chapter 2:

two images of
technology
Presented by:
Ayap, Paul Jushniel
Arpon, Genevieve
Eala, Jasmin Grace
Maiquez, Bianca
Janine
Merlin, Robelyn
Regaspi, Irish Mae
In this chapter, Murray
Bookchin examined the
current disillusionment
with the idea of
technological progress.
This is something fairly
new, he noted. In the
early 20th century, even
radicals such as Woody
Guthrie celebrated giant Ancient Greek
engineering feats such
philosophers such as
as Boulder Dam and the
Aristotle believed
Tennessee Valley
that the good life was
Authority.
an ethical and
There is a big difference, balanced life lived
he wrote, between the within limits and
ancient ideal of the good within community. A
life and the modern ideal skilled craftsman,
of the abundant life.
according to
Aristotle, had
understood well not
only how to do his
work, but the reason
Modern industrial production
is the opposite. It defines
efficiency in terms of
quantity and cost. Workers
are not required to
understand their work, only
to follow instructions. “Living
well” is defined as
consumption and material
comfort apart from work.
Industrial workers, unlike
laborers in preceding ages,
do not sing work songs.
 Bookchin said the modern industrial system is not a
result of technology. It is a result of peasants being
uprooted from the land and their communities, and
having no choice but to work for merchants and
capitalists. Originally this was done by piecework in
the home, but “factors” insisted in assembling workers
in common workplaces so that they could be better
controlled.

Industrial technology developed to fit

the already-existing factory system,
Bookchin said. Mindless labor is not a
product of mechanization, he wrote; it
is part of a process of subordination
and control.
• The objectification of subjectivity
is the sine qua non of mass
production. - Horkheimer.

• He also observes: neo-positivistic

thinking — lies in just this
"intellectual economy

• A given body of sensibilities,

social relations, and political
structures were no less the
components of technics.
 Skills, devices, and raw
materials were interlinked in
varying degrees with the
rational, ethical, and institutional
ensemble that underpins a
society.

We need a clearer image of what is

meant by "technics": the problems of
sensibility it raises, the functions it
performs, and, of course, the dangers
and promises latent in technical
innovation.
 We "measure" labor in
hours, products, and
efficiency, but rarely do we
understand it as a
concrete human activity.
Aside from the earnings it
generates, labor is
normally alien to human
fulfillment. These rewards
are viewed as incentives
for submission, rather than
for the freedom that should
accompany creativity and
self-fulfillment. We
commonly are "paid" for
Acting on the external
supinely working on our
world and changing it, he
knees, not for heroically
at the same time changes
standing on our feet.
his own nature
LABOUR-PROCESS LABOR TECHNICAL
o Weaver and Architects (According to Marx) IMAGINATION
• “Spider and Web” o Labor and its Materials o potentially problematical in
o raises structure in o Promethean even the best of social
imagination before 1. use-values circumstances.
erects in reality. 2. liberate o short of attaining the self-
o result that already 3. death-sleep consciousness.
existed in the o Lotus-eaters in the Odyssey
imagination of the • Wasted
LABOR PROCESS |
labourer at its o Fichtean CEREBRAL DESIGN
commencement. • Ego to non-Ego or o guides it are essentially
otherness utilitarian:
1. have irreducible
NATURE AND LABOUR technical
o William Petty’s concept of MINDLESS LABOR grounds:modus
marriage o not result of mechanization operandi
o no authentic marriage other o calculated and deliberate 2. acquires the neutrality
than a coercive patriarchy that product of: 3. rigor of scientific
sees the wedding compact as • Subordination lawfulness
a license from Yahweh to • Control 4. effectiveness enhanced
place all of reality under the or diminished by history
iron will of the male elders. o are necessarily equipped
with a suprahistorical
Historical Materialism
o Marx’s theory
o means of production (deus
ex machina)
o meaningless in Marxian
social theory
Matter: Modern Mind
not merely despirited; it
constitutes the very antithesis
of spirit.
conventional definition of
matter betrays this utterly
spiritless conception in a
generally despiritized world.
stuff that occupies space-the
homogeneous material
whose presence can be
quantitatively determined by
its weight and volume.
19th Century
o broader and ancient sensibility
o production should be a
symbiotic, not an antagonistic,
process.
o natural design: a "marriage"
between labor and nature.
o patriarchal domination of "man"
over nature productive
relationship based on harmony,
fertility, and creativity.
o Libertarian and Aesthetic
movement
• humanity's craft and
nature's potentialities
o Labor was viewed as the
midwife, and tools as the aids,
in delivering nature's offspring:
use-values.
Matter
o the material on which labor
presumably exercises its
"fiery" powers to transform
the world.
o base level of substance, the
substrate of reality.
o accords with a quantitative
interpretation of reality.
o may be fragmented but it
remains undifferentiated.
o may be kinetic but it is not
developmental.
 Matter: Philosophical
Viewpoint
Abstract Labor
o not merely despiritized; it
o by Marx
constitutes the very
o opening portions of
antithesis of spirit.
Capital.
o conventional definition of
o measurable by the
matter betrays this utterly
mere flow of time,
spiritless conception in a
becomes the polar
generally despiritized
conception of an
world.
abstract matter,
o stuff that occupies
measurable by its
space-the homogeneous
density and the
material whose presence Image of Labor
volume of space it
can be quantitatively • despiritized counterpart
occupies.
determined by its weight of matter, located within
and volume. the dimension of time.
Human Labor replaces the
role of TIME in the NATURE.

