Technology: The Effect on Society and the Human Being

Meets for eight weeks, 7 pm – 8:30 pm

At Huzanity School. www.huzanity.org

Technology is advancing on us. It speeds up the pace of life, bringing efficiencies and conveniences, unexpected opportunities, and new kinds of relationships. Does it serve our needs, or does it have a logic all its own?

Artists from thousands of miles away play music in our own homes. Unlimited information is at our fingertips and on our monitors. The advantages are seducing. But, in the course of all these changes, what is technology doing to us? And what does it have in store for us? What is the effect on the total human being: our relation to nature, to tradition, to family; and to the development or diminishing of our intellectual, moral and spiritual qualities?

More radical change is on the horizon, in artificial intelligence, bioengineering, and virtual reality, for instance, that might alter nature itself and the human being. And there are stunning possibilities, like that of dramatically extending our lifespans. At the same time, there are dangers. Hijackers use our planes and towers to achieve goals we never imagined. But there is the chance that we can find even more sophisticated technological ‘fixes’ for those problems too.

Who or what is in control of the spread of technology? Who makes decisions about which technologies will be introduced, and how they will be used? Where are the places to explore and debate these issues? The purpose of this course is to create such a forum.

Additional questions we will address

Is technology inherently good, bad, or neutral?

Who benefits from technology? Who is left out? What is gained, and what is lost?

What are the political effects? Will technology lead to decentralization and democracy; or will it be controlled by multinational corporations and governments?

Does technology lead to ‘globalization’ and ‘monoculture’?

What is ‘information,’ the drive for information, and the effects of information glut?

Are our ways of thinking altered by technology? Will ‘objective, linear knowledge’ replace subtler and more complex forms of understanding?

Is the growing domination of machines and electronic communication going to continue, dominating all aspects of life, and ultimately changing life itself?

Class meetings

1 Introduction

2 Benefits of technology

3 The nature of technology and its relation to the human being--Lewis Mumford

4 Computers and the internet

5 The political implications of technology--Langdon Winner

6 Corporate domination and manipulation--Jerry Mander

7 Opposition to technology and alternatives

8 The future of technology

Huzanity School

Huzanity School is a place where people can join together in study. It supports lifelong education on subjects of vital importance to daily life. It assists adults to take responsibility for their own education. It is a model for how education can exist without personal agendas and dogma. Courses combine readings of important works, dialogue with fellow students, and opportunities for action in our community based on what is learned.

The goal of Huzanity courses is not to amass knowledge or to gain practical skills. It is to ask and answer incisive questions about society and daily life.

Courses

There are sign up sheets for each course available at Huzanity Café. You can also contact us at 907-563-5878. This semester each seven or eight week course costs $20, plus $10 for photocopies of readings.

Classes have seven to fourteen students, and last about 1 ½ hours. There are no teachers; instead, students rotate as facilitators, guiding the discussion based on provided materials. Guidelines for facilitating are explained in the first meeting. During the class, students review, discuss, and evaluate the ideas presented in the readings, using the discussion ideas provided for each meeting. Each class begins with an activity, in which students have the chance to share personal experiences and thoughts on the topic. Readings, which take one to two hours, should be completed before each class meeting.

Readings for first class meeting

“When it came to writing Theuth said, ‘Here, O king, is a branch of learning that will make the people of Egypt wiser and improve their memories; my discovery provides a recipe for memory and wisdom.’ But the king answered and said, ‘O man full of arts, to one it is given to create the things of art, and to another to judge what measure of harm and of profit they have for those that shall employ them. And so it is that you, by reason of your tender regard for the writing that is your offspring, have declared the very opposite of its true effect. If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows.’ Plato, Phaedrus, 275

"It is our present removal of all limits, made possible only by the advances of science & technics, that reveals the true nature of this culture, its chosen destiny." Lewis Mumford, Lewis Mumford Reader, 'The Reinvention of The Megamachine.' (p.347)

Ours "is a society of laborers which is about to be liberated from the fetters of labor, & this society does no longer know of those other higher & more meaningful activities for the sake of which this freedom would deserve to be won." Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition.

"How does one measure dominion, beauty, wealth, power?....How easy it is to be attracted by outward beauty, and how hard it is to remove the mask and penetrate to that which is inside." Abraham Heschel, Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, page 58

"The more cunning craftsmen there are,

The more pernicious contrivances will be invented.

The more laws are promulgated,

There more thieves and bandits there will be....

Stretch a bow to the very full,

And you will wish that you had stopped in time."

Tae to Ching

"There are two laws discrete; Not reconciled,--

Law for man, and law for thing

The last builds town and fleet,

But it runs wild,

And doth the man unking."

Pico

"Columbus found the New World in an undecked boat. It is curious to see the periodical disuse and perishing of means and machinery which were introduced with loud laudation, a few years or centuries before. The great genius returns to essential man...."

Emerson, Self-Reliance

"I fear, from the experience of the last 25 years that morals do not of necessity, advance hand in hand with the sciences." (Quoted in The Simple Life, Shi, 99. Letter by Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 9 Jan. 1816).

Thomas Jefferson

"What actually have traditional, bureaucratic, capitalist, or communist societies to offer? Very little except food, clothes and shelter. Perhaps one may have more opportunities for work or can make more money, but ultimately, as one observes, these societies have very little to offer; and the mind, if it is at all intelligent and aware, rejects it." Krishnamurti, You Are the World, page 70