Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation [1 ed.] 9781782389644, 9781845451165

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MAKING SENSE OF HISTORY Studies in Historical Cultures General Editor: Jörn Rüsen, in Association with Christian Geulen Volume 1 Western Historical Thinking: An Intercultural Debate Edited by Jörn Rüsen Volume 2 Identities: Time, Difference, and Boundaries Edited by Heidrun Friese Volume 3 Narration, Identity, and Historical Consciousness Edited by Jürgen Straub Volume 4 Thinking Utopia: Steps into Other Worlds Edited by Jörn Rüsen, Michael Fehr, and Thomas W. Rieger

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Volume 5 History: Narration, Interpretation, Orientation Jörn Rüsen Volume 6 The Dynamics of German Industry: Germany’s Path toward the New Economy and the American Challenge Werner Abelshauser Volume 7 Meaning and Representation in History Edited by Jörn Rüsen Volume 8

Remapping Knowledge: Intercultural Studies for a Global Age Mihai Spariosu Volume 9 Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation Edited by Helga Nowotny

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CULTURES OF TECHNOLOGY AND THE QUEST FOR INNOVATION

Edited by

Copyright © 2006. Berghahn Books, Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Helga Nowotny

Berghahn Books New York • Oxford

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Published by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2006 Helga Nowotny

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

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Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Cultures of technology and the quest for innovation / edited by Helga Nowotny. p. cm. — (Making sense of history ; v. 9) Chiefly papers presented at a conference held at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut in Essen, Germany, in April 2003. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-84545-116-5 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-84545-117-2 (pbk.) 1. Technological innovations—Congresses. 2. Social history—1945— Congresses. I. Nowotny, Helga. II. Series. HC79.T4C85 2006 338'.064—dc22 2005057026

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed on acid-free paper. ISBN: 978-1-84545-116-5 hardback ISBN: 978-1-84545-117-2 paperback

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Contents

List of Illustrations

vii

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction: The Quest for Innovation and Cultures of Technology Helga Nowotny

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Part I: On the Relationship between Culture, Technology, and Innovation

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Chapter 1: Culture and Innovation Thomas P. Hughes Chapter 2: The Unintended Consequences of Innovation: Change and Community at MIT Rosalind Williams Chapter 3: The Vulnerability of Technological Culture Wiebe E. Bijker

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Part II: The Gender Bias of Technological Innovations Chapter 4: Culture of Gender, and Culture of Technology: The Gendering of Things in France’s Office Spaces between 1890 and 1930 Delphine Gardey Chapter 5: Suspending Gender? Reflecting on Innovations in Cyberspace Judy Wajcman

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Contents

Part III: Pluralist Histories of Science, Innovation, and War Chapter 6: Innovation, Diverse Knowledges, and the Presumed Singularity of Science John V. Pickstone Chapter 7: Scientists on the Battlefield: Cultures and Conflicts Jean-Jacques Salomon

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Part IV: The Adoption of Innovations in Different Cultural Contexts Chapter 8: From Prophecies of the Future to Incarnations of the Past: Cultures of Nuclear Technology 155 Patrick Kupper Chapter 9: The Mining Industry in Traditional China: Intraand Intercultural Comparisons Hans Ulrich Vogel

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Epilogue: Interdisciplinarity and the Innovation Process How to Organize Spaces of Translation, or, the Politics of Innovation Joachim Nettelbeck

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191

Contributors

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Select Bibliography

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Index

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List of Illustrations

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Fig. 2 Swiss Atomlobby

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Fig. 3 Mining operations in nineteenth-century Yunnan, as depicted in the Yunnan kuangchang gongqi tulüe

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Fig. 4 The construction of a sixteenth-cetury shaft, as depicted in De re Metallica

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Fig. 5 Carrying the ashes and pouring them into the leaching basin

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Fig. 1 World Nuclear Reactor Construction Start-ups, 1960–98

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Acknowledgments

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Many of the articles collected here were first presented at the “Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation” conference, which I organized at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut (KWI) in Essen, Germany, in April 2003. The conference was sponsored by the Alfred and Cläre Pott Stiftung. I want to thank Jörn Rüsen, the Director of the KWI, and his staff for providing us with excellent facilities and with the time required for some intense and stimulating discussions.

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INTRODUCTION

The Quest for Innovation and Cultures of Technology

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HELGA NOWOTNY

It is impossible to imagine the future without referring to the concept of innovation. Like an almost invisible tether suspended from a spaceship, the quest for innovation involves taking measurements in an unknown environment. Its bearings are confined to the tiny base in which it has been set up, while the surrounding space is vast, cold, and indifferent. And yet, this quest continues its exploration, fueled by human ingenuity and driven by insatiable curiosity. Built as a result of today’s scientific and technological knowledge and the range of skills available at present it extends forward in time is guided by what human imagination and determination have to offer: vague promises of improvement, the desire to understand, and hence the will to control. Never before in our history has there been such a view of the future that offers unbounded opportunities. While science and technology make innovations possible at an unprecedented rate, the social order and especially the economic organization of today’s societies have created a culture of competition and economic growth that continues to extend the horizon toward the unknown future. With the onset of modernity, contingencies were embraced. Now we are being asked to embrace the inherent uncertainty residing in the endless process of innovation. In this chapter I will first analyze the quest for innovation and explore some of the reasons why it has achieved such prominence and (seeming) urgency. I will argue that innovation seeks to negotiate a future that has become more fragile and even more inherently uncertain. I will then compare the use of this concept with an historical precedent, the rise of the concept of technology in the nineteenth century, and identify which societal void is filled by the concept of innovation. I will then return to what I call “cultures of techNotes for this section begin on page 22.

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Introduction

nology,” as one of the most salient features of this quest for innovation. Cultures of technology takes seriously the proposition that culture matters. But to approach technology under a cultural perspective opens new avenues for exploring how technology works, including the meanings we attach to newly emerging technologies and innovations. The aim is to explore nothing more and nothing less than the complex interrelationships between culture, society, and technology.

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The Future of the Past While today the future appears to be highly uncertain and fragile, exacerbated by the relentlessly ongoing process of globalization and, more recently, of the fear of the further spread of global terrorism, the view of the future was very different only thirty years ago. Looking backward may therefore throw light on what has changed. Perhaps no other book is such a compelling witness as The Limits to Growth,1 published under the auspices of the Club of Rome. This ambitious research project triggered an unprecedented worldwide response since it was the first computer-based world model with normative assumptions, which had emerged from the young field of dynamic systems modeling. Some interpreted it as a courageous attempt to confront in a holistic way all of the pressing problems of the world, while others, especially other academics, were more skeptical in their assessments. But even they had to concede that the public response to the study was impressive. One review headline read, “The computer that printed out W*O*L*F.” The “wolf ” that had allegedly been sighted, however, was more than a mere figment of the imagination on the part of a world in crisis. The book represented a thinly disguised attack on one of the era’s hitherto unquestioned ideological dogmas. It contained the sharpest possible warning of the environmental and demographic consequences of a commitment to the project of continued, undifferentiated, and unimpeded economic growth. According to the authors and to their sponsor, this was the real cause underlying the most urgent problems facing humanity. The various crisis scenarios that the model produced demanded action, as well as a reversal of the dominant thinking, if humanity and its relentless exploitation of the environment were to be pulled back from the abyss at the last possible moment. It is quite intriguing to look back at the projections of a future that by now has become the past.2 It may seem paradoxical to claim that one of the more lasting legacies of The Limits to Growth has been an altered sense of the future and of the ways of coping with its inherent fragility. While the world models of J. W. Forrester and D. L. Meadows were being devised, the future was considered predictable to a degree. The belief in its predictability underpinned the strong media response elicited by the computer-generated consequences. Based upon this belief it was possible to link the results that had been obtained through

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Introduction

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mathematical probabilities to the starkly normative claims that accompanied them, namely, that it was mandatory to change individual and collective behavior, and the economy and politics in a way that would prevent the collapse otherwise predicted. Today’s sense of the future could not be more different. It is spoken about in the conditional, and should be used exclusively as a plural despite the linguistic oddity. Uncertainties and contingencies abound. Various kinds of risks, of different proportions and subject to varying perceptions, have become an integral part of our lives—replacing the fear of the one big catastrophe that loomed large in the 1970s: the collapse of the environment. Even the latest spread of fears—fear of an enemy who is believed to be capable of the most wanton acts of destruction—fits into this overall picture, despite the difference in scale and content. The future has therefore moved closer to the present. Concomitantly, the tools to imagine the future in a more systematic way have also evolved. Models are recognized as being provisional; they capture a fluctuating present in a conjectural mode that projects certain assumptions and their dynamics. The process of thinking through, and reflecting upon, one’s built-in assumptions has become far more important than the actual findings. Results of the process of modeling are clearly seen to possess a highly preliminary and precarious status. In using the various tools of forecasting or of backcasting, of future scanning or devising road maps, of creating visions or of celebrating the creative forces of chaos, flexibility and creativity have become the hallmarks of this process. In its exuberant rhetoric the process mirrors the predominant mechanism, which is widely believed to incarnate the promise of optimal adaptation to the uncertainties of the future: the market. In retrospect, the three golden decades of the last part of the twentieth century seem to be far more removed than mere chronology would indicate, firmly rooted as they were in the centralized structures of the welfare state. Even the slightest achievements of this bygone age, in which the state was dominant in setting the political, social, and to some degree also the economic agenda, were translated into an astonishingly rich but equally rigid arrangement of policies and regulations. This was stimulated by the belief, at least in some countries in Europe, that planning was not only possible, but also a sign of good government. Looking back from today’s vantage point, where governing has yielded to governance and statecraft has been all but taken over by stagecraft,3 it comes as a shock to perceive what is missing in the way we perceive the future. It is not so much the technocratic streak that colored both the world models and other predictions of the future as it was the lack of other perspectives. What is markedly absent when looking back today is the multitude of consumers and voters who constitute democratic plurality. These individuals (and it is a highly individualized view which prevails today) are aware of their right to choose. They are expected to participate (and they insist upon participating) in accordance with the rules of the game. Their existence is per-

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vasively felt in the political and economic imagination. Today we would ask: how can one conceive of the future without taking into account the views of the future held by all of these actors who are supposed to shape it? The links between the present and the unknown future have always been a source of fascination, and each culture, each historical epoch, has structured them in diverse ways. The urge to divine what was to come lay at the roots of the ancient Chinese arts of numbers and mathematics. Christian theology pictured a future based upon the belief in salvation. And, for probably most of our history, fate reigned supreme in many societies. With modernity came the belief that the future could be planned, at least to a certain degree. The advances made in such fields of knowledge as mathematical probability theory enabled new social institutions to gain an economically viable footing, and to be able to cope with the unknowns of the future. The promises of modernity were also premised upon a new confidence in the achievements of an increasingly self-governing society. Today, our public belief is that innovation enables us to negotiate the future, after having had to accept that there are limits to planning. Innovation embraces the uncertainties inherent in the future—and attempts to seize whatever opportunities they have to offer. The meaning of the concept of innovation has been changed. While the configuration of known elements is still at its core, it also transcends what is known in a radical, evolutionary sense. Why has the quest for innovation become so omnipresent at the beginning of the twenty-first century? When and how did the collective obsession with innovation arise—not only in the rhetoric of politics, which always carries promises of a better future, but also among industrialists who seek to adapt to the new economy of increasing returns4 and to play the high-tech game. Even the quest for discoveries, whose significance as an indispensable epistemic base is sometimes realized only much later, is now moving closer to possible technological applications. Most scientists are aware of the fact that they are also expected to seek possible ways of “translating” their basic findings and discoveries that will be useful to society in one way or another. While curiosity has not disappeared, it too now takes part in the dominant motivation for engaging in research. The current emphasis on innovation does not mean that this is a new phenomenon, nor that innovation was not seen as highly desirable and crucial for economic growth before. But—to mention one example—innovative processes are understood as endogenous phenomena in orthodox neoclassical economic theory. To this day, J. A. Schumpeter’s proposals for an economic theory of innovation remain outside mainstream economic thought. Economists who took them as a starting point for modeling techniques, or who wanted to consider processes of innovation empirically, depart critically from neoclassical theory. Empirically speaking, processes of innovation are the result of specific activities aimed at changing the production process or at introducing new

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Introduction

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products; their results cannot be forecasted in detail. The whole problematic lies in the unpredictability of the success of attempts at innovation. Investments in innovation cannot be derived rationally due to the strategic uncertainty with respect to the action of other actors and to the uncertainty of the utility of the innovation. As Schumpeter argued a long time ago in The Theory of Economic Development, entrepreneurs are indeed interested in profit, but innovation cannot be understood as motivated by goal oriented utility maximizing alone.5 One theme I want to propose here is that the quest for innovation fills a conceptual void in our collective imagining of the future. This is an important void, insofar as it holds the key to a future that otherwise escapes us. Our thinking about the future is itself historically constrained. It has moved precariously between some degree of stability and a principled openness to the unforeseen. It has become subject to an evolutionary perspective, which brings with it a notion of radical openness. Our projections of the future have begun to oscillate between the emerging order on the one hand, and the edge of chaos on the other hand. Against the background of our growing knowledge about the dynamics of complex systems, thinking about the future has become less mechanistic and naive. It has perhaps even become reflexive in the sense that thinking about the future is no longer primarily based upon “what is likely to happen.” Questions have shifted toward knowledge of the actors imagining different kinds of futures. In one domain in particular, financial markets, this kind of reasoning, and the mathematical tools that accompany it, have reached an impressive level of sophistication.6 Imaginary constructs of the future serve different social functions in public and private discourse alike. But they have also become part of the various agendas for innovation, with the intent to mobilize cultural, economic, and social resources that will serve as indispensable preconditions for technological innovation in particular. Public discourse about innovation, the rhetoric it uses, and the target groups it addresses, has become almost as important as its substantive, material content. Discourse about “technological pulls” or “technological pushes,” which presupposes that new technological development will be followed by appropriate levels of demands or social acceptance, has lost credibility in a civil society whose acknowledged complexity and plurality includes the views of its various stakeholder groups, whose preferences are not predetermined. While the extension of views of the future necessarily leads to increased uncertainty, it also promises to widen the breadth of opportunities that come with it. The conceptual void arises for many different reasons. One of the reasons, however, emerges from the changing nature of the relationship between the state and the market. Because innovation is both a socioeconomic and a technological process, the support for innovation and entrepreneurship is increasingly seen as being also a pro-active responsibility of governments. In their classic book, How the West Grew Rich, Nathan Rosenberg and L. E. Birdzell Jr.

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wrote in 1985: “In all well-ordered societies, political authority is dedicated to stability, security, and the status quo. It is thus singularly ill-qualified to direct or channel activity intended to produce instability, insecurity, and change.”7 Today, all highly industrialized nation-states have developed a set of policy tools to foster technological innovation and investment in research. While technological innovation in a more narrow or technical sense still occurs and can therefore be defined as “the successful implementation (in commerce or management) of a technical new idea to the institution creating it,”8 or as “the process by which firms master and get into practice product designs and manufacturing processes that are new to them,…”9 it is now recognized that what is required is an innovative society. Political agendas aimed at promoting technological innovation, including “foresight” exercises of various kinds, thus serve as proxies for constructing a shared vision of the future. This process is in turn indicative of the necessity to cope in both an active and an interactive fashion with the fragmentary and undecided nature of what we regard to be the future. There is a growing realization that innovation processes do not automatically follow from the results of research, whatever their potential may be. The “linear model,” which foresees that basic research will somehow find its way to being transferred or translated into applied research, which will in turn later appear on the market in the form of commercially viable products or processes, appears as an idealized version of what happened in a given historical period, namely, after World War II.10 Nor can today’s innovation processes be left to entrepreneurs alone, however strong their “restlessness” (in a Schumpeterian sense) may be. The omnipresent quest for innovation, caught up as it has been in a globalized world, is a hybrid of many elements. It includes the availability of venture capital, and the creativity of determined individuals as much as the flexibility of institutions and regulatory processes. An ever-expanding knowledge base and the appropriate research system must be in tune as well with the wider expectations of society, whose ultimate acceptance will be decisive. Innovation stands for social change, which is embraced by some and feared by others. And, as with modernity’s previous march forward, there will be winners and losers. Innovation also faces barriers that are much more difficult to detect, because they inhere in the nature of institutions and of large sociotechnical systems. Nor does innovation necessarily always offer the best technological solutions. Technology can become locked-in, as can innovations. All this is part of a public discourse intent on moving forward toward an uncertain future.

A Historical Precedent It is tempting to compare the recent emergence of innovation as a major concept of our times to an historical precedent. In a curious twist, concepts that

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are taken for granted are often projected backward into the past as though they had always existed. Leo Marx has shown that this occurred in the nineteenth century with the then-novel concept of technology.11 The belated emergence of the word technology, used to name what allegedly was driving history during the mid nineteenth century in the United States, is a reminder of how an old word can be invested with new meaning, and thus often serves as a marker for far-reaching developments and for ongoing changes in a society and in its culture. During the 1840s in the United States two kinds of large-scale changes had become apparent: one ideological, involving the prevailing ideas about the mechanical arts; the other substantive, affecting the organizational and material matrix of the mechanical arts. The first is exemplified by a speech given by Senator Daniel Webster at the opening of a new section of the railroad in New Hampshire. He celebrates his “extraordinary era,” “the progress of the age [that] has almost outstripped human belief,” and the “future [that] is known only to Omniscience.”12 The perceived relationship between innovations in science and the mechanical arts and the prevailing belief in progress is thereby subtly altered. Of course, the idea of progress had been bound up with the accelerating rate of scientific discoveries and technical inventions before. But, as Marx explains, advances in science and in the mechanical arts had been important for the thinkers of the Enlightenment as a means to arriving at social and political ends, and not as ends in themselves. This distinction had changed by Webster’s time, certainly in the United States. Webster’s audience no longer thought of the railroad as merely a means to achieving social and political progress. For the new entrepreneurial elite, the mechanical arts were highly visible, and this change was ripe for the emergence of a new word: technology. The blurring of the distinction between mechanical means and political or normative ends, however, did meet with strong criticism. The second substantive change occurred in the material and organizational character of the mechanical arts. The change was embodied in machines, but in the second half of the nineteenth century the machine was replaced by a new kind of sociotechnological system. The railroad was among the earliest and most visible, large-scale technological systems of its time. A novel feature of such a system is that the crucial mechanical component, the physical artifact itself, constitutes only a small part of the whole. Concomitantly, the organizational features that were required to render it operational have expanded tremendously, from ancillary equipment and large corporate business organizations with unprecedented capital investment, all the way to the new sets of skills required from the workforce. While the merger of science and the practical arts and industry was already under way, it was not until the end of the century with the growth of the electrical and chemical industries that the transformative power of the new entity—now called technology—became fully visible. And, as so often before, a pioneer had already been using the word far ahead of his time.

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It was a Boston botanist and physician, Jacob Bigelow, who as early as 1826, “adopted the general name of Technology, a word sufficiently expressive” to denote “the practical applications of science, which may be considered useful, by promoting the benefit of society, together with the emolument of those who pursue them.” The greatest success in dissemination came when the term technology was used in naming a new institution of higher learning, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, now better known as MIT, in 1862.13 Before leaving this historical reconstruction of the arrival of a new word, and its successful closing of a semantic gap, it is worth recalling what had been missing: a concept that would capture a new form of power and of progress, one that far exceeded in degree, scope, and scale the relatively limited capacity of the merely useful, mechanical, practical, or industrial arts as a driver of social change. What was needed was a concept that would not merely signify a means to achieving progress, but that would signify the progress that had been achieved and—for all to see—continued to do so.

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Innovation Fills the Void The quest for innovation fills another conceptual void, and it has taken on a new meaning as a response to the profound changes going on in our time. On the ideological level, the belief in progress, at least as naively understood in the nineteenth and in most of the twentieth centuries, has been dealt major blows, from which it has been unable to recover. The dream of the Enlightenment thinkers—that science and technology would be a means to the ends of social improvement and political emancipation—was short-lived. As Bertrand Russell and others have pointed out, science does not free humanity from its most violent passions; on the contrary, it may even fuel them. Technology has revealed itself to be an assistant to humanity in acts of the most horrible destruction and brutality. Scientific and technical progress has not prevented society from falling back into a state of incredibly cruel destruction and barbarity, of which the twentieth century had more than its share. Whatever gains in productivity have been achieved as a result of science and technology, we must conclude that they have not brought with them a concomitant improvement in moral standards and behavior. Closer to the present, the tangible burdens of unrelenting technological advances have become more visible and, even as we strive to eliminate or contain them as much as possible, the unintended consequences of increasing intervention in the natural and social environment are here to stay. The shock wave created in the late 1960s and early 1970s by books such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) or Meadows’s Limits to Growth (1972) brought awareness of an ongoing environmental degradation and the onset of the much-vaunted risk society. While some of the environmental problems have been alleviated,

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others have merely been transformed into increasing global inequalities. The demand for sustainability in interacting with the natural environment has, in conjunction with technological improvements, led to some beneficial results, although the final verdict as to where we now stand remains inconclusive. What has changed, however, is the perception of risks. The environmental agenda today is dominated by the major theme of global climate change and its anthropogenic origins. The threat it poses is quite serious since it represents the unpredictable: for extreme changes in weather and for extreme oscillations of climate. It spells unknown variability, both locally and regionally, and is imbued with a sense of human impotence. Faced with these unknowns, the only valid prediction seems to be “to expect the unexpected”—which hardly offers a solid basis for future interventions. When Albert Camus spoke of the twentieth century as the century of fear, he had in mind primarily the horrors of the totalitarian regimes and the growing arsenal of weaponry, which was rapidly gaining the potential to wipe out humanity. Yet, seen in the light of the more recent past, fear has hardly diminished, although its form and shadowy profile have changed. It is no longer the one big catastrophe, caused either by the military or by nature’s reaction to human intervention, which looms large on the horizon. Fear is now induced in small but all-pervasive doses. Much of the potential and actual risk is invisible. Negative consequences may be delayed and it is hardly seen as a consolation that never before in history has one had as good a chance of living longer. The suspicion lingers on that many of the latest scientific and technological developments appear to come with potential risks. With the real achievements of science and technology constantly overshadowed by potential risks, the ideological void is palpably waiting to be filled. On the substantive-organizational side, the impact of science and technology on our lives is even greater. The large sociotechnical systems that were the pride of modernity are still with us, although they have acquired a bewildering complexity. Due to the unabated and worldwide spread of the power of computers, these systems have been partly decentralized and continue to promote processes of globalization. Jobs are outsourced to less developed countries where the percentage of a technologically savvy, highly skilled labor force is on the increase. The world of the factory, characterized by planning, control, and hierarchy and in which bulk material was processed and productionoptimization strived for, has yielded in part to a high-tech world based on the processing of information. This new world is characterized by flattened hierarchies, by technologies depending upon other products and other technologies, by missions, by teams, and by cunning. Operations once handled by people are now handled by software. Adaptation to an ever-changing environment reigns supreme.14 With the shift from the state to market forces, national boundaries have not only become easier to cross, but this may now function as incentive or obsta-

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Introduction

cle for the creation of jobs and for increasing market shares. While the modern, pre-World War II managerial and engineering approach associates management with large manufacturing firms, the post-World War II approach associates management with projects that introduce new technological systems, such as computer networks and urban highways. They are no longer committed to maintaining a system for the mass production of standardized items. They tolerate and even embrace heterogeneity. They expect discontinuous change and brace themselves to manage innovation on a day-to-day basis in a world of complexity. Thomas P. Hughes has juxtaposed the characteristics of what he calls modern and postmodern project and technology management, and the comparison offers a striking contrast. Modern and postmodern project management excels in hierarchical and centralized control mechanisms and structures, tightly coupled systems, and homogeneity. Technology management relies on an often horizontal networked control, which is loosely coupled and thrives on heterogeneity. Heterogeneous agents control this technological culture, but this can no longer be exerted in a centralized mode. The best that such agents can do is to monitor the complex development of technology. These agents include industrial corporations, research laboratories, academia, the military, local and national governments, and “the will of the people.”15 The changes on the substantive-material side are far greater still. The term technoscience (which appears more frequently since the 1980s) is often employed to capture the sense in which many scientific discoveries are closely related to new technical instrumentation, which are in turn the result of scientific knowledge, yet that can spread across various scientific fields and thereby achieve similar gains in productivity, as has been the case with industry. The French historian of technology Marc Bloch spoke of the creative force of the created object (la force créatrice de l’objet créé);16 today we may note that this creative potential unfolds initially within the laboratory. This creative force is itself subsequently transformed in order to enter the market in a customized, often miniaturized, and highly fungible form in which it is fitted into one of the many distributed networked systems, which are heterogeneous and complex. And yet the term technoscience, while pointing to the strong coupling between “knowing what” and “knowing what for” (with the latter perhaps taking precedence), fails to capture one of the most salient characteristics of the new regime we have entered. This shift of regime is marked by a profound transformation of both the technology itself and the context in which it works. It is a shift in scale that marks a shift in time and space, that makes possible new forms of time management, and that opens up new sites as a result of its functioning: sites that it then uses in the course of its functioning. It can perhaps best be summarized as a shift from exotechnologies to endotechnologies. Technology as it has existed since time immemorial, which enabled our ancestors to survive, has been commensurate in scale with that of the human habitat. Even when the sheer

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Introduction

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reach of the human habitat was vastly extended—with the use of such modes of transportation as ships, cars, and airplanes—the goal of technology was to serve the function that archaeologists and anthropologists insist upon: to enlarge the biologically restricted human reach in its immediate and geographically extended environment. Such exotechnologies have enabled us to cross larger distances in less time; they have also allowed for the mass production of artifacts as well as for the construction of vast infrastructures for a variety of purposes, from growing, transporting, and conserving food and other products to living in growing comfort in a variety of climates. The new regime of endotechnologies—biotechnologies and nanotechnologies together with information technologies and other enabling, symbolic technologies—is extending the scale of the human-built world down to that of infinitesimal living organisms and within matter itself. It transforms the management of time in the sense that those genetic mechanisms which, for instance, induces the growth of plants, can now be reversed, while natural aging processes can be speeded up or delayed. Electricity once allowed us to extend our use of daytime and indeed to turn night into day. This same effect is now made possible by our intervention into the circadian rhythm and by our switching genes on and off. Endotechnologies transform space by opening up living organisms and by turning them into the site of intervention. Living organisms and the creation of life, and the dynamics of growth and decline at different levels in the hierarchy of living matter, all these make possible novel forms of time management. In 1959, at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society, Richard Feynman gave his classic lectures “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” about the prospect of manipulating objects on a small scale; he understood with astonishing foresight that the molecular structure of matter would become another prime site for new endotechnological procedures. Individual atoms can now be assembled and reassembled at will. New properties can be designed to build new materials. The “creative force of the created object” at work here comes from the growth of computers, which has enabled us to generate, process, and retrieve data on an unprecedented scale. This creative force is inherent in technical devices like the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) allowing the mass sequencing of genes. In the words of Paul Rabinow, “PCR is more than the possibilities of its applications. It possesses the quality to enable new events.”17 Many other methods and devices, and instruments and instrumentations exist, which all work together to make possible new events on unprecedentedly small scales. The growing inter- or transdisciplinary convergence of mathematics, biology, physics, chemistry, information technology, and statistics, brings approaches and methods to bear on commonly defined problems. Biology is taking great strides toward becoming integrative starting with the molecular level. These developments, while being greeted enthusiastically by the scientific community, also create a lot of unease in the wider society. They raise such

