1. 1 I The Importance of Technology
in Human Affairs
MELVIN KRANZBERG AND CARROLL W. PURSELL, JR.
OUR PRESENT TECHNOLOGICAL AGE
In the late afternoon of November 9, 1965, a small electrical relay in a power
station in Ontario, Canada, failed. Within a few minutes the flow of electric
energy throughout much of the northeastern section of the United States and
part of Canada had ceased. Some thirty million people, including those in the
great metropolitan areas of Boston and New York, were plunged into darkness.
Coming as it did, during the evening rush hour when people were on their way
home from work, the shutting off of electric power left hundreds of thousands
of New Yorkers stranded in subway trains, confined in elevators stalled between
floors of towering skyscrapers, or caught in monstrous traffic jams created by
the absence of traffic lights. Even when they finally reached home, many of the
now-disconcerted city-dwellers found it to be without warmth, without hot food,
and without light. Here was a dramatic demonstration of modern man's depend-
ence on the machine.
Disaster was narrowly averted. Emergency generating equipment allowed
essential equipment to function in hospitals and institutions, and with a sense of
shared adventure, Americans sought to help their neighbors in a surprising dis-
play of good humor and humanity. The great urban centers were able to limp
along through the night without many of the technological devices and com-
forts which characterize life in 20th century America. Yet, had the shutdown of
power lasted over a much longer period, it is clear that a considerable disaster
could have occurred and that much of civilization as we know it would have
been seriously disrupted.
For the fact is that we live in a "Technological Age." It is called that, not be-
cause all men are engineers, and certainly not because all men understand tech-
nology, but because we are becoming increasingly aware that technology has
become a major disruptive as well as creative force in the 20th century. The
"biggest blackout" of November 1965 gave ample proof of the role of technol-

2. MELVIN KRANZBERG AND CARROLL W. PURSELL, JR. P THE IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY I N HUMAN AFFAIRS 5
4
ogy in determining the conditions of our life and heightened our awareness of to subdue or control that environment by means of his imagination and ingenuity
our dependence upon machines, tools, vehicIes, and processes. in the use of available resources.
Equally important, the "biggest blackout" also demonstrated the close rela- In the popular mind, technology is synonymous with machines of various
tionship between man and his machines from another angle. For while the im- sorts-the steam engine, the locomotive, and the automobile-as well as such
mediate cause of the power failure was apparently the breakdown of a mechani- developments as printing, photography, radio, and television. The history of
cal component-an electrical relay-this failure might not have occurred had technology is then regarded as simply a chronological narrative of inventors and
prior decisions been taken to provide "backup" systems, nor would it have ex- their devices. Of course, such items form a part of the history of technology
tended over such a wide area had the man in Ontario monitoring the power just as chronologies of battles, treaties, and elections form a part of military and
switches acted immediately on the information given him by the dials on his political history. However, technology and its history encompass much more
control panel (when he saw the power drop in the Canadian system, he could than the mere technical devices and processes at work.
have switched off the American connection and prevented the power loss in the An encyclopedic five-volume work on the history of technology, edited by the
New York system). Once the blackout had occurred another human failing was late Dr. Charles Singer, defines its subject as "how things are commonly done
revealed: the power company serving New York City was unable to restart its or made . . . [and] what things are done or made." Such a definition is so
plants immediately because no auxiliary equipment had been provided for that broad and loose that it encompasses many items that scarcely can be considered
purpose, it being incomprehensible to the engineering mind that such an event as technology. For example, the passage of laws is something which is "done,"
could occur. but the history of law certainly is not the history of technology.
