technological cultures and liberal democracry

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2000 25: 167Science Technology Human ValuesRichard M. Merelman

Technological Cultures and Liberal Democracy in the United States

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Science, Technology, & Human ValuesMerelman / Technological Cultures and Democracy

Technological Cultures andLiberal Democracy in the United States

Richard M. MerelmanUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison

This article argues that “technologies of culture” influence citizens’conceptions of theAmerican state. The technology of modernism (which lasted into the 1960s) educatedcitizens to manipulate machines and control nature. This influenced citizens’ views ofgovernment’s tasks and capacities. Postmodern technology focuses attention on the selfand alters people’s conceptions of the tasks and capacities of government. The articlediscusses the political implications of postmodern citizenship and suggests possibleremedies for postmodernism’s effects on democratic citizenship in the United States.

1. Introduction: The Citizen and Technology

In this article, I argue that recent shifts in the culture of technology havehelped to transform the American liberal democratic state. These shifts havecontributed to a public life that is incongruent with the Enlightenment phi-losophy underlying American liberal democracy. From the late nineteenththrough the mid-twentieth century, a modernist culture of technology pro-moted Enlightenment philosophy. In the late twentieth century, a postmoderntechnological culture has departed from this Enlightenment philosophy, withsignificant consequences for liberal democratic politics. I will describe bothmodernist and postmodernist technological cultures and then conclude withsome ideas for addressing the gap between the postmodern culture of tech-nology and liberal democracy in the United States.

A key concept in my argument is the “culture of technology.” What doesthis concept mean? The concept denotes the way technology helps to framethe relationship between society and the self. I borrow the idea from Ray-mond Williams’s (1975, 48) definition of culture as “a structure of feeling.”

167

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article is a revised version of a paper delivered to the Post-ModernityProject Conference, “Democracy on Trial,” 19-21 September 1996, Charlottesville, Virginia. Ithank Jean Elshtain, Frances Schrag, James Davison Hunter, and two anonymous referees forcomments on earlier drafts of this article.

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 25 No. 2, Spring 2000 167-194© 2000 Sage Publications Inc.



To Williams, a culture is composed of three elements: cultural ideals, culturaldocumentary (a record of a society’s experience), and culture as a particularway of life (Williams 1975, 41). The culture of technology is simply thestructure of feeling that technology helps to create between society and theself.

An example will help us grasp the concept. Compare Jefferson’s Enlight-enment view of science and government to the view represented by LorenStroop, a fictional character in Jane Smiley’s (1995) academic satire, Moo.As Yaron Ezrahi (1990, 106) points out, Jefferson believed that science andtechnology helped to produce rational, public-spirited citizens and responsi-ble, effective governments. Jefferson saw science and republican govern-ment as mutually fortifying enterprises. In a letter to John Dickinson writtenin 1801, Jefferson observed,

What a satisfaction have we in the contemplation of our efforts, compared withthose of the leaders on the other side, who discountenanced all advances in sci-ence as dangerous innovations, have endeavored to render philosophy andrepublicanism terms of reproach, to persuade us that man cannot be governedbut by the rod, etc. I shall have the happiness of living and dying in the contraryhope. (Koch and Peden 1944, 562)

The Founding Fathers apparently admired Jefferson’s favorable view ofscience and republican government. Indeed, “one of Jefferson’s three qualifi-cations for writing the Declaration of Independence, according to the laterrecollections of John Adams, was his knowledge of science” (Cohen 1995, 23).Obviously, Jefferson spoke from within an optimistic culture of technology.

Now consider Moo’s Loren Stroop, an embittered Iowa farmer who con-ceals from public view the revolutionary machine he has invented for plant-ing soybeans. Why is Stroop so secretive? “He was well aware that the CIA,the FBI, and the big AG companies had plenty of ways of doing you in so thatit looked accidental” (Smiley 1995, 86). Stroop’s genius as an inventor ismatched by his political paranoia. Stroop harbors no Jeffersonian illusionsthat a new soybean planter will advance “philosophy and republicanism.”Indeed, Stroop’s fondest desire is to prevent the state from discovering hismachine. Stroop is a pessimistic, postmodern challenge to Jefferson. ForStroop, unlike Jefferson, science cannot improve politics. Obviously, Jeffer-son and Stroop reflect quite different cultures of technology.

On the whole, modernist technology encouraged a synergistic relation-ship between the self and society. Modernist technology provided the oppor-tunity for people to manipulate machines to expand human control overnature. The self acted, technology responded, and nature yielded to the civi-lized control of society.

168 Science, Technology, & Human Values



Even its critics were forced to acknowledge modernist technology’s syn-ergy between self and society. True, Marxists argued that under capitalism,modernist technology enslaved and alienated the worker, diminishing humanpotential. But at least the self retained a distinctive, “raisable” critical con-sciousness, which, under socialism, would redirect the machine toward posi-tive, self-enhancing ends. Thus, even to its critics, the modernist culture oftechnology ultimately served useful ends.

To be sure, I do not claim that technology determines the relationshipsbetween self and society, citizen and polity. These phenomena are complexlyconnected, not coextensive. For example, in liberal democracies, the privatesphere offers a refuge from the technologies of work, allowing some personalfreedom for the citizen. At the same time, as Weber implied (1978, 156), eventhis private realm depends to some degree on technology. Concentrating pro-ductive machines in large factories made possible the modern working day,which, in turn, divides labor from leisure, public from private. Productivetechnology thus influences—but does not wholly control—the relationshipbetween self and society.

Nor do I claim that at any one time, a technological culture is monolithic inits social and political effects. Compare, for example, the impact of televisionwith that of the automobile. By its very nature, television commands the eye,concentrating our attention on visual imagery rather than on loved ones,books, nature, or empty space. In addition, because television images movemuch faster than does imagery in nature, to keep pace with television the eyemust move “unnaturally” rapidly. Thus, watching television requires us todevelop distinctive visual skills, habits, and expectations. For example, welearn to scan the visual world quickly, not to linger over details. In fact, televi-sion images that actually replicate the slowness of nature are quite unsuccess-ful, as demonstrated by the fact that television news has virtually abandonedthe practice of using reporters as “talking heads.” The problem is that talkingheads too closely resemble real people (Kerbel 1994, 58-59). Thus, from tele-vision, we learn to scan the social world quickly and flexibly.

Now consider the very different impact of automobiles. As William Gal-ston (1993) notes, “Driving a car requires a specific ensemble of skills andawareness and tends to evoke a unique set of emotions.” Unlike viewing tele-vision, which encourages rapid if casual surveillance, driving a car requiressustained, static concentration. The driver repeats a few basic movementsover a long period while trying not to lose attention or alertness. Therefore,the driver’s emotional life becomes a distinctive compound of fatigue, effort,anxiety, and tedium. In addition, driving “alters the experience of travel bydetermining what we can do, and notice, as we travel” (p. 28). For safety’s sake,we pay close attention to road signs; therefore, we overlook much of the

Merelman / Technological Cultures and Democracy 169



natural terrain. This experience gradually builds up a conception of “normal”driving; while it is “abnormal” to drive on an interstate highway that lackssignage, driving on an interstate highway that lacks trees is not only normalbut also in some ways desirable. We thus are encouraged to appreciate therepetitive and the enduring, not the novel or the faddish.

