Message-ID: <v01530501ae7a39769147@[206.41.16.200]> Date: Fri, 4 Oct 1996 07:50:40 -0400 From: Santiago Hileret <mailto:styago@HOST1.TALKIN-DRUM.COM> Subject: Re: ideas of "appropriate technology" still respected? To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
William J. Walker, Jr. writes: >Technology is the knowledge and resources to make or do something.
>That something might be to broadcast Brazilian soap operas or it
>might be to produce potable drinking water in Nepal
Yes, and no. From the standpoint of "harmonious" development, I should think that the most important long-term goal is for the population at large to _understand_ just how and why various technologies work (particularly those that they use, or have an impact on their lives), and for the country to be (or soon become) both financially and technically capable of producing those technologies on which it becomes dependent. In this sense, broadcasting technology that a wealthy group buys abroad "off the shelf" adds little or nothing to the national knowledge base, and -while it might be extraordinarily useful as a teaching tool- it is unfortunately employed most often to pollute people's minds with the drivel of soap operas. There is technology embedded in products and there are political economy assumptions imbedded in particular technologies/technological choices. That's why it's not so simple (ultimately not really possible) to "neatly" separate the political from the technological. In the preface to Fritz Schumacher's posthumous book "Good Work", George McRobie puts it this way:"In 'Small is Beautiful' (Schumacher) launched a powerful attack on _conventional_ economics and technology, and _the value system that supports them both_." (emphasis added).
In "Good Work", Schumacher himself proposes that:
"Modern industrialism has produced its own coherent system of values, criteria, measurements, etc.; it all hangs together and cannot be tampered with, except at the risk of breakdown" "The modern industrial system has a built-in tendency to grow; it cannot really work unless it is growing. The word "stability" has been struck from the dictionary and replaced by "stagnation". Its continuous growth pursues no particular aims or objectives; it is growth for the sake of growing. No one ever inquires after its final shape. There is none; there is no "saturation point". Who, it may be asked, calls the tune? Fundamentally, the technologist. Whatever becomes technologically possible -within certain economic limits- must be done. Society must adapt _itself_ to _it_. The question whether or not it does any good is ruled out on the specious argument that no one knows anyhow what is good or evil, wholesome or unwholesome, worthy of man or unworthy." (emphasis added) (Regarding the built-in tendency to grow I might point out that one of France's leading business journals is called L'Expansion, and that, true to its headline, it has at least one subsidiary across the Pyrenees, the Spanish "Expansion").
At the core of Schumacher's argument -therefore- is not just an issue of technology (in its narrow definition as the knowledge and resources to make or do something), not just an issue of employment, not just an issue of social justice, not just an issue of human development, not just an issue of peace among humans and between humans and nature but a methodical exposition of the _feedback loops_ and _interdependencies_ between each of these concepts, areas of analysis &/or fields of knowledge in an attempt to show that one cannot solve these problems separately, but rather has to tackle "the value system that supports them (all)".
Two more quotes and then I'll call myself to silence on this entire subject (none too early, many will surely think, with a deep sigh of relifef)
"Although some big business has civilized itself in recent years to a significant extent... ...there still remains a large fringe of big and small business which manifests the worst features of capitalist irresponsibility in an extreme manner. Perhaps the outstanding examples are to be found in the field of communication media -in sections of the press, the entertainment industries, book publishing, and so forth. You may have read Richard Hoggart's 'The Uses of Literacy', which is a terrible indictment. The worst exploitation practiced today is 'cultural exploitation'; namely, the exploitation by unscrupulous moneymakers of the deep longing for culture on the part of the less privileged and undereducated groups in our society... ...To claim that 'this is what the people want' is merely adding insult to injury."
"Professor A. Hill says in his book 'The Ethical Dilemma of Science': 'To imagine that scientific and technological progress alone can solve all the problems that beset mankind is to believe in magic, and magic of the very unattractive kind that denies a place to the human spirit.' What I wish to _emphasize_ is that _the modern industrial system does, in fact, just this_ and is effectively denying a place to the human spirit. _Too much contact with machinery has convinced the masters of the system that economic development is a mechanical; i.e., unalterable, process which could only be thrown into disorder, but never stopped or modified, by the _intrusion_ of value judgments_." (emphasis added)
William Walker, Jr. also writes: > If it involves
>using rice hull ash to make cement in Kenya because hice hulls are
>available and inexpensive, it is called "appropriate
>technology", if it involves using rice hull ash to make turbine rotors
>in California because it is an amazing raw material it is called
>"high technology".
Amen, but, would it happen at all in California?
As promised, I will henceforth remain silent on the subject, with a final plea: Do read people's work -and read it carefully- before you put out glib dismissals of it. It is unfair to create or spread the kind of "guilt by association" that someone recently offered on another list that I subscribe to:
> in the devleoping world USAID created an
>appropriate technology waste land many years ago when it became
>inenamoured with the "small is beautiful" metaphor and left africa
>littered with non operable windmills made from "automobile rear ends" and
>bailing wire.
I have read two of Schumacher's books and I haven't come across a single instance of his proposing to build windmills out of automobile rear ends and bailing wire. Throwing the well-known title of his book in there is careless at best; malicious at worst. He did assist Zambia in developing a "small scale" plant capable of producing less than _a million egg cartons a day_ (the smallest output available at the time) and we do have, today, micro-hydroelectric turbines that drive car generators to produce electricity in small amounts sufficient for the needs of isolated rural locations. Car gens are abundant (therefore relatively cheap to make) and many people around the world know how to fix them, even re-wire them for different speed and output. It is this kind of common-sense solution that Schumacher stood for, rather than the above example or (the system's preferred alternative for a long time) a massive hydroelectric dam that throws people off land that their families have been stewarding for generations and forces them into slums around the cities where the local elites live. The elites get the electricity, of course, along with the "commissions" on the big-ticket deals. (all while coming in way over estimated cost, saddling the country with onerous hard-currency debt for years to come, and disrupting the ecological balance of a large area up- and downstream from the dam).
By the way, that famous title -which wasn't Schumacher's idea, but his publisher's (a catchy phrase helps to sell)- has ended up doing more harm than good. Detractors have successfully used it to oversimplify and ridicule the book and its author, which is a lot easier and more effective (in our world of soundbytes and quick fixes) than trying to argue with its logic and factual examples.
Peace
Santiago.
--------------------------------------------------------- Santiago G. Hileret | Voice/Fax: (718) 858-1324 11 St. Felix St., #3F | Internet: mailto:styago@talkin-drum.com Brooklyn, NY 11217-1205 | U. S. A. | 3rd World 1st!