What distinguishes our age from the past is, first, our belated recognition of An element of purpose is stressed in another definition of technology as
the significance of technology in human affairs; second, the accelerated pace of "man's rational and ordered attempt to control nature." Here the definition is
technological development that makes it part-and-parcel of our daily living in too tight, for while it would include much of technology, many elements would
ever-increasing measure; and, third, the realization that technology is not simply not fit within its limits. The development of certain kinds of toys, for example,
a limited or local factor but encompasses all men everywhere and is interrelated does not constitute an attempt to control nature. Furthermore, not all technology
with nearly all human endeavor. exists for the purpose of control, nor, as we shall see in these two volumes, has
Man has always lived in a "Technological Age," even though we sense that all past technological endeavor been rational and systematic.
this is particularly true of our own time. The modern tractor-driven plow repre- In addition, much of man's technology is devoted to elements which are part
sents a higher level of technology than the heavy, crooked stick with which of his physical environment but which are not necessarily part of "nature." The
primitive man-or, rather, woman-scratched the soil; and the hydrogen bomb is various means that man has devised for purposes of controlling the flow of
an infinitely more complex and lethal weapon of destruction than the bow and traffic in congested cities are in response to a highly civilized and urban envi-
arrow. Nevertheless, the stick-plow and the bow-and-arrow weapon represented ronment which is not a part of the natural environment. Any definition there-
the advanced technology of an earlier era. The heavy stick with which our fore must be extended to include the man-made as well as the natural environ-
primitive ancestors prepared the soil for p!anting enormously increased their ment.
ability to wrest a living from an inhospitable and unpredictable nature. Similarly To limit the definition of technology to those things which characterize the
the bow and arrow greatly added to their larder when used to kill game for food. technology of our own time, such as machinery and prime movers, would be to
And when used upon their own kind, bow-and-arrow weaponry also gave the do violence to all that went before. Indeed, a good case can even be made for
first possessors a decided advantage over an enemy who still relied upon rocks considering magic as a technology, for with it primitive man attempted to con-
and clubs and who could be brought down from afar before their close-range trol or at least influence his environment-a perfectly straightforward goal of all
weapons could be brought to bear. technology. If we now feel that our ancestors used their magic without much
success, let us not fall into the error of equating technology only with successful
technology. The past abounds with failures-schemes that went awry, machines
WHAT IS TECHNOLOGY? that wouldn't work, processes that proved inapplicable-yet these failures form
While the influence of technology is both widespread and fundamental, the part of the story of man's attempts to control his environment. Albeit unsuccess-
term cannot be defined with precision. In its simplest terms, technology is man's ful, many of these failures were necessary preliminaries toward the successes in
efforts to cope with his physical environment-both that provided by nature and technology.
-.
that created by man's own technological deeds, such as cities-and his attempts Sometimes technology is defined as applied science. Science itself is viewed as

3. p. THE IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY IN H U M A N AFFAIRS
6 MELVIN KRANZBERG AND CARROLL W . PURSELL, 7
an attempt b y man to understand the physical world; technology is the attempt Even if we were to try to limit the history of technology to inventions, we
by man to control the physical world. This distinction may be briefly put as the would be forced to deal with many social, political, economic, and cultural as-
difference between the "know-why" and the "know-how." But technology for pects of civilization. For example, ever since World War 11, which stimulated
much of its history had little relation with science, for men could and did make nationalistic feeling in Russia, Soviet scholars have been publishing reports of
machines and devices without understanding why they worked or why they "firsts" by Russian inventors and scientists. Although most Americans have
turned out as they did. Thus for centuries men produced usable objects of iron shrugged off these Russian attempts to claim priorities in inventions, the facts
without knowing the chemical composition of iron and why the various changes are that some of the Russian claims are well founded and that individual Rus-
occurred in smelting and working it; indeed, they could successfully make sian scientists and inventors during the 19th century were the peers of their
things of iron even when they had false theories and incorrect understanding of counterparts in Western Europe and the United States. Yet even if we were to
metallurgical processes. Even today much technology does not represent an ap- accept all of the Russian claims, we would still face another question: why did
plication of science, although in such sophisticated technologies as those involv- Russia lag behind other European nations in industrialization? The answer to
ing nuclear science, scientific understanding is closely linked with technical ac- that is not to be found in the mental prowess and inventive capabilities of the
complishment. Russian people, but rather in the complex of social and political circumstances
Technology, then, is much more than tools and artifacts, machines and proc- under which invention and innovation thrive.
