Technology and our culture

Technology and our culture

The government has long planned to build a nuclear reactor in
Central Java. The plan has stirred some discussions and an
unprecedented public debate is on the government's agenda. Noted
sociologist Ignas Kleden outlines the relationship between
society and the application of technology in a developing
country.

JAKARTA (JP): Technology plays a decisive role in the
development of modern society. This role has developed to the
extent that modern society is sometimes believed to risk
technicalizing social and cultural life.

At a certain point technology stops being technical and
becomes social and cultural. This change takes place when
technology is applied.

Technology is not applied in a social or cultural vacuum, but
in a cultural system and within a social structure. From a
cultural point of view, the introduction of technology into a
social structure will engender shifts at the material base of
society. The shift can change consumptive habits and productive
patterns.

Sociologically, using technology which serves the consumptive
patterns is easier for two reasons.

Firstly, new consumptive patterns take less learning than new
production process. To drive a new car is much easier than to
design a new engine. To buy brown bread is much easier than to
produce it.

Secondly, the introduction of new consumptive patterns does
not, in most cases, exert a direct influence upon the existing
social structure. If we want to consume new rice by importing it
from Thailand, this will not bring about many shifts in the
social structure. If we want to cultivate a new type of rice,
agricultural technology, ground preparation, harvesting
techniques and even harvest agreements must change. This
necessitates a new division of labor and new allocation of
agricultural produce. It therefore changes society.

However, the relationship between technology and society lies
not only in the impact the experts have upon the latter but also
in the sociocultural conditions which fit the application of
technology. Introducing a new culture into a society will get
different responses, depending on how far the new culture is
perceived. Is it perceived as a continuation or the extension of
the existing culture or a discontinuation or a rupture with it?

Theoretically, the more a new culture is seen as a
continuation of the existing culture, the more the participants
are willing to accept the new development. The more the new
influence is at odds with the existing culture, the more likely
it becomes that the people will resist.

This is the reason why it is so important to use traditional
symbols and traditional semantics when introducing modern
technology. One reason the birth control program is so successful
in Indonesia is because the new technology for family planning is
introduced and conveyed through traditional semantics. It relates
modern contraceptive technology to traditional habits. Prof.
Haryono Suyono had a good point at a recent gathering with social
scientists in Yogyakarta at a seminar celebrating the 80th
birthday of Prof. Selo Soemardjan. He said that the success of
the birth-control program in Indonesia is a success for applied
sociology.

However, precisely at this juncture, we are faced with the
ambivalent workings of technology. The meeting of traditional
semantics or traditional symbols with modern technology can
result in two different situations.

First, the application of technology can bring about social
changes which bring people better lives or more problems. Air
conditioners, for example, make the working condition in offices
more comfortable, but, in the long run, they will contribute to
the worsening of ozone conditions which are so dangerous to the
sustenance of life on earth.

Second, the workings of technology depend very much on whether
or not the sociocultural conditions are susceptible or supportive
of the applied technology. Modern printers and computerized
printing technology are a very big technological achievement.
However, whether or not the application of this kind of
technology helps promote reading depends very much on whether or
not writing is treated as a proper substitute for the oral
tradition. It also depends on whether a society relies more on
oral sources than written sources.

If we look at the bus station and railway stations in Jakarta,
we are struck by the fact that there is very little written
information about where to go, which buses or trains to take,
when they depart and what platform to go to. The information can
be obtained only if one asks other passengers or the officials,
if they happen to be around. In other words, if the society is
still an oral society, the application of sophisticated printing
technology will not help much.

Sociologically, technology is a specific way to organize and
apply knowledge and discipline. The amount of expertise and
discipline required are directly proportional to the level of
technological sophistication. This implies: The more simple the
technology, the more errors that are tolerable. The higher the
technology, the fewer errors that are tolerable.

This is quite easy to understand. If something is out of order
in our car, we can stop and try to repair it. But if something is
out order on a plane, this is much more serious and dangerous,
because passengers' lives are at stake.

In other words, the capacity to apply high-tech is measured
against rather negative criterion. The success of its application
is not seen in terms of the ability to deal with technological
sophistication, but rather the capacity to reduce or even
eliminate error. The reason for this is that high-tech, like a
nuclear plant, is laden with high risk. This implies that the
benefit brought by such technology is accompanied by possible
disasters enormously greater than the expected benefit if human
error gets out of control.

The problem which makes technology socioculturally dependent
is that human error is due not only to a lack of expertise, but
also a lack of discipline. Expertise is a technical matter which
should be attributed to technicians. Expertise is something which
people outside the experts's community have very little to say
about.

Discipline, however, is a social matter which has its root in
the mental life of the whole society. The discipline of
individuals depends very much on the discipline of their society.
This is the very reason why we cannot assume that technologists
behave according to a certain discipline entirely different from
their society. Those who are not used to the rules of traffic or
who are not accustomed to punctuality will very likely breach the
professional discipline necessitated by their job.

One can safely say that technology is a sociocultural matter
as far as work ethos and discipline are concerned. In that sense,
technology cannot be treated as something which can simply be
transferred from outside and superimposed upon society. In
western countries, technology is a phenomenon of a certain stage
of social development which is characterized by philosophical
rationalism and the flowering of a scientific mentality.

There is a basic relationship between general sociocultural
development and the flowering of technology. Of course one can
push for technology development without taking society into
account. But this will result in technology developing without
society, as was the case in countries of the former socialist
block. There, a very big share of social product was allocated to
the war industry at the expense of the welfare of the people.

Ironically, liberal ideals were initially ingrained in the
creation of technology to alleviate life's burdens. But this is
superseded by the conservative purposes of technology which
ignore the welfare of the society.

Besides that, we forget that technology is nothing but an
extension of human beings. Computers are an extension of human
beings as thinking animals just as nuclear weapons are the
extension of human beings as killing animals. In that case,
technology has no moral or political priority. These priorities
must be set by serious and critical deliberations among those who
want to develop or to apply it. Technology can be the extension
of human inclinations and human capacities, whether morally good
or bad, politically beneficial or socially disastrous.

To put it more philosophically, the choice to use one sort of
technology is not only a technical act but also a political and
moral act. The choice is made on the basis of certain values
which are by no means merely technical. Economic progress,
political security and national pride are some value
considerations which play a very important role in the selection
and application of technology.

The selection of technology should be subjected to a political
and public debate for the simple reason that Indonesians have the
right to know what benefits to expect, what economic and social
cost must be paid, and what risk is run. Many risks are not yet
proven, but if we wait until we have some evidence, it will
certainly be too late. With the evidence comes disaster.

The writer now works with the Jakarta-based SPES Foundation
Research Center.

Window A: The problem which makes technology socioculturally
dependent is that human error is due not only to a lack of
expertise, but also a lack of discipline.

Window B: To put it more philosophically, the choice to use one
sort of technology is not only a technical act but also a political
and moral act.