30
ECOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
The (computer) revolution has only just begun, but already it’s
starting to overwhelm us. It’s outstripping our capacity to cope,
antiquating
our
laws,
transforming
our
mores,
reshuffling
our
economy, reordering our priorities, redefining our workplaces and
making
us
sit
for
long
periods
in
front
of
computer
screens....Everything from media to medicine, from data to dating has
been radically transformed by a tool invented barely 50 years ago. It’s
the Big Bang of our time.24
Such narratives present the idea of ‘technology5 as a self-driven force within
‘humanity5 which can shape or level a social world with the same power as a
giant meteor. For the technological determinist, it is not economic or political
institutions which reshape our practices of media, medicine, economy, law,
and morality: It is the autonomous and unstoppable ‘advance5 of ‘technology5
which demands that we either get ‘wired5 or get wasted.
By regarding technology as a general ‘human5 force or a universal
dragon, we fail to locate specific institutions which design, finance, and deploy
harmful technological practices. Too often, no one is to blame when a
technology goes wrong. Instead, each ecological disaster is portrayed as a case
of technology out of control. Or, worse, when we do identify individuals or
institutions as accountable for disaster, our analysis often remains too narrow:
when the Exxon Valdez spilled its lethal tons of oil, the drunk driver of the oil
rig was identified as the guilty party rather than the broader institutions of
capital and state apparatuses which stress and regulate workers and natural
processes for profit. When we blame technology in general, not only do we
fail to identify corporations who financed the technology, but we fail to
identify the state who granted the patent, and subsidized the corporation,
excluding citizens from the decision making process.
The truth is, talking about technology is often an excuse for not talking
about institutionalized power It is often an excuse for not talking about the
specific ways that institutions such as corporations and the state collude in
shaping technologies that are socially and ecologically unjust. It is an excuse
for not talking about the lack of real democracy. And what do we gain by
talking about ‘technology5 instead of talking about capitalism and the state? We
comfort
ourselves
with
the
romantic
illusion
of
being
institutionally
oppositional when in fact, we actually support capitalism by providing new
opportunities for corporations to diversify their markets by creating ‘soft5, ‘low
impact5, and ‘environmental friendly5 technological alternatives for the rich
which exist alongside of the really dangerous ones.
We cannot fight social institutions merely by critiquing social mediums, or
die material expressions of culture. Just as art and language represent social