Abstract
Diverse relationships to technology and media are expressed or emerge over time, including hopeful enthusiasm and critical resistance. For all the enthusiastic and critical analyses, there are few extensive histories of the critique of technology. This chapter historicizes critical relationships to technology, which range from detachment and skepticism to implicit resistance and explicit opposition or rejection. Relationships to technology and media have immediate implications for culture, economics, and education, but the focus here is on long-term historical implications. This begins with the spiritual critique of technology and proceeds historically through cultural, social, psychic, ontic, and identity critiques. In the final analysis, questions are raised for educators and researchers: If critique barely changes a thing, including youth consciousness, what is its utility? If it has been enough for criticism and critique to offer a counter to progress narratives, then how effective has this been?
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Ahmed, S. (2006). Queer phenomenology. Durham: Duke University Press.
Ali, A. Y. (1934). The Holy Qur-ān: English translation and commentary (1st ed.). Lahore, PK: Shaik Muhammad Ashraf.
Aristotle. (ca. 330 BCE/2006). Poetics (J. Sachs, Trans.). Newburyport: R. Pullins.
Aśvaghoṣa. (ca. 110 CE/1894). Prince Siddhattha becomes Buddha (T. W. R. Davids, Trans.). In P. Carus (Ed.), The gospel of Buddha (pp. 7–46) Chicago: Open Court.
Augustine. (ca. 413/1909). The city of God (de civitate Dei) (vol. 2) (J. Healey, Trans.). Edinburgh: John Grant.
Ballantyne, T. (1857). The cotton crisis; and how to avert it. British Quarterly Review, 26, 416–448.
Bardhi, F., Eckhardt, G. M., & Arnould, E. J. (2012). Liquid relationship to possessions. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(3), 510–529.
Barnett, G. E. (1926). Chapters on machinery and labor. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 40(2), 209–231.
Baudrillard, J. (2002). The spirit of terrorism and Requiem for the twin towers (C. Turner, Trans.). New York: Verso.
Bauer, M. (Ed.). (1995). Resistance to technology: Nuclear power, information technology and biotechnology. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Beecher, H. W. (1863). American rebellion: Speech. Cowen Tracts, 1–25.
Bokoum, H. (Ed.). (2004). The origins of iron metallurgy in Africa: New light on its antiquity: West and Central Africa. Paris: UNESCO.
Burgmann, V. (2003). Power profit and protest: Australian social movements and globalisation. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwyn.
Bynum, C. W. (1973). The spirituality of regular canons in the twelfth century: A new approach. Mediaevalia et Humanistica, 4, 3–24.
Carlyle, T. (1829, June). Signs of the times. Edinburgh Review, 49, 439–459.
Carson, R. (1962, June 16 23, 30). Silent spring. New Yorker, 35–99, 31–89, 35–67.
Chaucer, J. (1850). The frerers tale. In The works of Geoffrey Chaucer and others being a reproduction in facsimile of the first collected edition 1532 (pp. 112–116). London: Alexander Moring.
Childs, S. T., & Killick, D. (1993). Indigenous African metallurgy: Nature and culture. Annual Review of Anthropology, 22, 317–337.
Chuang, T. (2001). Chuang-tzu: The inner chapters (A. C. Graham, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Hacket.
Confucius. (1883). Analects (J. Legge, Trans.). London: Trubner.
Cook, J. (1770/1893). Captain Cook’s journal during his first voyage round the world made in H.M. Bark “Endeavour” 1768–71. London: Elliot Stock.
Cowan, R. S. (1979). From Virginia Dare to Virginia Slims: Women and technology in American life. Technology and Culture, 20(1), 51–63.
Cuomo, S. (2007). Technology and culture in Greek and Roman antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
d’Alembert, J. R. (1751/1963). Preliminary discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot (R. N. Schwab, Trans.). Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
Diderot, D. (1751/1963). Prospectus. In Preliminary discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot (R. N. Schwab, Trans.). Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
Ellul, J. (1951/1970). The meaning of the city (D. Pardee, Trans.). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Ellul, J. (1954/1964). The technological society (J. Wilkinson, Trans.). New York: Vintage.
Emeagwali, G. T., & Abubakar, N. (1999). Colonialism and African indigenous technology. African Technology Forum, 7(2), 27–30.
Engels, F. (1845/1892). The condition of the working-class in England in 1844 (F. K. Wischnewetzky, Trans.). London: Allen Unwin.
Feenberg, A. (1991). Critical theory of technology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Feenberg, A. (2002). Transforming technology: A critical theory revisited. New York: Oxford University Press.
Forster, E. M. (1947, July 1). On criticism in the arts, especially music. Harper’s Magazine, 9–17.
