Questioning Technology: A Critical Anthology by John Zerzan
Zerzan and Carnes had assembled some of the most important critical appraisals of technology written to the date of its publication in 1991 with this book. Lewis Mumford, Jacques Ellul, Langdon Winner, Joseph Weizenbaum, Carolyn Merchant, Morris Berman, George Bradford, Jerry Mander, Stanley Diamond, Russel Means and many others offer a searing indictment of technology and its catastrophic social effects. Almost all of these essays or excerpts have appeared elsewhere, but this single text has collected many of the essential topics and critiques levied from some of the greatest critics of technoculture.
Contents:
PART I: TECHNOLOGY: IT'S HISTORY AND OUR FUTURE
Question 1. How has technology developed - or encroached? Are the computer, nuclear power, and recombinant DNA comparable to the wheel, the printing press, and gunpowder - or do they represent an entirely new order?
1. Authoritarian and Democratic Technics by Lewis Mumford
2. Computer Power and Human Reason by Joseph Weizenbaum
3. The Silicon Idol by Michael Shallis
Question 2. Was there a point in history when technology came to dominate the individual? How could this have happened?
4. In Search of the Primitive by Stanley Diamond
5. The Death of Nature by Carolyn Merchant
6. The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul
Question 3. How has industrial technology adversely affected individuals, societies, and the planet as a whole?
7. We All Live in Bhopal by George Bradford
8. The High Cost of High Tech: The Dark Side of the Chip by Lenny Siegal and John Markoff
9. The Re-enchantment of the World - I by Morris Berman
Question 4. What is the future of human culture with respect to technology? Is there a solution to the reality of being diminished by high tech?
10. Civilization Is Like a Jetliner by T. Fulano
11. Fighting Words on the Future of the Earth by Russell Means
12. An End to Technology by Sally Gearhart
13. The Re-enchantment of the World - II by Morris Berman
PART II: COMPUTERS AND THE INFORMED INDIVIDUAL
Question 5. Are computers a force for increased individual autonomy - or a route to a new totalitarianism?
14. The Rise of the Computer State by David Burnham
15. The Conquest of Will: Information Processing in Human Affairs by Abbe Mowoshowitz
16. Housebound by Joan Howe
17. Technostress by Craig Brod
Question 6. Some in the Artificial Intelligence field claim that soon computers will not only think but also feel and possess consciousness. What are the implications of such staggering claims?
18. Of Two Minds by Patrick Huyghe
19. The Biology of Computer Life by Geoff Simons
20. What Computers Can't Do by Hubert L. Dreyfus
Question 7. What does one learn from interaction with a computer? How does it affect relationships with people?
21. The Heart of a New Machine by Gregg Easterbrook
22. Technostress by Craig Brod
23. The Technological Threat to Education by Robert J. Sardello
24. Man Bytes Dog by James Gorman
PART III: TECHNOLOGY: THE WEB OF LIFE?
Question 8. Contemporary society can be described in phrases like "Information Age" and "global communications network". What do the "information" and "comunications" consist of?
25. The Implosion of Meaning in the Media and the Implosion of the Social in the Masses by Jean Baudrillard
26. Mythinformation by Langdon Winner
27. Who Knows: Information in the Age of the Fortune 500 by Herbert I. Schiller
Question 9. How - and how effectively - is the technological outcome of science regulated? Is there some research and development that should be off-limits?
28. Overskill: The Decline of Technology in Modern Civilization by Eugene S. Schwartz
29. Technology - Humanism or Nihilism by Gregory H. Davis
30. Politics and the Restraint of Science by Leonard A. Cole
31. Saturn and Scientism by T. Fulano
Question 10. Is technology "neutral"?