Moreover, even functionally related technologies may have divergentimpacts on the self. Although driving a car and jogging on a treadmill are bothforms of movement, they are very different ways of getting around. True,both technologies demand discipline, but the disciplines they teach are quitedifferent from each other.

Finally, my position does not dispute certain aspects of the “social con-structivist” position on technology. I agree with social constructivists that“radically different meanings of an artefact can be identified for differentsocial groups; there is interpretative flexibility over the meaning to be givento the artefact” (Pinch 1996, 24). Trevor Pinch persuasively illustrates thisargument by reference to the multiple interpretations given by differentsocial groups to such machines as bicycles and automobiles. He shows thateven the decision of when a machine is working “normally” is subject to dif-fering group interpretations (Pinch 1996, 17-37).

However, nothing Pinch says refutes my primary contention—namely,that particular technologies have their own distinctive operating characteris-tics and that these characteristics help to shape culture. For example, hadbicycles not mechanically increased the speed of human movement, the mul-tiple interpretations of bicycles cited by Pinch would have been nonsensical.And had the engines in automobiles not produced usable power in a distinc-tive fashion mechanically, the different uses of automobiles that Pinch citescould not have occurred. Put differently, had the automobile been driven byan external rather than an internal combustion engine, it could not have accu-mulated the “meanings” Pinch describes.

Of course, technological selection and diffusion do remain under humancontrol. After all, for every technology that takes hold in a society, oth-ers—though equally feasible technically—simply do not. As Richard Sclove(1995, 230) points out, the technological world presents an impression ofinevitability only because we never see the technologies that people have“selected out.” What separates technological losers from winners is that los-ers advance no powerful economic, cultural, or political interests. In short,technologies that appear to favor social reproduction enjoy advantages.

Yet these caveats about the relationships among technology, self, and citi-zenship do not undermine the central premise of this article. Technologieshave their own distinctive effects on self, society, and polity. Therefore,




particular technologies help shape particular types of citizens. For this rea-son, technological choice has political ramifications. As Sclove puts it,

Technologies function politically and culturally as social structures by coerc-ing physical compliance; prompting subconscious compliance; constitutingsystems of social relations; establishing opportunities and constraints foraction and self-realization; promoting the evolution of background conditions;affecting nonusers; shaping communication, psychological development, andculture generally; and constituting much of the world within which livesunfold. (Sclove 1995, 16-17)

2. The Modernist Culture ofTechnology and American Politics

From the late nineteenth century through the 1950s, the modernist cultureof technology in America connected science, citizens, and liberal democraticpolitics productively to each other. Although it reached its zenith in the earlytwentieth century, this connection of mutual reinforcement had its origins aslong ago as the Enlightenment and the rise of modern liberalism. As Melzer,Weinberger, and Zinman (1993, viii) point out,

Liberal politics and technological science began to emerge at about the sametime. . . . They sprouted from similar premises concerning the autonomy ofpractical and theoretical reason from scriptural or theological absolutes, andthey were nourished by shared hopes for humanity’s progressive self-improvement.

In fact, even the term technology is a product of liberalism. Technology didnot come into conventional usage until the triumph of liberalism in the nine-teenth century, when the term displaced mechanical arts (Marx 1994, 18).

The most important reason for this positive convergence is that modernisttechnology significantly advanced liberal democracy. It did so in three ways:by the types of inventions it produced; by the methods of science it fostered;and, most important, by the unique role it allocated to the citizen. Nowherewas this truer than in the United States.

As to types of invention, modernist technology in America aimed aboveall to control nature. Typical technological icons of modernism in the earlytwentieth century included turbines, steam engines, mechanical cotton pick-ers, automobiles, and hydroelectric dams—all devices for subjecting natureto human domination. Not surprisingly, physics was the modernist science ofchoice. Indeed, from 1900 to 1950, articles in leading American magazines




moved from an emphasis on biology to a preoccupation with physics (LaFollette 1990, 43). Thus, the modernist culture of technology in Americadrew people outward from themselves and focused their attention on the sub-jugation of nature.

An important feature of these modernist inventions was that they permit-ted rapid and accurate assessment of effects. Did the new Tennessee ValleyAuthority dam actually control flooding? The unequivocal answer was usu-ally apparent within a few years. Did the General Electric dynamos work?Just flip the electric light switch. Did the elevated train provide regular, reli-able, low-cost transportation in Chicago? Ask the person who rode one.

Not only were the answers to these questions self-evident, they were alsowidely considered positive. Modernist inventions increased industrial pro-ductivity and the material living standards of consumers. Therefore, theAmerican state gradually acquired a sympathetic attitude toward technologi-cal development, supporting it ideologically, financially, and institutionally.Besides, helping scientists to control nature offered large political rewards ina society whose growing Western population needed to overcome harsh cli-matic conditions. No wonder that even in the early nineteenth century, thefederal government protected patents, subsidized the building of waterwaysand toll roads, and mapped the West. No wonder that, later, the state pro-moted agricultural research through the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 andthe Hatch Act of 1887, all the while gradually developing its own in-housescientific capacities.

In the twentieth century, defense needs drew the American state still fur-ther into support of modernist technology. World War II forced the UnitedStates to become “by far the greatest exponent of rationalized production thatthe world has ever witnessed. The United States built nearly three hundredthousand military aircraft during that period” (Macey 1989, 171-72). With-out government money and expertise, this and similar technological featswould have been impossible. Indeed, perhaps the ultimate triumph of mod-ernist technology in America was its domination of the Axis war machine.And with the onset of the cold war, an American “security state” appeared, inwhich military technology “had to be managed by the military users them-selves” (Hart 1998, 180). This development furthered the process begun dur-ing the war.

From the standpoint of political symbolism, the culmination of Americanmodernist technological culture was the establishment of the National Sci-ence Foundation (NSF) in 1950 (Williams 1994, 268-76; Smith 1990). True,the inherent fragmentation of the American state and the multiple compro-mises necessary to produce the NSF rendered the foundation, in Kleinman’s(1995, 138) phrase, only a “puny partner in the larger federal establish-




ment.” Still, the NSF helped the U.S. government to influence scientific inno-vation directly from above. No longer did the state just need to wait, hopingfor scientific talent to appear out of nowhere. It could now begin to generateand cultivate talent on its own. In addition, state-supported research anddevelopment programs employed many workers, distributed money, and wonvotes. What sensible American politician could resist so happy a combina-tion of benefits?