Fox, N. (2002). Against the machine: The hidden Luddite tradition in literature, art, and individual lives. London: Island Press.
Freud, S. (1910/1916). Leonardo da Vinci: A psychosexual study of an infantile reminiscence (A. A. Brill, Trans.). New York: Moffat, Yard & Company.
Freud, S. (1930). Civilization and its discontents (J. Strachey, Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton.
Gaskell, E. (1848). Mary Barton: Tale of Manchester life. London: Chapman and Hall.
Ghabin, A. (2009). Hisba, arts and craft in Islam. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Gibbon, E. (1781/1802). The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire (Vol. II). London: Frederick Warne.
Habermas, J. (1981a/1984). The theory of communicative action: Reason and the rationalization of society. Vol. 1 (T. McCarthy, Trans.). Boston: Beacon.
Habermas, J. (1981b/1987). The theory of communicative action: Lifeworld and system: A critique of functionalist reason. Vol. 2 (T. McCarthy, Trans.). Boston: Beacon.
Haraway, D. J. (1985). A cyborg manifesto: Science, technology and socialist-feminism in the late twentieth century. In Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of nature (pp. 149–181). New York: Routledge.
Harding, S. (1986). The instability of the analytical categories of feminist theory. Signs, 11(4), 645–664.
Hays, D. A. (1905). Automatic machinery. In Proceedings of the glass bottle blowers’ association of the United States and Canada (pp. 27–33). Camden: C. S. McGrath.
Hegel, G. (1807/1910). The phenomenology of mind [spirit], Vol. 1 (J. B. Baillie, Trans.). New York: MacMillan.
Heidegger, M. (1927/1953/1996). Being and time (J. Stambaugh, Trans.). New York: SUNY Press.
Heidegger, M. (1954a). Die frage nach der technik. In C. G. Podewils (Ed.), Die künste im technischen zeitalter. Gestalt und Gedanke; Jahrbuch, 4, 70–108.
Heidegger, M. (1954b/1977). The question concerning technology. In The question concerning technology and other essays (W. Lovitt, Ed. & Trans.). New York: Garland.
Heidegger, M. (1955/1966). Discourse on thinking (J. M. Anderson & E. H. Freund, Trans.). New York: Harper & Row.
Heidegger, M. (1957/2002). The onto-theo-logical constitution of metaphysics (J. Stambaugh, Trans.). In Identity and difference (pp. 42–74). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Horkheimer, M. (1947). Eclipse of reason. New York: Oxford University Press.
Horkheimer, M. & Adorno, T. W., (1947). The dialectic of enlightenment. London: Allen and Lane.
Hunter, C. E. (1971). The Delaware nativist revival of the mid-eighteenth century. Ethnohistory, 18(1), 39–49.
Kafka, F. (1917/1975). The city coat of arms (W. Muir & E. Muir, Trans.). In Parables and paradoxes (pp. 37–39). New York: Schocken.
Kant, I. (1781). Critique of pure reason. New York: Harcourt Brace and Co..
Kieschnick, J. (2003). The impact of Buddhism on Chinese material culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kimbell, R., & Stables, K. (2008). Researching design learning: Issues and findings from two decades of research and development. Dordrecht: Springer.
Klein, M. (1923). Infant analysis. In E. Jones (Ed.), Contributions to psycho-analysis, 1921–1945 (pp. 87–116). London: Hogarth.
Knoespel, K. J. (1992). Gazing on technology: Theatrum Mechanorum and the assimilation of Renaissance machinery. In M. Greenberg & L. Schachterle (Eds.), Literature and technology (p. 66). Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press.
Kozinets, R. V. (2008). Technology/ideology: How ideological fields influence consumers’ technology narratives. Consumer Research, 34(6), 865–881.
Latour, B. with Hermant, E. (1998/2006). Paris: Invisible city (L. Carey-Libbrecht, Trans.). Retrieved http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/downloads/viii_paris-city-gb.pdf
Latour, B. (2004). Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern. Critical Inquiry, 30(2), 225–248.
Latour, B. (2005). Critical distance or critical proximity? A dialogue in honor of Donna Haraway. Unpublished manuscript. Retrieved http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/P-113-HARAWAY.pdf
Leiss, W. (1972). The domination of nature. Boston: Beacon.
Lockhart, J. (1993). We people here: Nahuatl accounts of the conquest of Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Long, P. O. (1997). Power, patronage, and the authorship of ars: From mechanical know-how to mechanical knowledge in the last scribal age. Isis, 88(1), 1–41.
Lyotard, J.-F. (1979/1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge (G. Bennington & B. Massumi, Trans.). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Marek, J. (1986). Marxism as product of the age of the steam engine. Studies in Soviet Thought, 32(2), 155–161.
