Science, Technology and Public Policy: Part 3

Technology and Culture Discussed

Howard E. McCurdy

Faith in the importance of invention and discovery is a central feature of Western culture

Europe at the end of the 15th century was gripped in a period of depression and anxiety. Western Europeans felt “exceedingly gloomy about the future.” Their influence was shrinking, Christianity was losing ground to Islam, the Ottoman Turks had overrun most of Greece, Albania, and Serbia.

“Then came an event….Into Lisbon harbor, came the Nina, sailing before a wintry gale to bring news of the discovery of the new world. That news changed the spirit of Europe…’New ideas flared up throughout Italy, France, Germany and the northern nations.’”

Editorial from the Washington Post (2/21/62) quoting historian Samuel Eliot Morrison.

Replica of the Nina

Eras of discovery

• The first era arose in conjunction with national competition and the Renaissance: discovery as restoration and conquest.

• The second era was “the instrument of the Enlightenment”: discovery as knowing.

• Discovery influenced by the era of Modernism is a “colossal exercise in self-reference.”

From Stephen Pyne, author of The Ice (1986).

What might Pyne’s concepts suggest for space exploration?

• In its initial stages, space exploration was an unsustainable “first age” activity, driven by Cold War competition and concepts of conquest.

• “Second stage” activities were driven by a quest for knowing.

• Modernism calls us back to self reference, contemplating the rareness of the Earth and the potential loneliness of humanity.

• In post-modernism, humans change reality to permit exploration.

U.S. culture and the doctrine of American exceptionalism

Specific features of American culture have produced a wealthy and inventive society.

• Democracy and the mission of America

• The fundamental law (American liberalism)

• The doctrine of progress and Progressivism

• The gospel of efficiency• Faith in scienceFrom Dwight Waldo, The

Administrative State (1948)

George Inness, The Lackawanna Valley (1855), shows the new roundhouse in Scranton, Pennsylvania transforming the rural countryside which itself has been transformed into pasture.

“Does improved technology mean progress?”(Leo Marx, 1987)

• The Club of Rome and the Malthusian doctrine of a distopian world. (Thomas Malthus, 1766-1834.)

• The Frankenstein legend. (Mary Shelley writing on the “modern Prometheus,” 1818.)

• Leo Marx: “progress toward what?” (According to post-modern doctrines, the objects of progress remain a cultural choice, no one superior to another.)

Scenes from Young Frankenstein (1974) and Dr. Strangelove:or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb (1964).

Douglas and Wildavsky’s theory of risk and culture

• Individual views of risk and technology are shaped by culture and ideology. (Which is more dangerous: radiation or cancer?)

• Liberals tend to overestimate risks arising from corporate action (radical egalitarianism or sect).

• Conservatives who favor hierarchy tend to overestimate risks arising from external enemies.

• Liberals use risk as a means of responding to the social challenges of voluntary organizations (without coercion or leadership); conservatives favor control.

• Both are self-defeating in the long run (forget the market model).

Dame Mary Douglas, British anthropologist (1921-2007), and Aaron Wildavsky, American political scientist (1930-1993).

Lessons on Technology and Culture

• A culture marked by invention, discovery, and reliance upon the science is but one option within the history of the world. This is the post-modern doctrine.

• Science and technology shapes society: what we experience and what we believe. It reflects (and helps create) larger philosophic outlooks such as the Enlightenment and Modernism.

• Ideology and culture shape individual attitudes toward science and technology (sects and hierarchies).

• Those social systems that humans create can be made to go away. (Science may be objective, but it is not inevitable.)

Developing Your Presentations(Policy groups will be given time to organize a light discussion; no formal

presentation is required.)

• What is your policy?• How is it treated in the

culture at large? (What assumptions do people make about the subject?)

• What is the vision of the policy and the basic steps for carrying it out?

• What motivates public officials to follow the vision?

• Do gaps exist between the vision and reality?

• How do advocates react to those gaps?