esses. It deals with human work, with man's attempts to satisfy his wants by It is not enough simply to discover who first had the idea for an invention,
human action on physical objects. nor even who first patented the device; we must also see when, why, and how
We must use the term "wants" instead of "needs," for human wants go far this invention actually came into use. The answers to these questions involve
beyond human needs, especially those basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter. much more than the purely technical factors, which is why the history of tech-
Technology administers to these, of course, but i t also helps man to get what he nology is such a comprehensive subject. It covers every aspect of human life and
wants, including play, leisure, and better and more commodious dwellings. He must go back to the very beginnings of the human species.
cultivates a taste for more exotic foods than those necessary to still the pangs
of hunger. He yearns to achieve faster and more lasting communication with TECHNOLOGY AND THE EMERGENCE- O F MAN
others. He wants to travel abroad and be entertained, and to fill his house and
Anthropologists seeking the origins of mankind have attempted to differenti-
his life with beauty as he sees it.
Emphasis upon the "work" aspect of technology shows that it also involves ate between what constitutes "almost man" and the genus Homo, man himself.
the organization as well as the purpose of labor. For example, the pyramids of The chief distinction they have found is that man employed tools, thereby dis-
Egypt are monuments to the technology of that early civilization. The pyramids tinguishing him from his almost-human predecessors.
demonstrate even today how much can be done with very little in the way of Man, as we know him, surely would not have evolved or survived without
tools but with much ingenuity and skill in the organization of labor. In our own tools. He is too weak and puny a creature to compete in the struggle with beasts
day the efficiency of new tools and processes can only be maximized by utilizing and the caprices of nature if armed with only his hands and teeth. The lion is
efficient organization. We are increasingly forced to think in terms of "systems," stronger, the horse is faster, and the giraffe can reach farther. Man has been
and even decision-making now can sometimes best be done by machines. able to survive because of his ability to adapt to his environment by improving
his equipment for living. As Gordon Childe has pointed out, the specialized
equipment man uses differs significantly from that of the animal kingdom. An
THE COMPREHENSIVENESS OF THE HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY animal is capable of using only that equipment which he carries around with
him as parts of his body. Man has very little specialized equipment of this kind.
The nature of invention itself requires that the history of technology be more
than a mere tabulation of inventors and their creations. Invention does not come Moreover, he has discarded some of the organic "tools" with which he started
and has relied more on the invention of tools, or extracorporeal organs, that he
about simply because a creative person decides that he is going to "build a bet-
ter mousetrap." Invention is a social activity, much affected by social needs, by makes, uses, and discards at will. This invention and use of extracorporeal equip-
economic requirements, by the level of technology at a given time, and by ment has enabled man to adapt to nature and to reign supreme among the
sociocultural and psychological circumstances. The fact that some inventions animals on earth.
"come before their time" indicates the importance of the sociocultural milieu, Archaeological anthropologists continue to discover older and older fossils of
and it raises the whole question of the nature and origin of creativity. human-like skeletons, almost always surrounded in their graves by primitive

4. THE IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS
8 MELVIN KRANZBERG AND CARROLL W . PURSELL, JR. 9
tools or implements. It has even been postulated from these findings that tech- tools, from craft shops to mass production lines, from the beginnings of job
nology is perhaps responsible for our standing on two feet and for our being definitions and quality control to computer control of factories.
Homo sapiens, Man the Thinker. Thus, man began to stand erect so that he The advance of material civilization has not been without interruption, and
might have his forearms free to throw stones; he did not throw stones simply cannot be portrayed on a graph as a straight line climbing constantly upward
because he was already standing erect. Modern physiology, psychology, evolu- through time. Instead, periods of great technological progress have sometimes
tionary biology, and anthropology all combine to demonstrate to us that Homo been followed by eras of relative stagnation, during which time very little ad-
sapiens cannot be distinguished from Homo faber, Man the Maker. We now vance was made in man's control over nature. Moreover, materialistic tech-
realize that man could not have become a thinker had he not at the same time niques may progress while cultural activities such as music, art, literature, and
been a maker. Man made tools; but tools made man as well. philosophy seem to retrogress. There have been times when religious, philosoph-
ical and artistic activities achieved great heights while technology seemed to
rest on a plateau.
