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ECOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
If Sale were to think socially and politically, rather than romantically,
about the computer he smashes, he might think about how, while it might feel
cathartic to smash the computer, there might be still more oppositional ways in
which to express his sentiments regarding computer technology,28 Rather than
smash the computer with a sledge hammer, were Sale to critique the lack of
economic democracy surrounding the computer industry, he might have
considered the fact that only privileged people gain access to computers, such
as those working at the press which publishes his books. Instead, Sale might
have thought to perhaps share his computer, for instance, with a community
center some forty blocks down in the Lower East Side, called Charas, where
radical activists in the Puerto Rican community are engaged in oppositional
work for social, ecological, and political change. Activists at a non-profit
organization like Charas, who may not be able to afford a costly computer,
might be able to use the machine to publish a newsletter for the activist
community or might use it for some other activist project.
After giving his computer to activists at Charas, Sale could have then
joined his neighborhood association where he could have engaged in a
political debate regarding the social and ecological ethics of computerization
while discussing too, the need for direct democracy. He could have discussed
the need for political forums in which we all may participate in making
decisions regarding an even broader spectrum of social and technological
issues. Rather than point his weapon at the dragon of technology, industrial
society, or mass society, he could have discussed how computer technology is
driven by an undemocratic global capitalist economy. Moreover, he could
have assisted others in understanding how capitalism in general dehumanizes
people and destroys the rest of the natural world. In short, if Kirkpatrick Sale
were to talk about social relationships rather than generalized social media
such as ‘technology’, he would talk about computers in the context of such
institutions as die state, capitalism, racism, and sexism. However, were he to
take such a position, would he have ended up being featured in Wired
magazine?
Each of us must ask ourselves such difficult questions as we enter
discussions concerning technology, or any social medium, for that matter. We
need to constandy ask ourselves: are there necessary pieces of the picture that
we leave out, and why? The fact is, we can often glean more support for
critiquing a social medium such as technology (or for slaying vaporous dragons
such as mass society or industrialism) than for attempting to abolish and
transcend social institutions such as the state or capitalism. We must extend our
critique beyond social mediums because social institutions exist prior to and
independent of such mediums. For example, while merchant and rural factory
capitalism emerged as a dehumanizing system prior to the emergence of