Technology and the Library

I have often been intrigued by Modern technology and contemporaneous technology.

I have a few friends who are very interested in the theories of Jacques Ellul. One of these friends wrote a MA thesis in regard to technology, Ellul, and Theodor Adorno.

Ellul criticizes Modern technology. He worried that technologly would ultimate destroy our humanity:

"What is at issue here is evaluating the danger of what might happen to our humanity in the present half-century, and distinguishing between what we want to keep and what we are ready to lose, between what we can welcome as legitimate human development and what we should reject with our last ounce of strength as dehumanization. I cannot think that choices of this kind are unimportant."

Adoro, too, criticizes technology:

"Not only is technical progress distorted by the requirements of capitalist control, but
the —universe of discourse, public and eventually even private speech and thought,
limit themselves to the posing and resolving of technical problems with the double
constraints of the simultaneous interest in technical advance and domination that
characterizes capitalist rationality. . . The universalization of technical modes of
thought changes the cultural conditions presupposed by the Marxian theory of
emancipatory struggle. There is no place for critical consciousness in this world: it is
—one-dimensional."

And what follows thoughts on Modern technology...

After reading Ellul and falling in love with Adorno (and Habermas), I must admit that I have also fallen in love with Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guatarri. In a world riddled with, often, disembodied technology how can one dislike D and G's thoughts? They're contemporaries of Adorno and here is a quote by Deleuze:

"We can only imagine that the control mechanisms of today's society will increase. It is not just science fiction that we might imagine ourselves with an electronic collar. A computer could be made to track our every position and effect a universal modulation of our behavior. But, we are just at the beginning of this new form of control... Neverthless, paradoxically, many young people boast of being motivated by these new changes. They request apprenticeships and permanent training -- and thus the new era is launched."

What is there to say about these predecessors of ours? Perhaps we have something to learn from intellectual and compassionate thinkers that have something to say about technology. I find that contemporary librarians, especially NextGEN librarians, are quick to jump at the advances of technology. Technology does have much to offer in forms of global communication and information access. But, we should not make simple assumptions about these things (Are we even making assumptions at al.?). We ought to discuss the global and local impact of technology. We must speak about the way technology is affecting, both for the good and for the bad, our social practices. Modern technology (industrialization/capitalism) may have created more issues than it solved. Yes, technology is beneficial... But it must also have limits... Even with regard to communication and information. The ways that information is dealt with directly affects/effects our surroundings, both locally and globally.

Everything we do, including the ways we involve technology in our institutions and libraries must be sincerely critiqued.

Perhaps we should keep the words of another (anti-technology/capitalization) contemporary in our hearts as we make decisions, remembering where we have come from and where we are going:

"We clasp the hands of those that go before us, And the hands of those who come after us. We enter the little circle of each other's arms And the larger circle of lovers, Whose hands are joined in a dance, And the larger circle of all creatures, Passing in and out of life, Who move also in a dance, To a music so subtle and vast that no ear hears it Except in fragments." (Wendell Berry)

(Perhaps I will touch more on the above poem in my next entry).