Questions concerning technology and anarchism

[claptonpond]

Michelaccio said:

I understood the relevance and why you made the point, of course. I just don't think that it renders the argument AT was making moot. Yes, there would have been a lower survival rate in the past, but still, if those that survived were treated and behaved as equals, this raises some interesting questions about the difference between tech-less and technomaniacal societies, and the assumptions that most people make about everything being better through technology. That's all.

Yeah, but it's not just survival, is it? There've been plenty of medical advances that have improved quality of life (difficult as that is to measure).

Returning to my original example, I'm pretty sure that being able to see properly improves my quality of life, regardless of whether a tech-less society would find ways to compensate for my myopia and still treat me as an equal. I'd rather be able to see and be treated as an equal, than not be able to see and still be treated as an equal.

That's why I brought in the examples that I did--again, not to dispute your point specifically, but to call into question the assumption that given the advantages of modern medicine/technology, the weakest and most defenseless in society (such as children) are much better off in the contemporary West than ever before. I just don't see it. In fact, I think that many children who might well have been healthy in previous generations are not today--the skyrocketing obesity among children being one example, and the shameless rampant drugging of children by the medical profession being another. Just heard on the radio the other day that the epidemic of childhood obesity in the US is so bad that it's now considered possible that this generation of young people will actually experience a decrease in life expectancy, possibly of up to 5 years.

I've never claimed that technology is always good and that we should accept it all uncritically. However, I do dispute the primitivists' claim that we can't get rid of the bad technologies without getting rid of the whole lot - that we can't throw out the bathwater and keep the baby. It's a load of Manichaean bollocks.

Besides which, do you attribute your examples solely to technology? Because I'd be more inclined to attribute them to capitalist social relations (and the effect that those social relations have on the way we use technology).

In short, it's class.

[freeland of allers]

i don't think technologie is a problem(hence an issue)...
However the way we use it, is..this come back to say are we wise enought to keep under control what we have created?:
Terminator seeds is a good exemple of it,you are a farmer you grow you crops you get the fruit(of your labor) but you are not able to replant it (it won't grow anyway)...
really the minds behind this technology only went down to ultimate profits...bad move,really technologie is not a problem, profits is, greed and power. that's the issue behind technologies.

[claptonpond]

Fuck it, I'd almost finished replying and accidentally hit reset. Lets try that again...

Michelaccio said:

You can try to reduce that to class if you like, but I don't think that it works (not that class is irrelevant, I just don't think that it can be reduced to that). Specifically with the happy pills being handed out, it's a free for all. It's not a case of the rich using them to control the poor--it's millions of people trying to take the edge off of an increasingly fast-paced and blurred life. If anything, I would guess that middle-class kids are more drugged than working-class kids, and likewise with the parents. It's all very Huxleyian.

It is indeed Huxleyian. I think your class analysis is a bit dodgy though: The 'middle class' are really just a slightly better-off section of the working class - they still have to sell their labour power to survive, rather than living off investments or property holdings.

In any case, I don't think the ruling class explicitly use drugs to control the workers or anything, but it's still (mostly) down to class - the workers take drugs to deal with the alienation caused by class society (having to sell their labour power and having the product of their labour taken from them). I don't think class is the only factor, but I do think it's the primary one.

Fair enough, you never claimed that, and I should have made it clear that I was making a general point. Just as I hope that your point was a general one about primitivism--as you may recall, I've said before that I'm not after shutting down the medical schools, and there's no point in banning technology, as it cannot be uninvented.

Okay, but would you actually call yourself a primitivist?

I think that the question is where you locate the roots of the problems, the problems we both wish to overcome. You see them in class, and I see them in the approach of humanity to nature. Once we get past the straw men arguments that really pertain more to extreme pro- or anti-tech positions than to your position or my position, I think that's where the real difference lies.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. (Of course, it's just that your class analysis is shit. )

I agree that abolishing class differences is a good thing, but I wonder whether that becomes more difficult in a high tech society with increasing degrees of specialization and division of labor. What are your thoughts on that?