Most Americans endorsed this alliance between modernist technologyand government. For example, in early 1945, even as World War II still raged,81 percent of Americans favored a new law that would allocate $200 millionfor cancer research (Cantril 1951, 90). Yet this endorsement was by no meansforeordained. After all, the benefits of most technologies were unequally dis-tributed. Moreover, massive technological undertakings underwritten bygovernment required large infusions of the citizens’ tax dollars (a burden 75percent of Americans claimed to be willing to assume for government-supported cancer research in June 1945) (Cantril 1951). Also, planned tech-nological development is always uncertain; for every successful researchprogram, there are many failures. These too cost money. Finally, governmentsupport of science and technology interfered with the free play of marketforces. Why, then, did citizens embrace the emerging coalition of technologyand the American democratic state?

I think the modernist culture of technology itself holds part of the answerto this question. This culture encouraged citizens to become preoccupiedwith dominating nature. Indeed, individual identity—the person’s sense ofself—may well have been shaped by the modernist culture of technology.After all, modernist technology, beginning with the steam engine, both dis-tanced the self from nature and also elevated the self above nature (Sale 1995,25). It therefore empowered the self and, in so doing, supported a coalitionbetween the state and modern technology.

Yaron Ezrahi (1990) provides the most insightful portrayal of the symbio-sis between the citizen and the state-technology alliance in modern liberaldemocracies, including the United States. In Ezrahi’s view, early modernistscience allocated a crucial role to ordinary citizens. Indeed, not only did sci-entific experiments often take place in public, but scientists also staged publicdemonstrations of their inventions. Many of the great eighteenth- andnineteenth-century scientists, including Joseph Priestly, Robert Boyle, andMichael Faraday, considered the public exhibition a key part of science. Afamous eighteenth-century example is Lavoisier’s widely viewed balloonflights (Ezrahi 1990, 58), which provided a public validation of his assertionsabout invisible gases. The public experiment allowed the citizen to judge forhimself or herself the truth of scientific and technological claims and to




transmit that judgment to scientists. In a sense, public demonstrations werethe scientific equivalents of the slowly expanding practice of democraticelections.

Indeed, the requirement of public experimental demonstrations in con-nection with scientific claims was already established among British scien-tists as early as 1700. Thus, the Royal Society of London—of which Boylewas a founding member—required such demonstrations to allow members ofthe society “to judge and resolve upon the matter of fact” (Barnes, Bloor, andHenry 1996, 145).

No doubt scientists who engaged in public experimental demonstrationsdid so primarily to enhance their own reputations and to legitimize scienceand technology, not to empower the public. Nevertheless, they could achievetheir ends only by appealing to the public. Thus, they established the princi-ple that citizens—not scientists—must be the court of last resort on matters oftechnology. True, citizens sometimes judged the results of experiments inac-curately; the history of the American “medicine show,” for example, demon-strates how gullible citizens could be. Nevertheless, even fraudulent experi-ments furthered the proposition that, in the last analysis, ascertainableresults—not just smoke and mirrors—mattered. Indeed, this is precisely themessage of that quintessentially modernist fable, The Wonderful World ofOz, in which “citizen” Dorothy and her mates discredit the mountebank“wizard”—the fraudulent scientist and inept ruler.

In addition, popular education gave citizens an important part in the actualcreative process that was modern science. Isaac Newton blazed the path; heprepared an accessible version of his theories intended specially for a generalreading public. A success in the American colonies, the book Optics con-tained no mathematical formulas and was written “in a manner that invitedand held the attention of nonscientific audiences” (Cohen 1995, 43). Therewere also many scientific lectures presented to a general, interested public.This combination of public demonstration, accessible scientific writing, andpopular lectures proceeded from Francis Bacon’s foundational, early mod-ernist theory of induction. Bacon held that empirical experience, not abstrac-tion, intuition, or divine revelation, was the basis of knowledge (Cohen 1995,57). The theory of induction implied that ordinary people could rely on theirown senses to understand the world and to judge science and technology. Nolonger did people need to take on faith the scientific discoveries of a giftedelite. In short, the theory of induction, as embodied in popular scientific edu-cation, helped to democratize science and technology.

Modernist technology also helped the citizen to develop a greater sense ofcompetence. Because of technology, phenomena that had formerly beenthought both beyond human comprehension and direction were now not only




understood but also subject to public control. No longer need such naturaldisasters as floods, famine, droughts, or epidemics be the inevitable humanlot. Thus, modernist technology reversed the balance of power between theself and nature. The modernist culture of technology encouraged the citizento encounter nature as an equal, not as a helpless victim or a religious suppli-cant. No wonder the citizen gravitated to modern technology and rewarded anAmerican state that increasingly allied itself to science.

Fortunately, throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mostmodernist technologies lent themselves to ready public understanding. Theworkings of turbines, internal combustion engines, and sewing machineswere relatively simple. Also, most machines were of human scale and there-fore could be easily inspected, taken apart, and reassembled. Average peoplecould clean, test, repair, modify, and even play with machines. Occasionally,a layman could decisively improve a machine or even adapt it to new uses. Infact, average citizens could feel themselves to be, in their own particularways, inventors and scientists too. Thus, the practice of modernist sciencedrew the citizen into a technological culture that enhanced his or her sense ofcompetence. In America, this development reached its apex in the 1950s“do-it-yourself” movement.

Ezrahi (1990) argues that the modernist culture of technology alsoaffected politics. If technology could analyze and control nature, might not itbe able to do the same for society? Indeed, science demonstrated that natureitself was remarkably like a machine. Could the same also be true of societyand government (p. 108)? And why should not ordinary people play the samecrucial role in government as they had long played in evaluating scientificdemonstrations, such as experiments on gases or on the circulation of theblood? In short, why should not people have the same judgmental power overgovernment as they had over science?

The application of technological metaphors to politics emerged as early asthe seventeenth century. According to Fuller (1993, 234), “An historical casein point is the focus that the introduction of first the mechanical clock andthen the self-regulating steam engine gave to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century discussions of governance.” The mechanical model of governmentreached its zenith with the creation of the American political system. TheFounding Fathers viewed government as a machine for controlling man’snaturally destructive impulses (McWilliams 1993, 90). They also conceptu-alized the fundamental problems of government essentially as challenges tomachine design. Finally, through the electoral process, they accepted citizensas capable judges of the political machine.

But democratic citizens need not content themselves simply with study-ing, inspecting, and participating in the political machine. They could also




learn to run the machine themselves. If citizens could learn how to operatecotton gins and assembly lines, they could also learn how to make politicaldecisions and craft legislation. Given the “transparence”—or openness toinspection (Ezrahi 1990, 170)—of American government, this task shouldprove feasible. Indeed, de Tocqueville captured this activist element ofAmerican citizenship as early as the 1830s. Americans were “learning bydoing” government, just as they were learning to operate other machines.

Thus, the modernist culture of technology encouraged Americans to seepolitics as a process of scientific discovery, invention, and technologicalapplication. Politics was simply a new laboratory for experimental science.Nor should we overlook the fact that by mythologizing American govern-ment as a collaborative experiment between citizens and politicians, themodernist culture of technology justified the inevitable hardships that, as rulemaker, government imposed on citizens. Though political decisions couldnever make everyone happy, at least elected politicians—as the public’s rep-resentative scientists of government—learned from their experimental mis-takes. Citizens could therefore hope that present discontents would eventu-ally produce future benefits. In this way, the modernist culture of technologyafforded the fledgling American polity a crucial margin of political error.