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Introduction

questions as what it means to be human, who defines what is “natural,” and what is considered “cultural.” By extending the impact of technologies not only toward the environment, but by directing them inside living organisms, science has given rise to anxiety equivalent to the wonder it has inspired. With every new scientific and technological advance the number of options increases, yet it is impossible to foresee many of the consequences. Uncertainties abound and have become inherent to the process of producing new knowledge. The view of the future, as we have seen, has become fraught with uncertainties. There is, however, no turning back. As the number of potential future options grows, the number of escape routes diminishes. Fundamentalism, whether or not religious, remains one of the few alternatives, but its appeal is limited. The utopia of modernity has become exhausted, since the promises of modernity have been partly fulfilled. But when desire and reality do not match, discontent remains. We have to move forward toward a highly uncertain future—but how? This is where the concept of innovation enters to fill the current void. Innovation signals the emergence of something new that is already present, but that is only partially recognizable. It may bring into focus the otherwise invisible links that bind together key concepts in a changing web of meanings. I am drawing here on the seminal work of Raymond Williams. When examining the transformation of culture, Williams discovered a curious interdependence or mutual reflexivity in the relationship between concurrent changes in language and society. He found that the word culture itself, like other key words such as class, industry, and democracy, had acquired its meanings in response to the very changes he meant to analyze.18 The quest for innovation is such a concept, a term that fills a void at the intersection of the changes just analyzed. Contrary to Bruno Latour’s proposition that “We have never been modern,”19 we are all modern today. And contrary to other postmodern beliefs, we are condemned to remain modern for some time to come. But modernity is no longer a program that will deliver—it has already delivered the building blocks, the institutions and structures we use. It fails to respond to expectations. It is no substitute for the belief in progress that served to underpin modernity until it collapsed under the weight of the hype it carried. With the future open, the challenge lies in the belief that worthwhile novelty will emerge with power sufficient to generate further worthwhile novelties, which will in turn lead to further economic growth and well-being is inevitable. This process should be sufficiently open to incorporate human values, like forging sustainable links to the natural environment or furthering education as a means of social inclusion. There are other strongly held values that have emerged, such as the value attached to security. But how to translate such values and their internal contradictions into a concept that will fill the void? The only other concept (or Denkfigur in the sense of Ludwik Fleck) that would offer a credible alternative is evolution. Taking the concept out of its original biologic domain of meaning

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and transferring it metaphorically to the social and cultural domain, however, has proven to be extremely tricky.20 Moreover, evolution, after having stripped the world of divine intervention, also leaves no room for human agency. Innovation is a concept that crosses domains easily. It can take up residence in the cultural domain and in social organizations, indeed in every field in which human creativity flourishes. Innovation signals the positive direction where the unknown is to be found and it is therefore reassuring. In contrast to the concept of technology, innovation cannot be transformed into an object since it is a process, amenable to action and interaction, even if it carries its own load of uncertainty. But there is the chance that opportunities will outweigh whatever negative consequences the future has in store. The impact on society and on the changes that will be introduced, especially through the next wave of the so-called convergent technologies, bio-, nano-, neuro-, and infotechnologies, will be profound. An abstract goal of innovation might be the “enhancement” of the human self. The profound and pervasive sense of unease regarding biotechnologies is likely to persist for some time. Human reproductive technologies, for example, are viewed with suspicion, as they threaten to upset kinship networks regarded as “natural” although they constitute in reality a mixture of biologic predispositions and variable social arrangements. Beyond the specifics of each case, there is an appeal for immutable values that will prevail amid a sea of changes.Yet, as history demonstrates, not every slippery slope is necessarily perilous, and values, however immutable they might appear, are subject to change in accordance with other changes in the society at large. Caught between the understandable wish to resist and to preserve the given order and the prospects of a new but largely unknown, hybrid order, the rallying cry is to move forward. This is the real meaning of being condemned to be modern. Innovation is the rallying cry and the promise of a new order to come, since at least it indicates the way that should lead there. The meaning of innovation is affected by these processes as well. It is no longer, as Schumpeter in his classical analysis at the beginning of the twentieth century saw as “merely” a recombination of known factors that enables the entrepreneurial individual to gain a decisive advantage over the competition. Important and widespread as this recombinatorial form of innovation remains, a more extended notion of innovation, based on the potential of “radical” novelty and therefore embracing the uncertainty inherent, has emerged. As early as the 1970s, the economist G. L. S. Shackle spoke about “essential novelty” as idiosyncratic of an evolutionary approach in technosocial innovations that includes openness toward an unknown future.21 Seen from an economic perspective, innovation presupposes contingencies and choices that transcend a recombination of what already exists. Innovation fills the void that arises out of the genuine uncertainty inherent in the process of innovation itself. Paradoxically, it is this due to circularity—

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or modern reflexivity—of innovation that it has the ability to fill this void. It is not an unmoved mover behind the impersonal forces of a technocratic society, as it might have been the case not too long ago. Technocracy itself, as a recognizable structure, is being undone by innovation—only to be reconfigured as a widely dispersed, interlocking form of governance in which not only corporate actors and governments, but also civil society, interact in a conflict-ridden struggle for the newly emerging global order. Innovation is the only credible response currently available for coping with the uncertainty it has helped to generate. It is credible in the sense that it does not preclude plurality, diversity, or variation. On the contrary, it invites and thrives on them. Innovation— although its direction is heavily biased toward scientific-technological advances—does not preclude manifestation in other domains: social innovations, for instance, which might bring about other forms of governance, with the task of integrating the current skepticism and prevailing unease with regard to certain technological innovations. It does not preclude the possibility of new forms of cultural innovation, with the arts confronting the way in which the disturbances emanate from the latest run of feasible scientific-technical breakthroughs.22 Innovation is called for everywhere—and not precluded anywhere. This is why it is credible. Innovation invites human agency and depends upon it—where would it come from otherwise? Technological developments merely provide opportunities, and it is up to us, individually as well as collectively, to act upon them. It does not predetermine any specific end result. The only determinant it resolutely insists upon, is the option of change. It plays with the ambiguities entailed by embracing change when the goal is not fixed, but reassures us that human action may shape what is to come. Dealing with risks? No problem, since you may adopt the precautionary principle. You may also choose not to espouse the apocalyptic warnings contained in the “risk-society” and instead opt for a “modern” risk culture as it is embodied by the global financial markets. These are institutions that depend not only upon infrastructures and material resources, but have also adopted a specific risk culture, “an entrenched set of practices of market configuration, technological development, socialgroup construction, and notions of authority, expertise, and creativity which combines modernity’s ambition to know with the market’s ambition to commodify”.23 The argument of choice, so deeply entrenched both in neoliberal economics and liberal democracies, has benefited the empowerment of consumers, without always assuring that the preconditions for exerting choice are being met. In brief, the concept of innovation is closer than other concepts, like the “knowledge society” (which invokes counterconcepts, e.g., ignorance and the right not to know), to the continuity of an iterative modernity, punctuated as may be the case by relapses into recurrent crises and into periods of ardent criticism. Innovation contains a self-fulfilling promise: that only innovation can

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provide us with a way to cope with innovation. This circularity is backed by past achievements and extends toward a fragile future, even while promising to transcend the present.

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Cultures of Technology Culture matters—this has been one of the most often-heard messages. It matters in its attempts to explain why economic opportunities have been seized in one country or region, and why economic failures have occurred in another. It matters not only for economic development, but also for political development. It promotes change—or impedes it.24 It matters when corporations with different organizational cultures merge or fail to do so. With organizations increasingly moving in global environment, they are well-advised to broaden their cultural range and to question the assumption that their concepts are universally valid. In the field of organizational learning, for instance, a shift has occurred toward a concept of organizational culture as the unit in which learning occurs. The culture of an organization is said to be pivotal to understanding how a particular organization adapts to ongoing changes. It shapes perceptions of past and current events. The emphasis is on shared conceptions of what needs to be learned, how it is to be learned, and why.25 Culture is understood here in its most encompassing sense: a shared scheme of interpretation that enables the organization to cope with change. Culture matters—and indeed it permeates an enormously wide range of social activities. It binds together communities or sets them apart. It makes communities different from each other, shaping their interaction not only among members, but between the community and outsiders. It is linked to innovation in often unforeseeable ways in the sense that it can be predisposed to finding certain innovative solutions to a problem while eschewing others. In an interesting case study, the economic historian Avner Greif has analyzed the relationship between culture, innovation, and the institutional structure. Integrating game-theory with sociological concepts and basing his work on comparative historical material, he examines cultural factors that have led two premodern societies, one from the Arab and the other from the Latin world, to evolve along distinct trajectories of institutional structure. Based upon historical records from the late eleventh century, Greif demonstrates that the two societies of medieval traders, the Genoese and the Maghribis, the latter, Jewish merchants living in a Muslim society, were both involved in mercantile relationships all over the Mediterranean. They employed comparable naval technology and traded in similar merchandise. The success of their trade depended to a large extent on their ability to mitigate the provision of services required for handling a merchant’s goods abroad. A merchant could either provide these services himself or, as was most often the case, employ overseas agents to handle

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Introduction

the merchandise, since this was a time-consuming endeavor. Employing agents was efficient, since it saved time and removed the risk of travel. Yet without supporting institutions, agency relations could not be established due to the potential of embezzlement. Culture matters—since the Genoese society was much more individualistic, while the Maghribis were collectivistic. Their strategies (which Greif also analyzes in game-theoretical terms) differed accordingly. The results touch upon different patterns of wealth distribution and their consequences for the political organization of the society as well as upon the way in which the two societies coped when they expanded their trade to areas previously inaccessible. The Genoese responded in an “integrated” manner, the Maghribis in a “segregated” manner. Both projected their cultural beliefs onto the new situation. But their cultural beliefs did not specify what the best response would be. The “segregated” response culminated in merchants from each society preferring to hire agents from their own society, while in the “integrated” response, there was no preference. Constrained by the same technology and environment and facing the same organizational problems, the two societies had different cultural heritages and social and political histories. In one case, however, collectivistic cultural beliefs led to an innovative response consisting in investments in information, segregation, and to a stable pattern of wealth distribution, while in the other case, individualistic cultural beliefs induced different kinds of enforcement mechanisms, a vertical social structure, a relatively low level of information, and to economic and social integration and wealth transfer to the relatively poor. In the end, both systems were efficient in the sense that they produced innovations, although in different ways, and each had to pay a price for its relative strengths and weaknesses. Nevertheless, Greif concludes, the individualism displayed by the Genoese medieval society may have cultivated the seeds that contributed to later economic and technological development and to the so-called rise of the West.26 To approach technology from a cultural perspective it is, therefore, at once self-evident and highly demanding: self-evident, because technology is one of the most consequential cultural practices to have evolved since the beginnings of humanity. The extension of human capacities which allowed humans to overcome and to extend their given biologic constraints, as well as those of the natural habitat in which they found themselves, is truly impressive. Merlin Donald has drawn attention to the rise of symbolic technologies, the invention and manipulation of external symbols that have changed the way in which we think, remember, and experience reality.27 This rise of symbolic technologies has triggered a powerful cognitive transition (the first was the origin of language), liberating consciousness from the limitations of the brain’s biologic memory system. Symbolic technologies have opened the gateway to allow the merging of symbolic virtuality with material reality. They are wired together in a distributed cognitive system that gives rise to cultural possibilities. Human con-

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scious capacity, distributed over the entire society, is a resource that limits the rate at which culture can accumulate knowledge and determines what kinds of representational systems a culture can successfully construct and maintain. But to approach technology from a cultural perspective is also highly demanding: highly demanding since it requires one to confront both technology’s materiality and the cultural system of meaning with which technological practices are invested. Such a perspective raises questions as to the identity of the makers, controllers, facilitators, and shapers of technology. The enormous impact of today’s information and communication technologies, including their powers of visualization, is linked to their dissemination throughout society. They have greatly facilitated the ongoing processes of globalization—with all of its downsides. New groups of users have gained access to these technologies and continue to take them in unexpected directions. The role of the nation-state as an advocate of technology is also in flux, although the state, by maintaining its monopoly over violence, remains a steadfast and generous supporter, especially of military technology. Globalization and its impact upon domestic arrangements also leads to a growing demand for transnational rules and regulations, which affect in turn the conditions under which cultures of technology are either stifled or allowed to flourish. What is gained by conceiving of technology not just as an ensemble of artifacts or complex sociotechnical systems, but as culture? If we take the meaning of culture in its strictest anthropological sense—although there is no commonly agreed-upon definition of culture in anthropology either—we can say that culture does not exist independent of social interactions. Culture is about social relations with meanings attached to what people believe, do, and how they relate to each other and to their environment. Technological culture includes technical artifacts as an integral part of this web of significance. The web of significance that human beings have spun themselves, and in which they are suspended, following Clifford Geertz’s description,28 makes sense only when it is linked to human agency, intentions, interactions, results, and to the ensuing effects and transformations. Technology enters in an immensely practical way as a mediating object, acting upon social interactions and relationships and being acted upon. It does so by providing a “tight coupling of causally related elements” (Niklas Luhmann) rooted in their material and symbolic base. Technology may dispense with decisions, and it may replace the arduous process of consensus finding, because decisions have been taken before and have been transformed into such a “tight coupling of causally related elements.” This is how technology works. Within the frame of these couplings, automatic, and hence predictable sequences, are guaranteed—but they still mediate some kind of social interaction or purpose. When the coupling is extended, the use and the power of symbolic technology comes from both their externalization and from being shared culturally across the multitude of minds, each dependent upon the other to further enhance the potential embodied by technology.

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Cultures of technology are about arrangements. To speak about different cultures of technology breaks down the distinction between the material tool or its built-in technological efficiency, and the social organization, including the individual user and their social interactions. Cultures of technology are about shared meanings. Culture organizes practices. The processes and the range of ways in which this is done also matters. To focus on cultures of technology does not imply a neglect of the subtle impact that technology has on our lives, nor does it ignore the first steps in the genesis of emerging new technology. Rather, the emphasis is on what John Pickstone (in the alternative frame he has developed to take a fresh historical look across the entire spectrum of science, technology, and medicine), calls “ways of doing.”29 Technology works—and we expect it to work. It works on different levels and in different ways. They work through the tight or loose coupling of the elements that make up a technological system. They work through the ways in which people organize their work and through the division of labor in manufacturing or in service industries. They work by mediating social interaction. But they also work in a very powerful way by generating symbolic and cultural meanings. Any comprehensive account of technological innovation, as John Pickstone writes in this book, must allow for these meanings, including their supposed derivation from science. If we can see how the various elements of technology— from long-standing and usually traditional crafts, by way of systematic invention dating from about 1870 and demanding considerable social organization and education, to the present situation of high-tech, high-science complexity spreading across many sectors with the increasing use of computers at its base—fit together in history and our present, then we will have a good model for understanding technological innovation, including its cultural meaning. Cultures of technology should therefore prepare us to understand where the quest for innovation comes from, pushing us forcefully to go far beyond any imagined “endless frontier.” Innovation is no longer a goal, since it has, by its very nature, espoused a striving for the unpredictable and the unknown. Perhaps it has become a means—however, it can only constitute a tentative attempt to cope with the idea of a future that has become full of surprises. The idea of innovation, as I have argued, is currently filling the void of negotiating the future. One of its strongest bargaining chips is scientific and technological innovation; another, which is closely associated with this innovations is that of risk. Contrary to its initial meaning of trying to put the future into the service of the present, by showing that risks can be measured the concept of risk has become confounded at present with that of danger—negative consequences of unknown proportion and substance to be avoided but that cannot be calculated. Modern risk implied daring in the sense of putting up an asset for disposition against the chances of another, unknown, but higher gain. Modern risk was underwritten by the belief that, at least to some extent, alternative futures could be devised. Over the centuries, technology emerged as

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one of the most powerful means of shaping this belief into some degree of tangible planning; it therefore was able to control the future. Today, the modern management of risk, notwithstanding the many unresolved problems, has become highly professionalized and, as we have seen, is thriving in one sector that has transformed it into a business of its own, the management of financial markets. But technology, often lumped together indiscriminately with the concept of a unified science or seen as merely applied science, has become associated, if not tarnished, with the negative consequences they have also had on the social fabric of modern societies. The confidence in the achievement of sustainable technological progress is a precarious one, punctuated time and again by scandals involving the political management and regulation of risks associated with technological advances. The quest for ongoing innovation promises a way out. Its very open-endedness suggests a new flexibility and may point in the direction of improved and safe technology. It may gesture toward collective learning processes, which span the public and private domains and may bring with them social innovations of a kind as yet unknown. The goal of this volume is to identify cultures of technology as a way of working across the entire societal spectrum, linking the technical intricacies with the requirements of the social and economic fabric of societies, uncovering the meanings that people attribute to how technology works, including how it affects their lives. They cover a wide range of human experience in the project of promoting certain cultures of technologies or confronting their consequences. One part of this experience is gender-specific. Only the culture of war seems to be a human constant over time, although it also alters its manifestations and increases the power of its destructive force. As will become abundantly clear, speaking about cultures of technology never means speaking about technology alone. Admitting that technology can also be vulnerable reveals its entangled interdependence with the wider society—for better or for worse.

Contributions to this volume The first section of this volume explores the relationship between culture, technology and innovation. Tom Hughes defines these key terms and analyzes the various forms that innovation can take in an increasingly technology-based civilization. Over the course of history, national and urban cultures have provided different means of expression for the drive to innovation that have shaped how we manage to live in today’s complex world. The history of past innovation holds lessons for today, uncertain as its outcome may be. This is followed by Rosalind Williams’s intriguing case study of some of the unintended consequences of innovation. Drawing her empirical material from a detailed analysis of innovation processes at MIT, Williams shows the

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inseparably link of technological and social innovation and shows how the culture of an organization is created. This raises a number of deeply disturbing questions about the balance between innovation and its effects. In the words of one of the contributors, which echos the experience of many people caught in the whirl of innovation, what is needed in order to “create change” is time. In Williams’s succinct formulation, innovation produces a crowded world in which it is progressively more difficult to find the time to produce innovation. This section concludes with Wiebe E. Bijker with his analysis of the vulnerability of today’s technological civilization. Such vulnerability, if treated with the intellectual respect it deserves, is perhaps a prerequisite for the quest for innovation. To live in an open, changing, and innovative culture, Bijker claims, we have to be prepared to pay the price of vulnerability. Bijker proposes a model of vulnerability that sees it not only as a threat to our survival, but also as hope for the future. He revisits the literature on risk, arguing that vulnerability and risk are related.Vulnerability refers to a system’s ability to anticipate, resist, and possibly recover from events that could reduce its functional integrity, while the notion of risk is outcome-oriented. The overwhelming feeling is often that of the extensive vulnerability of our societies. Bijker urges us not to yield to the obsession with safety and control. The next section renders an account, both theoretically and empirically inspiring, of how cultures of technology can be seen at work in a gender-specific way. Delphine Gardey takes us back to the tumultuous changes wrought by the new technology, namely of the technological and social changes introduced between 1890 and 1930 in the business sector in France. She elicits the processes by which technologies and artifacts are gendered in the context of offices. Offices, which initially were defined as male-dominated, becomes the arena for a requalification of both the men and women working there and the technological advances intended to make their work more efficient. Gardey uncovers the mechanisms through which the gendering of objects took place and shows how social and cultural roles were redefined by a technology itself subject to the same processes. In the end the true power of technology seems to reside in its invisibility. It is time to shed light on this gender bias, in order to better understand the mechanisms upon which a particular technological culture is based, as well as its wider implications. Taking up the same theme, Judy Wajcman reflects upon innovation and cyberspace. She explores the lingering suspicion that existing societal patterns of inequality are being reproduced in a new technological guise; even though cyberfeminists have been excited by the possibilities that cyberspace offers women. She brings out the inherent tension in much contemporary writing, between the utopian and the descriptive, contrasting this with a more sober account of information technology, electronics, and communications sector as still very much a male-dominated industry within which women enjoy only limited career prospects. Any emancipatory politics of technology needs to be

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embedded in a technological culture aware of its biases and shortcomings. It requires more than hardware and software—it needs conscious and responsible human agency. In the next section John Pickstone provides us with a fascinating historical account that undermines the popular usage of the word science, at least in the English-speaking world. He proposes an alternative framework for understanding historical processes and for analyzing innovations in science, technology, and medicine, one that does not rely on the primacy of science. Drawing on his book, Ways of Knowing (2000), Pickstone links biographical elements comprising the experience of people with natural history, analysis, and experimentation as embodying different ways of knowing. Turning toward the contemporary scene in facing complex technological problems and the increasing demand from the public for greater involvement, he argues convincingly that we should use several forms of analysis to uncover other ways of knowing. Pickstone’s analysis is a refreshing voice that proposes how an emerging culture of technology should structure its debates in order to further public interest. Jean-Jacques Salomon discusses the culture of war, its technological prowess, and the changing role played by scientists in the continuing unfolding of this human drama. Salomon takes us through some of the historical developments leading up to World War II and culminating in the development of the atomic bomb. He lays bare some of the most acute conflicts. Sadly, the aftermath of 11 September 2001, has not witnessed any involvement on the part of scientists and engineers in their ongoing attempts to forcefully confront an elusive enemy and to maintain military world dominance by relying upon scientific and technological innovation. Thanks to the ongoing, indeed growing involvement of science and technology, of scientists and engineers, in warfare, Salomon concludes that the twenty-first century may go on to challenge the title of the century of fear, as conferred upon it by Albert Camus. The last section on the cultural contexts in which innovations are adopted, transformed, or rejected, brings together national case studies. One such case study by Patrick Kupper, deals with the rise and demise of nuclear technology. In the case of Switzerland, as in many other countries in the mid-1960s, nuclear energy had a lot to offer. He develops an argument about the history of nuclear energy in Switzerland, based on three hypotheses: nuclear power plants were commercially introduced without having achieved an adequate level of technical maturity; the rise of nuclear power was influenced by cultural factors; and the demise of the nuclear power economy after 1970 must be seen in relationship to its prior rapid rise. What emerges is a sophisticated eyewitness account of the way in which innovations unfold—and of the way in which they may falter, turning prophecies of a wonderful future into the incarnation of a technocratic past. Hans Ulrich Vogel discusses a broadly based intra- and intercultural comparison, which scrutinizes the salt and mining industries in premodern China

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and compares them with the situation in premodern Europe. Although traditional Chinese culture was rich in innovations, there were also limitations that prevented the unfolding of this potential. What is fascinating to observe in retrospect is the long-lasting impact that cultural differences, the role of the state, and differences in social status had when China is compared to Europe. Mining and smelting techniques, for instance, exhibited many modern characteristics. They were enhanced by mechanization, which stimulated the combination of theory and practice. Being risky, they were in need of large amounts of capital. In Europe, meanwhile, the incipient social solidarity and security systems in many mining communities were exemplary for their time, displaying a closer fit between technology, culture and social structure. The volume closes with an epilogue in which Joachim Nettelbeck, administrator of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, reflects on the nature of organizations that become “spaces for translation.” He discusses an Institute for Advanced Study in which scholars from different scientific disciplines come together for a limited period of time expecting the unexpected to occur. This is made possible, Nettelbeck argues, through the organization of “translation,” in which innovative insights and outcomes emerge as a result of novel interactions, the encounter of different disciplines of science and culture, and of different practical and theoretical concerns. Network organizations and their cultures contain considerable potential for innovation, for whose emergence, however, the constituent elements have to be closely observed and designed. With any luck, this volume will also turn out to be a space for translation, in which the ubiquitous quest for innovation is linked once again with the concerns, interests, and aspirations harbored by many of us as we approach today’s technology that though vulnerable, nevertheless holds the key for a better society.

Notes 1. Dennis L. Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth (New York, 1972). 2. Helga Nowotny, “Vergangene Zukunft; Ein Blick zurück auf die ‘Grenzen des Wachstums,’” in Impulse geben—Wissen stiften. 40 Jahre Volkswagenstiftung (Göttingen, Germany, 2002). 3. Yaron Ezrahi, “Science and the Postmodern Shift in Contemporary Democracies,” in Bernward Joerges and Nowotny, eds., Social Studies of Science and Technology: Looking Back, Ahead (Dordrecht, Netherlands, 2003), 63–75. 4. Brian W. Arthur, “Increasing Returns and the New World of Business,” Harvard Business Review, July–August 1996, 1–10. 5. Jens Beckert, Beyond the Market. The Social Foundations of Economic Efficiency (Princeton, 2002); Joseph A. Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development. An Inquiry Into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest, and the Business Cycle (Cambridge, Mass., 1934 [original: Theorie der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung (Leipzig, Germany, 1912)]). 6. Peter L. Bernstein, Against the God. The Remarkable Story of Risk (New York, 1996). 7. Nathan Rosenberg and L. E. Birdzell Jr., How the West Grew Rich: The Economic Transformation of the Industrial World (New York, 1985), 265, quoted by Lewis M. Branscomb, “Techno-

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logical Innovation,” in Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes, eds., International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Amsterdam, 2001), 5: 15498–15502. 8. Branscomb, “Technological Innovation.” 9. Richard R. Nelson, ed., National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis (New York, 1993), 4. 10. Michael Gibbons et al., The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Socities (London, 1994). 11. Leo Marx, “Technology: The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept,” Social Research 64, no. 3 (1997): 965–88. 12. Daniel Webster, The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster (Boston, 1903), 105–107. 13. Ibid. 14. Arthur, “Increasing Returns and the New World of Business.” 15. Thomas P. Hughes, Rescuing Prometheus (New York, 1998). 16. Ulrich Raulff, Ein Historiker im 20. Jahrhundert: Marc Bloch (Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1995). 17. Paul Rabinow, Making PCR: A Story of Biotechnology (Chicago, 1996), 169. 18. Raymond Williams, Culture and Society: 1780–1950 (London, 1958 [1983]), xiii–xviii. 19. Bruno Latour, We have never been modern (New York, 1993). 20. Donald T. Campbell, “On the Conflicts Between Biological and Social Evolution and Between Psychology and Moral Tradition,” American Psychologist (December 1975): 1103–26. See also Campbell, “Variation and Selective Retention in Socio-Cultural Evolution,” General Systems 14 (1969), 69–85. 21. G. L. S. Shackle, Decision, Order, and Time in Human Affairs (Cambridge, 1969). 22. Nowotny, “Wish Fulfillment and Its Discontents,” EMBO reports 4, no. 10 (2003): 917–20. 23. Stephen Green, “Negotiating With the Future: The Culture of Modern Risk in Global Financial Markets,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 18 (2000): 77–89. 24. Harrison E. Lawrence and Samuel P. Huntington, eds., Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress (New York, 2000). 25. Meinolf Dierkes, Ariane Berthoin Antal, John Child, and Ikujiro Nonaka, eds., Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge (Oxford, 2001), 922. 26. Avner Greif, “Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies,” Journal of Political Economy 102, no.5 (1994), 912–50. 27. Merlin Donald, A Mind So Rare:The Evolution of Human Consciousness (New York, 2001). 28. Clifford Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1972), 5. 29. John V. Pickstone, Ways of Knowing: A New History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (Manchester, 2000 and Chicago, 2001).