Marsh, G. P. (1867). Man and nature; or, physical geography as modified by human action. New York: Charles Scribner.
Marx, K. (1844a/1970). Critique of Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of right’ (A. Jolin & J. O’Malley, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Marx, K. (1844b/1988). Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844 (M. Milligan, Trans.). Amherst: Prometheus.
Marx, K. (1859/1904). A contribution to the critique of political economy (N. I. Stone, Trans.). Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company.
Marx, L. (1956). The machine in the garden. New England Quarterly, 29(1), 27–42.
Marx, L. (1964). The machine in the garden. New York: Oxford University Press.
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1848/1888). Manifesto of the communist party (S. Moore, Trans.). London: William Reeves.
McLeish, T. (2014). Faith and wisdom in science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mencius. (ca. 350 BCE/1861). The works of Mencius (J. Legge, Trans.). London: Trubner.
Mitcham, C. (1994). Thinking through technology. The path between engineering and philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mitukuni, Y. (1979). The Chinese concept of technology: A historical approach. Acta Asiatica, 36, 49–66.
Morris, W. (1885). Useful work v. useless toil. London: Socialist League.
Muhammad. (ca. 624/1932). The English translation of the Holy Traditions (Hadith) of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Part 1) (M. M. Ilahi, Trans.). Lahore: Ripon Press.
Mytelka, L. K. (1989). The unfulfilled promise of African industrialization. African Studies Review, 32(3), 77–137.
Noble, D. (1997). The religion of technology: The divinity of man and the spirit of invention. New York: Knopf.
Okolo, A. (1983). Dependency in Africa: Stages of African political economy. Alternatives, 9, 229–247.
Ovitt, G. (1986). The cultural context of western technology: Early Christian attitudes toward manual labor. Technology and Culture, 27(3), 477–500.
Petrina, S. (1992). Questioning the language that we use: A reaction to Pannabecker’s critique of the technological impact metaphor. Journal of Technology Education, 4(1), 54–61.
Petrina, S. (2000). The politics of technological literacy. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 10(2), 181–206.
Petrina, S. (2012). The new critiquette and old scholactivism: On academic manners, managers, matters, and freedom. Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor, 20, 17–63.
Petrina, S. (2014). Postliterate machineries. In J. Dakers (Ed.), New frontiers in technological literacy: Breaking with the past (pp. 29–43). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Plato. (ca. 380 BCE/1996). Cratylus (C. D. C. Reeve, Trans.). In J. M. Cooper (Ed.), Plato: Complete works (pp.101–156). Cambridge, MA: Hackett.
Pontiac. (1763/1912). Pontiac manuscript (R. C. Ford, Trans.). In C. M. Burton (Ed.), Journal or narrative of a conspiracy. Detroit: Speaker-Hines.
Rich, A. (1972, November 30). The anti-feminist woman: Review of The New Chastity and Other Arguments Against Women’s Liberation. New York Review of Books, 34–40.
Romany, C. (1991). Ain’t I a feminist? Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, 4(1), 23–33.
Rybcynski, W. (1983). Taming the tiger: The struggle to control technology. New York: Viking Press.
Sahagún, de B. (ca. 1545/1970). Florentine codex: General history of the things of new Spain. Book 1—The gods (A. J. O. Anderson & C. E. Dribble, Trans.). Santa Fe: School of American Research.
Schroeder, H. J. (1937). Disciplinary decrees of the general councils: Text, translation, and commentary. St. Louis: B. Herder.
Shelley, M. W. (1818). Frankenstein; or, the modern Prometheus. London: Colburn and Bentley.
Stern, B. J. (1937). The frustration of technology. Science & Society, 2(1), 3–28.
Stillwell, M. B. (1936). Gutenberg and the Catholicon of 1450: A bibliographical essay. New York: E. B. Hackett.
Stillwell, M. B. (1972). The beginning world of books, 1450–1470. New York: Bibliographical Society of America.
Taylor, F. W. (1911). Shop management. New York: Harper.
Thaxter, C. (1887). Woman’s heartlessness. Audubon Magazine, 1(1), 13–14.
Thayer, W. R. (1894). Leonardo Da Vinci as a pioneer in science. The Monist, 4(4), 507–532.
White, L. (1967, March 10). The historical roots of our ecologic crisis. Science, 155, 1203–1207.
White, L. (1975). Medieval engineering and the sociology of knowledge. Pacific Historical Review, 44(1), 1–21.
Whitney, E. (1990). Paradise restored: The mechanical arts from antiquity through the thirteenth century. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 80(1), 1–169.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Petrina, S. (2017). Critique of Technology. In: Williams, P., Stables, K. (eds) Critique in Design and Technology Education. Contemporary Issues in Technology Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3106-9_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3106-9_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-3104-5
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-3106-9
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)