Of course, if modernist technology helped to create the role of the citizenas scientist, it also promoted self-interested partisanship. New technologiesaccelerated the division of labor, increased social class divisions, and createdwholly new occupations and professions. In turn, these classes, occupations,and professions developed their own group interests. Competitive politicalparties served these interests, both reinforcing and expressing social cleav-ages among citizens.

Thus, citizens within America’s modernist culture of technology experi-enced a fundamental tension between science and partisanship. In the guiseof scientist, the citizen stood at some distance from the political machine,weighing its performance coolly according to disinterested, universal,empirically valid standards of truth. But as a partisan, the citizen plunged intothe political process, hotly pursuing some interests over others, abandoningimpartial scientific standards. The citizen was thus pulled in opposeddirections.

Yet for the most part, the modernist culture of technology not only pre-vented this tension from becoming crippling but also transformed it into asource of strength. For one thing, modernism replaced ideological fanaticismand religious superstition with the scientifically calculated application ofpower. Modernism thus calmed some of the emotionalism in partisanship.Also, the scientist’s habits of skepticism, hypothesis testing, and respect forevidence spread to partisanship. Science taught that, in the face of facts, all




citizens should be prepared to reconsider their partisan views and discardtheir political prejudices. Thus, the modernist culture of technology softenedpartisan combat. No wonder that by the mid-twentieth century, many stu-dents of American politics could proclaim the “end of ideology.”

Whatever tensions remained between the citizen as scientist and the citi-zen as partisan, at least the citizen within the modernist culture of technologyknew where he or she stood. Moreover, by the early twentieth century,women had joined men as citizens of the modernist polity. As scientists, thisexpanded citizenry demanded that the government discover and applydemonstrable truths to society. As partisans, the citizenry urged governmentto favor discernible group interests. True, the conflict between the two rolescould at times become irreconcilable. But whichever choice the citizen made,modernist technological culture at least helped the individual to act pur-posively and with determination.

Like any culture, the modernist culture of technology consisted in part ofexaggerated beliefs, hopes, and myths, a fact emphasized by the principalcritics of modernist technology and politics. Yet these critics failed to per-suade most Americans. Indeed, the failure of criticism provides perhaps thestrongest evidence for the power modernist technological culture wieldedinto the 1960s.

The principal critiques are too well known to require much discussion.Weberians complained that modernist technology helped to produce an eliteof soulless bureaucrats who used their superior knowledge to rule over, ratherthan to serve, the public. Marxists claimed that with the assistance of thestate, capitalists applied technology to exploit workers for profit and power.Critical theorists contended that modernism produced “a ‘technologicalrationality’ or a ‘regime of truth’ which brings the construction and interpre-tation of technical systems into conformity with the requirements of a systemof domination” (Feenberg 1991, 79). To use Habermas’s terminology, tech-nological rationality “colonized the life world.”

Finally, some critics noted that as the scale of technology grows, the actualeffects of technology become increasingly difficult to comprehend and con-trol. Therefore, people reverse technological ends and means, judging socialprogress by the mere creation of a new machine—rather than by the machine’sbeneficial effects. Technology thus becomes an end in itself, rather than aninstrument of human betterment. Eventually the public loses its capacity toevaluate technology by reference to any normative standards independent oftechnology itself (Melzer 1993, 309).

As we can see, there has been no paucity of challenges to the modernistculture of technology. These challenges eventually began to win a few impor-tant victories, as the success of the environmental movement demonstrates.




Environmentalists persuaded many citizens that the technological controlover nature—modernism’s hallmark—had gone too far and now harms ratherthan enhances the quality of life.

But, ironically, both the modernist culture of technology and its critics arebecoming obsolete. In America, we are now creating a postmodern culture oftechnology, with novel political consequences. The forms of technology thatnow most influence our lives no longer direct us outwards toward inanimatenature—as did modernism. Instead, they direct us inward toward the livingself. For this reason, the American state now confronts a new sort of citizen,one who is quite different from the citizen of modernist technological culture.

3. Postmodern Technological Culture andLiberal Democratic Politics in America

Consider the following data: between 1969 and 1989, federally fundedresearch in the physical sciences rose in constant dollars from $21

2to $3 bil-

lion per year. By contrast, in that same period, federal funds for research inthe life sciences doubled, growing from $31

2to almost $7 billion per year

(U.S. Congress 1991, 5). Over the past generation, the federal governmenthas increasingly chosen to support research into the internal foundations ofhuman life, rather than research into physical processes outside the self.

The same shift has occurred in the private sector. From 1990 to 1995, theseventeen largest private chemical firms reduced their research and develop-ment spending between 2 and 5 percent each year. But in that same period, thesix largest pharmaceutical companies raised their research and developmentspending on average about 10 percent each year. While chemical researchdirected at the physical world has declined, chemical research directed athuman beings has grown (Long and Zurer 1995, 50).

Historical data provide additional evidence of the shift from a modernisttechnological culture preoccupied with the physics and chemistry of natureto a postmodernist culture of technology preoccupied with the genetics, bio-chemistry, psychology, and pharmacology of the self. According to Klein-man (1995, 43), “Chemists and engineers dominated industrial research inthe period before World War II.” In 1938, at the height of modernism, not asingle pharmaceutical company was among the forty-five largest privateemployers of research personnel (Kleinman 1995). Today, several are.

To be sure, there are important continuities between modernist and post-modernist technological cultures, but there is not a sharp, definitive chrono-logical break between the two cultures. Thus, for example, already by the endof World War II, Americans strongly supported federally assisted research




into major illnesses, such as cancer. These research programs soon extendedinto genetics and biochemistry. Moreover, in 1950—at the very same timethat the modernist NSF was founded—the postmodernist National Instituteof Mental Health came into existence, soon growing from an initial $8.7 mil-lion budget to more than $100 million in 1960 (Nolan 1998, 281). Also, mod-ernist government-supported physics research gradually metamorphosedinto today’s postmodern communication and information sciences. Mostimportant, the postmodern focus on human life merely extends the modernistattention to nature. Postmodern technological culture simply treats humanbeings as a part of nature.

Nevertheless, the point remains that postmodern technological culturecontains a broad and novel research agenda for government and science. Forexample, consider the federally funded Human Genome Project, which aimsto map and sequence the entire human genetic structure by the twenty-firstcentury. The project is the first massive government-initiated research pro-gram directed not toward the control of nature but toward the comprehensionof the self (Cook-Deegan 1994).

A related set of initiatives involves research into human reproduction. Thefederal government now supports research into many forms of human repro-duction, such as fertility control, assisted reproduction, surrogate mother-hood, prenatal intervention, fetal and embryo care and treatment, and trans-plant research (Blank and Merrick 1995). This research program—alongwith related investigations into cloning and aging—opens up new options forcontrolling, modifying, and transforming both body and brain.

