Do Artifacts Have Politics?

Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.

The statement makes sense. The gun doesn’t shoot itself. It needs some force—almost always a human—to pull the trigger.

So . . . why does the person holding the gun decide to use it?

Is he or she angry? Jealous? Was a crime being committed? Were drugs involved? Is the person psychotic?

All those questions relate directly to the person holding the gun, but maybe there are other factors that play in the decision to use that gun.

Maybe there is something about the gun itself that plays a role in the decision. Maybe the technology inherent in the weapon is part of the question.

Maybe we should be asking other questions:

· What effect does holding a gun have on the person holding it?

· Does the lightness or heaviness of the metal play a role the use of the weapon?

· How does that sensation play a role in the way the person decides to use the technology?

· Does the lightness of the weapon or the ease of use play a role in the use of the weapon?

Landon Winner raises a similar question in “Do Artifacts have Politics?” originally published in Daedelus in 1980 and then reprinted in The Social Shaping of Technology. He states that there is “no more provocative claim than the notion that technical things have political qualities . . . can be judged . . . for the ways in which they can embody specific forms of power and authority” (28).

He acknowledges the most obvious objection to this claim, stating that what matters “is not technology itself, but the social or economic system in which it is embedded” (28). In other words, it isn’t the technology itself, but the “social circumstances” of the development and use of a particular technology. To put it simply, technology isn’t political; people are political.

The theory of technological politics draws attention to a variety of important studies including the momentum of large-scale sociotechnical l systems, the response of modern societies to technological demands, and the adaptation of human purposes to technology. Winner asserts that it “offers a novel framework of interpretation and explanation for some of the more puzzling patterns that have taken shape in and around the growth of modern material culture” (29).

The strength of this theory is that it takes the actual technical artifacts seriously. Instead of focusing entirely on the “interplay of social forces,” this theory suggests that we should study the “characteristics of technical objects and the meaning of those characteristics” (29).

Technologies have a way of defining the ways we build in the world. Sometimes the decisions to politicize technology can be made intentionally, as in the case of Robert Moses, who wanted to keep buses (and minorities) away from Jones Beach and therefore decided to keep the bridges built to specifications that would prohibit high profile vehicles from going toward the beach. Sometimes the decisions are unintentional. Regardless, those decisions may lead to long-term consequences. It’s not likely that the city of New York is going to replace those Moses’ bridges any time soon.

A more controversial theory would be the “belief that some technologies are by their very nature political in a specific way” (33). In this theory, it is believed that “the adoption of a given technical system unavoidably brings with it conditions for human relationships that have a distinctive political cast” (33). In other words, the social consequences are inherent in the technology, and the adoption of a certain technologies actually requires the “creation and maintenance of a particular set of social conditions as the operating environment of that system” (33).

Winner cites the example of nuclear power plants. Once we begin using them, we must also adopt what he calls a “techno-scientific-industrial-military elite” (33). If we don’t have those people in charge, we can’t have nuclear power. Use of solar power, according to Winner, is more democratic than the use of coal.

I like to think that people are political and technology is just a tool, but I am beginning to wonder.

Winner suggests that we should pay more close attention to the nature of technologies and the anticipated consequences of adopting certain technologies.

The invention of air conditioning meant that people moved to places like Phoenix, Las Vegas, or Palm Springs. It meant that skyscrapers could have comfortable environments. The widespread use of air conditioning has changed the landscape, the weather, and the animal population in those areas.

Should we have considered the sociotechnical aspects prior to adopting something like air conditioning, something that also has the potential to save lives?

Could we anticipate those changes? And if we did, would we do anything differently?

Our discussion focuses on technology related to rhetoric and literacy.

What sociotechnical consequences are inherent in the use of computers?

Writing is a tool—a tool that changes every culture that adopts it as a primary form of communication. Writing changes the way we think. It changes the way we interact with the world. It allows us to turn inward and reflect.

And what about computers? They have already changed our methods of research, data collection, and communication.

The momentum is building. There really is no turning back.

I don’t know that any of us want to.

But it should make us think.