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Part I

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ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CULTURE, TECHNOLOGY, AND INNOVATION

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Peter Burke

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CHAPTER

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Culture and Innovation THOMAS P. HUGHES

In this chapter, I first define culture, technology, and innovation and then turn to a discussion of innovation in several cultural contexts. These include innovation in a nature-based culture, innovation in a technology-based culture, innovation during technological revolutions, innovation in national cultures, innovation in urban cultures, and innovation in a politically driven culture.

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Defining Culture, Technology, and Innovation Conventionally culture is understood to be the fine arts, especially painting and music. Less often culture is associated with architecture and rarely with technology. On the other hand, culture conceived of anthropologically involves a range of socially transmitted human activities including architecture and technology. So conceived, culture involves a style, or an overarching set of values or themes, shaping its many components. For example, religious values determined a medieval style discernible in architecture, literature, law, and politics.1 Helga Nowotny rightly suggested in her introduction to the conference on “The Technology of Culture” that innovation should also, like technology, be thought of as a component of culture and as having an identifiable cultural style. Technology has always had many different definitions. I define it as a messy and complex creative activity, as well as knowledge about that activity and the things—hardware and software—that result from that activity. Innovation has also been defined in a multitude of ways. For me, it is a process involving invention, development, and introduction of an artifact or system into use. Inventor-entrepreneurs preside over the innovation process from invention Notes for this section begin on page 37.

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to introduction into use. An inventor-entrepreneur first transforms an idea into physical models or software. These are then tested and evaluated in increasingly complex environments that approach the ones in which they will be used. Satisfied that the developed invention is ready for use, an inventor-entrepreneur places it in the hands of the consumers, or users. This may complete the innovation process or there may be changes after its introduction into use. I shall also use the concepts of radical, or breakthrough, innovations and conservative, or incremental, innovations. In the late nineteenth century independent inventor-entrepreneurs, taking the Edisonian approach, introduced radical innovations, including the telephone, electric light and power, wireless, and other systems. A major explanation for the radical, or breakthrough, character of their innovations, is the independent inventor-entrepreneurs’ freedom to choose their technological problems. They were not subject to organizational constraints. Recently, academic scientists and engineers have often been radical inventors of computer and telecommunication hardware and software systems because their universities generally allowed them to choose their own problems, rather than choosing ones assigned to them by an organization. In contrast, scientists and engineers working in organizational contexts, such as industrial research laboratories, introduce conservative, or incremental, changes in the technological systems in which their companies have heavily invested. Incremental changes, such as an improved incandescent-lamp filament, can result in enormous profits for an electrical manufacturer, but the invention is conservative, nonetheless.

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Innovation in a Nature-based Culture: Agriculture Before the rapid industrialization of the West in the nineteenth century, nature, rather than technology, was a shaping cultural component. Natural forces and religion defined the cultural characteristics of most Western pre-industrialized regions. Natural forces were associated with an almighty God who expressed pleasure or displeasure with his or her people by creating conditions that nurtured or that stifled agriculture. Bountiful rain, for instance, indicated God’s blessing; droughts, God’s displeasure. Agricultural innovation came slowly. Several historians have argued that there was an agricultural revolution in the West, but it spread slowly over several centuries beginning as early as the sixth century.2 It introduced an agrarian system, or regime, prevailing first in medieval France and then spreading elsewhere in Europe and England.3 The new system included wheeled ploughs, teams of draft animals, individual peasants’ enclosed gardens and orchards, permanent wasteland, open arable land with regular elongated furrows, natural meadows, woodlands, a collective social organization, customary practices such as triennial crop rotation, and binding legal relations.4 This system prevailed in France and much of Europe into the eighteenth century.

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Because the putative revolution occurred so slowly and its results lasted so long, other historians have questioned the applicability of the term revolution and argued that innovation comes slowly in nature-based cultures in the past and today. Marc Bloch, a distinguished French historian, emphasized resistance to change, especially among the poorer peasants who prevented the introduction of new agrarian techniques. Bloch believed that traditional peasant attitudes and values (mentalités) motivated their resistance to change.5 The “sovereignty of habit,” often irrational, resisted technical and legal reform.6 By the eighteenth century, the spread of French Enlightenment attitudes and values led literate agricultural classes to question traditional agricultural practices and to accept agricultural innovation based on reason. The enlightened landowners in France associated the sovereignty of habit with medieval times and ancient barbarism. A small group of like-minded men, some in agricultural societies and others who learned from books or travels, introduced innovations including fallow field cultivation, selective breeding, and measures to be taken against animal diseases. The dissemination of innovative ideas among the open minded often explains, according to Bloch, changes in the history of technical development. Bloch’s concept of change-resisting mentalités can be subsumed under a broader concept called “momentum.” The momentum of the traditional agricultural systems not only arose from customary attitudes and values, but also from social organization as well as from technology and skills. The medieval manor, a collective organization of the peasantry, maintained the traditional rules and practices governing the common use of open fields and common grazing lands. As an organization with strong traditions and procedures, it proved to be resistant to change, in ways not unlike a bureaucracy today. Peasants resisted giving up tradition and adopting new skills suited for enclosed fields. They resisted deskilling. Mentalités, along with a commitment to collective organization, technology, and skills, created an inertia, or momentum that resisted change.7

Innovation in a Nature-based Culture: Industry Before rapid industrialization in the United States, machine designers continued to negotiate with natural forces in a culture still essentially nature-based. Early nineteenth-century American designers of steam locomotives, for instance, took natural forces into account and, in so doing, gave American railways a distinctive, nature-based, style.8 The sharp curves (narrow radius) and steeply inclined American railway networks of the Northeast impressed foreign visitors familiar with the contrasting style of British railways. Designing in a technology-based culture, British railway engineers dug tunnels through hills and used fills and viaducts in valleys to avoid sharp curves and grades. Without the capital to overwhelm nature, American engineers negotiated by climbing and descending or by simply circling around natural obstacles.

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American locomotives had both swiveling boogie trucks and cowcatchers, as well as high exhaust stacks, features unknown on British locomotives. Swiveling boogie trucks allowed the locomotive to navigate the nature-shaped railway curves; the cowcatchers pushed straying cattle from the unfenced right-of-way; and high-exhaust stacks dampened sparks spewing from the wood-burning locomotives traveling through the New World’s dense forests. American steamboats in a nature-based culture also had a distinctive style.9 The familiar silhouettes of midcentury Mississippi steamboats provide fine images of congealed nature. Such vessels utilized a shallow-draft hull specifically designed to avoid the numerous driftwood snags in the great river. Because wood fuel was cheap when cut from forest stands along the banks, boat builders used inefficient, non-condensing steam engines instead of more costly and efficient condensing ones common on the East Coast and in the United Kingdom. When the captain tied down the boiler safety valve, the noncondensing engines generated enormous and sometimes boiler-exploding power. Cultural values partly explain the tied-down valve: frontier folk were not only in a hurry to fulfill their manifest destiny, but were inclined to engage in chauvinistic risktaking that often brought them prematurely face to face with their destiny.

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Innovation in a Technology-based Culture In the twentieth century, after rapid industrialization in the United States, engineers and scientists empowered by technology in a technology-based culture tended to overwhelm nature in their projects. Natural forces, for example, are not readily discernible in present day automobile design. Automobile designers assume that highway engineers will level hills and fill in valleys. Automobiles do not have cowcatchers. Sports utility vehicles do not even take into account the limited supply of petroleum. In the twenty first century, culture becomes even more technology driven. The historian Paul Edwards has written about the “closed world,” which is the nature-free, technology-designed world of cyberspace—an entirely humanbuilt world. Science fiction books, such as William Gibson’s Necromancer and films, such as Blade Runner and the Matrix, tell closed-world stories that occur in confined spaces such as cities and space stations, which are devoid of animals and plants, in short, devoid of nonhuman nature. A computer network often provides a constraining structure within which action takes place. These fictional closed worlds distill and simplify our real-world anxieties and aspirations because humans seemingly can control them. Inhabitants of a nature-based culture could assume that God or gods had created some of it, but only humans make the closed world. As culture becomes increasingly technology based, the rate of innovation increases. In 1896 a writer in the Scientific American referred to a remarkable out-

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pouring of U.S. patents after the Civil War, exuberantly insisting that his was “an epoch of invention and progress unique in the history of the world.… It has been,” he observed, “a gigantic tidal wave of human ingenuity and resource, so stupendous in its magnitude, so complex in its diversity, so profound in its thought, so fruitful in its wealth, so beneficent in its results, that the mind is strained and embarrassed in its effort to expand to a full appreciation of it.”10 The number of patents issued annually more than doubled between 1866 and 1896 and the per capita number increased more than one and three-quarter times. Not only were tens of thousands of Americans inventing at the grassroots level, but a singular band of independent inventors flourished during the decades extending from about 1870 to 1920. This outpouring of inventions and associated innovations in a technologybased culture contrasts remarkably with the slow pace of innovation in a naturebased culture. People living in a nature-based culture see natural forces beyond their control shaping their destiny. Change in the natural cycle seems unlikely. On the other hand, people living in a technology-based culture, or closed world, see themselves surrounded by human-built systems and forces that humans created and that can change through innovation.

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Innovation during Technological Revolutions The coal-, iron-, and steam-based culture that originated during the British Industrial Revolution gave way in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to a less well known Second Industrial Revolution with a culture shaped by electric power networks and the internal combustion engine.11 Occurring primarily in the United States and in Germany, these countries witnessed the emergence of a modern technology-based culture embedding such technological values as order, system, and control.12 The modern technology-based culture with its distinctive style was comparable to the medieval, Renaissance, or Baroque cultures with their distinctive styles.13 During World War II and immediately after, there was another rash of innovations including nuclear power; jet-powered aircraft; and the large-scale, general-purpose, digital computer. Over the next few decades the introduction of semiconductors, desktop computers, computer software, and computer networks ushered in an Information Revolution comparable in its cultural impact to earlier industrial revolutions. New energy sources, such as the steam engine, electric power, and the internal combustion engine drove the earlier revolutions. New modes of information transmission brought about an information revolution with its attendant culture. Information has become a culture-transforming agent comparable to earlier energy sources because technology-based cultures require information for the control of human-built systems. Natural forces that dominated nature-

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based cultures defied human control, so information for control was not at such a premium. A heightened intensity of innovation accompanied the energy and information revolutions. This resulted from new power and information sources creating salients in existing technological systems. A salient is a component in a system that has advanced beyond the other components and that has caused imbalances in systems. Extensive innovation is necessary in order to establish a harmonious interaction in systems once again. The lagging components, or reversed salients, need to be brought in line. Salients, imbalances, and a flurry of innovations will occur, for example, if hydrogen fuel cells replace petroleum as an energy source in the automobile production and use system. Hydrogen fuel cells would become a salient component bringing imbalances, or a host of reverse salients, in the system. Petroleum refineries would give way to facilities producing the fuel cells and hydrogen. Engineers, managers, and workers who had been presiding over internal combustion engine design and production would be deskilled until they were able to preside over new designs and new production. Countless service and repair stations and their mechanics would have to learn how to deal with a new engine. Besides the technical reverse of salients needing improvements through innovation, social and political adjustments would also be imperative. Oil-producing regions would loose their hold on the world economy, an event that would be followed by massive repercussions.

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Innovation in National Cultures Contrasting breakthrough and incremental styles of innovation can be observed at the level of national cultures. The pronounced differences between the inventive styles of Werner von Siemens, a major nineteenth-century German inventor of electric devices, and Thomas Edison, an outstanding American independent inventor, suggest the different styles of innovation in Germany and in the United States during the second Industrial Revolution. Germans celebrated von Siemens as a national hero who manifested the country’s values; Americans did the same for Edison.14 By applying the dynamo-electric principle, von Siemens greatly improved the electric generator in 1866. In addition, his inventions also improved land and underwater electric telegraphs. Edison’s invention of the phonograph, electric light and power, and numerous other devices and systems is familiar history. Both von Siemens and Edison were major inventors, but here the similarity ends and their contrasting personal styles of innovation suggest the different national styles of the United States and Germany. Edison like other Edisonian era independent inventors, stressed his lack of formal education; von Siemens characteristically took pride in the scientific

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grounding he had obtained as a Prussian military cadet in artillery and engineering schools. Edison flaunted his plain speech, dress, manners, and his rural Canadian and American midwestern background. Von Siemens gratefully acknowledged that his early service as a Prussian army officer gave him access to influential government and social circles. In his early life, Edison enjoyed the ribald company of mechanics and model builders who worked in his laboratories; later he treasured rural retreats with Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, and other captains of industry. Von Siemens cultivated close contacts with Berlin’s men of science. Edison acquired numerous patents; von Siemens’s memoirs stress scholarly articles more than patents. The latter valued highly his membership in the Berlin Academy of Sciences and an honorary degree from the University of Berlin. In interviews with newspaper reporters, Edison was given to irresponsible remarks about his disdain for longhaired academics and their harebrained theories. Von Siemens established his electric manufacturing company, Siemens & Halske, and played an active role in its management in later life. Edison, like the other American independent inventor-entrepreneurs, cast off organizational, or managerial, shackles whenever he could.

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Innovation in Urban Cultures: New York City The contrast between the German and American styles of innovation suggested by the careers and attitudes of Edison and von Siemens can also be found in the history of innovation in New York and Berlin. New York drew a disproportionate number of creative Edisonian-style, inventor-entrepreneurs who were responsible for far more than their share of the breakthrough inventions during the decades between 1870 and 1910. Berlin, however, did not produce or attract the same kind of inventors. Besides Edison, Elmer Sperry, Nikola Tesla, and Lee de Forest, who rank among the dozen or so leading inventor-entrepreneurs of American history, chose to live and work in New York, or in its immediate vicinity. A major characteristic was their avoidance of organizational constraints, as they chose and solved technological problems. They avoided salaried positions with the engineering departments—later the industrial research laboratories—of manufacturing companies, although occasionally they would act as consultants. They did, however, affiliate companies based on their own inventions, the Sperry Gyroscope Company being a case in point. Furthermore, they were not members of engineering school or university faculties, as was often the case with inventors in Berlin. The presence of financiers in the Wall Street district with venture capital and the presence of skilled mechanics, instrument makers, and model builders throughout New York, many of them immigrants who had learned their craft

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in Germany, England, or Switzerland, attracted the independent inventors. Many of their innovations found extensive use there. In addition, the principal engineering societies and engineering publishing houses, all sources for the inventors of vital information about technological problems and solutions, were located in Manhattan. Edison chose to locate both of his major laboratories less than an hour’s train ride from Manhattan. Between 1881 and 1886 during his supervision of the construction and early operating years of his first major electric utility, Edison and his family lived in a hotel adjacent to Gramercy Park, his offices were in a brownstone mansion at 65 Fifth Avenue, and his small laboratory was nearby on Goerck Street. At 65 Fifth Avenue, the “genius of electricity” received prominent visitors from the worlds of finance and industry, among them William H.Vanderbilt and J. P. Morgan, the German entrepreneur Henry Villard, and Norvin Green, head of the Western Union Telegraph Company. Sperry came to New York in 1907 and soon employed skilled model builders and mechanics to build the ship gyrostabilizers, gyrocompasses, gunfire control devices, and automatic ship pilots that he invented and manufactured for the U.S. and British navies. In 1910, he established the Sperry Gyroscope Company in a building on Manhattan Bridge Plaza not far from the U.S. Navy Yard. Merchant and naval ships from throughout the world came to the Port of New York to be outfitted with Sperry compasses and automatic pilots. His was the high technology of his day. Tesla spent some of his most creative years in Manhattan. In his prime, he lived in New York finest hotels, entertaining the city’s financial and cultural elite. In 1887 he established a laboratory at 33–35 South Fifth Avenue and another at 46 East Houston Street in 1895. His spectacular demonstrations of his high voltage inventions attracted the press and influential capitalists, including Morgan upon whom both and Edison depended for funds. Money and the market also drew De Forest to New York. He attracted the attention of investors by presenting dramatic demonstrations of radio transmission from offshore yacht races and by parking automobiles with radio receivers displaying the latest stock market information in the Wall Street district. To fund his inventions, De Forest was associated with several entrepreneurs who were so imaginative in their ways of finding venture capital that they were accused of committing various financial crimes.

Innovation in Urban Cultures: Berlin In contrast, Berlin inventors working in the electric field between 1870 and 1920 welcomed salaried positions and affiliations with academic, industrial, and government organizations. Major Berlin inventors chose to associate with the Charlottenburg Technische Hochschule (today the Technical University),

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the University of Berlin, and especially with large manufacturing companies, such as Siemens & Halske and Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG). Their inventions tended to be improvements in existing processes or products rather than breakthrough inventions. Adolf Slaby, a professor of electric engineering at the Charlottenburg TH; Friedrich Hefner-Alteneck, an electric engineer with Siemens & Halske; and Michael Dolivo-Dobrowolsky, an electric engineer at AEG, characterize the Berlin style of innovation. Slaby held the first professorial chair in electric engineering at the Charlottenburg TH where he established a research laboratory emphasizing industrial applications. Slaby and an assistant, Graf von Arco, along with Ferdinand Braun of Strassburg, invented improved components for a wireless system that allowed the Germans to avoid the Marconi monopoly. Hefner-Alteneck presided over the development of apparatus for a Siemens & Halske Indo-European telegraph line. He invented major improvements (drum armature, inner-pole dynamo, etc.) in electric generators, motors, and arc lamps and designed a unit of measurement that became a standard for electric lighting. Unlike American independent inventors, he published articles in scholarly journals. He was also a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Dolivo-Dobrowolsky studied at the Darmstadt Technische Hochschule in Germany. As chief engineer with AEG, he concentrated on developing an efficient and economical system of polyphase electric transmission that set standards for the field. The company manufactured his equipment that ended up displacing direct current apparatus throughout the world. The fact that the Americans choose independence and the Germans organizational affiliation reinforces long standing cultural stereotypes casting Americans as rugged individualists and Germans as favoring collective enterprise. The cultural roots of these proclivities require exploration beyond the scope of this chapter.

Innovation in a Politically-Driven Culture Political values are a major constituent of culture. They can overwhelm the technological component and greatly shape innovation, as can be demonstrated by the contrasting early development of Chicago and London electric utilities. On the eve of World War I, Chicago had its public electric supply concentrated in one large private utility, the Commonwealth Edison Company; London had more than sixty-five utility companies. The cost of generating a kilowatt of power in London was far higher than in Chicago. Chicago used electric power in industry, transportation, and lighting; London used electricity mostly for lighting. In addition, the utilization of installed generating capacity, or load factor, was greater in Chicago.15

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The underlying reasons for the contrasting styles are extremely complex, but a major explanation lies in the contrasting political values of the two cities. In London, politicians and the public, highly valued local government, and consequently they protected the integrity and policy-making autonomy of a large number of London political units, or local authorities, owning electric supply facilities. In Chicago political power was centralized hierarchically. Because the numerous London local authorities foresaw the near-term possibility of socializing the ownership of privately owned electric-power systems within their jurisdiction, they prevented legislation the spread of the power systems beyond their jurisdiction by introducing. They wanted to take over complete and functioning systems, not fragmented systems with, for example, a power plant in one jurisdiction and distribution lines in another. Consequently, the distribution areas in London were limited to short distances for which direct current supply was economical. On the other hand, local jurisdiction did not hamper the spread of the Commonwealth Edison system. With its longer distribution and transmission lines, the company introduced polyphase electric supply to replace direct current, and higher capacity steam turbines to replace reciprocating steam engines. Polyphase supply was more economical for long distances than direct current.

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Conclusion: Cultivating Innovation Having considered innovation in several cultural contexts, I wish to stress in conclusion that cultivating innovation requires different approaches in contrasting cultures. In nature-based cultures, especially those in developing regions, an enlightened, centralized, controlling regime committed to innovation may be necessary in order to counter the sovereignty of habit and the momentum of traditional ways. History reveals how enlightened, hierarchical regimes in the eighteenth century moved Austria and Prussia into innovative reform in the technical, social, and political realms. Innovation in technology-based cultures, and especially during industrial revolutions, comes easier than in nature-based ones. Contemporaries realize that their technology, more than natural forces, are shaping development, which suggests that through innovation they can create circumstances of their own choosing. To cultivate innovation, would-be instigators should take into account the prevailing and embedded style in their region or area of interest. The history of innovation in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Berlin and New York reveals contrasting styles. New York inventors preferred an independent inventor approach while Berlin inventors chose to associate with industrial, university, and government organizations.

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Innovation policy should also take into account that today, engineers, scientists, and managers responsible for breakthrough—in contrast to cumulative—innovation are mostly located in universities where they have a freedom of problem choice and application comparable to that enjoyed by independent inventors in the past. Today’s information-based culture is characterized by heterogeneity, messy complexity, and distributed control. Because this culture is not centrally, hierarchically, and bureaucratically controlled, innovation will come from a variety of sources including government, industrial corporations, research laboratories, and universities.

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Notes 1. On culture, see Alfred L. Kroeber, The Nature of Culture (Chicago, 1952), 22–51; and Sidney W. Mintz, “Culture, and Anthropological View,” Yale Review (1982): 500–512. 2. Marc Bloch, Les caractères originaux de l’histoire rurale française [Rural History, An Essay on its Basic Characteristics]; trans. Janet Sondheimer (Berkeley, 1966). On Marc Bloch and the agrarian revolution I have drawn upon Thomas P. Hughes “Marc Bloch and the History of Technology” in essays edited by Dag Avango and Brita Lundström honoring Prof. Marie Nisser on the occasion of her retirement from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. 3. Bloch often used “agrarian regime” and “agrarian system” interchangeably, but later he preferred regime because system suggested to him too much rigidity. Susan W. Friedman, Marc Bloch, Sociology and Geography, Encountering Changing Disciplines (Cambridge, 1996), 150. 4. Bloch, An Essay on its Basic Characteristics, trans. Janet Sondheimer (Berkeley, 1966), French Rural History, 35. 5. Bloch’s emphasis upon peasant mentalités recalls a similar explanation for the resistance to industrialization by craft guilds and by other collective social organizations on the eve of the British Industrial Revolution. A major reason why the Industrial Revolution first occurred in rural areas was due to the absence of guilds. 6. Bloch, French Rural History, 223. 7. For a detailed discussion of momentum, see Hughes, “Technological Momentum,” in Does Technology Drive History? eds. Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx (Cambridge, Mass., 1994), 101–13; and Hughes, “Technological Momentum, Hydrogenation in Germany 1900–1933,” Past and Present (August 1969): 106–32. 8. John H. White, American Locomotives; An Engineering History, 1830–1880 (Baltimore, 1968). 9. Louis C. Hunter, Steamboats on the Western Rivers, an Economic and Technological History (Cambridge, Mass., 1949). 10. Edward W. Byrn, “The Progress of Invention during the Past Fifty Years,” Scientific American 75 (25 July l896): 82–83. Earlier I have written on invention and independent inventors in Hughes, “The Era of Independent Inventors,” in Science in Reflection, The Israel Colloquium, Studies in History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science, vol. 3, ed. Edna Ullmann-Margalit (Dordrecht, Netherlands, 1988), 151–68. 11. Those who were convinced regional planning and electric power, along with the automobile, the telephone, and related technologies would usher in a new era made their essential program manifest in two issues of the journal Survey, the first in 1924 dedicated to “Giant Power” and the second in 1925, dedicated to “Regional Planning.” Notable contributors to the “Regional Planning” issue included L. Mumford, Clarence Stein, Stuart Chase, Governor Alfred Smith, Joseph Hart, and Robert Bruère, the industrial editor of The Survey.

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12. See Hughes, American Genesis (New York, 1990 [new edition with a new preface, Chicago, 2004]), 295–352. 13. On the other hand, Oswald Spengler, an early twentieth-century German historian noted for his book, The Decline of the West, argued that engineers were transforming Western culture into a machine civilization laden with technological values and devoid of an overarching aesthetic style. The practical arts displaced the fine arts as the focus of human concern. 14. This and the following sections on innovation in urban cultures draw upon Hughes, “The City as Creator and Creation,” in Berlin/New York, Like and Unlike, Essays on Architecture and Art from 1870 to the Present, eds. Josef Paul Clerihews and Christina Rathgeber (New York, 1993), 12–31. 15. Georg Klingenberg, “Electricity Supply in Large Cities,” Electrician 72 (1913): 399.

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CHAPTER

2

The Unintended Consequences of Innovation Change and Community at MIT ROSALIND WILLIAMS

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Introductory Remarks: Culture as a Cause of Innovation The title of this workshop features four nouns—cultures, technology, quest, and innovation—that have interactive uses and interwoven histories. As an ensemble, these words demonstrate the kind of clustering and reflexivity that Raymond Williams so memorably discussed in nineteenth-century English terminology in Culture and Society, 1780–1950 (1958) and in Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (1985 [1976]). In these works Williams highlighted the circular relationship between significant terms of social analysis (culture, society, industry, art, etc.) and the changes they supposedly describe. In addition, he showed how such key terms exert mutual influence, shifting their meanings in response to alterations in the others. So does language actively participate in the coevolution of social and material relationships, whereby emerging sciences and technologies alter the institutions producing them.1 For example, consider the social effect of the now-habitual pairing of “technology” and “innovation.” There is by no means a self-evident connection. While imagination and creativity are defining characteristics of human beings, through most of history they have not been focused on what we would now call “technology.” Instead, innovation has taken many other forms: language, symbolic expression, social structures, religious beliefs, and cultural practices. Today, however, “innovation” and “technology” constantly circle around each other, a binary star in our linguistic universe. In 1969 John McDermott Notes for this section begin on page 50.