Another strand of life science investigation probes the basis of humanconsciousness. As prophylactic technologies, psychotropic medications nowameliorate and even control many mental conditions. From the relief ofdepression to the generation of euphoria and from the treatment of autism tothe stimulation of creativity, mood and cognitive functioning—once stub-bornly resistant to medical intervention—are now subject to sophisticatedmodification.

The life sciences are not the only beneficiaries of government’s new post-modern technological priorities. The communication and information sci-ences have also thrived. Indeed, in 1993, the federal government spentapproximately $25 billion simply to upgrade its own communication facili-ties (National Performance Review 1993, 10). Rhetorically also, politicalleaders have promoted the information revolution. For example, in his1997 State of the Union message, President Clinton promised to put com-puters in every American classroom. Finally, the much-publicized “Rein-venting Government” initiative headed by Vice President Gore devoted anentire volume to information technology and government operations




(National Performance Review 1993). And the vice president recentlyclaimed credit for having invented the information superhighway.

Though different from each other in many ways, these postmodern tech-nologies have in common one overriding characteristic: they are targeted atthe self. By immersing people in an unending stream of communication,computer technology expands the self informationally. In contrast, geneticresearch reduces, disassembles, and rearranges the self. The genetic self istransformed from a single, unified visible body to an intricate bundle ofmicroscopic biological and genetic patterns. Finally, increased knowledgeabout DNA and the human genome permits the systematic reconfiguration ofthe self.

For its part, reproductive technology provides unprecedented opportuni-ties to design future generations. Presently unavoidable biological, psycho-logical, and gestational limitations gradually succumb to new therapeuticand medical techniques. Meanwhile, consciousness-altering medicationsallow members of the present generation to choose the kinds of selves theywish to be. “Nature and nurture” give way to Prozac and dopamines. Thus,manipulation of the self becomes America’s new technological frontier.

Not surprisingly, postmodern technology has helped to create a new tech-nological culture, one in which self-manipulation—not the manipulation ofnature—has become the norm. Consider, for example, cosmetic alteration ofthe self, which is one of the most vivid manifestations of postmodern techno-logical culture. The affluent middle class prefers expensive plastic surgery;the working class makes do with inexpensive tattooing. The youth of bothclasses gravitate to body piercing and nose rings. There has also emerged asubculture of Americans for whom methodical dieting and exercise are usedto shape the self. Veblen would have called such people conspicuous noncon-sumers. Meanwhile, for a different subculture, obesity has become not aphysical infirmity but a mark of personal liberation.

It is hardly a surprise that American popular culture now abounds withimages of transformed identities, from self-help books to support groups tocelebrities newly “in touch” with themselves. These images depict grief ame-liorated, addiction overcome, and stress contained. In the past, self-alterationoften led to disaster. When it came to the self, it was considered wise not to“fool around with Mother Nature.” We need only recall such modernist fic-tional admonitions as Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Mary Shel-ley’s Frankenstein, and H. G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau. Today, how-ever, postmodernist self-alteration is commonly as redemptive as destructive,though technological pessimists, such as Stanley Kubrick, can still be foundin popular culture.




Postmodern technologies differ sharply from modernist technologies intheir implications for citizenship in America. The ordinary American couldinspect, imitate, apply, and even improve modernist technologies. The aver-age citizen could therefore comprehend the causal principles by which mod-ernist machines and tools worked. Modernism also allowed people to inspectmachines in their entirety and thus to understand them as unified systems.Finally, most modernist technology conformed to human scale. It was easyfor people to observe the entire sequential process whereby the blast furnacecombined coal, iron, and oxygen to produce steel. A thirty-minute walk alongHenry Ford’s assembly line could educate the average American about how afinished automobile emerged from the coordination of workers, parts, andtools. Thus, technological knowledge conveyed to the citizen a sense ofknowledge and competence. In turn, this sensibility helped to create a politi-cally efficacious public.

By contrast, most postmodern technologies are beyond the averageAmerican’s comprehension. Ordinary citizens have no informed access tothese technologies. Some postmodern technologies are so microscopic as tobe invisible; others are almost boundlessly macroscopic. Without an electronmicroscope, for example, one cannot view DNA recombination and geneticmanipulation; the naked eye is of no help. Meanwhile, at its macroscopicextreme, computerized communication becomes equally invisible. Unliketelephones, with their human “operators,” wires, plugs, and switchboards,nothing seems to tie computerized communication together. Where exactlyare the “webs” of the web sites? At the other extreme, crucial components(e.g., the v-chip) of the computer are so tiny that ordinary persons cannotlearn through inspection how the computer actually works. No wonder so fewpeople repair a computer. Even computer manuals “[presented] the publicwith simulations . . . that did nothing to suggest how their underlying struc-ture could be known” (Turkle 1995, 23). As Stoll (1995, 75) puts it, “Hardlyanyone takes apart a computer just to admire the designers’ work. . . . Thereare no Heathkits to let you solder your own modem.”

At the same time, increasing numbers of personal computer users havebecome expert reprogrammers, and many even create their own web sites. Atthe extreme, amateur hackers ingeniously penetrate “secure” computer filesand introduce “viruses” into networks. The point remains, however, thatthese accomplishments continue to depend on material design processesmost practitioners do not understand.

On the whole, therefore, the shift to postmodernism may well have con-tributed to a decline in the American public’s position as competent practi-tioners of technology. Evidence of this possible decline is the changing




fortunes of Mechanix Illustrated, since 1928 the largest mass-circulationmagazine exposing Americans to a broad range of technologies. Between1969 and 1995, the circulation of Mechanix Illustrated (and its successor,Home Mechanics) fell from 1,500,000 to 1,000,000, even as the country’spopulation grew substantially. It might be thought that this drop could beattributed to the rising educational level of the population; perhaps peopleinterested broadly in science now read the more sophisticated ScientificAmerican. Not so, however. In 1979, the paid circulation of Scientific Ameri-can was 665,000. In 1999, it is 666,000. Thus, a core of technologically andscientifically literate laypersons seems to be shrinking, relatively speaking.As ever, popular culture both reflects and influences changing technologicalcultures.

To be sure, the educational level of the contemporary American public issignificantly higher than that achieved by preceding generations. But thisincrease may not translate into greater mathematical or scientific compe-tence. In fact, achievement levels in math and science among American highschool students appear to have remained static for the past generation. In1975-76, for example, the average math scores on the Scholastic AptitudeTest for twelfth graders was 472; the score in 1994-95 was 482, only a slightimprovement. American College Test (ACT) scores in math and the naturalsciences for twelfth graders equaled 20.0 and 20.8 in 1967. ACT scores inmath and science in 1996 were 20.2 and 21.1, again only a minimal gain. Theaverage science proficiency score for seventeen-year-olds on the NationalAssessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) was 305 in 1970 but only 296 in1996; NAEP scores in math for seventeen-year-olds were 304 in 1973 and307 in 1996 (National Center for Educational Statistics 1997, 132, 137, 131,123). In 1977, 3.2 percent, 11.1 percent, and 41.7 percent, respectively, ofnine-, thirteen-, and seventeen-year-olds were able “to analyze scientific pro-cedures and data,” according to the NAEP. In 1996, the comparable figureswere 4.4 percent, 12.3 percent, and 48.5 percent, a rise but hardly a break-through. Moreover, in 1970, the “average scientific proficiency” scores onNAEP for nine-, thirteen-, and seventeen-year-olds were 225, 255, and 305,as opposed to a virtually identical 230, 256, and 296 in 1996 (National Centerfor Educational Statistics 1997, 129, 131). These data suggest that althoughmore American students now take math and science than did their parents,they may not be gaining much additional competence for their efforts. Cer-tainly, given the unprecedented demands of postmodern technology, they areperhaps less equipped than previous generations to evaluate the technologi-cal culture in which they are immersed.

