Week 5 Readings

In this article Hughes provides an introduction about society evolving with technology and how the US and Germany worked off each other to create a more technological world. He outlines that in Berlin the mechanization of society was a more mass produced collaboration of political influences. Whereas America had more engineers that were individually constructing technology.

He compares the opinions of several technology enthusiasts and their beliefs on the affect technology has had on humanity. Some believe that technology was a god given creation, however in contrast others believe that the mechanization of society has given people God like complexes and the deterioration for the need of God.

For example, Oswald Spengler, a German historian, implied that technology was triumphing nature and that we were losing our natural and cultural centre. Spengler “denies that the West were deploying technology to bring happiness…, but to devastate nature.”

On the other hand Lewis Mumford, an American public intellectual, regarded technology to be vital to maintaining an organic and healthy balance to the human spirit. He argued that using technology morally could produce a better world and we could become more balanced.

Charles Beard regarded mass production to be good and that it would lower economic class, reduce labour, and increased transport would increase workforce. He also mentioned that Europe began to see America as machines themselves as they became more immersed.

It is interesting to see that in the current excelled modern age we live in now where everyone embraces technology, the different opinions that were raised about the concerns and consequences. The article almost makes you rethink your position on technology and whether in the long run it has enriched society or enslaved it.
 
Readings:

Human Built World By Thomas P. Hughes “Technology As Machine”