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noted that the “First Principle” of contemporary technology is laissez innover.2 A generation later, this is still the “first principle,” the only difference being that now the understanding of innovation has narrowed even further to focus on three emerging technologies: bio-, info-, and nanotechnology. What happens when we add the word “quest” to the mix? A quest implies an end: something is being sought; some goal lies at the end of the journey. If technologically defined innovation is the end of the quest, then the goal is apparently change itself. This means, first of all, that technological means apparently become detached from human ends. Even if it is admitted that the “quest for innovation” is, in a capitalist economy, in fact a quest for profitability, through both the development of new products (product innovation) and new production methods (process innovation),3 then the future of capitalism depends on maintaining, over an indefinite period of time, the psychologically complex and ultimately mysterious process of technological innovation. When “technology” is associated with more mundane and systematic mental habits (quantitative reasoning, hard work, problem-solving, etc.), societies could be reasonably confident of their collective ability to achieve technological progress over time. But when technological progress becomes linked to a process of endless innovation, there is more reason to fear that the sources of creativity might dry up, that technological development will stagnate, and that societies might revert to a technological and economic steady state.4 When technology-focused “innovation” becomes the goal of a “quest,” societies will be anxious to find an unfailing source of creativity. Maybe “culture” will work the charm. If the quest for innovation is going to last indefinitely, it has to be collective. An individual—a “heroic inventor” or a Schumpeterian entrepreneur—can produce particular devices or methods, but no individual can produce technological innovation as an endless social process. This requires an underlying “culture,” in the sense that Helga Nowotny describes it in the invitation to this workshop: “a concept freely resorted to as a residual, if not the ultimate explanation when faced with a diversity of phenomena, the variance of historical circumstances, and alternating records of success and failure.” The answer to the challenge of endless innovation is therefore to identify cultures of technology, to uncover their common characteristics, and to reproduce those cultures so that the quest will be successful. If technological innovation is the goal, then technological culture is the means to this sought-after end. Cultures of technology are, in good reflexive fashion, defined by their results: any social milieu that seems to reliably foster success in the quest for technologybased innovation must be a culture of technology. Thus culture becomes a historical agent in the never-ending quest for innovation in advanced capitalist societies. Which brings us to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). If there is any institution that has a track record of fostering technological inno-

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vation, it is MIT. If MIT start-up companies were collected into one nation, it would have the twenty-fourth largest gross domestic product in the world. Nearly one out of five MIT undergraduates starts a company and MIT graduates have founded approximately 12,000 firms.5 In short, MIT represents a culture of technology that has an enviable reputation for success in the quest for innovation. Their reputation for fostering innovation is so strong that in 1999 Cambridge University entered into a $100 million (U.S.) agreement with MIT to collaborate on ways of exporting MIT’s entrepreneurial culture to the United Kingdom. During the 1990s, however, MIT leadership undertook two Institutewide initiatives that turned out to have major effects on MIT’s culture. The first was the Reengineering Project, announced in 1993 and terminated in 1999, an expensive and ambitious effort to introduce “the change process” to MIT in many forms, including new accounting software and new expectations of MIT’s administrative and support staff. The second was the Task Force on Student Life and Learning, formed in 1996 and issuing its report in 1998. The Task Force was formed to introduce change to MIT in the realm of education, especially undergraduate education. Its members came to the conclusion that “community” would be added to “research” and “teaching” as one of the essential foundations of an MIT education. More specifically, the Task Force urged faculty, staff, and students to spend more time on activities that would help “build community” at MIT. Between these two major initiatives, the air of fin de siècle MIT was full of “change talk”—referring not to technological but to social change. Reengineering promoted social change in the sense of a new organizational world— a market-oriented workplace of self-empowered staff members who would fearlessly promote yet more change. The Task Force promoted change in the sense of a new educational world—an idealized learning community, in which faculty and students would interact not only in the classroom or in the lab or research center, but also in a range of informal social settings. In some ways the two discourses contradicted each other: change, in the bureaucratic and functional context of Reengineering, was often interpreted as a threat to the communitarian traditions appealed to by the Task Force. Both movements for change, however, challenged existing social relationships that had long supported the research activities of the MIT faculty. Reengineering challenged existing relationships between faculty and staff; the Task Force, those of faculty and students. These disturbances to long-established relationships, and the practices that embodied them, revealed the extent to which MIT’s culture of innovation depended upon providing time for the creative research of the MIT faculty. Perturbations arising from Reengineering revealed patterns of labor relations that provided staff support for the faculty. Perturbations arising from the Task Force revealed patterns of educational relations that provided limits on the teaching role of the faculty. These long-standing patterns delicately bal-

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anced faculty responsibilities toward staff and students with the need of the faculty to find adequate time for innovative research. When the balance was disturbed by the social changes promoted by Reengineering and by the Task Force, faculty members reacted by protecting the existing patterns that they perceived as essential to maintaining MIT’s culture of technological innovation.

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Labor Relations in a Culture of Innovation In November 1993 the president of MIT, Charles Vest, facing a daunting budget crunch, committed MIT to the Reengineering Project. Its goal was the reduction of annual operating expenses by $40 million (U.S.) through “the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of support processes to bring about dramatic improvements in performance.”6 Some support processes were to be improved through redesigned work organization, but in most cases the main vehicle of improvement was the adoption of new accounting software, SAP R/3. Over the six fiscal years of Reengineering, onetime costs totaled $65.2 million (U.S.) of which $41.8 million (U.S.) went to upgrading financial systems through SAP R/3. Vest hoped that the faculty and staff would embrace Reengineering as, in his word, “MIT-like,” since it proposed to address the budget deficit as a design project. On the contrary, Reengineering aroused considerable resistance from staff and faculty alike. In the case of the staff, much of the resistance came from fear of job loss.7 Although many staff members were pleased to be encouraged to have the opportunity to redesign their work, they also used Vest’s budget numbers to calculate that the Institute could be cutting about 400 of its roughly 10,000 staff positions. In fact, large-scale layoffs never occurred—only small-scale ones and the loss of some positions through attrition—but there was no way of knowing this through most of the six years of Reengineering. The faculty did not face any threat of job loss, and they were also shielded from most Reengineering projects. The MIT administration decided to focus redesign on “support processes,” deliberately omitting faculty-oriented processes such as research and teaching. However, many faculty members were upset because they regarded Reengineering as a threat to, in their words, “the MIT culture.” Far from being “MIT-like,” they regarded it as the antithesis of the MIT they valued. In particular, the faculty resisted the changes that Reengineering tried to introduce in the long-standing equilibrium between themselves and nonfaculty staff. In the prevailing MIT culture, the most valued staff members were those who knew their local units well, who performed consistently and reliably over the years, and who showed a high degree of loyalty to the people they worked in order to achieve the mission of the Institute. The faculty members were supposed to be dynamic, mobile, resourceful leaders in their fields.

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The role of the staff was to provide stability and support. The success of the entrepreneurial faculty was assumed to depend upon the support of nonentrepreneurial staff. It was often said by the faculty that the staff came to work at MIT because they liked the people they worked with, and respected the mission of the Institute, and so were willing to accept somewhat lower wages in return for these nonfinancial compensations. Reengineering upset this equilibrium. The consultants brought in to staff the Reengineering project, and some of the “team leaders” they recruited from the MIT staff, declared that they had to “break the culture” of MIT, to overcome “cultural resistance,” and to get people to accept a “new world of work.” For them, the MIT culture was the problem; change was the solution. In the “new world” of Reengineering, the staff were encouraged to be entrepreneurial too. Reengineering leaders promoted a staff culture more like that of the faculty: dynamic, self-promoting, mobile, and aggressive. In the language of Reengineering, the most valued staff members were “change agents,” relying on accumulating their own individual suite of “competencies” rather than looking to the Institute and to the people around them for long-term security. They were expected to move from job to job more frequently, whether within the Institute or beyond. They were encouraged to think of their work as part of a developmental process of their professional identity, based on the assumption that their individual careers would flourish if they could “ride the wave of change.” In sum, the staff were encouraged to transfer their loyalties from MIT to change itself, and to trust their professional futures not to the Institute but to a self-generated process of identity-building. Many MIT staff members were torn between the existing world of work at MIT and at the “new world of work” launched by Reengineering. Throughout Reengineering, nonfaculty employees were subjected to confusing switches among tough get-onboard talk, therapeutic self-help language, and sentimental feeling-your-pain-of-change rhetoric. One staff member explained in a meeting that a Reengineering consultant had advised her to use the concept of a “change journey” to help the staff overcome their “resistance to change.” When asked what was the destination of the journey, the staff member hesitated; but she ventured that it might be thought of as arriving at a point of comfort with change. Instead of entering a brave new world of individual empowerment, the staff felt yanked back and forth between the old world of work at MIT and the promised new one. The Institute made it clear that the staff were expected to cooperate with Reengineering, and many of them wanted to turn this opportunity to good advantage. On the other hand, since many faculty members were openly critical of Reengineering, the staff wanted and needed to keep their local supervisors happy too. As the staff tried to straddle the fault line between administrative and faculty expectations, they ended up in delicate, repeated compromises and negotiations. The staff thought carefully about whether or

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not to join a Reengineering team. They were also careful about openly criticizing Reengineering. If the staff tried to defend existing procedures against what they considered destructive changes, they could find themselves accused of disloyalty within Reengineering circles (“stabbing Reengineering in the back”). But if they got too much “onboard” with Reengineering (another common phrase), then they might lose the trust of the faculty. The staff who had joined Reengineering teams tried to translate Reengineering jargon into language they thought would be more acceptable to the faculty. The faculty had much less to lose by expressing their views openly. Almost any faculty member would admit that MIT needed to replace and integrate its accounting systems, which were poorly coordinated, inefficient, and aging. While the investment in SAP R/3 was enormous, it was not out of line with that made by other research universities in the 1990s. The faculty objected less to the new technological system than to the rhetoric of “change management” that went along with it. “It makes me feel like I’ve been abducted by aliens,” one faculty member (and head of a major research center) told me. “We have all these change agents around,” another faculty member said. “So who’s going to get the work done?” At a dinner attended by randomly chosen MIT faculty members, where general conversation is encouraged after the meal, an engineer stood up to suggest that Reengineering be called “resciencing” because it gave a bad name to engineers. The Reengineering Project officially ended in June 1999, though, in the words of an administration spokesperson, “Reengineering is over but change is not.”8 By 1999 the budget gap had been closed. This was accomplished, however, much less through management techniques and accounting systems than through the creative exploitation of new funding sources and a raging bull market that approximately quadrupled MIT’s endowment. Reengineering did not lead to massive layoffs, but on the other hand it did not harvest anything like the savings it had boasted of delivering. It did have great value as a form of technological display, demonstrating to potential donors, the government and to the MIT Corporation (the governing board of the university) that the Institute was serious about improving efficiency and managerial oversight on a continuing basis. This demonstration in turn helped develop other sources of support for the Institute. Still, the damage to human and institutional attachments was real. Although Reengineering glorified “the change process,” it also damaged the human connections and institutional habits that might have helped everyone adapt to change. At the same time, Reengineering revealed the complexities of the labor relationships that had long supported MIT’s culture of technological innovation. The faculty feel that they depended upon hardworking staff to support them, and they prefer communitarian labor relations based on personal loyalties and dedicated to a common purpose. During the years of Reengi-

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neering, they were uneasy about the intrusion of labor relations into MIT based on personal identity-building; paradoxically, this type of individualized, market-oriented staff role seemed to threaten the MIT lifeworld that was organized around a more symbiotic relationship of innovative faculty and loyal staff. The paradox is that while the culture of technological innovation at MIT feeds into the marketplace economy, MIT labor relations have been shielded from the full force of the job market. Whatever the wishes of the MIT faculty, this shield appears to be weakening: the forces of the job market are too strong. For the older symbiotic labor relations to endure, MIT must keep up its end of the bargain, in the form of reasonably stable, reasonably engaging jobs that may not pay top dollar but that provide other compensations to loyal employees. Reengineering began to undermine this social compact, by encouraging the staff to think of themselves as “change agents” and by making many of the staff worry about MIT’s loyalty to them, even if they were not eventually laid off. MIT is now undergoing another budget crunch (caused primarily by poor returns from the MIT endowment), with significant layoffs expected, almost entirely among nonacademically related support and administrative staff. It is very likely that this will affect the productivity of the faculty and will further undermine the loyalties of the staff. The market economy, in the form of the job market, continues to transform labor relationships at MIT. Over time, the institution will have to develop new ways of ensuring that those relationships continue to support the production of innovation.

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Finding Time for Innovation In even more fundamental ways, the innovation-oriented market economy is reflexively altering the culture of innovation at MIT. Innovation brings the proliferation of material things, products, gadgets, structures, and systems, but it does more than that. It also changes the structure of the lifeworld, the ground of daily experience in which these things all come together for people. The lifeworld is not a Newtonian universe of absolute time and space that simply gets more filled up with the things that humans produce. It is relativistic, in the nonrigorous sense that time and space are altered by the presence of matter. The accumulation of technological innovations distorts time and space. The things we make multiply spatial connections. The things we make multiply demands on time.9 The integrated effect of these proliferations is to create scarcities of time and space. When the “things” of the information age—reports, messages, data, and communications—are overproduced, the glut carries with it not just economic but also psychological and social effects. The overproduction of goods

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and the underproduction of the phenomenological resources of cultural life— time and space—go hand in hand. Because the lifeworld is reflexive as well as relativistic, the proliferation is liberating and exciting and can stimulate further innovation. But when time and space are consistently and structurally underproduced, then cultures of innovation are endangered. Of all the effects of technological change, the way in which it alters time and space are among the most significant and pervasive— but also the most difficult to apprehend, describe, understand, and confront. The habits of allocating time and space at MIT were challenged in the late 1990s as a result of the formation of the Task Force. In 1995 President Vest announced a comprehensive review of MIT’s educational mission, with special emphasis on the relationship between classroom and the campus living experience. The process of forming the review committee began in the fall of 1995; the members (nine faculty, including two cochairs, and three students) began its deliberations in August 1996; and its final report was published two years later, at the end of the summer of 1998. To a significant extent, the work of the Task Force, like that of the Reengineering Project, involved an effort on the part of MIT, as a culture dedicated to promoting innovation, to respond to innovations in the larger world. In the case of the Task Force, this meant innovations in the market for higher education. The late 1990s were a time of intense interest and investment in information technology in higher education. Many colleges and universities— motivated by the desire to teach better, to cut costs, and to find new markets— were investigating various possibilities involving distance education, new teaching tools, and reorganized curricula. The 1998 report of the Task Force strongly and unanimously concluded that the future of MIT as an educational institution depended not on investing in new educational technologies, but on maintaining and even strengthening the place-based, face-to-face human community.10 MIT’s strategic advantage, as the market for higher education was reconfigured, was to focus on what it could deliver in “Cambridge 02139:” “MIT’s contribution [to higher education] will be the way it brings together the best people with the best technology to produce excellence in education. We must focus on this goal, rather than on the technologies themselves.”11 The final report of the Task Force concluded that the most important goal for the Institute was to add “community” to its existing activities of “academics” and “research” in order to make up a new “educational triad.” The Task Force wanted MIT’s “triad” to provide a model for other educational institutions: “Today’s need for change presents the opportunity … to make MIT the same guiding light for higher education in the twenty-first century as it has been in the twentieth.”12 The “triad” was a commitment to change—change that is explicitly social rather than technological. The major finding of the Task Force was that the existing MIT community needed to be strengthened so that it could play a more important role in the educational development of its students.

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The main obstacles to change, according to the Task Force, were shortages of time and space, which are critical for community-based development. If a community is “a social entity created in space through time,”13 then the phenomenological resources essential for its creation are becoming ever scarcer at MIT. Most of the Task Force Report focuses on these scarcities and possible remedies for them. In its eight “community recommendations,” the Task Force report called for an ambitious construction program to provide more facilities for community activities.14 In the five plus years since the publication of the Task Force Report, MIT has invested heavily in such facilities as classroom renovations, a new sports and fitness center, one undergraduate and one graduate residence, and a “student street” as part of a new research building. The total investment in construction has already run well over $1 billion (U.S.), and MIT still needs more “community space” (student housing, faculty housing, libraries, rehearsal and performance space, etc.). Nevertheless, while MIT struggles with the production of space, it struggles even more with the production of time. The Task Force Report stated, “Of the many difficult design problems MIT faces, promoting student and faculty participation in community activities is probably the most difficult.”15 In countless more informal presentations, the cochairs of the Task Force vigorously restated this conclusion. They were also quite frank about the fact that the Task Force did not solve this design problem. While the report contends that increased time commitment is essential for MIT to establish the “triad,” it offers no convincing mechanism to do this. The report suggests that the Institute “recognize” student and faculty participation in community activities by making notations on student transcripts, or by making them part of faculty members’ teaching records in tenure, promotion, and performance reviews.16 As the members of the Task Force understood, however, these are weak recommendations compared to the dominant reward structure, based on grade point average (for students) and teaching as judged by the department (for faculty) and on research as judged by the extended scholarly community. At its conclusion, the Task Force Report invokes the need for a “cultural shift” to accomplish its recommendations. This “cultural shift” would integrate student life and learning, highlight informal as well as formal learning, unite MIT’s subcommunities into a larger community, and establish the community as a pillar of MIT’s overall educational mission along with research and academics.17 This “cultural shift” is above all invoked as an agent to provide the community time that is now so scarce. Since the publication of the Task Force Report in 1998, however, no effective historical agent has emerged to bring about this time-generating cultural change. There has been no billion-plus-dollar (U.S.) investment in creating new time facilities at MIT, because no one has figured out how to create time for community. There may have been marginal changes in faculty investment in “community time” with students, but after the Task Force Report, as before,

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“community time” remains marginal pro bono work, undertaken by a limited pool of dedicated people, attracted by a hard-to-define set of rewards, including the hope of “making a difference.” This should not be read as an indictment of MIT faculty for neglecting their educational responsibilities. On the contrary, the Institute takes pride in the fact that MIT undergraduates are normally taught by faculty members, rather than by graduate students. The Faculty are expected to teach on a regular basis, and to do so reasonably well (many do it very well). In many undergraduate major programs, moreover, serving as advisers consume considerable faculty time and attention. This social compact is of long-standing and is well understood by MIT faculty. They resisted the call of the Task Force for more “community time” on their part because they correctly interpreted this as an additional responsibility on top of their existing and already substantial teaching commitments. Adding it to their already busy lives was generally felt to be unrealistic. If “community time” has been created at all since 1998, it has been through MIT’s institutional decision to hire more staff members in the area of student life issues. For example, graduate resident tutors are now assigned to fraternities as well as to MIT-operated student housing, and counseling staff are now assigned to housing as well as being available in central offices. MIT has apparently recognized that it is not realistic to expect faculty to invest more time in community activities, and has responded by complementing existing faculty efforts with staff support. Thus the symbiotic relationship between faculty and staff, although challenged in the 1990s by Reengineering, has if anything been confirmed rather than overthrown. The role of the staff in supporting the faculty has been extended from faculty research activities to educational ones. While the Task Force Report did not solve the time crunch at MIT, it did raise consciousness about the role of time as a resource for the production of innovation. In discussions with the Task Force, faculty members said that they felt that their creative work depends on the availability of two kinds of time: time for intellectual grazing, when random and apparently disconnected ideas can be brought together in new ways, often in casual, unforced, serendipitous encounters; and time for prolonged, intensive work on specific projects, whether experimental or theoretical. Time that is cut up by multiple demands, or cut across by multitasking and incomplete attention, is less productive of innovation. The faculty repeatedly complained about the constant barrage of messages from phone calls, faxes, and especially emails that they said was relentlessly invading the time they need for “daydreaming,” for intensive and uninterrupted work, and for informal encounters with colleagues. Ironically, despite the prominent role of MIT faculty in launching the “information age,” many of them complain that they are drowning in information they consider insignificant or hectoring or both. The faculty also expressed frustration about the possibility of reordering time commitments and priorities when their current time management is so

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dependent on highly competitive professional structures extending far beyond the Institute. They felt that their time was basically out of their control. For this reason, the Task Force call for “more community time” resulted not so much in faculty resistance as in flat and utter rejection: it was impossible, the faculty responded, given all the professional demands on them to do research, publish, and teach, while maintaining some semblance of a private life. Many people at MIT—staff, students, and faculty members—feel they are living in a lifeworld crisis, even if they do not give it this label. It is experienced as a constant sense of crowding and distraction. Things, messages, people, and information relentlessly accumulate in self-reinforcing cycles. The sense of frustrated helplessness they experience while living in this constant lifeworld crisis was a theme expressed both in Reengineering and in the work of the Task Force. In one Reengineering session, when participants were asked to write on a “stickie” what they most needed to create “change,” the wall of the room was soon plastered with stickies bearing one word: “time.” Innovation produces a crowded lifeworld in which it is progressively more difficult to find the time to produce innovation.

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Conclusion MIT is famous as a culture that produces technological innovation: it is less famous as a culture that confronts the effects of technology. MIT faculty, staff, and students are excited by innovation: the place is packed with people who contribute to, and benefit from, the digitized global economy as researchers, educators, consumers, and entrepreneurs. But during the late 1990s these same people became increasingly aware of the fact that the sources of their technological creativity depended upon resources that were not provided by, or were even diminished by, the accumulated and reflexive effects of the innovations they had helped produce.18 The purpose of this chapter is to describe this less famous MIT, the place where, in the words of one of my colleagues, “We are suffering from innovation.” MIT provides an especially good vantage point from which to view the reflexive effects of the quest for innovation—that is, the way in which certain effects of technological innovation may undermine the cultures that produce it in the first place. It is also a good vantage point from which to view the taken-for-granted elements of a culture of innovation: the resources of labor and time that are necessary to support the more noticeable products of the innovative quest. When Reengineering consultants tried to introduce a highly marketoriented culture at MIT, it challenged long-standing relationships between faculty and staff.When MIT faculty surveyed their own institution and commented on what they found in the Task Force Report, it challenged long-standing

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relationships between MIT faculty and students. In both cases, the faculty proved to be (in the lingo of Reengineering) “resistant to change.” This was not because of unthinking Luddism (it would be hard to imagine a more technophilic group of people) but because they correctly understood that both sets of relationships are essential in supporting them in their quest for innovation—the success of which is the basis of their personal success, and also of that of MIT as an institution. In today’s economy, the products of innovation are primarily technological, but the production of innovation, as a process, depends far less upon technological gadgets than upon the resources of time and labor. A culture of innovation must provide innovators with time both to focus and to graze, and must provide a social support system to free up this time and to provide a reliable infrastructure of institutional support for innovative projects. To quote Karl Marx, “Economy of time, to this all economy ultimately reduces itself.”19 As a university, engaged in both research and higher education, MIT is deeply embedded in the market-driven economy of twenty-first centurycapitalism. As a university, however, MIT also operates according to practices and norms that challenge those of the market (the tenure system, e.g., or the promotion system that rewards scholarship and discovery above marketability). The historian of engineering Antoine Picon has said that “no institution can survive without inner contradiction.”20 MIT not only survives, but thrives, as it manages the contradiction of being part of the market economy but also working hard to shield itself from some of the effects of that economy. It is less evident how contemporary capitalism in general will reconcile its quest for technological innovation without undercutting the cultural resources that sustain it.

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Notes 1. On reflexivity, see Helga Nowotny, Peter Scott, and Michael Gibbons, Re-Thinking Science: Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty (Cambridge, 2001), esp. chap. 3, “The CoEvolution of Society and Science,” 30–49. On Rosalind Williams’s contribution, see Leo Marx, “Technology: The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept,” Social Research 64, no. 3 (1997): esp. 967–68, 974–75, and 977. 2. John McDermott, “Technology: The Opiate of the Intellectuals,” New York Review of Books, (31 July 1969) (repr. [abridged] in Philosophy of Technology: The Technological Condition, An Anthology, eds. Robert C. Scharff and Val Dusek (Oxford; Melbourne; and Malden, Mass., 2003), 648). 3. Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, 2nd ed. (Oxford and Malden, Mass., 2000 [1996]), 278. See chap. 4, “The Transformation of Work and Employment: Networkers, Jobless, and Flex-timers,” 216–302. 4. See, for example, the expression of this anxiety in Joel Mokyr’s Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy (Princeton and Oxford, 2002), esp. 283, and Williams’s review of the book “Does Progress Have a Future?” Technology and Culture 44, no. 2 (April 2003): 371–75. 5. William A. Lucas, Alternative Entrepreneurial Images and Their Programme Implications (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Institute, June 2003), slides for lecture.

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6. Janet Snover, “Reengineering is Over but Change is Not,” MIT Faculty Newsletter 12, no. 2 (1999): 18–19. 7. There are two categories of nonfaculty staff at MIT: administrative staff and support staff. The former work for a salary and tend to have a broader range of responsibilities and a wider skill set. The latter work for hourly wages and tend to have more focused responsibilities requiring fewer skills. The line in terms of responsibilities and skills is often blurred, but the line in terms of payment is quite clear. 8. Ibid., 18–19. 9. In his later works, Edmund Husserl contrasted the phenomenological human world of semiconscious, sense-based daily experience with the abstract world of scientific or philosophical reflection. He asserted that the “lifeworld,” as “the unified ground of experience,” takes precedence over “the abstract and derivative worlds of science that arise from it.” Donn Welton, “World,” in Encyclopedia of Phenomenology, eds. Lester Embree et al. (Dordrecht, Netherlands; Boston; and London, 1997), 736–37; Thomas Nenon, “Life-World in Husserl,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, suppl., ed. Donald Borchet (New York, 1996), 305. 10. MIT’s major initiative in the arena of distance learning came several years after the publication of the report of the Task Force, in the form of the Open Courseware project, in which most MIT subjects are put online for free distribution to the public. The decision to do this as a public service, as opposed to creating a new market, is one in which MIT justifiably takes pride and that has received a great deal of praise. It is also expensive and has so far been supported through generous support from various foundations. It is not directly related to the theme of the “time crunch” that is being emphasized here, however, though it is worth noting that faculty members who cooperate with the Open Courseware project by putting their courses online receive a $3,000 (U.S.) stipend (usable for research- or education-related purposes) to encourage them to take the time to do this. 11. Task Force on Student Life and Learning (committee report), September 1998, 24. 12. Ibid., 58. 13. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Oxford and Cambridge, Mass., 1989), 204. 14. Task Force Report, 41–45. 15. Ibid., 39. 16. Ibid., 41. 17. Ibid., 58. 18. Much of this analysis of change and community at MIT in recent years is drawn from Williams, Retooling: A Historian Confronts Technological Change (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 2002), chaps. 3 and 4. 19. Karl Marx, Grundrisse (New York, 1973), 173, quoted by Harvey, Condition of Postmodernity, 227. 20. Workshop on Engineering Education, Collegium Helveticum, ETH, Zurich, 1997.