Of course, the absence of technical competence defined this narrowlydoes not render the public entirely defenseless in the evaluation of




technology. Indeed, as Brian Wynne shows (1996, 44-84), those directlyaffected by a new technology may sharply criticize it on the quite rationalbasis of their own experientially based knowledge. However, scientificexperts, as Wynne acknowledges, rarely acknowledge these lay judgments;moreover, the misgivings of the affected public do not prevent substantialdamage from misguided technologies. The point, therefore, remains that inthe absence of relevant technical knowledge, the public is highly susceptibleto serious harm.

The inscrutability of postmodern technologies possesses both social andpolitical implications. The transparency of modernist technologies encour-aged Americans to believe that by comprehending machines, they couldacquire some of the power of scientists. By contrast, postmodernist technolo-gies teach Americans little about scientific reasoning, technological applica-tion, or machine repair. Therefore, they do not promote a practical sense ofscientific mastery. Although ever more dependent on postmodern technolo-gies, Americans are ever more ignorant about how these technologies oper-ate. Because the citizen of America’s postmodern technological culture is farless likely than his or her predecessors ever to exclaim, “Oh, so that’s how itworks,” he or she is deprived of the confidence and judgment practical scien-tific knowledge brings.

The same absence of confidence and judgment may also discourage com-petent democratic participation in America. For example, today’s citizensmay have difficulty estimating accurately the practical limits of government.So they often misjudge government’s power to do harm or to do good, and theybecome prone to invent conspiracy theories of politics. Imaginary intrigues fillthe space abandoned by sober, scientifically encouraged analysis. Of course,conspiracy theories do not dispel anxiety or promote public control over gov-ernment. Instead, they simply estrange citizens from government.

Paradoxically, however, the postmodern culture of technology alsoencourages Americans to expect more from government than ever before.Postmodern technologies direct people’s attention inward toward their psy-chological, medical, and biological well-being. Thus, actions that were oncedismissed as merely distasteful or bigoted become relabeled as “abuse” or“discrimination” that government must erase. Government must now protectAmericans against newly minted personal insults, such as “hate speech,”“hate crimes,” “lookism,” “secular humanism,” or “reverse discrimination.”As these examples suggest, the postmodern culture of technology favors nei-ther the political left or right; its effects are deeply systemic, not superficiallypartisan.

To be sure, the modernist and postmodernist cultures of technology that Ihave described are heuristic devices to provide the basis for further




discussion. Therefore, it is incumbent on me to enter three qualifications tomy argument. First, postmodern technological culture is but one contributorto the changing texture of American politics. I maintain that the postmodernculture of technology has helped to create a new sort of American citizen. Butit is only one among many other such contributors. Moreover, how these newsorts of citizens actually behave depends on many social, cultural, and politi-cal forces. Finally, as I have said, society and polities do select their technolo-gies, although once adopted, the new technologies favor particular forms ofcitizenship.

Second, the linkages I hypothesize between cultures of technology anddemocratic citizenship in America are admittedly speculative. Even Ezrahi(1990), whose case for these connections is strongest, offers mainly sugges-tive parallels and plausible conjectures. The problem is that systematicempirical evidence regarding technology’s personal effects is sparse. How-ever, the results of most of the few rigorous and relevant studies I have foundsupport my argument. For example, Stern and Kipniss (1993, 1892-1902)detected a positive interaction among skill requirements, people’s sense ofcompetence, and people’s enjoyment of three everyday modernist technolo-gies: photography, cooking, and automobile driving. Skill in these three tech-nologies raised the individual’s self-confidence. By contrast, Raphael-Leff(1992, 278-94) found that couples employing a postmodernist reproductivetechnology—in vitro fertilization—suffered much stress and reduced self-esteem, despite the fact that such technology holds the promise of successfulchildbearing, certainly a more crucial expression of identity than taking pho-tos, cooking meals, and driving cars. Still, these and related studies are toofew to yield definitive conclusions (Grayson 1993, 23-45; Knez 1995,39-51).

Third, some evidence disputes my thesis. For example, Samuel Popkin(1994, chaps. 2 and 3) has reported that many American voters still rely con-fidently on their personal experiences when making electoral decisions.These voters apparently do not feel bewildered, confused, or overwhelmedby the political process, nor are they incapable of using their experientialknowledge to comprehend the political world. At the same time, a new studyby Diana Mutz (1998) describes a rising trend toward “impersonal influ-ences” (i.e., mass-mediated influence on individual political attitudes). Thus,Americans today must fight ever harder to make their personal experienceshelpful to political choice.

Finally, many less rigorous empirical studies also support my argument.For example, Sherry Turkle (1995, 192) reports that heavy Internet users blurthe lines between reality and simulation. They also construct multiple anony-mous selves who simultaneously “exist(s) in many worlds and play(s) many




roles at the same time” (p. 14). Furthermore, they see computers as exten-sions of—rather than separate from—their identities, thus obscuring theirpersonal boundaries (p. 31; see also Reeves and Nass 1996). In addition, theyview information as having no concrete referential foundation or origin(p. 47). They cycle through multiple fictional identities rather than presentany singular personality (p. 174). Finally, they prefer anonymity and fictionalroles, which allow them to avoid personal responsibility (p. 185). In short,they lack the grounded quality of citizenship that America’s modernist cul-ture of technology once helped to provide.

To be fair, these observations may apply primarily to the heaviest users ofthe Internet. A more sanguine assessment is that of Davis and Owen (1998,173-80), who report, on the basis of national surveys, that online media audi-ences in general are, if anything, slightly more positively disposed towardgovernment and politically efficacious than the public as a whole.

Nevertheless, national surveys often miss subtle aspects of computerizedcommunication. For example, Clifford Stoll (1995), once a strong advocateof computers, notes that computerized communication lacks the human con-sequences that serve to crystallize identity. As he puts it in his discussion ofcomputer games, “You never have to deal with real frustrations—the illogicof human interactions. If you’re thwarted, why, just pull the plug” (p. 136).“Pulling the plug” (i.e., cutting off communication) undermines a stableidentity. After all, if others cannot respond effectively to what we do or say,we have no reason to take ourselves seriously. Our identities may thereforebecome malleable, multiple, playful, yet irresponsible.