"Nature's productions in a
form adapted to his own
wants" is to assume that there
is no developmental
synchronicity between human
"wants" and natural "wants."
DIFFERENCE
OF LABOR HOMEOMERIES
 proposed by
FROM WORK
Anaxagoras,
 LABOR
a
usually philosophical
associated sophistication
with very of a
hard,  more

physical primordial
work, view that the
suggesting substance of
fatigue and the earth is
the earth
aching
 WORK activity itself
muscles. involving mental
or physical effort
done in order to
achieve a
purpose or
result.
Bookchin did not go into the benefits of the
industrial system, which has enabled millions
of people to enjoy a material standard of living
equal to kings and emperors in the past.
Rather he pointed out the cost in human
freedom.

Most modern working people see work as

something they have to do in order to enjoy
freedom off the job, he wrote. Economists,
including Marxist economists, see labor as a
means by which people exercise domination over
nature, and wrest value from nature. They do not
see work as a way in which people interact with
nature
 Scientists
There is no bright line interpret the
between human world in terms of But even if we
nature and non- the uniform knew all the
human animal nature, scientific laws scientific laws
nor between living they have that exist, we
and non-living nature. discovered and wouldn’t know
Much human mental hope to discover. everything.
activity takes place Science has Everything has
below the level of made a great its own
consciousness, and contribution to uniqueness
all is correlated with human which it
biological and understanding behooves us to
biochemical and well-being. understand.
processes.
Human Subjectivity

• Also defined as the very history of

natural subjectivity; in the same sense
as Hegel’s philosophy. (Hegelianism)
• We are haunted by the possibility that a
different order of subjectivity permeates
our own.
• Subjectivity inheres in the wholeness of
phenomena and their interrelationships
Human Beings as Superiors

Human Mentality Humanity Unfulfilled

validates its claim to Is not humanity at all
“superiority” by (except in biosocial
acquiring a better sense sense), hence,
of meaning than its has unfulfilled humanity is
today. By then, this more fearsome than to
leads us to neglecting any living being; by
our responsibilities to having the so called
other human beings, ‘intelligence’, it is an
society, and to our enough ingredient to
nature construct the
destruction of life.
Human Mind
• Human minds hints of a more
complete logic - a logic
possibly complementary to that
of science, but certainly a more
organic logic - that render the
animistic imagination
invaluable to the modern mind.
• Behind its verbal muteness lies
a wealth of sensibility that the
rider must explore if the horse
is to achieve its own capacity
for perfection-if its potentialities
are to be realized.
 Humanity’s
Habitat
Is thus latent with phenomena
of:

1 2 3

4 CAN BE What we, as a human beings,

should be afraid of.