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CHAPTER

3

The Vulnerability of Technological Culture*

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WIEBE E. BIJKER

The attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., 11 September 2001 (“9/11”), as well as other attacks throughout the world since, have demonstrated how vulnerable our modern societies are. These events shattered many people’s basic feelings of security and safeness, though 9/11 probably did not radically change the view of scholars in science, technology, and society studies (STS). This chapter was written in response to these attacks, when several historians and sociologists of technology and science asked in what ways their research could be relevant to understanding these events.1 I will argue that it is worth while to investigate the vulnerability of technological culture, and that this can be done fruitfully from an STS perspective. My main point, however, is different. I want to suggest that vulnerability is not to be taken as something purely negative. Living in a technological culture, I will argue, inevitably implies living in a vulnerable world. And vulnerability is not only an inevitable characteristic; it is even an important asset of our technological culture as a prerequisite for living with the quest for innovation. To live in an open, changing, and innovative culture, we must pay the price of vulnerability. Vulnerability is a central issue when thinking about innovation. Joseph A. Schumpeter’s recognition that the fundamental instability of capitalism presents an ever-present possibility of entrepreneurs seizing upon innovations can be read as an early formulation of a positive relation. Vulnerability seems to be a conditio sine qua non for innovation, as it is the inevitable result of the instability and dynamic development that Schumpeter identified as prerequisites for innovation.2 The relation has also been made vice versa: innovation makes it

Notes for this section begin on page 66.

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vulnerable. Patent law, for example, is one way of coping with the financial vulnerability that results from the large investments required for innovation. In this chapter I want to explore the vulnerability of technological culture: a vulnerability that is at the same time an inevitable consequence of, and a necessary prerequisite for, the advanced technological society in which we live. To do so, I shall first specify what it means to investigate technological culture in addition to analyzing technological systems and high-tech society, and then continue with an analysis of the concept of vulnerability applied to, respectively, systems, society, and culture.

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Studying Technological Culture As Helga Nowotny observes in her introduction booklet for the conference “Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation,” “to approach technology under a cultural perspective is … both self-evident and highly demanding.”3 Such an approach is self-evident, because “technology is perceived as the most consequential cultural practice that humankind has developed”; and it is highly demanding, because “the risks associated with technologies have revealed themselves to be a cultural phenomenon as well.” To analyze the various types of vulnerability of technological systems and societies, it is thus necessary to use a cultural perspective; it is necessary to analyze technological culture. This focus on technological culture is part of a more general trend in STS. In the 1970s and 1980s the focus was on case studies of scientific controversies and on technological artifacts and systems. In the 1990s, this agenda broadened to also address social, political, and cultural issues of societal relevance.4 Accordingly, the empirical base was broadened as well: the attention to science was extended to a variety of belief systems such as indigenous knowledge,5 and knowledge developed by patient groups;6 the attention focused on technology was extended to social technologies, and to technologies’ users.7 The STS research agenda now also includes such issues as democratization (scientific) expertise, politics of genomics, and the relation between economic development and technological knowledge.8 In other words, developments in the last decade have shown a shift from the study of the (local) cultures of science and technology to the study of technological culture at large. Why use the phrase “technological culture”? One reason is to highlight the pervasiveness of science and technology in modern, highly developed societies. As John Law and I summarized in 1992: “All relations should be seen as both social and technical.… Purely social relations are found only in the imaginations of sociologists, among baboons, or possibly, just possibly, on nudist beaches; and purely technical relations are found only in the wilder reaches of science fiction.”9 To conceptualize society as a combination of merely social systems and technological systems, does not adequately recognize this perva-

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siveness. To take, in contrast, “technological culture” as the key focus of research helps to recognize “the basic, underlying assumption that modern societies are predominantly shaped by knowledge and technology.”10 Studying technological culture, then, means to study technologies and societies from a cultural perspective: the unit of analysis is a technological system or a (part of) modern, technology dominated society, and these are studied with specific attention to the cultural dimensions. A focus on technological culture highlights how social interaction is mediated through technologies, and how technologies can only function when embedded in societal institutions. This usage of the term technological culture is thus broader and more ambitious than the way in which it is used in the context of public understanding of science: there it is synonymous with “technical literacy” and is often connected to economic development and innovation.11 “Technological culture” in its broader sense is in line with Manuel Castells’s move to extend the analysis of the network society to an analysis of identity, democracy, power, and international relations (Castells 1996 [2000], 1997, 1998 [2000]).12 It is equally in line with recent work in philosophy that recognizes “that the characteristic traits of our culture are pervasively and irrevocably technological,” and that all current public debates “involve perceptions of technology in its widest and most comprehensive sense, which is to say technology as our culture.”13 I will now review in more detail what it means to study the vulnerability of technological systems and high-tech societies from a cultural perspective, and then summarize these findings by discussing the vulnerability of technological culture.

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Vulnerable Systems Technological systems can be vulnerable, as is abundantly clear from a long list of accidents and accompanying scholarly treatises.14 Charles Perrow argued in 1984 that in modern societies, with their large, complex, and tightly coupled technological systems, accidents are “normal.”15 Recent STS literature covers, for example, the Challenger disaster,16 the Bhopal chemical plant explosion,17 aviation accidents,18 and nuclear accidents.19 The common meaning of vulnerable is to be “sensitive to being hurt or wounded,” and often it is applied to ecosystems or to living beings. Associated connotations are: defenseless, unprepared, weak, and naked. Vulnerable, then, seems to describe an intrinsic characteristic of a being or system, quite independently of the system’s concrete context. It is more fruitful, however, to analyze vulnerability as a relational concept. Writing about natural hazards, Piers M. Blaikie and his colleagues offer a relational and active definition of vulnerability: the reduced “capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from the impact of a natural hazard.”20 Sometimes associated with this meaning is

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also a more positive connotation of being vulnerable: lowering your defenses, exposing your weak spots, and showing your Achilles’ heel—which can be an expression of strength and superiority rather than weakness. In this section I will investigate these aspects—relational, active, and partly positive—by further developing the concept of vulnerability in connection to technical systems. I will do so in four steps. Analyzing the vulnerability of technical systems, Ger L. Wackers and Jens Kørte unpack this reduced capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from threats, and they translate it into a reduced capability to maintain functional integration. Without such functional integrity, systems stop working; loss of functional integrity for living beings means death.21 This amounts to my first step toward specifying vulnerability. With this concept of (the loss of) functional integration, Wackers and Kørte analyze the vulnerability of an offshore helicopter transport system. They show how the helicopter system drifted (i.e., imperceptibly changed) toward a more vulnerable state in which various elements worked at a suboptimal level and in which seemingly practical adaptations of the prescribed protocols resulted in an increased vulnerability of the system. The concept “drift” has been used by a variety of authors, but Wackers and Kørte particularly draw on Scott A. Snook’s analysis of the 1991 shootdown of two UN peace-keeping helicopters, full of officials, in northern Iraq, by two U.S. fighters.22 Snook describes how a “practical drift” of local adaptations and procedures led to a steadily widening gap between the safety regulations and the practical operations of fighters, helicopters, and AWACS controllers. Individually these adaptations were inconsequential, but over a longer period of time this practical drift had resulted in a vulnerable system— the system had lost some of its functionality because the various subsystems did not collaborate and integrate as they were intended to. What exactly do we mean by the term vulnerable system? Perrow’s analysis of normal accidents in large (technical) systems is the classic starting point that will answer that question. Perrow’s diagnosis is that large technical systems are more risky, and tend to run into more catastrophic accidents, when they are more complex and more tightly coupled. Complex systems—in contrast to linear systems—have many interconnected subsystems, with many feedback loops, and multiple and interacting controls. Some examples are universities and nuclear plants. Tightly coupled—in contrast to loosely coupled—systems do not allow for delays in processing, follow one invariant sequence of processing steps, have little slack in supplies and personnel, and have few built-in buffers and redundancies. Some examples are hydropower dams and nuclear plants. Aircraft systems and nuclear plants are complex and tightly coupled systems. Using Perrow’s analysis it is now possible to make a second step toward specifying the vulnerability of systems. A tightly coupled complex system is more vulnerable in two ways: (1) it is more risky in Perrow’s sense of failing due to some internal component errors, and (2) it is less capable to anticipate, cope

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with, and recover from the impact of external disturbances that do not fit its preconceived lines of reaction. In other words, a loosely coupled system is less vulnerable in both senses because there is less chance that internal errors will proliferate through the system, and because there is more opportunity (in the form of buffers, time, and extra redundancies) to react to external disturbances. And a linear system can be more easily protected—and thus made less vulnerable—because it typically is spatially segregated, allows for easy substitutions of subsystems and components, has single-purpose controls and few feedback loops, and often is better understood. The works by Perrow, Snook, Wackers, and Kørte shows how crucial it is to analyze these events at a combination of individual, group, and systems levels. Diane Vaughan adds—and that is my third step—group culture and organizational culture to those perspectives. She recognizes the Challenger disaster as a normal accident, but “this case extends Perrow’s notion of system to include aspects of both environment and organization that affect the risk assessment process and decision making.” Technical experts’ interpretation “of the signals is subject to errors shaped by a still-wider system that includes history, competition, scarcity, bureaucratic procedures, power, rules and norms, hierarchy, culture, and patterns of information.”23 Perrow criticizes, in his epilogue to the 1999 publication of his 1984 book,Vaughan’s focus on work group culture and safety, because she “ask[s] how we can make risky systems with catastrophic potential more safe, a question that takes for granted that they must run hotter, be bigger, be more toxic, and make super demands upon members.” In addition, Perrow wants to raise the issue of power, and “the role of production pressures in increasingly privatised and deregulated systems that can evade scrutiny and accountability.”24 I agree with Perrow’s foregrounding of political choice about specific technologies and about ways of organizing society, but I think that he misses the key point of Vaughan’s cultural analysis. I don’t think Vaughan’s analysis dismisses the importance of issues of politics and power, but it casts them in a different light. This will form my fourth step in developing the concept of systems’ vulnerability: Vaughan links her cultural analysis explicitly to the social constructivist notion of interpretative flexibility:25 “The ambiguity of the engineering craft is complicated by ‘interpretative flexibility’. Not only do various tests of the same phenomenon produce differing results, but also the findings of a single test are open to more than one interpretation.”26 And “even the same results could be interpreted differently. Sometimes disagreements between the two communities were hard to settle because, as one long-time Marshall S&E representative put it, contractor working engineers tended to be ‘defensive about their design’ because they believed in their own methods and analysis.”27 The implication of this insight is that the vulnerability of systems cannot be characterized in objective, context-independent terms. Vulnerability, I want to argue, is socially constructed as much as facts and artifacts are. 28

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To elaborate on this argument, it is helpful to first consider the related concept of risk. The vulnerability of systems, and particularly the vulnerability due to possible internal errors and failures, can to some extent be described in terms of risks. The Health Council of the Netherlands defines risk as “the possibility (with some degree of probability) that damage (with a specific character and size) will occur to health, ecology, or goods.”29 This is a deliberately broad definition, allowing for a variety of forms of damage: varying, for example, in character, magnitude, timing, and possibility to recover. It is broader than the definition that forms the basis for probabilistic risk analysis: the probability of a (damaging) event multiplied by its magnitude. The broadness of the Health Council’s definition implies a form of risk analysis and management that recognizes that “risk is more than a number” —the title of another Health Council report.30 This latter report recognizes that risks are the consequences of human action, whether we consider nuclear energy production, chemical plants, air traveling, living below sea level, or smoking. Such human action is always aimed at some kind of profit or benefit. It is therefore necessary to assess risks and benefits within one framework: risks cannot be evaluated without also evaluating the positive effects of the actions that generate them. Additionally, the Health Council concludes that risk problems may vary fundamentally, depending on the extent of the risk over time; its extent through space; the uncertainty about its extent, character, and magnitude; and the societal relevance of the risk inducing action. All of these considerations lead to the conclusion that the often-used distinction between objective risk and risk perception does not hold. Risks cannot be conceptualized as an objective, quantifiable, contextindependent phenomenon; and it makes no sense either to talk of the perception of such objective risks.31 Now I can specify the relation between vulnerability and risk.Vulnerability refers to a system’s condition—to its ability to anticipate, resist, cope with, and possibly recover from events that could reduce the system’s functional integrity. Risk, on the other hand, is an outcome-oriented notion. It conceptualizes the effects of a possible, harmful event. Vulnerability, by itself, is not related to any other outcome than the breakdown of the system itself. A vulnerable system may yield certain risks, when it could produce damage, depending on the circumstances. A risk analysis can, vice versa, be helpful in assessing a system’s vulnerability: analyzing the chances (and resulting damage) of subsystem or component failure may help to get to grips with at least the technical aspects of a system’s vulnerability. Let us now finish the fourth step—the constructivist turn—in developing a concept of vulnerability. The first move was Vaughan’s recognition of the interpretative flexibility of claims about a system’s characteristics and performance. The second move was to recognize that even risks are “more than numbers,” and indeed context and culture dependent. To complete this constructivist turn with a third move, I will draw on John Law’s paper about the

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London Ladbroke Grove train disaster.32 In this tragic accident, in which 31 people died and 414 were injured, a three-carriage diesel train unit and a highspeed train collided at Ladbroke Grove, two miles outside Paddington Station, on 5 October 1999. Using an actor-network analysis, Law produces a detailed description of the relevant system, including the train units, the signaling, the drivers’ training programs, the industry management, and the safety regulations and technologies. His analysis tells us how all of the elements of the network— people as well as technologies—were geared toward maintaining and improving safety. But he also shows how minor changes in standard arrangements cumulatively may have “drifted” to this disaster. There is a crucial difference, however, between Snook’s handling of the concept of practical drift and Law’s conclusion about the role of minor disorders that led to the Ladbroke Grove disaster. Law highlights the fact that “the partial disorder of these not very coherent arrangements does just fine a good deal if not all of the time.… For every case of a Ladbroke Grove there are endless ‘system breakdowns’ that have no serious consequences.” He shows, with detailed analysis of the use of the Driver Reminder Appliance (DRA) on the diesel train, that the same measurement that strengthens the system and makes it less vulnerable in one set of circumstances, does exactly the opposite under other circumstances and then enhances the system’s vulnerability. So, these measurements, technical devices, and regulations show interpretative flexibility: in one condition they improve safety; in another they increase vulnerability. Even more crucial for my constructivist conception of vulnerability, Law argues, “there are endless system failures that help to keep the wheels turning.” Law’s argument here is an argument about imperfection: about its unavoidability, and about the advantages of practicing imperfection. That is how complex systems have developed over time: practices and routines have developed in safety-critical contexts because they proved to be workable, and they thus yielded a relatively stable and invulnerable system. And some of these practices are incoherent, unruly, and against narrowly interpreted safety regulations. Such unruly practices are the lubricant that keeps a system going, to make a system less vulnerable by better coping with potential hazards. The conclusion, then, can only be that vulnerability is socially constructed: the same system can be deemed relatively invulnerable—when unruly behavior is interpreted as people taking their responsibility, using their experience, and improvising to accommodate to changing conditions; or it is deemed vulnerable—when such unruliness is defined as violating the regulations and creating risky situations. Let me summarize my cultural analysis of the vulnerability of technological systems. The vulnerability of a technological system describes the weakness of that system’s capacity to maintain functional integrity. System vulnerability is linked to the performance of subsystems, system components, and to routines and working practices. Hence, risk analysis on a component level can be helpful to assess a system’s vulnerability. Practical drift may lead a system grad-

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ually to more vulnerable states, without the practitioners noticing in time.Vulnerability is a constructivist concept in the sense that it does not describe a context-independent and intrinsic quality of the system. The sociology of knowledge has shown for scientific statements; vulnerability will also be contested when it is at the forefront of debate, controversy, or research. This is not to say that all is merely “in the eye of the beholder,” or that there is no real base to vulnerability. Let me adapt the following metaphor, used by Harry Collins to illustrate the constructed nature of scientific knowledge: vulnerability and system are like map and landscape—vulnerability does relate to the reality of the system, but is not fully determined by it.33

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Vulnerable Societies Technical systems function in societies. Modern, high-tech societies are indeed built on, with, around, and in technological systems. Any failure of those technical systems, therefore, would directly impinge upon society. Vulnerable technical systems lead to a vulnerable technical society. The concept of vulnerability, as developed in the previous section, is fully applicable to societies—from its focus on functional integrity to its constructed nature. When we describe our societies as vulnerable for a terrorist attack, we mean that there is a chance that such an attack will cause key institutions of society to stop functioning and the social fabric of society to disintegrate. In this diagnosis of vulnerability, technology plays a key role. The Western societies are more vulnerable, because they are high-tech societies. It is exactly because such key institutions as energy distribution, communication, transportation, and trade are so complex and tightly coupled, that a high-tech society built around those institutions is so vulnerable. Most of these technological systems and social institutions have existed in some form for a long time, but the complex and coupled character is new. As Perrow observes: Odysseus’ vessel neither polluted the Mediterranean shoreline nor could destroy much of Texas City; the World War II bombers could not crash into a building holding nuclear weapons; … chemical plants were not as large, as close to communities, or processing such explosive and toxic chemicals; airliners were not as big, numerous, or proximate to such large communities; and it is only recently that the risk of radiation from a nuclear plant accident has been visited upon almost every densely populated section of our country.34

Damage may come from within or from outside the technical systems; damage may come in the form of technical errors and accidents, or in the form of social disruptions—but in all cases the complex and tightly coupled character of high-tech institutions potentially increases the devastating effect of the damage. But the opposite is also true. Western societies have never been so well defended against natural disasters as with the current dike systems and earthquake

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proof buildings. Surveillance technology, intelligence, information systems, and biometric technologies for personal identification defend the United States against intruders. Modern medical technologies have increased public health to unprecedented levels. Our Western societies are less vulnerable because of the technical systems that are employed. This seemingly contradictory diagnosis—that technology makes modern societies more vulnerable, while at the same time making societies more safe—would of course only be a problem for an essentialist concept of vulnerability: a society is “really” vulnerable to some degree. The constructivist concept of vulnerability that I proposed in the previous section recognizes that a society can be constructed by certain actors, with certain aims, and under certain conditions, into being vulnerable; while the same society can be argued to be relatively invulnerable in another context or from another perspective. Some of the recent work on vulnerability, often spurred by the terrorists’ attacks, does mirror this dual character of technological societies. Apart from the recent emphasis on helping citizens prepare themselves against terrorist attacks, much of the vulnerability-related discussions and activities have focused on infrastructure.35 Often this was in the context of natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes. Recently the infrastructure of the Internet increasingly receives attention, and in all of these different senses: as a potentially vulnerable infrastructure of modern society, as an infrastructure that can strengthen society’s capacity to react to threats, and even as an infrastructure that can be turned into a weapon for attacks on society.36 To connect the notion of vulnerability with the survival of nations is of course something that has been done frequently since 9/11, and especially in the United States. Significantly, the word “vulnerable” is hardly ever used in the documents and websites of the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security, but it arguably is the most central concept behind this office’s actions and policies. Vulnerability to “biological, chemical, and radiation threats, and explosions and nuclear blasts” is cited as the main reason to “be ready,” “be informed,” “make a plan,” and “make a kit of emergency supplies.”37 Of course, among specialists (but now I am referring to army and weapon specialists rather than to STS scholars) “the vulnerabilities in the United States to attacks by international terrorist or domestic groups or by such groups with domesticinternational linkages” had been recognized long before.38 The emphasis was on nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons: The proliferation of nuclear weapons and associated technologies, and the diffusion of knowledge needed to manufacture chemical and biological weapons, raises the fearful specter of mass destruction that makes concerns related to use of anthrax as a way of spreading both disease and panic pale to insignificance. The scary truth is that the United States is all too vulnerable to this kind of attack.… Highly symbolic targets like government buildings and corporate headquarters will be more vulnerable to attack.39

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These accounts, comments, and policies exemplify the constructed nature of vulnerability: they create one particular form of vulnerability, linked to one particular identity of the American society. Other American societies exist, and other accounts of vulnerability and resilience can be constructed accordingly, as I will show in the following section. Thus the concept of vulnerability as it was just discussed is also applicable to societies. It may need some extension however. There are some issues that play a role when discussing the vulnerability of society, which are not prominent in discussing technological systems. The Netherlands Health Council explicitly concludes from its diagnosis that risk is more than a number: “Questions of risk management are questions about the configuration of society. Opinions about the vulnerability of nature, about the care for future generations, and about the freedom to act—they all shape the answers to these questions.”40 These are issues that relate to the core cultural values of a society. Perrow also notes the difficulty to handle such questions with the quantifying mathematical risk models that dominate the field of probabilistic risk analysis: this “is a narrow field, cramped by the monetarization of social good. Everything can be bought; if it cannot be bought it does not enter the sophisticated calculations. A life is worth roughly $300,000 … [U.S.]; less if you are over sixty, even less if you are otherwise enfeebled.”41 A second element needs to be added to complete this section on vulnerable societies. This concerns the role of science. In his analysis of modern society as a “risk society,” Ulrich Beck identified the crucially new role that science plays in the vulnerability of modern high-tech societies (although he does not use the word “vulnerable”): “If we were previously concerned with externally caused dangers (from the gods or nature), the historically novel quality of today’s risks derives from internal decision. They depend on a simultaneously scientific and social construction. Science is one of the causes, the medium of definition, and the source of solutions to risks.”42 Beck’s analysis gives an important reflexive twist to the conception of vulnerability as I developed so far. The vulnerability of society is not merely a result from the growth of technological systems in number, size, complexity, and tightly coupled nature, as Perrow would have it. Beck conceives the risks, accidents, and—I would add—vulnerability of modern society, as the inevitable result of the modernization process itself. The result of this process is that the old industrial society is being replaced by a new risk society, Beck argues, in which social conflicts are less about the distribution of wealth but rather about the distribution of risks.

The Vulnerability of Technological Culture In the previous sections I have reviewed various conceptions of vulnerability, when applied to technical systems and to societies, and I have done so from a

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cultural perspective. Let me now take stock of what this analysis has given us, by focusing on technological culture itself. As mentioned previously, my conception of technological culture is meant to highlight the fact that characteristic traits of our culture are pervasively and irrevocably technological; that our technologies are thoroughly cultural; and that we can only understand our modern, high-tech society by recognizing how its dominant cultural values and its technology shape each other. A study of technological culture complements an analysis of technological society, because such a study focuses on the cultural values, identities, and practices that underpin the social institutions in these societies. Vulnerability depends, ultimately, on values. The crudest example is a culture that does not value human lives—such a culture would be much less vulnerable to risks that may cause casualties, or to terrorist attacks that aim to kill people. Cultural values vary widely over historical time and across geographic space. The experience and the concept of vulnerability vary accordingly. It is trivial to note that over the past century an increase in hygienic conditions has decreased the human vulnerability to diseases, in wealthy countries; it is equally trivial to observe that the vulnerability of individual humans is very different depending on where you live. Social, economic, and health conditions are so different in Africa, as compared to richer parts of the world, that vulnerability must have a completely different meaning there. As the legal philosopher Judith N. Shklar argues: “what is regarded as controllable and social, is often a matter of technology and of ideology or interpretation. The perceptions of victims and of those who, however remotely, might be victimizers, tend to be quite different.”43 Shklar builds her analysis of vulnerability and victimhood, of misfortune and injustice, on the observation that “the difference between misfortune and injustice frequently involves our willingness and our capacity to act or not to act on behalf of the victims, to blame or to absolve, to help, mitigate, and compensate, or to just turn away.”44 Differences in vulnerability between various geographic regions may also be caused by political circumstances and power relations. For example, both Palestinians and Israelis feel vulnerable, but the character of their experience of vulnerability seems to be quite different. In a paper for the summit of ACP45 (African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries) heads of state, Fei Tevi extends vulnerability to the economic and social, and wants to “define vulnerability with regards to the environment, the economy, and the society in the Pacific region.”46 The basis for this extension was laid at the UNCED Conference of 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, when “the small island developing states were recognised as a special case for environment and development under Agenda 21 because of their vulnerability, fragility, small size, geographic dispersion, and isolation.”47 To recognize this vulnerability is simply a matter of survival, Tevi argues. Using Wackers’s and Kørte’s concepts, we can now specify this “survival”: it is aimed at maintaining functional integrity as a community, as an economy,

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and as a people. Survival and vulnerability thus relate here to sustainability— sustainability in terms of energy and material cycles, and in terms of existential security. The historical variability of vulnerability, as well as vulnerability being value-laden, is illustrated by a discussion about what should be listed as cultural heritage that needs protection. For example, the historical value of fortifications from World War II, which were built by the German occupation army in the Netherlands, were declared cultural heritage. Such a decision preserved these buildings by declaring them vulnerable and worthy of protection—although concrete fortifications are normally not thought of as being vulnerable. The risk of epidemics like SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrom) can be explained in Perrow’s terms, but the urgent sense of vulnerability it created in 2003 can only be described by referring to a dominant idea of complete health that exists in our technological culture. A SARS epidemic certainly can be analyzed as a complex system with elements such as the selling and handling of livestock (chicken and civet cats) for consumption on crowded marketplaces; the slaughtering of the animals in homes with subsequent exposure of humans to blood and entrails; the increased likelihood of new viruses emerging through recombination of chicken viruses and human influenza viruses; and the increased mobility of human bodies through a few hub airports (Singapore and Hong Kong). The public impact of the SARS epidemic—in countries in the Western world where few casualties occurred—did, however, not result from citizens doing such a risk analysis. The epidemic had such an impact and created such an acute sense of vulnerability, because many in the richer parts of the world thought that infectious diseases were banned or confined to specific groups of people and types of behavior (as in the case of AIDS). If vulnerability is an inevitable characteristic of technological culture, as I think it is, how then do technological cultures handle this vulnerability? Surely all engineering routines, scientific methods, and managerial strategies, which we reviewed in the context of technical systems and societies, play a role. But what can be identified at the level of technological culture? I think that the precautionary approach is at least a partial answer to this question. With a precautionary approach, technological cultures can find ways to live with their vulnerability without necessarily violating their fundamental values. The probably most cited version of the precautionary principle is the one in the Rio declaration: “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation” (UN 1992). This implies a shift from prevention of clear and manifest dangers toward precautionary action to avoid hypothetical risks: this principle allows interfering, even when it is not exactly clear what the risk is. A wealth of literature has developed since, which translates this principle into various precautionary ap-

