Vinayshil Gautam
All periods of time have their defining flavours, fashions and themes. The core characteristic of the contemporary times is technology. To stay current, it becomes important for all, from kings to the cabbages and crooks to the cranks, to keep referring to technology, and get conditioned to using.
In some so-called modern cities, it is impossible to even travel by a metro train without understanding technology as you won’t be able to buy a ticket. Technological sensitisation is mostly taken for granted.
Like all panaceas, technology too, if overdone or overused, loses its cutting edge. Care has to be exercised so that the context, content and thrust of technology be understood. The first and perhaps the basic point of technology is to realise is that it arouses emotions.
From Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to Jacques Ellul, there are a host of thinkers who have considered technology to be the root cause of modern ills – irrespective of those who say that technology is here to stay.
For many, technology covers all technical perspectives. It is not just confined to the use of machines but also covers rational processes and behaviour, leading to efficiency. The linking of technology with commerce has created its own problems.
It will be soulful to realise that technology is not exclusive to the present age. It has always been around in various incarnations earlier on. For example, the rust-free iron pillar of Delhi, the pyramids of Egypt and the information systems recorded in the valleyss of Tigris and Euphrates, millennia ago, show different levels of technological evolution. Reminding ourselves of this breeds perspective.
Hackles are raised on technology because of the side effects it has of destroying the quality of life. This has given rise to the environmentalist movement. Thus, it is that talk of technology breeds mixed reactions. Clearly, in a democratic era, the advocacy principle is a potent factor.
Nevertheless, a definitive fall out of modern technology has been its impact of telescoping time. This is unprecedented in recorded history. Technologically enabled, one can pass through different timezones, gaining even an entire calendar day.
However, the correlation of technology with productive processes, the global armament race, and global interdependency in economic terms, has ensured that technological choices are no longer autonomous. Indeed, to keep pace with technology has become an inherent need for survival.
The more relevant question is rooting technology in the local context. This applies just as much to the choice on the nature of the material as the source of energy. Some general truths on the need for a scientific temper then emerge. One of them is the need and the primacy of individual choices.
Individual choices have even affected social architecture. The two things which perhaps most affected the status of women were rooted in technology. One was the revolution of the automobile which gave women the freedom of movement and the other was the revolution of the birth control pill which gave women greater control over their
bodies.
As Aldous Huxley would say, these amazing and admirable technological advances have to be paid for. Taking Huxley’s argument further, it needs to be realised that each invention kills something of the ongoing and alters the character of the
processes.
Hence, it is that for technology to give comfort it must be embedded in local and cultural specificity. Technological change in the post-industrial West was a primary mechanism for creating effective systems. It ended in drawing a line between labour and management, and gave rise to a chain reaction.
Progressively, the issues of effectiveness of the productive processes led to a distinction between the ownership of industrial processes and management of the processes. Clearly, the chain, once set in motion, had its consequences.
The World Wars of the 20th century
propelled the process and technology, which on one side created synergy and precision, and simultaneously gave rise to a whole process of automation and computerisation. Naturally, this released time and energy for leisure. In an unprecedented way, a whole new world was born. While talking of technology, let us be conscious of its
imperatives.
