A tool is anything (external to the body) used by a human being (or other animal) as an aid in performing some task or action. Intuitively, then, technology is related to freedom as something that extends the possibilities of free action, and so it does, though not equally for all.
Technology and Biology
In “Freedom and Restraint: Part II,” I wrote of human biological constants as one constraining factor on human free action. In some ways, technology has acted to extend what it is physically possible for humans to do. This has been true throughout the course of human and hominid evolution, e.g. the advent of stone tools allowed for things liked skinning and butchering meat and an expansion of one particular food resource. More importantly, in more recent human history tools have enabled us to do things we could never perform with our bodies (e.g. lifting tremendous weight, rerouting rivers, etc.) by using tools instead to perform the tasks.
Technology has even affected our biology in some ways. Over the course of hominid evolution, there was a diminution in tooth and jaw size correlated with more extensive use of stone tools, that is, as more food processing was done outside the mouth. In the near future, biotechnology might radically reshape what it is possible to do with our bodies and the very nature of our bodies, though we are not there yet.
Technology and our relation to the Environment
Human and hominid relations to the environment have always been mediated by technology, i.e. we use tools to provide for our basic needs from the physical environment, whether in the form of using a digging stick to uproot a wild tuber or plowing fields with massive tractors. Innovations in technology have also always had a transformative effect on what it is possible to do within a particular environment. The use of fire by Homo erectus was one of several technologies allowing that hominid species to expand into cooler areas previously unoccupied by hominids. Presuming Homo erectus groups used fire to cook plant and animal foods, this same technology would have made for a safer food supply (especially for groups that might have subsisted partly by scavenging carcasses) and enabled their bodies to extract more nutritional value from some plant foods.
The physical conditions of the environment have always shaped and constrained patterns of behavior among human groups adapting to a particular context. Likewise, though, the level of technology readily available has always shaped what is possible within a given environment as well. As I wrote earlier (again in “Freedom and Restraint: Part II”), the North American Great Plains are a great place to farm – if you have steel plow technology capable of sod-busting. Native Americans were only able to farm to any extent right along the major river valleys that cut across the plains where conditions were a bit different. They didn’t have the technology that would have made farming possible out on the plains, and living in that context, they had no means for developing such technology.
Modern technologies have created a context where humans can manipulate nature to an unprecedented degree. As such, technology has greatly expanded the range of actions possible while still meeting basic essential needs. At the same time, this can create an illusion of omnipotence over nature, though recent events, e.g. Hurricane Katrina and concerns about Global Warming, have made somewhat clearer that even with current technology, there is still a relation to nature and environmental constraint on action.
Technology and Social Relations
Technology expands the possible range of actions within social contexts as well. The net result for human freedom in general is ambiguous, though, as the enhanced ability to act includes the enhanced ability to act on the actions of others. Technology heightens the importance of power relations and as often as not enhances the possibilities for some at a cost to others.
It’s probably no coincidence that the historical development of permanent social inequality was correlated not just with the development of craft or job specialization but with armed military specialists, using military technologies to reinforce social power. Widely distributed contemporary media technologies do offer greater ability (unprecedented ability even) for individuals to spread ideas, communicate, and influence others. (Such democratizing effect is not always good [I’d argue that democratization is good, the effects of it not always straightforwardly good] – think for example of webcasts of beheadings by Al Qaedi in Iraq, the inspiration this has apparently given to terrorist cells in other parts of North Africa and the Middle East, even the inspiration this may have given to drug gangs in Mexico and El Salvador, with a recent spate of beheadings in those places as a new form of gang execution and terror message.) At the same time, the same and similar technologies give states new power to survey and control populations, with the potential result of greater restriction on human free action in aggregate.
Especially with regard to social relations, the relationship between technology and freedom is ambiguous. Technology itself, though, is neutral. In itself it is not good or bad. Whether technology enhances or diminishes human freedom depends on who uses it and how.
Showing posts with label social relations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social relations. Show all posts
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Freedom and Restraint: Part III
Social Restraints
One of the key restraints on totally free action in any human society is that which derives from social relationships, with a number of types of restraint being important, including the restraining influence of direct face to face interaction; economic restraint; and cultural custom and law.