I think it probably is more difficult, yes. I don't think it's impossible though. And if you want to get rid of specialisation and division of labour, that'll mean shutting down the medical schools. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Also, if as you seem to imply, tech is a neutral tool that can be used for good or ill, and is primarily used for ill because of capitalist social relations, what do you envision the role of technological advancement being in a classless society, and would there be any controls over the development of technology in a classless society?

In a classless society, new tech would be designed without the profit motive, and the need to keep the workers in line, so it should generally be more positive. There may still be problems with some existing tech, but that'd gradually sort itself out as we developed alternatives. There may have to be some controls, but they'd be decided on a communal basis along with all the other rules.

[workerscommunes]

Hi AT,better late than never eh?

Anarchic said:

You say that the disadvantaged wouldn't have the independance, autonomy and freedom that certain tecnologies could and do provide for them. But this assumes that 1) the disadvantaged have those technologies now, and 2) that the tech provides those things.

I assume nothing, just observe. Some, not all, of those who have a physical disabilities such as short-sightedness have technologies like contact-lenses which allow for greater 'independance, autonomy and freedom'. That is ann observable fact and I don't understand why you seem to be trying to refute it.

Anarchic said:

They could, but would they?

Well why wouldn't they? It would be the most rational and benevolent course of action to have the 'strong' look after the 'weak' if there existed no means for the 'weak' to look after themselves. I think this kind of hierachy would be almost inevitable without certain technologies.

Anarchic said:

Most primitivists that I know of are vegans, so er... what was your point again?

Jesus...my very simple point was that primitivism would be workable in some places but not others. Britain does not have enough wildlife or natural vegetation anymore to support sixty million people, vegan or otherwise. What are you proposing we live on, especially those of us in urban areas?

Anarchic said:

Well I can't speak for the primitivists I guess, but I reckon you ought chase rats down the docks all morning ;D

Well that's one suggestion...but what might a primitivist of a less sarcastic disposition propose?

Anarchic said:

Your first questions are based on the idea that technology reduces inequality and I must dispute this more than I can agree with it. (See global village thread)
From the afore mentioned thread I see that the suprises come from the lack of computers and college education. Yet you city dwellers don't see too bothered by the fact that we would all have 6 acres of land. And I'm the crazy one? Oh well, all the more for us I guess, enjoy your rats

I do not assume that technology does reduce inequality, I just observe that it can, mainly by aiding those with disabilities or illnesses of some kind (though most of the time it doesn't). Michelaccio, Clapton Pond and I seem to agree on this point to one extent or another and recognise that it is a potential problem for low-tech societies. You still seem to be clinging to the idea that science/tech is pointless.

And the rats were delicious thankyou, I saved you a snout.

[claptonpond]

Michelaccio said:

Well, I wasn't really trying to do much of a class analysis, there, to be honest. The point I was trying to make was that this sort of drugging of the population is widespread throughout the classes. Class analysis is quite helpful for explaining why there is a bullshit drug war in the US, for example, but I don't think that it's terribly helpful in explaining why tens of millions of people, irrespective of class, are taking happy pills. That's all that I meant, though admittedly I phrased it in a clumsy sort of way.

I think the drug-taking's a symptom of the alienation that comes from capitalist social relations, and that affects all classes to some degree (but mostly the working class), so I do think class analysis is relevant. Of course primitivists would say the alienation is inherent in tech, or civilisation (or even symbolic thought!) rather than capitalist social relations...

But let me get this straight—are you suggesting that in order to be a primitivist, one has to believe in banning technology, or even believe somehow that technology can be uninvented? If that's the caricature of primitivist thought that you're carrying around, it's no wonder you feel the way that you do about primitivism in general.

Not quite. I think that in order to be a primitivist you have to at least believe that it would be desirable to live without tech if that were possible, or that we'd be better off if tech had never been invented. I get the impression that's not actually your position. Having a critique of tech doesn't necessarily make you a primitivist.

