Andrew Feenburg and Alastair Hannay, Eds., (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995): p175-194.

[xv] Langdon Winner, “Citizen Virtues in a Technological Order,” in Technology and the Politics of Knowledge, Andrew Freenburg and Alastair Hannay, Edsl, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univeristy Press, 1995): p 65-84.

[xvi] Langdon Winner, “Citizen Virtues in a Technological Order,” in Technology and the Politics of Knowledge, Andrew Freenburg and Alastair Hannay, Edsl, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univeristy Press, 1995): p 65-84.

[xvii] Langdon Winner, “Citizen Virtues in a Technological Order,” in Technology and the Politics of Knowledge, Andrew Freenburg and Alastair Hannay, Edsl, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univeristy Press, 1995): p 65-84.

[xviii] Weibe E. Bijker and John Law, “General Introduction,” Shaping Technology/Building Society (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992)

[xix] Weibe E. Bijker and John Law, “General Introduction,” Shaping Technology/Building Society (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992)

[xx] Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology,” The Question Concerning Technology and OtherEssays (New York: Harper and Rowe, 1977): p 115-154.

[xxi] Development Center for Appropriate Technology ,Mission Statement, http://www.dcat.net/about_dcat/mission.php (accessed November 14, 2006).