Culture and technology

Some notes…

– the cultural ramifications of technological change are multiple and volatile, making fools of modern-day prophets; theory must be able to change with adapting social circumstances

– technology, contemporarily, refers to its artificial character: that is, a technology is not a natural object but one made by humans

– technique can be defined simply as the use of skill to accomplish something; techniques are both a question of physical techniques and one of associated techniques of thought (one thinks differently when involved with different technologies)

– culture is dynamic because ideas and values change, often quite quickly, over time; older attitudes to culture may be superseded, or they may overlap with new ideas, or the older values may re-emerge at a later time

– technological determinism refers to the belief that technology is the agent of social change; it is both a popular attitude – reflected in such expressions as  ‘you can’t stop progress’ and theoretical position

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