32. Industrialism and Domestication by John Zerzan and Paula Zerzan
33. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander
34. Electronic Illusions: A Skeptic's View of Our High Tech Future by Ian Reinecke
35. The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul
Questioning Technology: A Critical Anthology by John Zerzan
Zerzan and Carnes had assembled some of the most important critical appraisals of technology written to the date of its publication in 1991 with this book. Lewis Mumford, Jacques Ellul, Langdon Winner, Joseph Weizenbaum, Carolyn Merchant, Morris Berman, George Bradford, Jerry Mander, Stanley Diamond, Russel Means and many others offer a searing indictment of technology and its catastrophic social effects. Almost all of these essays or excerpts have appeared elsewhere, but this single text has collected many of the essential topics and critiques levied from some of the greatest critics of technoculture.
Contents:
PART I: TECHNOLOGY: IT'S HISTORY AND OUR FUTURE
Question 1. How has technology developed - or encroached? Are the computer, nuclear power, and recombinant DNA comparable to the wheel, the printing press, and gunpowder - or do they represent an entirely new order?
1. Authoritarian and Democratic Technics by Lewis Mumford
2. Computer Power and Human Reason by Joseph Weizenbaum
3. The Silicon Idol by Michael Shallis
Question 2. Was there a point in history when technology came to dominate the individual? How could this have happened?
4. In Search of the Primitive by Stanley Diamond
5. The Death of Nature by Carolyn Merchant
6. The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul
Question 3. How has industrial technology adversely affected individuals, societies, and the planet as a whole?
7. We All Live in Bhopal by George Bradford
8. The High Cost of High Tech: The Dark Side of the Chip by Lenny Siegal and John Markoff
9. The Re-enchantment of the World - I by Morris Berman
Question 4. What is the future of human culture with respect to technology? Is there a solution to the reality of being diminished by high tech?
10. Civilization Is Like a Jetliner by T. Fulano
11. Fighting Words on the Future of the Earth by Russell Means
12. An End to Technology by Sally Gearhart
13. The Re-enchantment of the World - II by Morris Berman
PART II: COMPUTERS AND THE INFORMED INDIVIDUAL
Question 5. Are computers a force for increased individual autonomy - or a route to a new totalitarianism?
14. The Rise of the Computer State by David Burnham
15. The Conquest of Will: Information Processing in Human Affairs by Abbe Mowoshowitz
16. Housebound by Joan Howe
17. Technostress by Craig Brod
Question 6. Some in the Artificial Intelligence field claim that soon computers will not only think but also feel and possess consciousness. What are the implications of such staggering claims?
18. Of Two Minds by Patrick Huyghe
19. The Biology of Computer Life by Geoff Simons
20. What Computers Can't Do by Hubert L. Dreyfus
Question 7. What does one learn from interaction with a computer? How does it affect relationships with people?
21. The Heart of a New Machine by Gregg Easterbrook
22. Technostress by Craig Brod
23. The Technological Threat to Education by Robert J. Sardello
24. Man Bytes Dog by James Gorman
PART III: TECHNOLOGY: THE WEB OF LIFE?
Question 8. Contemporary society can be described in phrases like "Information Age" and "global communications network". What do the "information" and "comunications" consist of?
25. The Implosion of Meaning in the Media and the Implosion of the Social in the Masses by Jean Baudrillard
26. Mythinformation by Langdon Winner
27. Who Knows: Information in the Age of the Fortune 500 by Herbert I. Schiller
Question 9. How - and how effectively - is the technological outcome of science regulated? Is there some research and development that should be off-limits?
28. Overskill: The Decline of Technology in Modern Civilization by Eugene S. Schwartz
29. Technology - Humanism or Nihilism by Gregory H. Davis
30. Politics and the Restraint of Science by Leonard A. Cole
31. Saturn and Scientism by T. Fulano
Question 10. Is technology "neutral"?
32. Industrialism and Domestication by John Zerzan and Paula Zerzan
33. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander
34. Electronic Illusions: A Skeptic's View of Our High Tech Future by Ian Reinecke
35. The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul
