Modern obsessions, classic ambitions: a critique of the role of technology and the internet
For some time now I have wanted to share some of the ideas and reflections I have been making about the role of technology, the influences and repercussions of its use in our lives as individuals, society and civilisation. More specifically, I have been interested in issues such as: the accessibility of information, knowledge and the digital "social" dimension that connects us all today. Even those who do not participate, or say they do not participate. Even those, being outside, play their role and make their impact felt, by the opposition and exclusion, in more than one sense, that they represent.
Most recently I came into contact with Evgeny Morozov - author, thinker, critic and profuse Twitter user. For those who don't know him I suggest reading this article. I read his first book The Net Disillusionment and am halfway through the second To Save Everything Click Here. I find the latter brilliantly well written, at times sarcastic, ironic, critical and at the same time deep and complex. When an author writes a book where he reveals the quality of his reasoning, the ease and pertinence of his associations, saying about himself that he is not yet at the point, that he is just a rehearsal for something better to come, I confess I feel enthusiasm and reverence.
I realise that I had already written about this subject, despite starting from different perspectives; it could only be that way as I only discovered Morozov much later. It becomes clear that there are connections and associations that are made only after thinking several times that we have "original" thoughts and ideas. What Morozov describes and criticises is a very fashionable trend of seeking technological solutions to complex human issues. What he calls "solutionism".
It is the will to improve, practically everything! (...) The recasting of all complex social situations into impeccably defined problems with definitive and computable solutions or as transparent and obvious processes that can be optimised - if the right algorithms are in order! - it is likely that this quest may have unintended consequences that may eventually do more damage than the problems they seek to solve.
The ideology that legitimises and sanctions aspirations of this sort I call "solutionism". I borrow this shamelessly pejorative term from the world of architecture and urban planning, where it has been used to refer to an unhealthy preoccupation with sexy, monumental, narrow-minded solutions - the sort of thing that dazzles audiences at TED conferences - to problems that are extremely complex, fluid and contentious.
For professional reasons and also for personal taste, I follow various sources that report the news and trends, at an unstoppable pace and difficult to keep up with, of the business and technology world. I would venture to say that on a daily basis I read titles, articles and documents that follow this trend that Morozov warns us about. One of the differences between my perspective and his is that, because of my professional experience and my life path, I do not restrict my critique to the 'world of technology and the internet' but extend it to most components of today's business and political worlds. Today we live in a more sophisticated kind of Taylorism that only evolved in this way because the nature of the tasks also became more complex. Not only the tasks but also the people, the employees, especially those of certain generations, have become more demanding in claiming, albeit in a small way because they do not know how to sustain it, a new meaning for work as an integral and meaningful part of their lives. We are at a stage where we have moved from "docile bodies", as Foucault called them, to "docile minds", where control is done through the nurturing of expectations and illusions of happiness, well-being, pleasure and solutions to life's great questions.
How pretentious it is to say that email is to blame for the lack of productivity and unhappiness in teams, in companies, and that by opting for tool X, created by the company that follows this belief, is not only adhering to a new technology but also contributing to happiness and results! Or another that pretends to be our brain, our memory, keeping everything we consider important so we can access it later. What they forget is that in this way they will be contributing to the withering away or, at best, to the non-development of the capacity to keep in memory what interests us, to link interests to affections. In the same vein, if I were asked, I could list a number of advantages of the use of tablets by children, students and/or as a substitute for books. It would be equally easy to produce as long or longer a list to support the opposing cause, especially in the case of children. "Education is not the transmission of information or ideas.
Education is not the transmission of information or ideas. Education is the training needed to be able to use information and ideas. As information breaks free from bookstores and libraries and floods computers and mobile devices, that training becomes more important, not less.
Without mentioning the names, I should point out that I use the two services I refer to above and I have a tablet which I use for reading, studying, working and where I am finishing writing this text. Like Morozov, I do not consider myself a critic of technology or the "internet". Those who know me know that I am curious and aware of the area, probably more than most, and I am an advocate of using a wide variety of gadgets and online services.
What I criticise, like Morozov, although in a different way, is the poor and limited understanding of the complexity of human nature; it is seeing complex human, social, cultural and civilisational problems and situations being broken down into zeros and ones or into simplistic and seductive recipes; it is the confusion made between knowledge and wisdom, it is thinking that what is passed on at the TED Talks is "the latest"; it is to see that Science(I mean those who treat science with a big "C"), technology, Economics, Politics are today given much more value and relevance than Culture, Education, Philosophy and social and human sciences in general; it is to see that Ricardo Araújo Pereira and Pedro Bidarra are right.
The ideal will be to live with the best of both worlds. But while technology evolves at a pace that is hard to keep up with, human development is slow.