TECHNOLOGY AND THE ADVANCE OF CIVILIZATION
The very terms by which we measure the progress of civilization-Stone Age, TECHNOLOGY AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION
Bronze Age, Iron Age, and even Atomic Age-refer to a developing technologi-
cal mastery by man of his environment. Technology and its modem twin, science, are the distinguishing hallmarks of
One indication of the start of civilization-the development of settled com- recent Western civilization. The Scientific Revolution of the 17th century was
munities-rests upon a technological innovation: agriculture. In the prehistory reinforced by a Technological Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. These
before that time, men had been nothing more than hunters; in a sense, they revolutions brought something to our culture that had been unknown to the
had been parasites upon nature. We do not know exactly how or when agricul- earlier Western civilization of Greece and Rome or the Eastern civilizations of
ture began. Recently there has been found evidence of agricultural communities India and China. Science and technology differentiate our society from all that
in the Middle East dating as far back as 8000 years ago. Once men discovered has gone before in human history and all that has taken place in other parts of
that they could co-operate with nature by sowing seeds and waiting for nature the world. While the roots of our Western religious and moral heritage can be
to perform the miracle of growing crops, there arose the possibility of settled found in the Judeo-Christian-Greek tradition, contemporary Western culture is
and civilized life. perhaps based more upon science and technology than upon religious and
Unlike the hunter, the agriculturist could not afford to live in constant con- moral considerations.
flict on all sides. Rather, he had to learn to co-operate not only with nature but If we wish to test the hypothesis of the uniqueness and significance of West-
with other human beings. If he spent too much of his time in fighting, he could ern civilization, we need merely ask ourselves what "Westernization" means to
have neither the time nor the energy for carrying on his agricultural pursuits. non-Western societies. To them, it means the acquisition of the products of
Yet if he ran away from his enemies, his crops would go unattended and he Western technology, not the political institutions, religious faiths, nor moral
would lose his means of livelihood. With the introduction of agriculture, there- attitudes which the West has developed over the centuries. When we speak of
fore, civilized society began to emerge. This both spawned and depended upon the "Westernization" of Japan during the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
man's dawning awareness that he must live and work together with others if he we refer to the acceptance and the borrowing of Western technology by the
was to survive. It is a reasonable, though optimistic, extension of this concern to Japanese. Similarly, many of the underdeveloped nations of the world want to
hope that man has, in the many thousands of years since, begun to realize that borrow from the West today. While they often specifically reject Western moral
he is part of a larger community and that there is a need to co-operate with and social attitudes, they want desperately the material advantages which tech-'
other human beings in order to advance his control over nature. No longer are nology can bestow upon them, even though they criticize the West's "material-
his actions, thoughts, or aspirations confined to his immediate locale. Rather he ism." To much of the world, the "American Way of Life" does not mean de-
must learn to consider all mankind since he has acquired the skill literally to re- mocracy, much less free enterprise. It means material abundance within the
shape or destroy the world with the technology at his command. reach of all men; and social and political "isms" become relevant only when
In terms of energy, there has been transition from human muscle power to they retard or encourage the gaining of that goal.
that of animals, to wind and water, to steam and oil, to rockets and nuclear The attitudes and values of Western man himself have been deeply affected
power. With machines, we have witnessed change from hand tools to powered by technological advance. For centuries men thought that it was their lot to

5. THE BEGINNINGS OF TECHNOLOGY AND M A N 11
10 MELVIN KRANZBERG AND CARROLL W. PURSELL, JR.
lation. There have been victims of the rapid social readjustment to industrial
earn their living by the sweat of their brows, and there was little hope for
growth, notably the factory workers in Britain during the early days of the In-
material abundance here on earth. In the past, technology was primarily con-
dustrial Revolution. This has led some critics to claim that technology presents
cerned with furnishing the human needs of food, clothing, and shelter. I t still
two faces to man: one benign and the other malignant. The latter face is most
serves to fulfill those needs, but now so successfully that modern technology
frequently represented today by the destructive potentialities of intercontinental
for the first time in history has produced in the United States a society which
ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads.
has not only a surplus of goods but a surplus of leisure as well.