I turn directly now to postmodern technological culture’s implications forAmerican citizenship. Are there political consequences of the American’snewly weakened personal boundaries, multiple identities, and inward-looking gaze? Although the answer to this question must inevitably be some-what conjectural, there is reason to believe that technology, the prupose ofwhich is to alter and reconstruct identity, does affect the citizen’s relationshipto the political system. Earlier I argued that the modernist culture of technol-ogy provided citizens with a well-defined political perspective. By contrast,the postmodern culture of technology provides no such perspective. Instead,this culture of technology may contribute to the decentering and deconstruc-tion of citizenship. If many Americans now lack a single, dominating, stableviewpoint from which to observe the political system, they may find it diffi-cult to evaluate or promote political action. Instead, their relationship to thepolitical system fluctuates depending on which facet of their fragmented andunstable identities they choose temporarily to emphasize.

An example may illuminate the point. At the height of modernism, in1936, the American electorate effected a massive party realignment that




endured for a generation. How was it able to do so? Partly because New Dealprograms of social reform succeeded in synthesizing the scientific and parti-san roles of the citizen. By contrast, despite the predictions of many politicalscientists, a new partisan realignment has yet to occur. Instead, “dealign-ment” and divided government are the order of the day (Bennett 1992, 57ff.).Why? Undoubtedly, there are many causal factors at play, but one—generallyoverlooked—may be that the postmodern American citizen lacks the clarityof roles and interests that the modernist culture of technology afforded his orher predecessor. Therefore, America’s postmodern culture of technologymay hinder the partisan realignment of the political system.

Of course, the postmodern American citizen does know that technologyprofoundly alters identity. People have learned that even minute changes inmachine calibration or medical treatment have fateful personal effects. Theyalso know that the slightest mutation of a DNA molecule produces life-threatening diseases or miraculous cures. Indeed, postmodern technologicalculture is full of machines not only for transforming but also for reconnoiter-ing the self. Consider, for example, pacemakers, heart and blood pressuremonitors, and “biofeedback” devices. These technologies keep people sensi-tive to the most subtle of their bodily changes.

This postmodern “self sensitivity” poses novel challenges to government.The postmodern American citizen expects government to help “improve” theself. Thus, AIDS activists and infertile couples evaluate government bywhether it advances research on reproduction and HIV. Meanwhile, religiousconservatives demand that government strengthen public morals, reasoningthat a government with the scientific capacity to map the human genome anddiscover that nicotine is addictive must be able to teach welfare mothers thevirtues of work, adolescents the benefits of sexual abstinence, and studentsthe value of prayer.

Yet many Americans lack useful scientific knowledge, clear personalboundaries, a coherent identity, or a stable developmental trajectory. Howcan such citizens judge accurately the quality of the governmental perform-ance he or she demands? There is certain to be a sizable gap between the citi-zen’s political expectations and the citizen’s political evaluations. This gapmay well promote chronic public dissatisfaction with government.

The postmodern culture of technology also has implications for partisanpolitics in the United States. Historically, American partisanship has hadboth vertical and horizontal dimensions. The vertical dimension comprisesthe relationship between the individual citizen and the state. The centralproblem of the vertical dimension is finding the balance between the privateand public spheres. Where do the legitimate rights of the private citizen end?Where does the legitimate power of the state begin? Generally speaking,




most liberal Democrats advocate a broad right to privacy regarding moralitybut substantial government regulation of private market transactions. By con-trast, most conservative Republicans advocate a substantial governmentalrole in enforcing moral norms but abhor government “interference” in eco-nomic affairs.

By contrast, the horizontal dimension of partisanship consists of differingorientations toward social equality. Liberal Democrats generally favor moresocial equality than do conservative Republicans. I characterize this dimen-sion as horizontal rather than vertical because it concerns the distribution ofgoods among a set of legally coequal, competing social groups, rather thanrelations between the lay citizen and state authority.

The modernist culture of technology encouraged the citizen to pay closeattention to both dimensions. Because the citizen considered government tobe essentially a machine, he or she knew it needed tending. Otherwise, itmight break down or—worse yet—escape control, overpowering the peopleit was meant to serve, destroying the balance between public and private.Also, because machine technology helped stratify society by income, status,and power, Americans in the modernist era devoted much attention to groupinequalities. Therefore, personal freedom, governmental authority, andsocial equality occupied coequal places on the modernist political agenda.

In America’s postmodern culture of technology, however, the verticaldimension has come to dominate the horizontal dimension. Poorly demar-cated, fluid, inward-gazing citizens are preoccupied with “extending” and“fulfilling” themselves and with preventing government from invading theirpersonal “space.” Many postmodern Americans find nothing too intimate toreveal on talk shows but obsess about government manipulation, not realiz-ing that the postmodern cultural norm of self-revelation invites governmentmanipulation.

At the same time, postmodern technologies obscure growing social ine-qualities. Thanks in part to such technology, social and economic markersthat reveal group identity receive little inspection, giving way to the scrutinyof self. Perhaps this argument helps explain why, though economic dispari-ties in America have been increasing for a generation, neither political partychooses seriously to address the problem.

Ultimately, postmodern citizenship may also affect political legitimacy inthe United States. The values of political accountability and group represen-tation, which anchored the state’s legitimacy in the modern period, no longeroperate as they once did. For one thing, there are now “too many” personalidentities to which government must account. And there are comparativelyfewer stable group interests to represent. As a result, political legitimacy inthe United States has become newly fluid.




Ironically, this fluidity has developed at the precise moment when, thanksin part to postmodern information technology, the political system has actu-ally become potentially more accountable and representative than everbefore. “New media”—especially computers—have provided citizensunprecedented access both to government and to each other. In addition,open-files laws make more information about government available to citi-zens. An “adversarial” press leaves few political stones unturned (Fallows1996). Finally, “deliberative democracy” experiments demonstrate that,given appropriate opportunities, citizens can make extremely reasonabledecisions about technological and political issues. The potential for citizenempowerment would appear to be vast.

Yet the same postmodern technologies that open government to citizensalso complicate citizens’ perspectives on government. For one thing, few ofthese innovations have been institutionalized. Moreover, there are simplymore unstable personal vantage points from which Americans now view thepolitical system. The result is uncertainty about to whom government is to beheld accountable and whom the government is to represent. Thus, what post-modern technology gives with one hand it takes back with the other, to thedetriment of both accountability and representation.

Have any distinctively postmodern legitimation norms emerged to fill thegap created by the contemporary insufficiency of modernism’s norms ofaccountability and representation? Not as yet. True, government is nowengaged, among other things, in helping the postmodern American citizen toconstruct a more satisfactory identity. However, there is no agreed definitionof a “satisfactory” identity. More important, elements of the postmodern cul-ture of technology actually challenge the state’s efforts.