I'm more saying that Western civilization cannot be made sustainable because its built-in approach is one of domination, control and exploitation of natural resources, and those resources are finite. You can put off the day of reckoning, but in the end, from my point of view, it cannot be avoided so long as we approach the planet this way (and we may already be past the point of no return, for that matter).

So how would you define Western civilisation exactly? It would be helpful if I knew exactly what it is I'm defending here...

I'm not terribly optimistic that we're going to avoid that collapse in the long run, but if I were a resigned and defeated pessimist I wouldn't be engaging any of you guys. I'm just looking for my bearings like anyone else who isn't comforted by ideology in the face of what's going on these days.

Western civilisation seems to be pretty adaptable (and so does capitalism, for that matter), so I'm not really that pessimistic. But I'm not particularly optimistic either, and even if we do avoid collapse, we've done a lot of irreversible damage already.

Yes, I admit it's a problem. Striking a balance between the need for some specialization and the desire to break down hierarchy is not a cut and dry thing, much as some people would like it to be. But the more techno-fetishist a society is, the bigger the problem will be, precisely because none of us can have our cake and eat it, too.

I'm not so sure about that. I mean our current rulers aren't exactly technocrats, are they? If anything, they're generalists.

I was curious to see how you'd answer that one. Because if there are no controls, and technology proceeds of its own pace, then it's really hard to prevent a hierarchy forming with those in the know at the top. Given that technology advances exponentially, that threat continues to grow exponentially with it. That's why I see technophile types like Chomsky and Albert as living in a dreamworld.

We're already way past the point where any individual can be an expert in all the important tech, so who gets to be at the top of that hierarchy? I think it just makes us all more interdependent. In fact, I think that's a large part of what frightens primitivists - they fetishise independence, and they see any loss of independence as automatically leading to hierarchy, whereas it can just as easily lead to a network of interdependent equals.

And if technology is to be controlled, then the only way to even begin trying to do it in a non-hierarchical way is precisely the way that you described, but of course, that approach presumes quite a lot about the benevolence of human nature--for example, that communities with higher tech wouldn't go after "weaker" low-tech communities.

The only reason I can see for that happening would be if the low-tech community had control of some scarce resource and was unwilling to share it. I'm sure compromise would be possible in the vast majority of cases. But anyway, the alternative would be for everyone to choose to give up tech, which (as you've already acknowledged) simply isn't going to happen.

But honestly, do you really think that the advance of technology can be controlled? It seems to me that tech has humanity more in its grip than the other way around. I mean, we really don't start the ethical debates about how to use a particular technological advance until it's already inevitable that that advance is going to happen. That's part of the game with high tech—most people have no idea what's in the pipeline, not just because they're cut out of the loop, as it were, but also because the people in the loop don't exactly know, either.

The only way to control the advance of technology would be to control the people who are making it happen (and it is people that make it happen, it doesn't happen by itself). Isn't that precisely what we're trying to avoid?

I'm off to Tunisia for a week, so I'm gonna be even slower than usual in replying.

BTW, have you seen the 'technology is neutral' thread on enrager? There are some interesting ideas in there...

[Anarchic Tribes]

I'm somewhat going off this thread due to the headaches induced by forehaed slapping.

CP, a very cold and simple answer to the dead people issue is that 'I'm not sure I care'.
"Having a critique of tech doesn't necessarily make you a primitivist."
Hope you have good holiday.

WC,
saving me a snout is hardly the strong looking after the weak. More like you got there first and so in your heirarchal rational *cough* benevolent way, you give me the crap, cheers.
Believe it or not there are more dandelions in this country than there are rats. We can eat the leaves, make coffee with the roots and brew the flowers for wine, and then share, equally, whilst laughing at the meatheads eating rats

my very simple point was that primitivism would be workable in some places but not others. Britain does not have enough wildlife or natural vegetation anymore to support sixty million people, vegan or otherwise. What are you proposing we live on, especially those of us in urban areas?

I thought this thread was concerned with technology not primitivism. Britain most certainly does have the natural resources to support 60 million people without the use of technology. If this was does veganically as opposed to 'otherwise' then there'd be plenty to share with others too.

