Some social implications of modern technology.

In this article, technology is understood as a social process in which technology itself (i.e. the technical apparatus composed of industry, transport and communications), is only a partial factor. We will not question the influence of technology on human individuals. This is because men are both an integral part and a factor of technology, and this not only because they invent machines or work with them, but because they constitute the social groups which direct its implementation. and its application. Technology, as a mode of production, as the set of instruments, devices and devices that define the era of the machine,

Technology itself can promote authoritarianism as much as freedom, scarcity as much as abundance, the expansion of labor as much as its abolition. National Socialism is a vivid example of how a highly rational and mechanized economy achieving the highest productivity can also function in the interests of totalitarian oppression and the perpetuation of scarcity. The Third Reich is indeed a form of "technocracy": the technical considerations inherent in imperialist rationality and efficiency supplant the traditional criteria of profit and collective well-being. In National Socialist Germany, the reign of terror is not based solely on brute force, itself foreign to technology, but also on ingenious manipulations of the power inherent in technology: the intensification of labor, propaganda, the training of youth and workers, the organization of governmental, industrial and party bureaucracies - which constitute the daily apparatus of terror - all meet the requirements of the highest technological efficiency. This terrorist technocracy cannot be attributed to the exceptional imperatives of the war economy. On the contrary, it is the natural state of National Socialist social and economic shaping, shaping of which technology is one of the main stimuli. industrialists and the party - which constitute the daily apparatus of terror - all meet the imperatives of the highest technological efficiency. This terrorist technocracy cannot be attributed to the exceptional imperatives of the war economy. On the contrary, it is the natural state of National Socialist social and economic shaping, shaping of which technology is one of the main stimuli. industrialists and the party - which constitute the daily apparatus of terror - all meet the imperatives of the highest technological efficiency. This terrorist technocracy cannot be attributed to the exceptional imperatives of the war economy. On the contrary, it is the natural state of National Socialist social and economic shaping, shaping of which technology is one of the main stimuli.

In the course of the technological process, a new rationality and a new model of individuality has spread within society, different from (and even opposed to) those who initiated the march of technology. These transformations are not a direct or indirect consequence of mechanization on its users or of mass production on consumers; rather, they are themselves determining factors in the development of mechanization and mass production. In order to fully understand the full significance of these transformations, it is necessary to briefly delve into the essence of rationality as well as the model of individuality subject to dissolution in the current stage of the Machine Age.

The human individual that the representatives of the revolution of the middle class consecrated as the ultimate unity and the end of society carried within him values in stark contradiction to those which have taken over today's society. If we tried to bring together a single concept of the different religious, political and economic currents that forged the notion of the individual in the 16th and 17th centuries, we could define this individual as the subject of a certain number of norms and standards. values over which no external authority should have control. These norms and values relate to the most suitable forms of social and personal life for the full development of human capacities and faculties. As a result, they constituted the “truth” of his individual and social existence. It was considered that any individual, as a rational being, was capable of discovering these forms of life by his own thought and that once this freedom of thought had been acquired he was capable of directing his action with a view to their actualization. The task devolved on society was then to guarantee these freedoms to the individual and to remove the obstacles to his rational action.

The principle of individualism, the pursuit of individual interests, was implied by the idea that individual interests were rational, that is, they were the result of autonomous thinking, they were guided and controlled by it. This rational individual interest did not coincide with the immediate interest of the individual who, for his part, depended on the norms and demands of the prevailing social order, which order did not find its origin in autonomous thought and consciousness. , but well in the external authority. In the context of radical Puritanism, the principle of individualism thus placed the individual in opposition to society. Men had to shatter the system of received ideas and norms in order to find and seize those which conformed to their rational interest. They had to live in a state of constant vigilance, worry and criticism in order to reject the false and the irrational. In a society still irrational and founded on false principles, such a free man's attitude criticizing the established order, seeking to discover the truth and to apply it, constituted in itself a principle of agitation and opposition. This theme has never been so well illustrated as in this picture by Milton of “(…) a race of deceivers, who (…) took the virgin Truth, cut her beauty into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. Always since this time the tearful friends of the Truth, at least those who dared to show themselves, imitating this careful quest of Isis to find the mutilated body of Osiris, went and came gathering one member after another as they found them. Such was the principle of individual rationality.

The concrete realization of individualism presupposed an adequate economic and social context, that is to say an environment adapted to individuals whose work would be largely responsible for their social success. Liberal society was considered to be such a framework for individualism. In the sphere of free competition, the tangible achievements of the individual, who made his products and his actions ( performances) part of the very needs of society, were the mark of his individuality. Over time, however, the process of producing goods came to undermine the economic foundations on which individual rationality was built. Mechanization and rationalization have forced the weaker competitors under the domination of giant mechanized enterprises which, by achieving the domination of nature by man, have abolished the free economic subject.

The principle of economic return favors companies with the most mechanized and rationalized industrial equipment. Technological power tends to the concentration of economic power, to the constitution of "vast production units, large corporate enterprises producing enormous quantities of goods of an often astonishing variety, industrial empires which own materials, equipment and materials. from production from the extraction of raw materials to the distribution of finished products, from entire industrial sectors dominated by a few giant companies (…) ”. Technology "steadily increases power in the hands of giant corporations through the creation of new tools, processes and products". Efficiency calls for complete unification and simplification, the elimination of all "loss" and all detour: it calls for radical coordination. There is, however, a contradiction between the incentive to profit which guarantees the smooth running of the device and the increase in the standard of living allowed by this same device. “As production is in the hands of profit-seeking entrepreneurs, they will have available surpluses after payment of rent, interest, labor and other costs. These costs will of course be kept as low as possible ”.In these circumstances, the most profitable operation of the apparatus dictates to a very large extent the quantity, form and type of goods produced. Within such a mode of production and distribution, the power of the apparatus profoundly affects the thinking of those it serves.

Under the impact of this apparatus,, individual rationality was transformed into technological rationality. This is by no means confined to the subjects and objects of big business, but characterizes the surrounding thought and even the various forms of protest and revolt. This rationality establishes standards of judgments and favors in the individual the acceptance and interiorization of the dictates of the apparatus.

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Some social implications of modern technology.

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