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proaches.48 What is important for my purpose here, is that some versions of a precautionary approach not only propose ways of handling risks, but also explicitly cite core values of modern technological cultures. For example, Sue Mayer and Andy Stirling argue that their approach “acknowledges the complexity and variability of the real world and embodies a certain humility about scientific procedures and knowledge.”49 These values will not necessarily be the same in all proclaimed precautionary approaches, nor will the implementation of specific values be uncontroversial and without costs. Henk van den Belt and Bart Gremmen cite Aaron Wildavski,50 when they warn “against the illusionary belief that by adhering to the Precautionary Principle something valuable, to wit human or environmental health, could be got at virtually no cost whatsoever, the facile assumption being that the proposed bans and regulations themselves would have no adverse health effects.”51 The interpretation and implementation of the precautionary principle inevitably will vary, according to the legal and scientific doctrines, and to the openness of the political culture. Thus the particular implementation of the precautionary principle allows a technological culture to be shaped in a specific way. It also connects back to my opening remarks, in which I connected vulnerability to innovation. Implementing the precautionary principle forms a battleground for stimulating or restricting innovation. Critics of the precautionary principle are afraid that it will curtail innovation. “The reason is that it leads its protagonists to focus mainly on the possibility that new technologies may pose theoretical risks, always hedging against the worst possible outcomes by assuming worst-case scenarios, while ignoring the potential benefits of these same technologies or the real existing risks that could be mitigated or eliminated by them.”52 The report by the European Environment Agency in which twelve cases of the use of the precautionary principle were reviewed, also links precaution to the recognition that we live in a changing world while having limited knowledge: “a key element in a precautionary approach to regulation involves a greater willingness to acknowledge the possibility of surprise. This does not mean resorting to blanket opposition to innovation.”53 A final way of tracing the meaning of vulnerability is to ask what would be its opposite. Countering vulnerability may be phrased as aiming at “safeness” or “security.” Clearly, the choice of words when formulating the goal of offering an alternative to the vulnerability of society is not innocent: “safe society,” “secure society,” “guarded society,” or “resilient society”—these terms yield different values and political strategies. Conceptions of vulnerability fall in two classes, depending on whether their opposite has a connotation of control (e.g. in security) or flexibility (e.g. in resilience). Examples of controloriented reaction to vulnerability are stricter immigration rules, and administration and control technologies that have been recently installed in the United States.54 As various organizations have argued, in the long run this may ham-

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per the development of knowledge and cross-cultural understanding among different international communities—and thus possibly increasing the vulnerability of the United States in the sense of not being able to react flexibly to threats.55 An example of flexibility-oriented defense against vulnerability is to maintain a variety of crops and means of living, rather than to concentrate on one economic activity. Imagine a village at Lake Victoria in Africa, where developmental aid has improved fishing technologies that offer increased control to the fishermen because, for example, they are less vulnerable to bad weather conditions. An unintended consequence, then, may be that farming activities become relatively less profitable, thus inducing people to abandon the traditional mix of economic activities. This then would make the village less flexible in reacting to changes in world market prices for fish and crops—making the village more vulnerable in that other sense. The European Environmental Agency also links its discussion of the precautionary principle to flexibility. It recognizes that our technological cultures are in a state of “societal ignorance” on many important issues that relate to technological and scientific developments. This societal ignorance is contrasted to “institutional ignorance”—referring to a situation where information relevant to a decision is extant in society, but not available to the decision makers—which can be remedied by making provisions for more effective communication and social learning. The “condition of societal ignorance is more intractable. This problem … requires rather different remedies, involving scientific research and the fostering of greater diversity, adaptability and flexibility in decision-making and technological choices.”56 Not only vulnerability in the form of the occurrence of technological accidents and natural disasters, but also the associated experiences of misfortune or injustice are inextricably linked to the accomplishments of our technological culture: Our technological expectations are often too high, but given what the last two generations have accomplished, we suspect wrongful indifference or injustice when there is no one to protect us against the still-untamed forces of nature. In fact, it is not the fault of scientists or public officials that little can now be done, nor are they culpably indifferent to the current epidemic. Victims, however, seem to find it easier to bear their misfortune if they can see injustice as well as bad luck.57

With a focus on the vulnerability of technological culture we do not only study the fragile constitution of modern societies, but can also capture the fragility that is constitutive of our technological culture and thus of its core structures and values. Rather than treating vulnerability as something to be avoided, repaired, and fought—as something that is an implicit and unquestioned starting point of action as in the case of the current U.S. policies I mentioned previously— I treat vulnerability with the intellectual respect it deserves.58 Whatever the

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current general obsession with safety and security may be, we will never be in a state of complete invulnerability. Indeed, I would not wish to live in such a society. Studying the vulnerability of technological culture may thus help us to understand our current highly developed societies.

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Notes * This chapter is the result of numerous discussions with many people. I want to thank Wes Shrum, Rosalind Williams, Steve Rayner, and Steve Woolgar. I also benefited greatly from the comments by participants in the workshop at MIT, March 2002 (see note 1); the conference “Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation” in Essen, Germany, April 2003; the STS colloquium in Maastricht, Netherlands, May 2003; and a seminar at the Said Business School, Oxford University, June 2003. Special thanks for a discussion of the previous draft go to Karin Bijsterveld, Helga Nowotny, Ger L. Wackers, and Rein de Wilde. 1. A workshop in March 2002 at the STS Program of MIT, provided a first inventory and discussion of the implications that 9/11 might have for studying technology in society. See Miriam Levin and Rosalind Williams, “Forum on Rethinking Technology in the Aftermath of September 11,” History and Technology 19 (2003): 29–83. To locate this research on vulnerability within current STS work, I will give more references than would be necessary for the vulnerability issue itself. 2. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Business Cycles; A Theoretical, Historical, and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalist Process (New York and London, 1939). 3. Helga Nowotny, Introduction booklet for the conference “Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation” in Essen, April 2003. 4. See Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan L. Star, Sorting Things Out. Classification and its Consequences (Cambridge, Mass., 1999); Paul N. Edwards, The Closed World. Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America (Cambridge, Mass., 1996); and also Gabrielle Hecht, The Radiance of France. Nuclear Power and National Identity after World War II (Cambridge, Mass., 1998). 5. See Helen Verran, Science and an African Logic (Chicago, 2001), and Helen Watson-Verran and David Turnbull, “Science and Other Indigenous Knowledge Systems,” in Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, eds. Sheila Jasanoff, Gerald E. Markle, James C. Petersen, and Trevor J. Pinch (Thousand Oaks, Calif., 1995), 115–39. 6. Steven Epstein, Impure Science. Aids, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge (Berkeley, 1996). 7. Nelly Oudshoorn and Pinch, How Users matter: The Co-construction of Users and Technologies (Cambridge, Mass., 2003). 8. See Michel Callon, Pierre Lascoumes, and Yannick Barthe, Agir dans un monde incertain. Essai sur la démocratie technique (Paris, 2001); Rein de Wilde, Niki Vermeulen, and Mirko Reithler, Bezeten van genen. Een essay over de innovatieoorlog rondom genetisch gemodificeerd voedsel (Den Haag, Netherlands, 2002); Roland Bal, Wiebe E. Bijker, and Ruud Hendriks, Paradox van wetenschappelijk gezag. Over de maatschappelijke invloed van adviezen van de Gezondheidsraad, 1985–2001 (Den Haag, Netherlands, 2002); Herbert Gottweis, Governing Molecules. The Discursive Politics of Genetic Engineering in Europe and the United States (Cambridge, Mass., 1998); and also Joel Mokyr, The gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy (Princeton, 2002). 9. John Law and Wiebe E. Bijker, “Postscript: Technology, Stability, and Social Theory,” in Shaping Technology—Building Society. Studies in Sociotechnical Change, eds. Bijker and Law (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), 290. 10. This is the characterization that Michael Guggenheim and Nowotny give of what distinguishes STS from other social sciences. See Guggenheim and Nowotny, “Joy in Repetition Makes the Future Disappear. A Critical Assessment of the Present State of STS,” in Social Studies of Science and Technology. Looking Back, Ahead, eds. Bernward Joerges and Nowotny (Dordrecht, Netherlands, 2003), 229–58.

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11. See, for example, Benoît Godin and Yves Gingras, “What Is Scientific and Technological Culture and How Is it Measured? A Multidimensional Model,” Public Understanding of Science 9 (2000): 43–58. I first used the phrase “technological culture” in my inaugural lecture: Bijker, Democratisering van de Technologische Cultuur (Inaugurele Rede) (Maastricht, Netherlands, 1995a), in Dutch. See also Bijker, Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs. Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change (Cambridge, Mass., 1995b). 12. See Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, 2nd ed. (Oxford and Malden, Mass., 2000 [1996]); Castells, The Power of Identity (Malden, Mass., 1997); and also Castells, End of Millennium (Malden, Mass., 2000 [1998]). 13. Italics in the original. Larry A. Hickman, Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture. Putting Pragmatism to Work (Bloomington 2001). See for example Godin and Gingras, “What Is Scientific and Technological Culture.” See also Josef Keulartz, Michiel Korthals, Maartje Schermer, and Tsjalling Swierstra, eds., Pragmatist Ethics for a Technological Culture (Dordrecht, Netherlands, 2002); and Keulartz, Schermer, Korthals, and Swierstra, “Ethics in Technological Culture: A Programmatic Proposal for a Pragmatist Approach,” Science, Technology, & Human Values 29 (2004): 3–29. 14. Neil Schlager, When Technology Fails: Significant Technological Disasters, Accidents, and Failures of the Twentieth Century (Detroit, 1994). 15. Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies (Princeton, 1999 [1984]). 16. Diane Vaughan, The Challenger Launch Decision. Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA (Chicago, 1996). 17. Kim Fortun, Advocacy after Bhopal: Environmentalism, Disaster, New Global Orders (Chicago, 2001). 18. See Wackers and Jens Kørte, “Drift and Vulnerability in a Complex Technical System: Reliability of Condition Monitoring Systems in North Sea Offshore Helicopter Transport,” International Journal of Engineering Education 19 (2003): 192–205; Scott A. Snook, Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of U.S. Black Hawks over Northern Iraq (Princeton, 2000); Gene I. Rochlin, “Iran Air Flight 655 and the USS Vincennes: Complex, Large-scale Military Systems and the Failure of Control,” in Social Responses to Large Technical Systems, ed. Todd R. La Porte (Dordrecht, Netherlands, 1991), 99–125; and also La Porte, “The United States Air Traffic System: Increasing Reliability in the Midst of Rapid Growth,” in The Development of Large Technical Systems, eds. Renate Mayntz and Thomas P. Hughes (Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1988), 215–44. 19. Rochlin, “Broken Plowshare: System Failure and the Nuclear Power Industry,” in Changing Large Technical Systems, ed. Jane Summerton (Boulder, 1994), 231–61. 20. Piers M. Blaikie, Terry Cannon, Ian Davis, and Ben Wisner, At Risk. Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability, and Disasters (London and New York, 1994). 21. Wackers and Kørte, “Drift and Vulnerability in a Complex Technical System,” 192–205. 22. Snook, Friendly Fire. 23. Vaughan, Challenger Launch Decision, 415. 24. Perrow, Normal Accidents, 379. 25. Bijker, Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs. Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change (Cambridge, Mass., 1995b). 26. Vaughan, Challenger Launch Decision, 202. 27. Ibid., 87. 28. Pinch and Bijker, “The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts: or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other,” Social Studies of Science 14 (1984): 399–441. 29. Gezondheidsraad, Niet alle risico’s zijn gelijk (Den Haag, Netherlands, 1995). My translation. 30. Gezondheidsraad, Risico, meer dan een getal: Handreiking voor een verdere ontwikkeling van de risicobenadering in het milieubeleid (Den Haag, Netherlands, 1996). 31. Marjolein B. A. van Asselt, Perspectives on Uncertainty and Risk. The PRIMA Approach to Decision Support (Dordrecht, Netherlands, 2000).

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32. Law, “Ladbroke Grove: Or How to Think about Failing Systems,” manuscript (2003). 33. A similar constructivist account of vulnerability is discussed by Kristin S. ShraderFrechette, Risk and Rationality: Philosophical Foundations for Populist Reforms (Berkeley, 1991). In these risk discussions, however, a contrast is created between the “constructivist camp” and the “realist camp” of risk assessment. I do not agree with that distinction because the underlying suggestion is that scientific data is more real that other information Andreas Klinke and Ortwin Renn, “A New Approach to Risk Evaluation and Management: Risk-Based, Precaution-Based, and Discourse-Based Strategies,” Risk Analysis 22 (2002): 1071–94. 34. Perrow, Normal Accidents, 307. 35. See Blaikie, Cannon, Davis, and Wisner, At Risk, and Lewis M. Branscomb, “The Changing Relationship between Science and Government Post-September 11,” in Science and Technology in a Vulnerable World (suppl. to AAAS Science and Technology Policy Yearbook 2003), eds. Albert H. Teich, Steven D. Nelson, and Steven J. Lita (Washington, D.C., 2002), 21–32. 36. The literature on the vulnerability of computers and the Internet is huge and still increasing, including complete journals and on-line databases. The use of the Internet and computers for warfare and terrorism has been labeled “cyberwar” or “netwar”; see John Arquilla, David F. Ronfeldt, and U.S. Department of Defense, Networks and netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy (Santa Monica, Calif., 2001). 37. See the website of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security: http://www.ready.gov/ (12 January 2004). 38. Stephen Sloan, “Terrorism: How Vulnerable Is the United States?,” in Terrorism: National Security Policy and the Home Front, ed. Steven Pelletiere (Carlisle, Pa., 1995), 5. 39. Ibid., 7. 40. Gezondheidsraad, Risico, meer dan een getal, 20. 41. Perrow, Normal Accidents, 308. 42. Italics in the original Ulrich Beck, Risk society: Towards a New Modernity (London, 1992), 155. 43. Judith N. Shklar, The Faces of Injustice (New Haven, 1990), 1. 44. Ibid., 2. 45. The developmental policy of the European Union is particularly targeted at the ACP (African, Caribbean, and Pacific) countries. 46. Fei Tevi, “Vulnerability: A Pacific Reality,” Summit of ACP Heads of State and Government (Libreville, Gabon, Africa, 6–7 November 1997), 1. 47. Ibid., 14. 48. See Klinke and Renn, “New Approach to Risk Evaluation and Management,” 1071–94, and EEA, Late Lessons from Early Warnings: The Precautionary Principle 1896–2000 (Copenhagen, 2001). 49. Italics in the original. Sue Mayer and Andy Stirling, “Finding a Precautionary Approach to Technological Developments—Lessons for the Evaluation of GM Crops,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 15 (2002): 60. 50. Aaron Wildavski, But Is it True? A Citizen’s Guide to Environmental Health and Safety Issues (Cambridge, Mass., 1995). 51. Henk van den Belt and Bart Gremmen, “Between Precautionary Principle and ‘Sound Science’: Distributing the Burdens of Proof,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 15 (2002): 107. 52. Ibid., 107–8. 53. EEA, Late Lessons from Early Warnings, 169. 54. See the report by an ad hoc committee of the Society for Social Studies of Science, chaired by Gary Downey: “U.S. Visa Policies and Scholarly Work,” Committee on Immigration Policy and Scholarly Work, Society for Social Studies of Science, February 2003. 55. See, for example, the chapter by M. R. C. Greenwood, chancellor of the University of California (Greenwood 2002); and the statement from Bruce Alberts, president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, William A. Wulf, president of the U.S. National Academy of Engi-

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neering, and Harvey Fineberg, president of the U.S. Institute of Medicine: “Current Visa Restrictions Interfere with U.S. Science and Engineering Contributions to Important National Needs,” 13 December 2002 (rev. 13 June 2003). 56. EEA, Late Lessons from Early Warnings, 171. 57. Shklar, Faces of injustice, 65. 58. I am inspired here by Shklar’s plea “to treat injustice with the intellectual respect it deserves.” See ibid.

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Part II

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THE GENDER BIAS OF TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS

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Peter Burke

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CHAPTER

4

Culture of Gender, and Culture of Technology The Gendering of Things in France’s Office Spaces between 1890 and 1930

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DELPHINE GARDEY*

In the wake of the Industrial Revolution the workplace has become a technological environment characterized by the presence of machines and other artifacts. Starting at the end of the nineteenth century, this feature of industrial spaces, and the worker’s world more generally, spread to other areas of work, and to other sectors of the economy in Western capitalist societies. My research into office work and into the world of employees has been aimed at understanding the social, technological, and social changes that occurred in French offices starting in the 1890s. These changes took place in a context that was heavily influenced by the American model governing the rationalization of administrative work. A transformation contemporary to these others was the feminization of both the social group of office workers and the administrative tasks themselves, a development that is common to all of the Western capitalist economies and that seems to be irreversible. Thus, the office was considerably transformed between the end of the nineteenth century and the 1940s, and I just want to underline three of these changes. Formerly a masculine world, it became a mixed world and then a feminine one. Second, the office as a world devoid of machines and defined in opposition to the technology associated with blue-collar workers, was reinvented as a largely mechanized one.1 Third, the office changed from being a small world governed by interpersonal relationships to become a whole uni-

Notes for this section begin on page 90.

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verse of work that generated its own complex hierarchies and that became the object for new methods of scientific management.2 To observe how both office work and the office employees “changed sex” during this period is a way of contributing to the analysis of the emergence of contemporary societies and of gaining a better understanding of them. The office is not an innocent space. Indeed, it is one of the places where a new era of work and economy as well as a new technological culture were invented. Furthermore, the changes that can be observed in the office during this period prefigure the transformation to the so-called information age that we are living through today. Indeed, between 1890 and 1930 one can see the instauration of a new framework, a new cognitive, material, human, and social infrastructure, which can be understood as signs of a first mechanical emergence of the information age.3 The fact that the development of this new technological environment has involved the invention of new types and new social roles for women is of major importance for the twentieth century. Women are the principle contributors to the new “tertiary,” “administrative,” or “digital” economy and form the bulk of its employees. The gender relations that are established in these emergent spaces and sociocultural contexts tend to persist, thus contributing to the instantiation of a certain order of gender relations at work, and in the rest of society. As a critical site for the comprehension of the history of women and women’s work in the twentieth century, the study of transformations in the office also allows us to contribute to historical and sociological studies that aim to understand how both gender and technology are mutually shaped.4 This chapter does not, however, aim to examine the macrosocial transformations taking place during this period,5 but rather to present a microstudy of the modalities governing the introduction of new artifacts and new types of people, in this case women, into the office. By means of different examples— shorthand and the typewriter, the sale of calculating machines, the technologies of control used by senior male employees, and so forth—I will explore how gender identity was elaborated as part of the same movement that introduced the relevant technologies. In order to understand how a technological environment—in this case a work environment—becomes gendered, I want to combine history and sociology. Although I will use a historical narrative to recount the process, I will also simultaneously deploy a sociology-based critical approach to technology. Of course, any historian who wants to work at the level of practices and micro-interactions is going to face difficulties due to a lack of appropriate sources. Nevertheless, I will try to take account of the authentically cultural dimension of the gendering of work technology by situating myself at the level of understanding as experienced by the objects and by the actors themselves. In order to see how the social and cultural dynamics involved in these accounts of the gendering of objects and technologies function, we need to understand how these novel technological and cultural

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contexts not only emerge, but are also stabilized, and reproduce themselves. My way of approaching such questions in this chapter is to suggest that we should take the question of objects and their sex seriously. Although we might think we know what the life cycle of an object is (conception, invention, fabrication, and commercialization), we generally underestimate the complexity of this process, the constant negotiations at each stage, as well as the wide diversity of the actors involved. Indeed, the idea of an object’s linear life cycle should be rejected.6 The technological invention—and its legal form, the patent— rarely has any value in and of itself. As we know only too well, this value is established within the bundle of relationships and actions around the object. The real “interest” of the object only becomes apparent in practice, following its appropriation and reappropriation by groups of users, amateurs and professionals alike. Nor is the object’s future primarily determined by the tension between consumers and market; rather it is invented in people’s behavior, behavior that is intimate and/or idiosyncratic7 (Thévenot 1994), which is learned, standardized, and passed on (Gardey 1999).8 In this way, the users’ desires and practices never cease to construct the objects as they modify them.9 It is in the course of these intricate histories, that the objects—that is to say the complex nodes of technology and society—sometimes acquire a sex. My aim is therefore to examine not only how technological objects shape cultural (and gender) roles, but also how and following what modalities technologies are “active” in reconfiguring the relationships. In other words, the fact that objects, like humans, “acquire” a sex contributes to the solidity of gender relations to their definition, their modification, and their solidification. Far from being a narrow and marginal perspective (i.e. viewed from the marginal or accessory perspective of women’s lives and questions) this point of view enlarges our field of vision. Thus, it helps us to think about the relationships between humans and technologies, and it allows us to deepen our characterization of a society largely defined by the ubiquity of technological mediation. The goal is therefore to analyze how in intimate situations—the multiple moments and places where people and objects interact—technological practices are constructed, stabilized, and reconfigured, as well as to analyze how they contribute to the reproduction of social and cultural relations, in particular those associated with gender. According to the bulk of sociological and historical evidence, we are obliged to recognize gender as a relatively stable trait, with gender relations only varying to a minor degree.10 My hypothesis is that technologies and artifacts are decisive in the configuration of relationships of domination and act according to certain processes whose mechanisms need to be elucidated. Such a view allows us to conceptualize how constant changes or innovation (e.g., in technological artifacts and labor relations) can be reconciled with the permanence of masculine domination as the central social and cultural phenomenon.

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The Power Attributed to Technology and the Naturalization of the Social I would first like to consider the way in which technological artifacts are commonly considered as powerful, or the role in economic, social, and cultural transformation that is commonly attributed to them. The case of the typewriter is an interesting example since, for contemporaries and historians alike, it embodied the radical nature of the transformations in the office that occurred between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the Second World War. As the emblem of such transformations, the typewriter has been assigned the role of “introducing women into the office.” Today’s popular wisdom continues to endorse the proclamations of the enthusiasts who declared as early as 1911 that the “typewriter has been the direct cause of one of the most tremendous revolutions witnessed by our times. To it we owe one of the greatest social upheavals ever: who would have suspected only ten years ago that a day would come when women would enter into the prefecture. If feminists have hearts, they will put up a statue to the inventor of typing.”11 The typist became a motif of modernity, criticized only by those retrograde spirits who refused to recognize an era full of promise in this new order (in terms of both technology and social relations between the sexes). Thus, an external factor—the typewriter—seems to have brought about a key social transformation. Simply evoking this technological object serves as an adequate explanation. The history, we are told, is straightforward: originally there weren’t any women in the office; then came the typewriter and with it came women.12 The technological story provides a convenient response to the embarrassing question posed by the novel (and necessarily inopportune13) presence of a group of women not meant to work (because they were drawn from the middle classes), and occupying posts hitherto defined as masculine. How can one explain such a rupture in the cultural values and the morality of certain social groups? It is the evocation of a change in the order of objects, seen as desirable since they are synonymous with progress, which makes it possible to legitimate and naturalize the rupture introduced into the order of the social relations of gender. According to a common social interpretation of Darwinism, it is in the “nature of things” that a former technologically/naturally maladapted order should be replaced by another. Nevertheless, this kind of determinist discourse, like any implicitly naturalistic social theory, contributes just as much to the social and cultural change itself as it does to naturalizing the change once it has been brought about. Many facts can be pointed to, which undermine this popular explanatory scenario. I have spent a lot of time establishing the presence of women in administrative positions before the introduction of the typewriter, and I have described in detail how in France the typewriter (the Sholes Typewriter manufactured by Remington) was originally adopted in the male milieu of the ste-

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nographers and how these men, as the first typists, actively contributed to the definition of the use of this instrument in the business world.14 The common discourse remains unaffected by this evidence, no doubt testifying not only to the difficulty many have in admitting the relativity of the definition of masculine and feminine roles, but also to the local and changing nature of the assignment of technologies to one gender or the other, or even to their always-and-already social character. Thus, it seems necessary to deconstruct the way in which typing as a practice became associated with a certain definition of femininity, and to reconsider the joint engagement of people and objects in the construction of the social. Let me give an example of how the link between women and the typewriter was locally and contingently built, how that construction was subsequently forgotten, and how the final situation was naturalized through the common notion of technological determinism: the typewriter simply brought women into the office. Two parallel and associated moves can be seen at the beginning of the story of the typewriter: on one hand, a process of the gendering of the object—the typewriter—and on the other hand, the cultural process of constructing the femininity of the practice of typing. The typewriter was gendered from the time it was first commercialized in the United States. Certain elements initially present by chance, but later recycled and reinterpreted, led to the identification of the typewriter as feminine. Remington’s assembly of the first models in their sewing-machine workshops influenced the object’s functionality and design, with the first models making use of a pedal to work the carriage return and sporting the cast-iron decoration and black arabesque paintwork common to both types of machine. The first typewriter catalog distributed by Remington in 1876 emphasized both this close relationship between the sewing machine and the typewriter and the “domestic” nature of the latter.15 Thus, the technological characteristics of the object themselves were constructed as “feminine,” in particular, the sewing-machine decor, and the piano-style keyboard. The comparison between the technique of typing and playing the piano, which was continually reiterated in both the United States and France, fulfilled a function that becomes clear when one considers that it would be young middle-class women (whose principal pastimes included playing the piano and embroidery) who would become the first women typists. My point here is not to say whether or not the analogy between the piano and the typewriter keyboards is valid, one of several questions that divided successive generations of typists and specialists in the new sciences of work, but rather to assess the social and cultural effects of such an association. This association presented in a “technological” guise lent credibility to the idea that “shorthand-typing seems to have been created for young women” or that the typewriter was a feminine tool. Inscribed potentially in the objects themselves, the sexual attributes of the users (be they the actual, planned, or desired users) are realized in the form of pos-

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sible scenarios.16 Use and users are both configured in the context-dependent definition of a “good association” between people and objects, lending weight to the idea that social relations can be profoundly modified by the act of technological mediation. The construction of a new order is evidently based on this parallel and dialectical transformation of people and things. In this process, what appear to be commonsense discourses often play a key role. They participate in the naturalization of the transformations taking place, a reason for their being accepted as self-evident. In this case, we can see that there is a double discursive effect because the commonly held view also confirms a widely accepted conception of the performativity of technology. As David Edgerton17 has suggested, technological determinism, the thesis that technological innovation is the source of social change is essentially a highly “prized” “catchall label,”18 a theory of society that is itself socially effective. The repeated statement of the self-evidence of the association between women and typewriters is necessary at the beginning of the history, and becomes sufficient later on. Ultimately, it contributes to the construction of a reality19 by reiterating a profound and widely held conviction concerning the way in which the world is generated by its own transformations.