Foucault’s conceptualization of power is important here. (The clearest statement of Foucault’s view of power, to my mind, is “The Subject and Power,” published as an afterward to Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics by Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow.) For Foucault, power is not an entity that some have and others do not but is rather a quality of all social relationships. Power is action and influence on the actions of others. Everyone has some degree of freedom to act, including to act to influence the actions of others, and at the same time, everyone’s actions are acted upon and influenced by those they are in interaction with. Everyone has some freedom (what differs is the degree); no one has complete freedom (and likewise no one is completely dominant or subordinate).
Power and Restraint in Interpersonal Relationships
In face to face interactions, Foucault’s notion of power applies straightforwardly (it applies in the other types of restraints I’ll discuss, too, just not so straightforwardly). In direct face to face interaction our actions have an influence on the actions of others present, and vice versa.
There may be formal restraint involved, such as with overt coercion, threats or acts of violence, but these are not typical. More typically, the ongoing sequence of actions shapes the degrees of freedom for any remotely normal subsequent action. If in a conversation, I ask, “What would you like to have for dinner?,” you could reply, “Screwdrivers.” There’s no formal restraint keeping you from doing so, but unless you’re a serious nutcase or a serious alcoholic, you wouldn’t response so. There’s a wide range of possible replies, but a wider range of impossible replies – if you care at all about seeming sane and reasonable (which some might not – and their actions are perhaps freer than the rest of us in many situations).
Bambi Schieffelin’s ethnography The Give and Take of Everyday Life beautifully describes the Kaluli society of the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. It’s a small culture that gets by through gardening and hunting and gathering in the surrounding tropical forest. One of the interesting facets of Kaluli culture is the near absence of formal restraint on actions. There are occasional incidents of violence in the community (and Edward Schieffelin’s also beautiful and quite different ethnography of the same culture, The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of the Dancers, makes clear that there are more regular instances of violence targeting members of other communities), but the general Kaluli view is that no one has the legitimate right to coerce or force anyone to do anything. This includes the parent – child relationship. (Most people in western culture or most other cultures take for granted that it’s perfectly natural for parents to command the actions of their children, but really why should we take that for granted?) But this isn’t to say that there aren’t power relations at play in Kaluli society. People shape and influence one another’s actions constantly, through attempts at persuasion, through cajoling, through shaming and ostracization. In a small society with a high degree of mutual economic dependency, cajoling, shaming, and ostracizing are in fact highly effective tools to shape and restrain the actions of others.
Knowledge and memory of typical patterns of behavior or of a specific history of interactions with an individual are important in shaping individual free action as well, via anticipation of others’ actions. Foucault’s notion of power applies straightforwardly to direct face to face interactions, but because of the role of knowledge, memory, and anticipation, actions in one context can have a carry-over effect on the actions of others in further instances over time.
Economic Restraint
This discussion of economic restraint is related to my discussion of environmental restraint, the need to meet basic needs, and Julian Steward’s “culture core” concept in my previous blog post, “Freedom and Restraint: Part II.”
Meeting basic needs is done in relationship to nature. This might be highly direct, as with Kaluli hunting and gathering activities, or even their gardening practices. Or it might be highly indirect, such as in the modern world system, where we routinely buy packaged food products which have dozens of ingredients, all produced in different places, utilizing tools and resources produced or gleaned somewhere else, but which still have, however distant, a relationship to nature. But meeting basic needs is also done in relationship to economic exchange with others.
One’s place within a web of economic exchanges (which might take the form of direct face to face reciprocity or highly complex market systems) shapes one’s possible actions. This is true for the Kaluli, but it really has minimal effect on individual free action. In larger complex societies, this is a crucial consideration. One’s place within the overall political economy profoundly shapes one’s possibilities for action. Money is a sign of this place and shapes interactions. To a significant extent, money as a sign of accrued wealth is also a sign of one’s degree of freedom in action. More wealth equals more freedom. One consequence of this is that any significant increase in individual freedoms within the modern world system is dependent on corresponding significant increases in overall wealth, though the distribution of wealth is another critical consideration, i.e. expansion of wealth is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for any significant expansion of freedom in the modern world system.
