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Network, Utopia and Fetishism

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Pierre Musso and the Network Society

Part of the book series: Philosophy of Engineering and Technology ((POET,volume 27))

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Abstract

Filipa Subtil and Pedro Xavier Mendonça analyses the technicizing impact of networks on the idea of communication and the influence of the network ideal on the current direction of technology in the service of power and economic advantage. Communication networks, in the Saint-Simonian ideal of the technical network, reduce the distances between classes and peoples, in that they involve people and society. The operation of democracy, itself inherent in and driven by networks, allows this process to take place, as a symbol and vehicle for democracy and equality. Subtil and Mendonça draw on the development of the media to illustrate how the information revolution made possible by networks has become the axis of a new capitalism, and stress the significance of three factors: the consolidation of nations with the introduction of the telegraph; the standardization and industrialization of news procedures; and the institutionalization of the press as an engine of power and economic intervention.

With the computer and micro-computing, social life has expanded and knowledge have become disseminated, and the Saint-Simonian ideal of world networks has acquired concrete form in the new era of information. Subtil and Mendonça see this trend in Michel Chevalier. While pointing out that there is no straight line from the Saint-Simonian tradition of technical networks to the current shape of technology as an instrument for seeking power and profit, they demonstrate how the libertarian and liberal ideal present in Saint-Simonianism in the person of Chevalier enables (and advocates) information capitalism.

The irreducible nature of the relationship between technical and political networks is explained by the allusion to a technological utopianism of the Promethean type and by consumption. The utopian disposition is the representational aspect of network dynamics, reflecting the projection of an ideal and the search for its realization. In combining the imaginary and realization, involving individual persons in the attraction of their promises, the network lends itself to idolatry as a symbol of social change and acquires ideological content. The cult of networks and the technological sublime reflect the idea that technology is sufficient unto itself as a political goal.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See also Flichy (2007) who applies this connection between imagery and its technical realisation to the birth of the Internet.

  2. 2.

    In addition to Le Producteur, which was published from June 1825 to the end of 1826, there was also L’Organisateur, which was first published in August 1829, and Le Globe: Journal de la Doctrine Saint-Simonienne, published between 1830 and 1832.

  3. 3.

    Perhaps the archetypical case of this type of journalism was the “muckraking” movement, a journalistic trend that unreservedly described the social, political and economic transformations affecting culture in general. It publicly denounced scandals and social injustices, concentrating on the poverty in the suburbs of the large cities, on factory working conditions, child labour, etc. For more on this type of journalism, see Emery, Emery and Roberts (2001 [1984]: 223–226) and Eksterowicz, Roberts and Clark (2003 [1998]: 91).

  4. 4.

    The word “telecommunication” was first used by in 1900 by Edouard Estaunié, a telegraph engineer.

  5. 5.

    Public opinion in the United States in the wake of the global events of the 1940s was strongly supportive of scientific research, which was considered essential as a means of finding solutions to almost all problems. North American public opinion identified long-distance technologies as “technologies of freedom” (Breton 1987).

  6. 6.

    This term derives from the combination of the French words information and automatique, and was coined by Philippe Dreyfus in 1962. In 1966 the French Academy recognised it with the following definition: “Science of the rational treatment, in particular by automatic machines of information considered as the support of human knowledge and communication in technical, economic and social matters”.

  7. 7.

    The ground for informatics was also well prepared by the development of mechanography, invented by Hermann Hollerith, founder of the company that went on to be called IBM. This technique sought to mechanise the collection and treatment of statistical and accounting data and, more generically, of all the social and economic information produced. The perforated cards used as the data medium benefited from being universal, which earned it significant – albeit temporary – success. Despite its ubiquity, mechanographic machines soon proved impractical when faced with the exponential growth of requirements.

  8. 8.

    In 1962 IBM was responsible for 65.8 % of global computer production (Breton 1987: 198).

  9. 9.

    For this concept we use the framework proposed by Schutz (1970) in terms of the different meanings of the term “rational”. Here we refer to the ideas of logical thought and planning. Consequently, the not fully rationalisable falls into the sphere of the illogical because it is emotional, incalculable and unpredictable.

  10. 10.

    There is a long tradition of critical reflections contending contemporary technology is the embodiment (and at the same time an infringement of) utopia: see Zamyatin (1983 [1924]); Orwell (1961 [1949]); Huxley (1998 [1932], 2000 [1958]); Jacques Ellul (1973); Hans Jonas (1985 [1981]); Leo Marx (2000); James W. Carey (1992 [1983]). We should note there is another current of authors that embody utopia – e.g. McLuhan (1997 [1964]) and Lévy (2000).

  11. 11.

    See Winner (2006).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Communication and Media Studies, Lisbon Polytechnic Institute, Lisbon, Portugal

    Filipa Subtil

  2. School of Business Communication-EFAP, Lisbon, Portugal

    Pedro Xavier Mendonça

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  1. Filipa Subtil
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  2. Pedro Xavier Mendonça
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Correspondence to Filipa Subtil .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    José Luís Garcia

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Subtil, F., Mendonça, P.X. (2016). Network, Utopia and Fetishism. In: Garcia, J. (eds) Pierre Musso and the Network Society. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 27. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45538-9_3

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