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The Exchange of Properties between People and Objects: The Distribution and Attribution of Competencies One notable feature of the discourse about the typewriter is how difficult it is to separate the descriptions of the machine from those of the worker. The integration of the human and the object sometimes seems so complete that it is impossible to identify either. This fact can be demonstrated in many ways, but it is possible to understand it by examining an episode in the history of the typewriter: the typing competition. When other manufacturers started to compete with Remington for the typewriter market, competitions between typists and typewriters started to be organized in both the United States and France, based on a range of different networks.20 These “arenas” of typing virtuosity21 were necessarily places where extremely heterogeneous objects were put to the test (the context for these competitions was a nonstandardized market). They constituted regular, long-lasting laboratories for experimenting on practices and techniques. Here, as in the case of automobile races, both then and now, it seems difficult to tell who, between the driver, the vehicle, the team of technicians, or the manufacturer is the winner. Indeed, prizes in formula one racing are awarded to both the drivers and the team. Likewise, the typing competitions were just as much competitions between the manufacturers and their models—and the technological options that were successively adopted and incorporated in later models—as between the attitudes, postures, learning methods, techniques, and know-how of the participating typists.22 As

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Bruno Latour suggests, it is possible to extract from this whole both “the properties taken from the social world in order to socialize the non-humans and the properties borrowed from the non-humans in order to ‘naturalize’ and develop the social world.”23 No doubt Latour is right, and we should thank him for having drawn our attention to the central place of artifacts in the constant rebuilding of the social. But that constant reconfiguration operates within quite strict boundaries (notably in the work situation), and the strong asymmetry in power relations means that objects regularly acquire similar roles. Let me take up the question of the assignment of qualities or capabilities to people and/or things in order to push this point a little further. In a work situation, the distribution of capacities between humans and machines is not inconsequential but actively contributes to the definition of people’s qualifications.24 The evaluation of the respective worth of people and tools ultimately determines their salary, their place in the hierarchy of work, and, of course, their relative social position. Looked at, from this perspective, the advertisements from between the wars that aimed at commercializing modern office instruments (machines for reprographics, addressing mail, accounting, and calculating statistics) convey a clear message. Everything that is evoked concerning the technical features of these machines—necessarily full of promise for those writing the publicity—could be confused with the qualities expected from the ideal worker, in this case a female worker, the new protagonist on the administrative scene. The machines are personified, and the people objectified, assigned the lowly status of demonstrators, companions for the machines, which have now become auto/matic and auto/nomous. The whole business became literally diabolical when the “electricity fairy” became involved in a second wave of mechanization, which witnessed the triumph of the miniature electric motor with its “electro-accounting” and “electromagnetic synchronization.”25 Indeed, a “demon” was in control of the accounting machine, while for the calculating machine “the electricity fairy works wonders, greatly simplifying the different phases of the work.”26 Looking at the publicity for the “Multigraph,” a strictly mechanical machine for copying correspondence, it is impossible to discern whether the terms in the slogan “precision, discretion, economy” refer to the physical virtues of the object or to the moral ones of its operator, a young woman and a new employee.27 Ubiquitous but invisible, these women have their lifeblood drained by these superhuman machines to which they apply their skills now disguised as their loudly proclaimed natural capacities. It is no doubt that in this insidious mechanism we can locate an enduring and endlessly repeated feature that results in the negation of women’s qualifications, a negation that feminist historians and sociologists of labor have continually uncovered in a variety of guises.28 It has become clear that attributing properties to objects is not only the best means for naturalizing new social relations brought about by the objects, but is also the most powerful means for perpetually obscuring the qualifications of women workers and

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even erasing the fact that they have any. It is a means to reaffirm, whatever the technological change, the invisibility of women at work, to obscure their skills and thus their social existence. I believe it is possible to take the analysis of this mechanism further, and for this I return once again to the case of the typewriter. It is not just a coincidence that the analysis of the performance of the champions (both men and women) fed discussions on the efficiency of techniques and contributed to the development of typing norms.29 Here, the champions’ gestures constitute the matrix of professional norms, an essential reference point in discussions between specialists, thus rendering the sphere of sports or the arena of virtuosity a crucial one. The memory of this context has been lost, just as the champions’ virtuosity was lost in the process of being transmitted, although it nevertheless remained as a horizon for future typists. It is an unconscious aspect of the good use of the object, a ubiquitous influence that guides the organization of action and the definition of the person as adapted or adaptable to this use. It appears then that old configurations around the use of an object could remain invisibly active in a new context. The characterization of virtuosity remained a key issue at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is one of the subjects that were explored by JeanMaurice Lahy, a member of a new French movement that was developing a science of work. Taking the sports analogy seriously, he installed the champion and the machine at the heart of his laboratory in order to carry out a series of observations (“objectified” by an array of electromagnetic recording devices). Speaking with authority derived from the power of this experimental array, he could claim to resolve the ongoing debates about typing practices (pandactylity, use of alternate hands or fingers, and keyboard layout). But Lahy also had a different objective, namely, countering the prescriptive and often reductionist Taylorist conception of work with a more comprehensive analysis of the “human factor” as it exhibits itself in diverse ways. Thus, his intention was not to render the practices and objects uniform, but rather to examine people’s resources—the capacities they mobilize in their technical performances at work— with the aim of drawing conclusions about the recruitment and training of suitable professionals.30 Several lessons can be drawn from these histories. The exchange of signs between objects and people forms an integral part of the construction of an object’s use as well as its insertion into a fictional (workplace) scene that has yet to be realized, and so this phenomenon has great utility in the integration of technologies. In other words, these exchanges help to socialize “nonhumans” into the world of humans. Modalities governing these exchanges of qualities are not, however, immune from the influence of gender. In particular, the allocation of qualities to people and to objects allows the former to be discretely disqualified. Furthermore, it appears that during the period when the technological practices are not yet completely stabilized, the question of the distribu-

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tion of capabilities between people and objects remains a central and open question as well as a source of disagreement. This issue is evident in what I have said about Lahy: the ergonomist’s response was not the Taylorian one which, strongly aligned with upper management, spontaneously attributes the majority of qualities to objects: chronometer, machines, charts, graphs, and all sorts of other techniques aimed at “objectifying” the relations of production. Pointing to the question of the qualities of the objects versus those of the people ultimately tends to illuminate the crucial role of the people who are responsible for organizing the power of the objects. Thus, it is crucial to recall that objects are enrolled in organizational design.

Putting Things Back into Order: The Place of Women

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Technologies as Organization? Based on the previous discussion we might want to say that in the case of work, “to understand the technologies is ‘to understand the organizations.’”31 This observation is accurate in several different respects. The stories that I have just told bear witness to the importance of the typewriter’s “milieu” including manufacturers, publicists, and management scientists as well as champions of administrative reform and modern management techniques. The French employer’s association for administrative management (Chambre de l’Organisation commerciale) brought many of these actors together in the form of texts, handbooks, periodicals, conferences, and seminars. More than just “neutral technicians,” these actors were bound together in intimate interrelations. They elaborated “usage scenarios,” which meant indiscriminately promoting both a technology and an associated organization. But, why did such a coupling come about? First, because objects were closely associated with ideas about organization. Second, because managers were convinced in the 1920s that organization (in the Taylorian sense of rationalization) and mechanization were two aspects of the same process. Third, because the general consensus was that machines exercised enduring power over places and people.32 Dealing with the history of an object and its use, it is possible to show how open situations can become considerably restricted, and how technologies that a priori exercise a weak force de rappel (or constraint33) can in the end be adapted in such a way as to dictate the movements of a worker quite precisely. Thus, in the case of the typewriter, the essence of the object was not initially defined, but the technological and organizational elements, the incorporation of practices and ways of doing things eventually led to a “closure” of the object. In other words, the human/technology interaction became governed by strong restrictions and prescriptions, which, although neither predictable nor conceivable at the outset, nevertheless depended heavily on power relations. The development of office equipment at the beginning of the twentieth cen-

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tury, and the progressive equipping of the typists’ workplace, which was very noticeable in the 1920s—the time when typing became a feminine profession—saw the furniture (typing chairs, special tables and later desks, adjustable lamps, and document holders) used to dictate the position of the body, the appropriateness of the gestures, and the correct way of using the object. Trained in the technique of memorizing the keyboard and the innumerable typing systems, the typist’s sight was directed to the document, which was lit only at the point on which she needed to concentrate. The body was committed to the space in a specific manner, and coaxed into its actions by the equipment, which served as a veritable guide to the sanctioned gestures and rhythms. The furniture, however, only had a sense within an interlinked prior context that lent significance to this order. It was this context that made the typist behave in a way that was justified by professional precepts, scientific experiments, and wider considerations concerning what was appropriate for women. Thus, the commercial shorthand typist, polyvalent and male, ceded his place to a woman typist. In turn, she was progressively frozen in a pose that aimed at making a profit (or at bringing together a disparate set of factors that would allow the enterprise to be termed a success) on the investment represented by the purchase of the object. A bubble enveloped both the woman and the machine; the invisible strings that guided her hands and eyes were made not only from texts and rules, but also from the methods and postures she had learned. Under the objectifying eye of the manager, looking to establish the trueness of her rhythm as well as the quality and the productivity of her strokes, the incessant dialogue of “the woman and the machine” was transformed into a graph displaying efficiency and salary. A vehicle of emancipation in a specific context, the typewriter was progressively and paradoxically enlisted in a process that would help to determine and, in a literal sense, to delimit the body and the situation of women in the office world.34 Technologies Apparently Without Organization: The Indications for Use Inscribed in the Objects Let us consider the autonomy and possible power of objects in more detail, independently from the issues of the organizational context.35 Jean-Claude Kaufman,36 in introducing a theory of domestic action, has clearly shown how we are socialized into the use of certain objects, not only with the help of our parents, but more generally with the help of the collective memory of previous generations, a part of which is “deposited” in the object itself. Thus we know (by training) that sharp things prick, while hollowed-out objects contain things. Danielle Chabaud-Rychter37 has shown how innovators tend to retain the traditional forms of objects and the usual functions associated with them (in her case, food processors), and how unusual forms (emulsifying discs as a replacement for manual or electric whisks) run the risk of so disconcerting the users that they will not even begin to use them.

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As for office work, the introduction of calculating machines provides an interesting case.38 These instruments were offered to the world of business and administration in the 1910s as a series of heterogeneous objects without any clearly defined purpose. The advertisements initially targeted a wide range of users. The calculating machine was considered potentially useful not only for businesspeople, shopkeepers, and merchants but also for foremen on the factory floor while, in a research or design office setting, the draughtsman, technician, and engineer would all find it invaluable. Often strategically placed on the desk of the person who appears to be the “boss,” the calculating machine was a rare object to be used only occasionally for particular tasks performed by particular people.39 These features, which were common in the advertisements for most makes of calculating machine on the French market during the 1910s40 and 1920s, were overturned by the publicity campaigns and promotional strategies mounted by Felt and Tarrant, the firm that commercialized the Comptometer. This calculating machine was aimed at women, in particular young women who had been specially trained in its use and were to occupy a new position in the office, that of “calculator.” An advertisement from 1911 is quite explicit on this point, presenting a fictional scene as an invitation to organize the office along these particular lines.41 Mediating between a machine that possessed every possible virtue and the prestige of the accounting profession, whose elite remained entirely masculine, the young calculator was to play a (strictly minor) supporting role as the agreeable go-between. The advertisement tells us that in a single stroke the boss can achieve considerable savings (a young woman’s salary is, by definition, a low one) while at the same time modernizing his service. Beyond the advertising copy, Felt and Tarrant had been actively aiding in the construction of this type of professional organization by training a number of calculators (both male and female) in its Comptometer schools.42 In the end, a specialized profession failed to develop around the use of the calculating machine; the tasks of mechanical calculation diversified and, during the interwar period, they were divided up between different categories of office personnel, both male and female. Nevertheless, there are some rare documents that bear witness to the existence of specialized calculating services, with pools of women calculators working on Comptometers.43 The unusual manner in which the Comptometer was commercialized was linked to the cultural interpretation of the technological characteristics of this machine. Felt’s Comptometer had successfully introduced the principle of the keyboard into the spectrum of machines capable of performing mechanical arithmetic operations, which included ones with cranks, carriages, and cursors.44 This technical feature rendered the instrument “doubly automatic” (the keyboard allowed instant addition at the touch of a key, with subtraction effected by the addition of negative numbers) and constituted both an advantage and an enduring distinguishing feature in the calculating machine market.45 Thus, the principle feature of the Comptometer was its keyboard, but the key-

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board was more than just a shrewd and efficient interface between human beings and machine. This interface, which had proved decisive in the success story of the typewriter as a technological object,46 had been progressively constructed as the privileged mode of interaction between women and machines. Although no doubt originally “neuter,” the perception of the typewriter made the Comptometer’s keyboard a feminine tool, particularly when it came to the promotion of the instrument as a piece of office equipment. Once in use, the Comptometer was ultimately situated in the same lineage as the typewriter, characterizing it as a feminized office technology, rather than in the heterogeneous and still nonstandard (in terms of technical and social options) calculatingmachine market. As we mentioned before, when people interact with objects, certain of the objects’ properties provide indications for their use,47 and it should be noted that these indications are more than just cognitive.48 In the present case, the interface is not just operative, as it also incorporates cultural features, notably the definition of masculine and feminine roles. Elsewhere I have shown how the standardization of the typewriter keyboard was the result of a combination of technical choices and practices that had become constitutive of the definition of a professional group. What’s more, technological artifacts seem decisive as vehicles of transmission. In other words, objects convey specific representations of scenes played out elsewhere and the “technical characteristics of the objects” may directly contribute to the naturalization of social relations. This kind of disposition of the object is normally only a potentiality, but when it is realized, it may very well enter into conflict with other features of the cultural or technological landscape. Thus, while there were pools of women calculators, this manner of using the Comptometer calculating machine was not widely adopted as a way of organizing accounting. Two forces opposed its domination. The bookkeeper’s work was an intimate mix of writing and calculation and did not lend itself to a separate extended phase of calculation. When a technical change occurs, changes in roles often turn out to be more complex than simply assigning the newer practices to the women who have just arrived. The tasks are distributed between men and women, between the old and the new equipment, and in the end, the combinations that are developed reflect the variety of ways of performing the relevant tasks, in this case: writing/calculation/machine/hand.49 The limited development of calculator pools was also due to competition from accounting machines, an alternative technology that became available after the First World War. These machines allowed the “mechanical” performance of long sections of accounting work. Able to calculate, write, and duplicate several copies at the same time, accounting machines enjoyed a considerable vogue between the wars, particularly in large industrial firms and banks. All the same, women took charge of the “mechanical” side of the accounting work, while its preparation, oversight, and organization remained defined as masculine. This

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new order of tasks, however, was again based—and this time successfully—on the ergonomics of the technological object, with its keyboard as the interface. The analogy between typing and typed-accounting or typed-invoicing was thus completely accepted by the professionals. This transfer of capabilities meant the negation of any presumed qualifications, and women typists—available in large numbers—were recruited to operate the accounting machines, reinforcing the idea that as far as the office was concerned women were permanently destined for the keyboard.50

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The True Technologies of Power: Reordering Gender Relations One cannot understand the special nature of feminine practices and capabilities in the office without at the same time examining the way in which masculine tasks and functions were constituted, as well as the techniques and technologies aimed at men. Nor can one understand the power of technologies without pointing out how “technologies of command” at the office were put to use and how they were generally gendered masculine. During the interwar period, women assumed the majority of the mechanical tasks associated with administrative work. A survey in 1928 estimated that 70 percent of the employees who worked on office machines were women.51 The men, whether specialized employees or not, were characterized in the great majority by their exteriority to these new office technologies. It is important to note that, despite the technological and organizational transformations that had taken place in the office, they were thereby perpetuating the characteristic feature of the nineteenth-century office worker. This feature was a distance with respect to blue-collar workers and the workshop characterized by the ubiquity of technology and the reign of mechanization.52 This is not to say that men did not make use of any technologies in the office. The development of large firms and organizations led to a diversification of positions in the hierarchy within the companies and their administrations.53 A new class of male employees, whose vocation was to help manage increasingly large and complex groups, started to occupy intermediate positions in the managerial staff and to make use of completely new techniques and methods that we would today term management tools. These tools in turn contributed to the definition of their functions. I have already discussed how the calculating machine was implicated at the top of the accounting hierarchy, as well as in planning work. It was also involved in the preparation and inspection of production, and the determination of numerical indicators that could be useful for directing a firm’s activity. Other examples of the “boss’s” technologies were the telephone, the Dictaphone, the Automatic Superphone, the Telecall as well as all of the intangible technologies of command (knowledge

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technologies and new cognitive aids, e.g., planners, graphs, and charts) that were intended to represent data and action.54 Let’s take the case of the telephone. The telephone industry in the United States and Europe initially developed as the provider of a business tool. The first telephone users and the first to be targeted as customers by the telephone companies were the businesspeople themselves, or their representatives in the firms.55 Thus the early telephone industry in the United States was constructed around a persistent business-based couple. The couple consisted of the client, an upper class white man, and the hidden operator linked into the system, a single young woman from the educated middle class (only later would they be upwardly mobile lower-class women).56 This “technosocial system” relied on the promise of human—and in this instance feminine—service, thereby distinguishing itself from the competing technology of the telegraph.57 More than just switching machines, the operators were pleasant, invisible voices, which lent themselves to fantasies.58 France shared in this history, witnessing the assignment of women to positions as operators, a movement acknowledged as early as 1890. This development mobilized women of analogous social backgrounds to their American counterparts with the corollary that in the department stores, firms, and banks telephonic functions also came to be defined as feminine. Thus, in the 1920s all of the telephone operators at the Renault factory were women, albeit from more modest backgrounds, and often alternating this with factory work.59 Operators in telephone exchanges whether public or private, as well as those in firms were women who, although cogs in complex technosocial systems, were over the long term responsible for the connection of essentially masculine communications intended to construct the business world.60 Actresses of the telephone, with their role self-evidently limited to that of workers, it was unimaginable (there are literally no images of these women) that they might use this tool themselves. The representations of telephones in situ support this apparent selfevidence. The telephone rested on the manager’s desk and was reserved for his exclusive use; it was a sign of his authority and power. The telephone was a means of communicating with his peers—for negotiation in particular—but above all it was an instrument of command. Within a strict framework that defined its use, the telephone authorized the pyramidal diffusion of commands, countermands, and recommendations. The question of the operationality and efficiency of this control came to the fore during the 1930s in a context marked by the application of Taylorian orthodoxy to administrative work. New machines were proposed in order to resolve those questions. These “allpowerful” technologies served to dramatically increase the power of the men using them, and were aimed at neutralizing the “noise” generally associated with the people to whom they were being applied. At a time when telephone calls were more common and no longer strictly confined to the elite, the “Automatic Superphone” allowed the user to dispense with the operator and to

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directly manage the communication in order both to prioritize calls and to keep them under surveillance. Made for the “boss,” it aimed “to check the communications taking place,” “to speak without any fear of indiscretion,” and “to check what is being said on the phone.”61 The questions of the asymmetry of oral communication and who was able to initiate it were indeed crucial, and machines were able to capitalize on them. Thus the Telecall was presented as a system of “wireless-amplified order transmitters” that could serve as a substitute for a private telephone service. It consisted of a voice amplifier that could transmit the boss’s orders throughout his shops, workshops, or offices and allow the employees to respond. Promising to multiply the activity of “those who are paid the highest salaries,” the Telecall allowed the coverage of an area as large as 600 m2 (6,500 square feet—a Paris business of this size is used as an example in the advertisement) and so to “watch over, command, and control 300 underlings.”62 These machines for command and control were therefore “machines for constructing ubiquity.” This capacity to be in several places at once, formerly restricted to divinities now became one of the boss’s attributes. An advertisement promoting a silent typewriter emphasizes what characterizes a position of authority and command. While the (female) typist is silently and evidently discretely working away, the boss can “think, talk, or telephone” with the ease and satisfaction of someone who, finally liberated from the noise of his underlings’ labor, is here and yet essentially elsewhere.63 To be a boss is not to be disturbed; it is to be served and liberated by technology (and by others’ work) rather than constrained by it. The reverse side of this relationship is the reciprocal allocation of machines to women and women to machines. Whereas the men selectively use the technologies that serve them, women serve the technology; either they are directly engaged with the machine in a joint productivist effort (typewriter, calculator, and accounting machines) or they are cogs in a techno-organizational complex that they extend through their participation, filling in the gaps in systems of communication or classification (telephone operators, or filing clerks fastened to chairs on tracks in large-scale filing services). In order to illustrate this last point, I would like to cite the case of the marketing of the Dictaphone, the Parlographe, and other machines for dictating mail at the beginning of the twentieth century. Invented in 1888 by Edison, the phonograph (an instrument that allowed voices to be recorded and played back by means of a wax cylinder) seems to have been conceived as an efficient business tool. Based on this conception, and inspired by American publicity campaigns, a series of objects were launched in France during the 1910s. Advertisements for these dictation machines present images of couples, which serve to remind us that the relationship between the sexes is one of the key elements at stake in the introduction of this technology.64 What is striking in the pictorial images is the contrast between the postures of the men who use

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the technology (superior, and hierarchical) and those of the women, who one could term as being “in the service” of the technology. For men, the commercial phonograph was liberating. Presented as a mechanical substitute for taking shorthand notes, the machine recorded the words of the office manager, the businessperson, or the boss whenever he wanted, without the inconvenience of having someone else in the room. “The Dictaphone always understands what you say … never interrupts … never gets annoyed … never takes a break … you can speak at your own pace … it is always at your command.”65 A decisive, explicit point is that “the Dictaphone makes you completely independent from your staff.” Thus we see men filling the frame of the image with a relaxed presence in poses that convey a rediscovered feeling of liberty and intimacy.66 The corollary of this image, either hidden or else displayed in the background, is even more striking: row upon row of women in vast departments, working uninterrupted at the typed transcription of the texts recorded on the wax cylinders. Thus, masculine liberty has as its implicit or explicit counterpart the feminine enslavement of the “Ediphonists” who, earphones attached, sat behind a typewriter all day long. At Sears, Roebuck and Co. in Chicago during the 1910s these women were paid for their typing by the mile, a practice that was adopted by a Parisian insurance firm in 1938.67 Here we see how the Dictaphone was directly “responsible” for novel ways of organizing typing work, patterns of organization that would later be advocated by partisans of Taylorism for other types of office work. In turn, certain people would interpret this development as an example of the proletarianization of office workers.68 These various examples begin to trace the outlines of a particular cartography that maps the gendered organization of work and use of technologies. The main features of this map are the following: on the one hand immobility, sedentary work, being allocated tasks, and repetitiveness as appropriate for women; while on the other hand mobility, polyvalence, ubiquity and the instrumental use of technologies are constituted as masculine characteristics. The ways in which the bodies of both men and women relate to the objects, and the relationships between men, women, and space find themselves modified: women serve the technologies—seated, confined to the interior—while men use them, or rather are served by them—standing up, mobile, in communication with the outside world, with the possibility of going out there as well. In this ménage à trois (men/women/technology) women often come out the losers, mainly because machines seem to absorb their capabilities (in fact, their qualifications) while requalifying men (often realized in terms of power). These remarks lend support to the anthropological thesis put forward by Paola Tabet who points to the unequal relationship of men and women to technology as a key element in the reproduction of male domination. From the present case, we can conclude in a more limited sense that technologies offer men the possibility of expanding their influence over the real, while women are largely used as bodies, no longer a “driving force,” but rather cogs in a machine

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or machinery that they endlessly feed; all-consuming work that makes use of either women’s “patience time”69 or of their everyday virtuosity.

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Conclusion By focusing the analysis on the workplace and by closely examining gestures, practices, and the actors’ relationships to technologies, I have been able to bring out the processes by which technologies, objects, and artifacts are gendered in the context of work. Beyond the analysis of how a person’s sex is a resource that can be mobilized either consciously or unconsciously to organize or naturalize the differentiation of tasks within groups of workers, I have tried to communicate the less widespread, and less accessible idea according to which technology is decisive “in the consolidation or reformulation of unequal relations between genders.”70 The sexual differentiation of tasks, roles, and spheres of activity is a cultural feature that is paradoxically both universal and highly variable, always operating as it does according to local, contextual modalities. The nature of such differentiation depends on particular arrangements, and the historical narrative has allowed us to highlight certain mechanisms that underwrite them. In the case of the office, a space that was initially masculine, I have tried to show how this “gendering of objects” worked, a mechanism for gendering objects based on a double movement involving the redefinition (and requalification) of both the people and the objects. As I mentioned, the exchange of properties between people and objects illustrated time and time again, contributes to both the socialization of technology and to the definition of social and cultural roles. A mixture of technological and social innovation, this exchange of properties is also one of reinforcement or reaffirmation of social and gender stereotypes. In configuring technology for a use, the dynamic at work is largely conservative. Here, what is given as the neutral “order of things” erases its own social construction, and contributes to both the stabilization and the naturalization of a continually renewed social order, in this case the asymmetrical relationship between men and women. In the end, the “true power” of objects seems to reside in its invisibility. The observers lose track of how the construction came about, as it is internalized in the disciplining of the body and mind, and is dispersed throughout the furnishing or equipment of space. From this perspective, the relationships of men’s and women’s bodies to the technologies they use in the workplace are often highly differentiated, and thus it is as important to study the culture of technology in this context as it is to account for the culture of the body (in relation to technology). Furthermore, the stabilization of a form of organization in the “order of things” means the reaffirmation of a sense of fatality, as well as the idea that both human will and initiative are powerless. This capacity of technology is at once discursive, material, and social. As I mentioned, the deter-

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ministic discourse fulfills a useful social function not only in the explanation and legitimation but also in the naturalization of the changes taking place. From a completely different perspective, I tried to point out the generative capacity of technology, as social artifacts, able to transmit acquired forms from one generation of objects to another or from one context to another, sedimenting social scenarios that the actors may consciously or unconsciously reactivate. Nevertheless, I believe that it is important here to insist once again on the fact that there are numerous paradoxes in these histories that need to be brought out. The history of the feminization of the shorthand typing profession like that of the telephone operator provides an extreme case where it is possible to observe how “technology and innovation” (in the terms of propagandists) contribute to the invention of a new social role for women while at the same time confirming old ideas about women’s work.71 Innovation and the renewal of order, social change, and the reproduction of domination can go hand in hand.72 The emergence of a radically new technological culture in the twentieth century, the technological culture of administration and information management based on mechanized writing and filing systems was not treated as a technological culture for quite some time, no doubt because it was a feminized culture, and one that did not impinge directly on the problematic of the working class. Feminist technology studies have not been limited to bringing the often unequal division of tasks and skills between women and men to light, but have also sought to show how the recognition of skills and qualifications as such, and of technology as culture have been shot through with gender bias. Although they were participants or more properly actors in these important technological innovations that have revolutionized the office in the course of the twentieth century, women office workers have not been appreciated as such, repeating yet again the destiny of women’s work to be neither recognized nor valued. Bearing this in mind, I believe it is crucial to valorize these places where a culture of women’s work was defined (not to essentialize such a culture, but rather to remind us of its constructed nature). Thus, my ultimate aim is to bring to light the contribution made by these women to the concrete development of contemporary society and economy.