Well that's one suggestion...but what might a primitivist of a less sarcastic disposition propose?

No idea, why don't you ask one.

I do not assume that technology does reduce inequality, I just observe that it can, mainly by aiding those with disabilities or illnesses of some kind (though most of the time it doesn't). Michelaccio, Clapton Pond and I seem to agree on this point to one extent or another and recognise that it is a potential problem for low-tech societies.

To some extent I agree too (though most of the time I don't).

You still seem to be clinging to the idea that science/tech is pointless.

Hmm, we don't seem to be getting very far with this do we.
Well I have a date in technoland, I guess I'll be back to waste some more space later.

[workerscommunes]

Anarchic said:

WC,
saving me a snout is hardly the strong looking after the weak. More like you got there first and so in your heirarchal rational *cough* benevolent way, you give me the crap, cheers.
Believe it or not there are more dandelions in this country than there are rats. We can eat the leaves, make coffee with the roots and brew the flowers for wine, and then share, equally, whilst laughing at the meatheads eating rats

Yes...I think you flower-eaters might have to put up with a bit of giggling in the back too though.

(btw, I've been a vegetarian since I was five and was a vegan for several years. I only started eating eggs and dairy products again because I'm so thin)

My benevolent snout allocation was a joke peace-offering and was unrelated to my comments about strong-weak hierachies (those were about people with disabilities and illness, not food distribution - although that's a whole other can of worms).

Thanks for the cooking suggestions though, that's the sort of answer I've been looking for.

Anarchic said:

I thought this thread was concerned with technology not primitivism.

How were we supposed to discuss anarchist attitudes towards technology without primitivism coming up?

Anarchic said:

Britain most certainly does have the natural resources to support 60 million people without the use of technology. If this was does veganically as opposed to 'otherwise' then there'd be plenty to share with others too.

Maybe for you country-folk. I doubt there are enough dandelion's in Greater London to feed all the millions of people who live there though. They would either have to abandon the city or become dependant on imported food from the countryside which would probably require *sigh* hierachies and technology.

Anarchic said:

No idea, why don't you ask one.

Fair enough *goes off in search of Michelaccio*

Anarchic said:

To some extent I agree too (though most of the time I don't).

Then wtf are we arguing about?

Anarchic said:

Hmm, we don't seem to be getting very far with this do we.

My point exactly. However I'm glad you've now at least addressed some of the questions I've been trying to get an answer to for weeks. I like the dandelion suggestion but still think it would be impractical for city-dwellers.

Thanks for the reply, I'm quite satisfied with that. Enjoy your flowers and forehead slapping!

[Anarchic Tribes]

Cities are pointless ;D

[workerscommunes]

lol you're probably right, but we're stuck with them for the time being!

[claptonpond]

Anarchic said:

CP, a very cold and simple answer to the dead people issue is that 'I'm not sure I care'.

Okay, let me get this straight. You admit that your beliefs, if put into practice, would lead to large numbers of people dying. This doesn't seem to bother you. People eating meat, on the other hand, does seem to bother you.

Have I got completely the wrong end of the stick, or are your priorities really that fucked up?

[claptonpond]

Michelaccio said:

Hi CP, hope you had a nice time in Tunisia.

Yeah, it was wicked thanks.

When I criticize technology, I'm not merely speaking of various technological advances being a problem (although I'm not going to reduce nuclear weapons and eyeglasses to the same category, either) but rather of the technological mindset—the sort of controlling, calculative thought that sets upon the world as an object to man's subject, a resource to be dominated and exploited.

Okay, if that's what you mean when you refer to technology, then I can see where you're coming from. I don't think technology is a particularly good word to use though, because I don't think that mindset is inherent in, or limited to, technology.

If one goes back to the pre-Socratic roots of technology, there was an element of creativity and art that has been stamped out in the modern era.

Indeed. So it's not actually technology you're objecting to, is it?