Consideration of economic restraints also brings to mind ways in which different sorts of restraints might butt up against one another. In “Freedom and Restraint: Part I,” I discussed different concepts of freedom. With the classical conception of freedom as the lack of formal restraint, wage laborers are free in the sense that they’re not obligated to work or to take a specific job. As Marx made clear, though, if freedom is thought of as the positive capacity to largely shape one’s own actions and destiny, wage laborers are hardly free to not work – they must work unless they’re independently wealthy. Most wage laborers have quite constrained possibilities for shaping their actions and lives – they’re hardly free at all in any realistic sense.
Many states in the United States have “right to work” laws, which prohibit closed union shops. Closed union shops do in fact represent a formal restraint on workers. They prevent workers from laboring there without joining the union. “Right to Work” laws prohibit this sort of formal restraint, and thus add to the freedom of workers in one way (mainly in a way that corresponds to classical notions of freedom and which not coincidently strengthens the bargaining position of capital). At the same time, closed union shops strengthen the position of unions’ collective bargaining activities, which can enhance workers’ economic position and thus, reduce economic restraints, thus increasing their freedom in another sense, i.e. increasing their ability to shape their own actions in general.
Custom and Law
Custom and law are not the same things, but they work similarly in providing explicit expectations for behavior, either through proscription or prescription. No one always meets the expectations of custom or law in all of their behavior, but most everyone is strongly influenced by them, either through proscriptive inhibition or the production of patterns of behavior under the influence of prescriptive law or custom. Further, their presence can serve to legitimate others’ actions constraining the actions of an individual.
Custom and law are not directly social relationships, and so act differently than other social restrictions and influences on action. However, they are the direct products of social relationships, i.e. produced by individuals in interaction. Further, they comprise a sort of abstract entity which acts as a crystallization of power relations. They constitute indirect social relations over time, as they are in effect one set of persons’ actions having continuous effect on others’ actions into the future.
One of the key restraints on totally free action in any human society is that which derives from social relationships, with a number of types of restraint being important, including the restraining influence of direct face to face interaction; economic restraint; and cultural custom and law.
Foucault’s conceptualization of power is important here. (The clearest statement of Foucault’s view of power, to my mind, is “The Subject and Power,” published as an afterward to Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics by Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow.) For Foucault, power is not an entity that some have and others do not but is rather a quality of all social relationships. Power is action and influence on the actions of others. Everyone has some degree of freedom to act, including to act to influence the actions of others, and at the same time, everyone’s actions are acted upon and influenced by those they are in interaction with. Everyone has some freedom (what differs is the degree); no one has complete freedom (and likewise no one is completely dominant or subordinate).
Power and Restraint in Interpersonal Relationships
In face to face interactions, Foucault’s notion of power applies straightforwardly (it applies in the other types of restraints I’ll discuss, too, just not so straightforwardly). In direct face to face interaction our actions have an influence on the actions of others present, and vice versa.
There may be formal restraint involved, such as with overt coercion, threats or acts of violence, but these are not typical. More typically, the ongoing sequence of actions shapes the degrees of freedom for any remotely normal subsequent action. If in a conversation, I ask, “What would you like to have for dinner?,” you could reply, “Screwdrivers.” There’s no formal restraint keeping you from doing so, but unless you’re a serious nutcase or a serious alcoholic, you wouldn’t response so. There’s a wide range of possible replies, but a wider range of impossible replies – if you care at all about seeming sane and reasonable (which some might not – and their actions are perhaps freer than the rest of us in many situations).
