The theme of technological tyranny over individuality and traditional patterns of life was expressed by Jacques Ellul, of the University of Bordeaux, in his book The Technological Society (1964, first published as La Technique in 1954). Ellul asserted that technology had become so pervasive that man now lived in a milieu of technology rather than of nature. He characterized this new milieu as artificial, autonomous, self-determining, nihilistic (that is, not directed to ends, though proceeding by cause and effect), and, in fact, with means enjoying primacy over ends. Technology, Ellul held, had become so powerful and ubiquitous that other social phenomena such as politics and economics had become situated in it rather than influenced by it. The individual, in short, had come to be adapted to the technical milieu rather than the other way round.
While views such as those of Ellul have enjoyed a considerable vogue since World War II—and spawned a remarkable subculture of hippies and others who sought, in a variety of ways, to reject participation in technological society—it is appropriate to make two observations on them. The first is that these views are, in a sense, a luxury enjoyed only by advanced societies, which have benefited from modern technology. Few voices critical of technology can be heard in developing countries that are hungry for the advantages of greater productivity and the rising standards of living that have been seen to accrue to technological progress in the more fortunate developed countries. Indeed, the antitechnological movement is greeted with complete incomprehension in these parts of the world, so that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that only when the whole world enjoys the benefits of technology can we expect the subtler dangers of technology to be appreciated, and by then, of course, it may be too late to do anything about them.
The second observation about the spate of technological pessimism in the advanced countries is that it has not managed to slow the pace of technological advance, which seems, if anything, to have accelerated. The gap between the first powered flight and the first human steps on the Moon was only 66 years, and that between the disclosure of the fission of uranium and the detonation of the first atomic bomb was a mere six and a half years. The advance of the information revolution based on the electronic computer has been exceedingly swift, so that, despite the denials of the possibility by elderly and distinguished experts, the sombre spectre of sophisticated computers replicating higher human mental functions and even human individuality should not be relegated too hurriedly to the classification of science fantasy. The biotechnic stage of technological innovation is still in its infancy, and, if the recent rate of development is extrapolated forward, many seemingly impossible targets could be achieved in the next century. Not that this will be any consolation to the pessimists, as it only indicates the ineffectiveness to date of attempts to slow down technological progress. The technological dilemma
Whatever the responses to modern technology, there can be no doubt that it presents contemporary society with a number of immediate problems that take the form of a traditional choice of evils, so that it is appropriate to regard them as constituting a “technological dilemma.” This is the dilemma between, on the one hand, the overdependence of life in the advanced industrial countries on technology, and, on the other hand, the threat that technology will destroy the quality of life in modern society and even endanger society itself. Technology thus confronts Western civilization with the need to make a decision, or rather, a series of decisions, about how to use the enormous power available to society constructively rather than destructively. The need to control the development of technology, and so to resolve the dilemma, by regulating its application to creative social objectives, makes it ever more necessary to define these objectives while the problems presented by rapid technological growth can still be solved.
These problems, and the social objectives related to them, may be considered under three broad headings. First is the problem of controlling the application of nuclear technology. Second is the population problem, which is twofold: it seems necessary to find ways of controlling the dramatic rise in the number of human beings and, at the same time, to provide food and care for the people already living on the Earth. Third, there is the ecological problem, whereby the products and wastes of technical processes have polluted the environment and disturbed the balance of natural forces of regeneration. When these basic problems have been reviewed, it will be possible, finally, to consider the effect of technology on life in town and countryside, and to determine the sort of judgments about technology and society to which a study of the history of technology leads. Nuclear technology
The solution to the first problem, that of controlling nuclear technology, is primarily political. At its root is the anarchy of national self-government, for as long as the world remains divided into a multiplicity of nation-states, or even into power blocs, each committed to the defense of its own sovereign power to do what it chooses, nuclear weapons merely replace the older weapons by which such nation-states maintained their independence in the past. The availability of a nuclear armoury has emphasized the weaknesses of a world political system based upon sovereign nation-states. Here, as elsewhere, technology is a tool that can be used creatively or destructively. But the manner of its use depends entirely on human decisions, and in this matter of nuclear self-control the decisions are those of governments. There are other aspects of the problem of nuclear technology, such as the disposal of radioactive waste and the quest to harness the energy released by fusion, but, although these are important issues in their own right, they are subordinate to the problem of the use of nuclear weapons in warfare. Population explosion
Assuming that the use of nuclear weapons can be averted, world civilization will have to come to grips with the population problem in the next few decades if life is to be tolerable on planet Earth in the 21st century. The problem can be tackled in two ways, both drawing on the resources of modern technology.
In the first place, efforts may be made to limit the rate of population increase. Medical technology, which through new drugs and other techniques has provided a powerful impulse to the increase of population, also offers means of controlling this increase through contraceptive devices and through painless sterilization procedures. Again, technology is a tool that is neutral in respect to moral issues about its own use, but it would be futile to deny that artificial population control is inhibited by powerful moral constraints and taboos. Some reconciliation of these conflicts is essential, however, if stability in world population is to be satisfactorily achieved. Perhaps the experience of China, already responsible for one-quarter of the world’s population, is instructive here: in an attempt to prevent the population growth from exceeding the ability of the country to sustain the existing standards of living, the government imposed a “one-child family” campaign in the 1970s, which is maintained by draconian social controls.
In the second place, even the most optimistic program of population control can hope to achieve only a slight reduction in the rate of increase, so an alternative approach must be made simultaneously in the shape of an effort to increase the world’s production of food. Technology has much to contribute at this point, both in raising the productivity of existing sources of food supply, by improved techniques of agriculture and better types of grain and animal stock, and in creating new sources of food, by making the deserts fertile and by systematically farming the riches of the oceans. There is enough work here to keep engineers and food technologists busy for many generations. Ecological balance