On one hand, for example, the postmodern culture of technology mytholo-gizes genetics. Based on their careful examination of American popular cul-ture, Nelkin and Lindee (1995) conclude that “genetic essentialism” is now acentral component of American beliefs. Popular culture increasingly pre-sents DNA as the essence of the human being. Indeed,

DNA appears in popular culture as a soul-like entity, a holy and immortal relic,a forbidden territory. The similarity between the powers of DNA and those ofthe Christian soul, we suggest, is more than linguistic or metaphorical. DNAhas taken on the social and cultural foundations of the soul. (Pp. 41-42)

But, on the other hand, postmodern technology literally takes this “soul”apart. Postmodern technology thus deconstructs the genetic identity it helpsto mythologize, thus rendering “true” identity vulnerable and incomplete; inso doing, it frustrates government, which tries vainly to serve its citizens. And




a government that consistently cannot serve its citizens must surely experi-ence an erosion of legitimacy.

4. Can Postmodern Technological CultureServe Democratic Ends?

Postmodern technological culture is obviously here to stay. History doesnot run backwards. But in its present form, this culture alienates Americancitizens from the public sphere and deprives government of the power to pur-sue democratic ends. Is it possible to bridge the gap between postmoderntechnological culture and the state to reinvigorate American democracy? Ithink the answer to this rhetorical question is probably not.

Certainly, there are some measures that might prove helpful. For example,educators need to teach students not only how to use postmodern technolo-gies but also how these technologies actually work. President Clinton’s aspi-ration to “hook every American classroom up to the Internet” would be morelaudable if it encouraged students to learn something about the design andoperating principles of computers. A truly “democratic technological educa-tion” is twofold, embracing not only the benefits of technology but also theprocesses of technology. Without an understanding of how technologyworks, the benefits of technology will do little to empower citizenspolitically.

Educators and policy makers might also clearly and realistically presentthe multiple and conflicting effects of postmodern technology on the individ-ual. Postmodern technologies render citizens vulnerable both to exaggeratedhopes and to exaggerated fears. Because of postmodern technology’s focuson the individual, many Americans now swing wildly between inflated per-sonal desires and boundless personal apprehension. Democracy is bestserved by a closer correspondence between demonstrated technologicaleffects and public beliefs about technology. Educators and policy makers canhelp people achieve this correspondence.

Educators and policy makers might also emphasize that postmodern tech-nologies have major social dimensions that transcend the individual. Thepublic needs to understand that it is a social process of production that createsthe webs of the Internet and the psychotropic drugs that so profoundly affectthe individual. Thus, appearances notwithstanding, postmodern technologydoes not really detach the individual from society. Moreover, the public mustunderstand that the postmodern transformation of identity is a shared phe-nomenon. This realization might stimulate political interest and




involvement, reducing postmodern technology’s tendency toward depolitici-zation. Of course, educational reformers will not, by themselves, counteractthe strong barriers against political participation that currently pervadeAmerican culture (Eliasoph 1998).

However, not only are these educational reforms essentially incremental,they require a changed political context. Simply put, government has to rein-vent itself in a postmodern culture of technology. Consider this: because theeveryday experience created by modernist technology supported a machinemetaphor of society, American government could draw on this metaphor tolink itself to citizens. Since citizens conceived themselves as unitary actorsincreasing their control over nature, they could comprehend and support agovernment engaged in the same enterprise. Government’s use of themachine metaphor thus attracted public support.

But as we have seen, the American’s experience with postmodern technol-ogy no longer supports a machine metaphor of society. Postmodern technol-ogy turns people inward, in search of greater personal choice and “fulfill-ment.” Citizens are now preoccupied with transforming themselves, not withdominating nature. Therefore, they are not drawn to a government that por-trays itself as a machine of political control. Hence, American governmentmust create a new metaphor to support itself in a postmodern culture oftechnology.

How might it do so? One possibility is for it to present political engage-ment not as a struggle for group power or as a collective endeavor to subordi-nate nature but as an indispensable contribution to each American’s personaldevelopment. That is, government could attempt to resuscitate the Aristote-lian tradition, which treats political involvement as the highest form of per-sonal exploration and expression (Arendt 1958).

Implementing this philosophical orientation in practice would almost cer-tainly require an expanded range of political options. Here the suggestions ofrecent communitarian thinkers (e.g., Putnam 1996, 34-58; Etzioni 1996), aswell as participatory democrats from the 1960s, become useful. However,these ideas are likely to fail if they are presented in the language of citizenobligation to the community, which is the usual mode of communitarian dis-course. Instead, advocates would need to employ the language of personaldevelopment, for otherwise postmodern American citizens will not respondpositively.

Couched in these terms, many Americans might respond. For example, ina recent study of environmental activists, Paul Lichterman (1996) observesthat local Green organizations established a culture of shared personalismthat emphasized “ways of speaking or acting which highlight a unique,




personal self” (p. 6). According to Lichterman, shared personalism did nottrivialize or degrade political engagement. Instead,

By creating an alternative identity as “Green” . . . they (sic) sent a message tothe wider society about the interrelation of environmental and social problems.But they not only created a new identity, they practiced a sense of obligationthat they hoped, over a long haul, would produce change in the spectrum ofpublic debate and eventually in policy outcomes. (Pp. 65-66)

In short, personal expression and political activism proved mutuallyreinforcing.

What metaphor can frame these highly individual forms of postmodernpolitical action? Perhaps the metaphor of a re-created American nation bearsdiscussion. Indeed, current debates about multiculturalism and Americannational identity (Schlesinger 1992; Hollinger 1995; Rhea 1997) do verymuch resemble the debates about personal exploration, self-development,and identity transformation that now preoccupy many American citizens.Therefore, creating a new American nation may come closest to capturingAmerican personal experience in the postmodern culture of technology. Itmay thus be the most promising metaphor for rebuilding the relationshipbetween citizens and government in the United States.

Moreover, personal identity and national identity are intertwined. Unlessthere exists a unified American people, the citizen’s personal quest may fail.Postmodern Americans depend on a foundation of collective solidarity tosupport their personal explorations. Greater national unity would alleviatesome of the anxiety inherent in postmodern personal explorations. A govern-mental metaphor of national re-creation might therefore invite more partici-pation by Americans. In this way, it might be possible for postmodern techno-logical culture to vitalize democratic politics in America.

Yet, when all is said and done, I do not believe these suggestions are likelyto bear fruit. There is no evidence that either the educational system or thepolitical system will adopt these or comparable ideas. Even were schools toact, education alone is insufficient to create major effects on technologicalcultures. Only if school experiences are complemented by changes in every-day life would there be a permanent effect on postmodern technological cul-ture. Yet there is no reason to expect any such transformation. Finally, with-out specific innovative policies, a new metaphor for government will havelittle effect on citizens. Devising a new metaphor is comparatively easy;advancing policies to make the metaphor real is difficult. There are simply nopostmodern governmental equivalents to such modernist agencies as the U.S.Corps of Engineers, the Rural Electrification Administration, or the Civilian




Conservation Corps. A reasonable conclusion, therefore, is that the problemsthat postmodern technological culture presents to American democracy arelikely to persist for the foreseeable future.

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Richard M. Merelman is a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research concentrates on culture and politics. His books include Repre-senting Black Culture (1995) and Partial Visions: Culture and Politics in Britain, Canada,and the United States. He is presently writing a case study of academic political dis-course in American political culture.




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