Bambi Schieffelin’s ethnography The Give and Take of Everyday Life beautifully describes the Kaluli society of the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. It’s a small culture that gets by through gardening and hunting and gathering in the surrounding tropical forest. One of the interesting facets of Kaluli culture is the near absence of formal restraint on actions. There are occasional incidents of violence in the community (and Edward Schieffelin’s also beautiful and quite different ethnography of the same culture, The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of the Dancers, makes clear that there are more regular instances of violence targeting members of other communities), but the general Kaluli view is that no one has the legitimate right to coerce or force anyone to do anything. This includes the parent – child relationship. (Most people in western culture or most other cultures take for granted that it’s perfectly natural for parents to command the actions of their children, but really why should we take that for granted?) But this isn’t to say that there aren’t power relations at play in Kaluli society. People shape and influence one another’s actions constantly, through attempts at persuasion, through cajoling, through shaming and ostracization. In a small society with a high degree of mutual economic dependency, cajoling, shaming, and ostracizing are in fact highly effective tools to shape and restrain the actions of others.
Knowledge and memory of typical patterns of behavior or of a specific history of interactions with an individual are important in shaping individual free action as well, via anticipation of others’ actions. Foucault’s notion of power applies straightforwardly to direct face to face interactions, but because of the role of knowledge, memory, and anticipation, actions in one context can have a carry-over effect on the actions of others in further instances over time.
Economic Restraint
This discussion of economic restraint is related to my discussion of environmental restraint, the need to meet basic needs, and Julian Steward’s “culture core” concept in my previous blog post, “Freedom and Restraint: Part II.”
Meeting basic needs is done in relationship to nature. This might be highly direct, as with Kaluli hunting and gathering activities, or even their gardening practices. Or it might be highly indirect, such as in the modern world system, where we routinely buy packaged food products which have dozens of ingredients, all produced in different places, utilizing tools and resources produced or gleaned somewhere else, but which still have, however distant, a relationship to nature. But meeting basic needs is also done in relationship to economic exchange with others.
One’s place within a web of economic exchanges (which might take the form of direct face to face reciprocity or highly complex market systems) shapes one’s possible actions. This is true for the Kaluli, but it really has minimal effect on individual free action. In larger complex societies, this is a crucial consideration. One’s place within the overall political economy profoundly shapes one’s possibilities for action. Money is a sign of this place and shapes interactions. To a significant extent, money as a sign of accrued wealth is also a sign of one’s degree of freedom in action. More wealth equals more freedom. One consequence of this is that any significant increase in individual freedoms within the modern world system is dependent on corresponding significant increases in overall wealth, though the distribution of wealth is another critical consideration, i.e. expansion of wealth is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for any significant expansion of freedom in the modern world system.
Consideration of economic restraints also brings to mind ways in which different sorts of restraints might butt up against one another. In “Freedom and Restraint: Part I,” I discussed different concepts of freedom. With the classical conception of freedom as the lack of formal restraint, wage laborers are free in the sense that they’re not obligated to work or to take a specific job. As Marx made clear, though, if freedom is thought of as the positive capacity to largely shape one’s own actions and destiny, wage laborers are hardly free to not work – they must work unless they’re independently wealthy. Most wage laborers have quite constrained possibilities for shaping their actions and lives – they’re hardly free at all in any realistic sense.
Many states in the United States have “right to work” laws, which prohibit closed union shops. Closed union shops do in fact represent a formal restraint on workers. They prevent workers from laboring there without joining the union. “Right to Work” laws prohibit this sort of formal restraint, and thus add to the freedom of workers in one way (mainly in a way that corresponds to classical notions of freedom and which not coincidently strengthens the bargaining position of capital). At the same time, closed union shops strengthen the position of unions’ collective bargaining activities, which can enhance workers’ economic position and thus, reduce economic restraints, thus increasing their freedom in another sense, i.e. increasing their ability to shape their own actions in general.
Custom and Law
Custom and law are not the same things, but they work similarly in providing explicit expectations for behavior, either through proscription or prescription. No one always meets the expectations of custom or law in all of their behavior, but most everyone is strongly influenced by them, either through proscriptive inhibition or the production of patterns of behavior under the influence of prescriptive law or custom. Further, their presence can serve to legitimate others’ actions constraining the actions of an individual.
Custom and law are not directly social relationships, and so act differently than other social restrictions and influences on action. However, they are the direct products of social relationships, i.e. produced by individuals in interaction. Further, they comprise a sort of abstract entity which acts as a crystallization of power relations. They constitute indirect social relations over time, as they are in effect one set of persons’ actions having continuous effect on others’ actions into the future.
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