What I object to is the totalizing and destructive form that technology has taken

under capitalist social relations (and to a lesser extent under feudalism)

, and I think that resistance to that is at the heart of any worthwhile movement or rebellion against the system.

Quite.

My problem with the traditional anarcho-communists has a lot to do with my feeling that the locus of change or revolution should not be restricted to or based on control of productivity, but can and should come from any sort of movement that gives expression to the ecstatic, creative self that resists the totalizing system. Maybe that puts me more in touch with Camatte or the situs than the primitivists or the Zerzan strain of primitivism.

Yeah, I think it probably does. In any case I'd disagree, since that would include all sorts of individualist nonsense that I'd really rather not be associated with (Hakim Bey, crimethInc, etc).

Where I do sympathize directly with primitivism is that there doesn't seem to be any other current strain of thought that is questioning technology from a humanist perspective.

If by technology you mean what you described above, then I think there are plenty of other strains of thought that question it - they just don't call it technology.

I disagree with those who lump anarcho-primitivists in with deep ecologists, for the latter are anti-humanist.

Interesting distinction. A lot of the primitivists I've come across have seemed pretty anti-humanist to me. But perhaps they should have been calling themselves deep ecologists rather than primitivists.

Nice softball question. Pretty hard to define, but since I did throw the term around, let's say for the sake of argument that we're dealing in large part with the Western subject-object dualism that has been such a problem since Descartes, a problem that many thinkers left and right have dealt with for the last few hundred years.

Okay, fair enough. But isn't that dualism necessary in order for the "ecstatic, creative self" you mentioned earlier to exist?

Zen's got problems of its own too, of course...

I have a problem with Zerzan here, because I think that his anthropology is a bit suspect. What's really going on with his fixation on pre-agricultural, pre-linguistic hunter-gather society is his attempt to find a reconciliation of the subject and object, to get beyond that mediation. I just don't see how that would work, personally. I also don't find it necessary—I think that I'd be happy simply to return to pre-Socratic Greece.;D (Not that I'm advocating aping pre-Socratic Greece as a course of action, of course.)

Nice analysis of Zerzan. And yeah, pre-Socratic Greece would probably be alright. Not too sure how we'd get there from here though.

Well, I see how you could say that. It depends on whether you see the revolt against capital as coming primarily from the reorganization of production, or from the irreducible creative element of the self that stands against totalization.

There's that self again, and the dualism that goes with it.

In getting back to the original point I was making here to which you were responding, I'll grant you one point but extract something further from what I was getting at, in order to refine what I was saying. Yes, there is an aspect of interdependence given that we're all in roughly the same boat as far as not being able to master technology alone, and you might call that a network of interdependent equals. But going from that type of interdependent equality to the liberation of people from the mediation of a totalizing system is a big jump if one assumes that liberation means more than all of us just becoming equal cogs. Rather, I would argue that as tech grows exponentially, there is more and more a threat that human beings themselves will be transformed in their essence into nothing more than cogs, subsumed in a system against which they will find it increasingly difficult to stand.

Well we'll never be free from the needs to satisfy our basic physical requirements for survival, so we'll always be cogs in the great totalising system that is nature. However, our own totalising system of technology can help us reduce the overall time spent meeting those needs, thus giving us more time in which to be "ecstatic, creative selves" instead. ;D

[Anarchic Tribes]

CP.
there's a difference between dying and killing. Or are my priorities really that fucked up?

[workerscommunes]

What was so good about pre-Socratic Greece? I thought it tended to revolve around war and slavery much of the time. Or were you just refering to their approach to technology? Bah, most of my knowledge of that period comes Homer, and he's hardly known for his historical accuracy.

Anyway would a person of primitivist leanings (PPL) object to the use of Trojan horses in a combat situation? ;D

[workerscommunes]

Yeah I'd heard about Heidegger's support for Hitler, I think he later tried to excuse it by calling it "a grand experiment which went wrong" or something feeble like that. I quite like some of the guys he tends to be associated with though (other philosophers that is, not nazis!) so yeah I'd be very interested if you have any links or anything.