Technology, Value, and the Church

I posted part of this on faith'd and thought I would expand the thought and share it here. It really is kind of a trek back into some previous research of mine that I thought was now anachronistic, but apparently not!

The tacit question I am addressing is the degree to which the technology we use has values inherent to the medium. Certainly Marshall McLuhan, Michael Heim, Albert Borgmann, Donna Haraway, and Paul Levinson among others (see ctheory for a spate of resources along these lines as well as my article on Heidegger here and on Weil and Baudrillard here) fall into the camp that technology is most certainly not value neutral.

The problem is that we often look at the utility of the tool before we question the meaning of its very existence. To this end, the existence of the tool does not count as much as how it is implemented. A hammer, for instance, can be used to build a house. It can also be used to kill another person. Its existence is determined by its implementation and the structure of its existence before it is implemented for this or that purpose is simply not questioned. But this idea of the nature of technology is not quite that simple, especially when we begin discussing its impact on how our environments and ideas are structured. That is to say, if the tool restructures our environment by its very existence, can we still say that the tool when in this environment is value-neutral?

Technology is laden with the values of the inventor and the decision making process by which the tool came into being. But the unintended consequences of the medium reciprocate the values of the user and the new purpose. Think of language. Is language value neutral or is it a value laden tool that we use to encode our thoughts? One learns that language is value laden when one learns another language. A fine example is the word love and its various meanings in different languages. Issues like this are prevalent in any exegesis of a Biblical text for instance. One can start arguing which came first, the word or the value? But such solipsism does not take into account the reciprocal nature of how our mental processes work in relationship to the environments that shape them. At some point in this example, the presence of what is called love and its encoding in language have a sort of convergence where the use of the word and the word itself cannot be easily separated.

The automobile, the architecture of a public space, the media we use to transmit information, etc. are all instances of value system(s) themselves and then reciprocate those values and condition the values of future users. The very space of the Guggenheim is an instance of Frank Lloyd Wright's own desire to do something radically different in New York when compared to the flat spaces in the streets he noted. To say that the structure, which is loaded with the values of the designer, does not impact how reality and art are experienced inside the space would make an argument for human cognition that is no longer tenable.

The point is that tools and structures are developed in time and in space and instances of cultural norms and values at the time. The more complex the tools, the more change is probable over time to that medium as it encounters new and different value systems. This is as clear as the difference between the old fashioned claw hammer and the nail gun. While it seems that the nail gun exists just to hammer nails more quickly, it is yet invested with the values of a culture that must build more and do so more quickly. Not because more homes need to be built in order for more people to live in them. But because the values of the culture demand more home sales as people continue to flee cities in order to live the suburban dream of the new America. The nail gun makes this possible as much as it is an instance of the value for building more – faster in order to turn greater profits.

The World Wide Web was constructed as a flexible information space for academics to share content and for the government to network its computer systems globally. The very nature of information as a flexible and constantly refiguring object within this space has contributed to the unintended consequences of flexible identities and diverse networks of relationships. as the information has taken on a radically different structure than in previous generations, it has both contributed to the shaping of this generation’s ideas of value and information as well as offered a media structure to lubricate those values. So it is constantly reciprocating its values back on the users that re-shape the very values of the media itself. The Web has become Web 2.0. This blog participates in the latter as an instance of a new media to communicate thought. It is a decentralized, radically anti-authoritative, and community-based media for knowledge production. Information, knowledge, and identity converge in Web 2.0 in a way never intended and in a way that was unconscious and unintentional. But what was unintended is used by later generations as an object with an intention – often a new and unthought of use. the more complex the media, the higher the probability these changes will continue to reciprocate and fuel value systems.

Where things can change is in the intentional use of a technology for an unintended purpose. That is the question the church can ask. This is to say, what is the outcome of implementing this or that tool? If the tool serves a purpose, is that outcome a noble outcome? After this is addressed with some standard of theological vigor can we address how technology can be used to effect change in a like noble manner. But the medium has to be questioned since it will restructure the message that is communicated, and often it will restructure it with unintended consequences.

Related posts:

1. the word of god became human…