Yet it advances our understanding very little to say that technology wears
two faces, as though one were comedy and the other were tragedy. Technology,
THE HUMAN AND SOCIAL ELEMENTS I N TECHNOLOGY in a sense, is nothing more than the area of interaction between ourselves, as
individuals, and our environment, whether material or spiritual, natural or man-
There have always been those, especially since the Industrial Revolution, who
made. Being the most fundamental aspect of man's condition, his technology
have seen new technologies as a threat to "human values." In the late 18th cen-
has always had critical implications for the status quo of whatever epoch or era.
tury the excesses of the growing industrialism in Great Britain-symbolized in
Changes have always rearranged the relationships of men-or a t least of some
William Blake's description of the "dark Satanic mills"-tragically alienated a
men-with respect to the world about them. Not a few of the historic outcries
large and influential segment of our common humanistic tradition. Many within
against technology (or, more properly, against some changes in technology)
that tradition-including artists, writers, and philosophers-have to this day con-
have been essentially protests against a rearrangement of the world's goods
tinued to deplore the Industrial Revolution and our modern urbanized and
disadvantageous to those who complain.
industrialized society that has issued from it. This estrangement has led in some
Some "defenders" of technology claim that it is neutral, that it can have so-
cases to a failure of the humanities to perform their functions as prophets of
cially desirable or evil effects, depending on the uses which man makes of it.
mankind. The tragedy is that this alienation, which leaves us all the poorer,
To deny this and to say that technology is not strictly neutral, that it has inher-
seems so unnecessary.
ent tendencies or imposes its own values, is merely to recognize the fact that, as
We have come to think of technology as something mechanical, yet the fact
a part of our culture, it has an influence on the way in which we behave and
remains that all technical processes and products are the result of the creative
grow. Just as men have always had some form of technology, so has that tech-
imagination and manipulative skills of human effort. The story of how man has
nology influenced the nature and direction of their development. The process
utilized technology in mastering his environment is part of the great drama of
cannot be stopped nor the relationship ended; it can only be understood and,
man fighting against the unknown.
hopefully, directed toward goals worthy of mankind.
Furthermore, the significance of technology lies not only in the uses of tech-
nology by human beings, but in terms of what it does to human beings as well.
If we regard the telephone, for example, only as a system of wires through
which a tiny current passes from mouthpiece to earphone, it would seem to
have little interest, except to technicians and repairmen, and virtually none to
historians except for the antiquarian desire to discover who conceived the idea 2 1 The Beginnings of Technology and Man
and reduced it to practice. But the greater significance of the telephone lies in R. J. FORBES
the newly found ability to transmit voice communication between persons over
long distances. I t is the communications function of the telephone that gives it
importance. The principal significance of this particular bit of technology-as Technology is as old as man himself. Man was evidently a "tool-making pri-
in the function of every technological item-is its use by human beings. mate" from the day when the first human-like creatures roamed on earth, some
The essential humanity of technology is nowhere better demonstrated than 25 million years ago. Such very early human remains as that of the "Peking
in the fact that it too, like the noble heroes of Greek tragedy, carries within it I Man" (so called because the fossil bones were found near Peking), dating back
a fatal flaw which threatens always to lay it low. I t is no longer possible, if about half a million years, are accompanied by stones selected and often
indeed it ever was, to believe that progress is either inevitable or uniformly shaped to be used as tools. Even when we do find remains of fossil men not
beneficent. Granted that technology has contributed to man's material progress, accompanied by tools, it is probably because they were trapped by death be-
its social repercussions have not always been a boon to all segments of the popu- yond their usual dwelling site, and therefore without their usual tools.