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Notes * This chapter is a revised version of a text that originally appeared in French under the title “Humains et objets en action: essai sur la réification de la domination masculine”, in L’engendrement des choses. Des hommes, des femmes et des techniques, Danielle Chabaud-Rychter and Delphine Gardey, eds. (Paris, 2002). 1. However, the office possessed its own technologies before this period of mechanization, adding another source of complexity to the analysis. 2. Gardey, “Mechanizing Writing and Photographing the Word: Utopias, Office Work, and Stories of Gender and Technology,” History and Technology 17 (2001b): 319–52.

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3. To use an expression of Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, 2nd ed. (Oxford and Malden, Mass., 2000 [1996]). 4. Such questions were initially formulated within the feminist critique of the sociology and history of labor: Chabaud-Rychter, Ghislaine Doniol-Shaw, Helen Harden-Chenut, “Division sexuelle des techniques et qualification,” rapport de recherche Gedisst-CNRS (Paris, 1987); also Héléna Hirata and Chantal Rogerat, “Technologie, qualification et division sexuelle du travail,” Revue Française de Sociologie 29 (1988); and Hirata and Danièle Kergoat, “La division sexuelle du travail revisitée,” in Les nouvelles frontières de l’inégalité. Hommes et femmes sur le marché du travail, ed. Margaret Maruani (Paris, 1998), 94–104. And in historical studies, Ava Baron, ed., Work Engendered, Toward a New History of American Labor (Ithaca and London, 1991). For an overview of this literature see Chabaud-Rychter and Gardey, “Techniques et genre,” in Dictionnaire critique du féminisme, eds. Hirata et al. (Paris, 2000). Since then, the mutual relationship between technology and gender became the main issue: see Judy Wajcman, Feminism Confronts Technology, (Cambridge, 1991). 5. For more on this issue, see Gardey’s, in particular: Gardey, “Mechanizing Writing and photographing the Word, 319–52; and Gardey, La dactylographe et l’expéditionnaire. Histoire des employés de bureau (1890–1930) (Paris and Berlin, 2001a). 6. See Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor Pinch, The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1987); and also Donald Mackenzie and Wajcman, eds., The Social Shaping of Technology (Bristol, England, 2000 [1985]). For an examination of these questions as they relate to the history of technology, see the special issue of Annales, Yves Cohen and Dominique Pestre Cohen, eds., “Histoire des techniques,” Annales, HSS, nos. 4–5 (July–October, 1998). 7. Laurent Thévenot, “Le régime de familiarité: des choses en personne,” Genèses 17 (September, 1994): 72–101. 8. For a broader consideration of the implication of objects in actions, see Bernard Conein, Nicolas Dodier, and Laurent Thévenot, “Les objets dans l’action,” Raisons Pratiques, no. 4 (1993). 9. Cynthia Cockburn and Susan Ormrod, eds., Gender and Technology in the Making (London, 1993). 10. I feel that this is one of the issues (among others) in the discussion within the social sciences concerning gender that were raised in the debates around Pierre Bourdieu’s Domination masculine (Paris, 1998). On this theme, see the debate in the journal Travail, Genre et Sociétés, no. 1 (1999): 201–34. 11. Revue dactylographique et mécanique, 1911. 12. For an analysis of the association of women/machines/modernity/progress at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, see Michelle Perrot, “Machines fin de siècle,” Romantismes 41 (1983): 5–17. Reprinted in Perrot, Les femmes ou les silences de l’histoire (Paris, 1998). 13. For more on the question of pioneers, see the collection of articles edited by Gardey on the subject in the journal Travail, Genre et Sociétés, no. 4 (2000b). 14. For a nondeterminist version of the history of the typewriter and the construction of the profession of the shorthand-typist see Gardey, “Mechanizing Writing and Photographing the Word,” 319–52. For an analysis of the joint construction of a standardized market consisting of the typewriter and the associated professional practices see Gardey, “The Standardization of a Technical Practice; Typing (1883–1930),” History and Technology 15 (1999a): 313–43. 15. The definition of the sewing machine-object as domestic and its gendering as feminine have their own history that is addressed in Judith Coffin, “Credit, Consumption, and Images of Women’s Desires: Selling the Sewing Machine in Late Nineteenth-Century France,” French Historical Studies 18, no. 3 (Spring 1994): 749–83. 16. I have borrowed this notion from the work of Madeleine Akrich, “The De-Scription of Technical Objects.” In Shaping Technology-Building Society, eds. Bijker and John Law (Cambridge, Mass., 1992). 17. David Edgerton, “De l’innovation aux usages. Dix thèses éclectiques sur l’histoire des techniques,” Annales, HSS, nos. 4–5 (July–October, 1998): 815–37.

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18. For convenience, I have not used David Edgerton’s vocabulary, which is aimed at differentiating between technological determinism and innovative determinism. According to him, innovative determinism is the usual version of technological determinism, and is a naively progressivist position. He opposes this position with the veritable challenge to examine how exactly a society is or isn’t determined by the current technologies. 19. For discussions of this question in social history, see the work of Joan Scott, ‘L’ouvrière! Mot impie, sordide …’, Women Workers in the Discourse of French Political Economy, 1840– 1860,” in The Historical Meanings of Work, ed. Patrick Joyce (Cambridge, 1987), 119–42. See also Laura Frader, “La division sexuelle du travail à la lumière des recherches historiques,” Cahiers du Mage 3–4 (1995): 143–56. 20. In France, for example, typing competitions were grafted onto preexisting competitions between the proponents of rival stenographic methods. Frequent at the end of the nineteenth century, these competitions remained common even between the wars: Gardey, La dactylographe et l’expéditionnaire. 21. Here I am deliberately using terminology taken from Nicolas Dodier, “Les arènes des habiletés techniques,” in Conein, Dodier, and Thévenot, “Objets dans l’action,” 115–39. 22. Gardey, “Standardization of a Technical Practice,” 313–43. 23. Bruno Latour, Pandora’s Hope. Essays on the Reality of Sciences Studies (Cambridge Mass., 1999), 216. 24. For more on this point see Anne-Marie Daune-Richard, “The Social Construction of Skill.” in The Gendering of Inequalities:Women, Men, and Work, eds. Jane Jenson, Jacqueline Laufer, and Margaret Maruani, (Aldershot, England, 2000), 111–23. 25. For a discussion of the introduction of electricity into the office, see Gardey, “Les femmes, le bureau et l’électricité.” Bulletin de L’association pour L’histoire de L’électricité, nos. 19–20 (June–December, 1992): 87–98. 26. Advertisement for the Burroughs accounting machine, Mon Bureau, 1923; B. Phillip, “Le moteur électrique dans la mécanographie,” Méthodes, November 1935, 345. 27. An advertisement that appeared in Mon Bureau, 1923. 28. For its history, see the case studies edited by Michelle Perrot on women’s work and trades, “De la nourrice à l’employée. Travaux de femmes dans la France du XIXe siècle,” special issue, Mouvement Social, no. 105 (1978); and Perrot, “Métiers de femmes,” special issue, Mouvement Social, no. 140 (1987). 29. Gardey, “Standardization of a Technical Practice,” 313–43. 30. Jean-Maurice Lahy, “Les conditions psycho physiologiques de l’aptitude au travail dactylographique,” Journal de Physiologie et de Pathologie Générale, 5 July 1913; Lahy, “Les bases scientifiques du travail des dactylographes (1st article); Mon Bureau, September 1923, 743–45 (2nd article: 827–32); (3rd article: 935–37); and “Expériences dactylographiques,” Revue du Bureau, March 1925, 129–36, which is a series of studies previously published by the Académie des Sciences and in the BIT. See also George Ribeill, “Les débuts de l’ergonomie en France à la veille de la Première Guerre Mondiale,” Mouvement Social, no. 113 (October–December 1980): 3–36; and Gardey, “Standardization of a Technical Practice,” 313–43. 31. Cohen and Pestre, eds., “Histoire des techniques,” 941. 32. For more on this context, see Gardey, Un monde en mutation: histoire des employés de bureau en France (1890–1930). Féminisation, mécanisation, rationalisation (Ph.D. diss., Université de Paris 7, 1995), 823–31. 33. Nicolas Dodier, “Les arènes des habiletés techniques,” in “Les objets dans l’action,” eds. Bernard Conein et al., Raisons Pratiques, no. 4 (1993): 115–39. 34. Gardey, “Standardization of a Technical Practice”, 313–43; and Gardey, “Mechanizing Writing and Photographing the Word”, 319–52. 35. Of course, removing the study from its context turns it into a purely formal exercise. 36. Jean-Claude Kaufman, Le coeur à l’ouvrage. Théorie de l’action ménagère (Paris, 1997). 37. Chabaud-Rychter, “La mise en forme des pratiques domestiques dans le travail de conception d’appareils électroménagers,” Sociétés Contemporaines, no. 17 (1994): 103–18; and Chabaud-

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Rychter, “L’innovation industrielle dans l’électroménager: conception pour l’usage et pour la production,” Recherches Feminists 9 (1996): 15–36. 38. The history of the construction and use of this instrument deserves more detailed study. See Gardey, Un monde en mutation: histoire des employés de bureau en France (1890–1930). Féminisation, mécanisation, rationalisation (Ph.D. diss., Université de Paris 7, 1995), 790–805. For a study from the perspective of the history of accounting practices, see Gardey, “Pour une histoire technique du métier de comptable: évolution des conditions pratiques du travail de comptabilité du début du XIXe siècle à la veille de la Seconde guerre mondiale,” Hommes, Savoirs et Pratiques de la Comptabilité (Nantes, France, 1997). For a discussion of the calculator market and the use of calculation in Britain, see Andrew Warwick, “The Laboratory of Theory or What Is Exact about Exact Sciences?” in The Values of Precision, ed. Norton Wise (Princeton, 1995). 39. For example, see the illustrated advertisements for the Burroughs machine, Mon Bureau, 1920, 1923; the Monroe machine, Mon Bureau, 1919; and the Rema machine, Revue du Bureau, 1924. 40. The market was already very extensive by 1910, with the following machines available in France: the Dactyle, the Walles electric adding machine, the Comptometer, the Millionnaire, the sixty-five models made by Burroughs, the Triumphator, the Brunsviga, the Tim-Unitas, the Eclair, the Dalton, and so forth (Revue Dactylographique et Mécanique; Mon Bureau). 41. The advertisement appeared in Mon Bureau, April 1911. The illustration is particularly relevant here. 42. In 1920, seven thousand people in the United States were granted diplomas by one of the numerous Comptometer schools that would later develop in Europe (Mon Bureau, August 1922, 570). When addressing the office workers who were looking for training and ultimately for work, the manufacturers of the Comptometer used a quite different approach from the one aimed at the bosses: “A course lasting a few weeks at our Comptometer School will transform an inexperienced worker into an expert able to command a high salary.” Announcement by Felt and Tarrant, avenue de l’Opéra, Paris, Revue Du bureau, April 1921, 155. 43. The Revue du Bureau mentions a service like this operating in a department store in 1925. A photograph from 1936 shows a service of women Comptometer calculators from a large Parisian business. 44. For a presentation of the technical details of the different machines, see Mon Bureau, November 1913, 695. Robert Des Farges, “Les appareils et les machines de bureau diverses au salon rétrospectif,” Mon Bureau, June 1930, 243–48; and Mon Bureau, November 1930, 485–89. See also Jean Favier and Robert Thomelin, De la mécanographie à l’informatique (La Chapelle Montligeon, France, 1972), 35–40; and Jean Marguin, Histoire des Instruments et Machines à Calculer, Trois Siècles de Mécanique Pensante, 1642–1942 (Paris, 1994). 45. Mon Bureau, November 1913, 695. It makes the Comptometer an original alternative, even after calculating machines started to be electrified. 46. The technologies for mechanizing writing that preceded the Sholes Typewriter also comprised a wide range of objects such as cylinders and cursors, Gardey, “Mechanizing Writing and Photographing the Word, 319–52. 47. Chabaud-Rychter, “Innovation industrielle dans l’électroménager,” 15–36. 48. Donald Norman, The Design of Everyday Things (New York, 1990). 49. For an examination of the nonmechanical techniques and methods used in accounting (mental arithmetic, tables, schedules, etc.) and their persistence as professional practices, see Gardey, “Pour une histoire technique du métier de comptable.” 50. On the feminization of accounting professions, see ibid.; Sharon H. Strom, Beyond the Typewriter. Gender, Class, and the Origins of Modern American Office Work (1910–1930) (Urbana and Chicago, 1992). On the division of accounting work at Renault between the wars, see Gardey, Un monde en mutation, 594–96. 51. “Le machinisme dans le bureau,” from the Revue Internationale du Travail cited in L’Organisation, April 1938, 114. 52. For a more in-depth discussion about the social identity of this group of employees, and their ultimate proletarianization, see Gardey, “Du veston au bas de soie: identité et évolution du

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groupe des employés de bureau (1890–1930),” Mouvement social, no. 175 (1996): 55–77; and Gardey, Dactylographe et l’expéditionnaire. 53. On this phenomenon in the United States, see Olivier Zunz, L’Amérique en col blanc. L’invention du tertiaire, 1870–1920 (Paris, 1991). 54. Although these intellectual technologies were crucial for the definition of the pragmatic science of organization at the beginning of the twentieth century, they will not be examined here. For the roots of this movement see the work of William Leffingwell: Scientific Office Management, A Report of Application of the Taylor System of Scientific Management to Offices (Chicago, 1917); Leffingwell, Textbook of Office Management (New York, 1925); Leffingwell, The Office Appliance (Chicago, 1926); and Leffingwell, Office Management: Principles and Practice (Chicago, 1925). 55. At the beginning of the twentieth century in the United States and a fortiori in France, the telephone was a luxury for the middle classes, and its private and domestic use needed to be actively promoted (see Claude Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (Berkeley, 1992)) as it was often regarded as frivolous (see Steven Lubar, “Men/Women/Production/Consumption,” in Roger Horowitz and Mohun Arwen, eds., His and Hers, Gender, Consumption, and Technology (Charlottesville and London, 1998), 7–37. 56. In 1900, 80 percent of the telephone operators in the United States conformed to this description; Kenneth Lipartito, “When Women Were Switches: Technology, Gender and Work in the Telephone Industry (1820–1920), American Historical Association 99, no. 4 (1994): 1075–1111. 57. Ibid. 58. Claude Fischer, America Calling. 59. Gardey, Dactylographe et l’expéditionnaire. Likewise, the lower class of the operators working for American telephone companies started to make itself felt after the First World War. 60. On the managerial history of these technologies, see James Beniger, The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1986); and JoAnne Yates, Control through Communication, The Rise of American Management (Baltimore and London, 1989). 61. Advertisement from Mon Bureau, 1923. 62. “La transmission des ordres dans les bureaux et les magasins,” Méthodes, May 1938: 158. Unfortunately, there are insufficient sources on which to base the history of the actual use of the telephone in industrial, commercial, or banking organizations. 63. Advertisement in Mon Bureau, 1923. 64. For an examination of the situation in America based on this theme, see Angel KwoledFolland, Engendering Business, Men and Women in the Corporate Office, 1870–1930 (Baltimore and London, 1994). 65. “Une nouvelle méthode pour dicter le courrier,” Mon Bureau, 1910, 150–51. 66. Advertisement for the Ronéophone, a system made by Pathé-Frères, Mon Bureau, 1914. 67. The different manufacturers did not all show the typing pool, but they usually either made a direct reference or hinted at it. Revue du Bureau, 1938. 68. For a study of this phenomenon at Sears, Roebuck and Co, see Richard Herbert Howe, “Early Office Proletariat: A Reconstruction of Sear’s Order Processing,” Studies in Symbolic Interaction 5 (1984.): 155–70. 69. Paola Tabet, “Les mains, les outils, les armes,” L’homme 19, nos. 3–4 (July–December 1979): 45. 70. Cynthia Cockburn, “Les techniques domestiques ou Cendrillon et les ingénieurs,” Cahiers du Gedisst, no. 20 (1997): 17. 71. Liparto, “When Women Were Switches,” 1088. 72. Although Bruno Latour’s microsociology is one central inspiration for my presentation, I’d like to explore the tension that such an analysis raises when it is faced with a more structuralist position such as that P. Bourdieu adopts in his Domination masculine. The issue of male domination both as structure and as subject to change is the key to Bourdieu’s contribution. Bourdieu aims to analyze the “historical work of dehistoricization” responsible for the “relative perpetuation” of the “structures of the division of the sexes.” See Bourdieu, Domination masculine.

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CHAPTER

5

Suspending Gender? Reflecting on Innovations in Cyberspace

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JUDY WAJCMAN*

Women’s lives have changed irrevocably during the twentieth century, rendering traditional sex roles increasingly untenable. Dramatic advances in technology, the challenge of feminism, and consciousness of the mutating character of the natural world have prompted visionary thinking. Feminist theorists have asked whether digitalization will finally sever the link between technology and male privilege, indeed whether new technologies have undergone a sex change. Yet, even as this question is contemplated, there is a suspicion that existing societal patterns of inequality are being reproduced in a new technological guise. Feminist theories of the woman-machine relationship have long oscillated between pessimistic fatalism and utopian optimism. The same technological innovations have been categorically rejected as oppressive to women and uncritically embraced as inherently liberating. At the heart of these complex and fraught deliberations lies a concern with the connection between gender and technoscience. Much early second-wave feminist writing on gender and technology adopted a pessimistic tone.1 Originating from a liberal concern with women’s historical exclusion from technical skills and careers, this perspective evolved into an analysis of the masculine character of technology itself. Technology was seen as a key source of male power, encompassing technologies of human biological reproduction and those of the workplace. Socialist and radical feminism emphasized the social relations of technology, and delivered a compelling critique of popular and sociological arguments that were (and still are) characterized by technological determinism. Technology was seen as socially shaped, Notes for this section begin on page 109.

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but shaped by men to the exclusion of women. Problems of essentialism characterized much of this writing, leading to an overemphasis on the intransigent aspects of patriarchal structures and norms embedded in technology. While this genre was much more sophisticated than is now acknowledged, it all too often conceived of technology as reproducing the sexual division of labor, both at work and at home. Much of this literature made a strong link between capitalism and patriarchy, seeing class and gender as bound together in the social relations of capitalism. For most social theorists, capitalist industrial society was characterized by sharp divisions between manual and nonmanual work, between valued employment and devalued, privatized work in households, and gender-segregated employment patterns. However, this dominant view of capitalism and its future development was in the process of breaking down and the trends in computerization and biotechnology that socialist and radical feminists had identified were increasingly being associated with a fundamental change in capitalism itself. According to theories of the “information society” or “knowledge economy,” the old hierarchies were disintegrating and being replaced by less rigid and more flexible networks. At the same time, with rising standards of living, identities formed within consumption seemed to be becoming more important than those formed within the social relations of work and production. Globalization gurus like Manuel Castells and Anthony Giddens gave prominence to the intensity, extensity, and velocity of global flows, interactions, and networks embracing all social domains.2 For these writers, such changes herald an exciting new posttraditional network society. Reflecting more general trends in social theory, feminists have become increasingly uneasy with the negative cast of the debates about technology and society. They warmed to information and communication technologies as being fundamentally transformative, unlike previous technologies. Theories of the global, networked, knowledge society see these technologies as revolutionary in their impact, providing the basis for a new information age. Cyberfeminists have been particularly influenced by these ideas and, more generally, by the “cultural turn” in social theory. The virtuality of cyberspace and the Internet is seen as ending the embodied basis for sex difference and facilitating a multiplicity of innovative subjectivities. In the wired world, traditional hierarchies are replaced by horizontal, diffuse, flexible networks that have more affinity with women’s values and ways of being than men’s values. The optimistic register of such feminism, stressing women’s agency and capacity for empowerment, resonates with a new generation of women who live in a world of greater sex equality. That a strong current of seventies feminism sought to reject technology as malevolent is now seen as fanciful. Wired women in cybercafés, experimenting with new media, clutching mobile phones, are immersed in science fiction and in their imaginary worlds. It presents a seductive

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image for a culture with an insatiable appetite for novelty. The possibilities of reinventing the self and the body, like cyborgs in cyberspace, have reinvigorated our thinking. In this chapter, I shall discuss major feminist contributions to our understanding and imagining of cyberspace and of its possibilities. In particular, I shall look at how cyberfeminists have interpreted the new culture of digital technologies and their networked character as potentially liberating for women. Before I do so, I want to set the scene with a brief discussion of recent arguments about the significance of the Internet and virtual communities.

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Networked Community Nowhere else is the lure of a blend of technological innovation and freedom so strong as in the widespread discussion of the virtual community and the idea that it represents a new form of sociability and social interaction. The currency of these ideas needs to be understood in the context of contemporary debates about increasing social and personal fragmentation and about the loss of civil society associated with late modern societies. The best-known American account of the consequences of declining social capital and the rise of individualization is Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone. Putnam argues that social inclusion depends upon societies with high social capital, characterized by dense social networks of reciprocal social relations.3 Citizens have retreated into their private homes, away from public spaces of face-to-face interaction, informal social activities, and conviviality. For Putnam, this is linked with an earlier form of new communication technology— television. Its widespread penetration, together with generational change, has been the main cause of declining social capital. Television privatizes leisure time at the expense of sociability and civic engagement. Computer consoles and their privatized interactivity would seem to be a continuation of the trend that television first inaugurated. The conviction that the Internet is the solution to social disintegration and individualism is no less popular than the idea that it will accelerate these trends. On both ends of the political spectrum, communication media are seen to play a key role—either as the cause of the problem or as its cure. Indeed, cybergurus from Nicholas Negroponte to Manuel Castells proclaim that the Internet and cyberspace are bringing about a technological and social revolution.4 Electronic networks are said to create new forms of sociability that will result in enhanced communities and greater world harmony.5 Indeed, Castell’s belief in the potential of enhanced Internet connectivity is reminiscent of Marshall McLuhan’s argument in The Gutenberg Galaxy that television would be a restorer of organic culture and community in the global village.6 In line with Howard Rheingold’s original vision of “The Virtual

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Community,” cyberspace is portrayed as an informal public place where people can rebuild aspects of connectivity and community that have been lost in the modern world.7 Virtual communities result from social collectivities that emerge from the Net to form webs of interpersonal ties in cyberspace. The conservative overtones of these debates are apparent. They betray a nostalgia for an idealized past when people belonged to a harmonious community and spent time chatting with friends and neighbors. The destruction of the community, and most forms of communal solidarity, has been firmly signaled in sociological thought for a long while. At the same time it has often been noted that the cozy, homogeneous, local community was a rare phenomenon. Tellingly, Rheingold’s paradigmatic version of the virtual community reflects this nostalgia, with cyberspace providing for the restoration of the traditional community. The virtual community is the place where people can begin rebuilding aspects of the community that have been lost, linked by commonality of interests and affinity rather than by accidents of physical proximity. Castells, too, explicitly rejects the ideological opposition between the idealized community of the past and the alienated existence of the lonely net citizen. For him, the Internet is the technological basis for a new form of society—the Network Society.8 The Internet enables networks to substitute for spatial communities as major forms of sociability. This involves a redefinition of the concept of community as networks of interpersonal ties. Communities are based on social exchanges rather than on physical location; the Internet enhances connectivity and social capital. This new pattern of sociability in the Network Society is characterized by networked individualism. “Networked individualism is a social pattern, not a collection of isolated individuals. Rather, individuals build their networks, on-line and off-line, on the basis of their interests, values, affinities, and projects.”9 The values of solidarity that are attributed to the traditional community can be realized without their conservative hierarchies. The Internet is the central emblem of these changes: nonhierarchical, ungoverned, instant, and value-based. The Internet creates a culture of “real virtuality” that occurs in a “space of flows and timeless time.” Real virtuality replaces stable, social foundations (place, nation, class, or race) with virtual and changeable environments, which can exist in cyberspace quite separately from geographic locations or real cultural backgrounds. The virtual and networked space of flows is contrasted with the industrial-era “space of places.” Networked individualism, organized around “communities of choice,” becomes the dominant form of sociability. For Castells, the aptly named “Internet Galaxy” marks a whole new epoch in the human experience.10 Although Castells is well aware of the fact that the Internet is open to abuse, his vision of the Internet is essentially positive. He describes Internet culture as made up of four layers: the technomeritocratic culture, the hacker culture, the virtual communitarian culture, and the entrepreneurial culture. These features are all inscribed in the hacker culture that played a pivotal role

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in the construction of the Internet. This libertarian culture of computer programmers is based on the values of freedom: “freedom to create, freedom to appropriate whatever knowledge is available, and freedom to redistribute this knowledge under any form and channel chosen by the hacker.”11 Castells is clearly enamored with the hacker community; a global virtual community based on creativity, cooperation, reciprocity, informality, and a gift economy. The practice of these virtual communities epitomizes the practice of horizontal communication, a new form of global free speech on-line. Electronic networks are said to create new forms of sociability that will result in an enhanced “global civil society” and greater world harmony.12 For Castells, the culture of freedom is embodied in the Internet. The problem with these theories of virtual community is ambiguity about the extent of their likeness to communities on the ground and their relation to those grounded communities that necessarily remain. Like other virtual communitarians, they conflate virtual travel, communication, and community. Spatial boundaries are still important and residential communities potentially bring together a range of different groups of people. Indeed, inequalities reflected in residential areas have intensified and it is not clear that virtual communities of choice will be any less homogenous and mutually exclusive. In fact, writers are increasingly identifying a “digital divide” in the access and use of the Internet. The virtual community is a social vision that glosses over the fact that communities are also about material resources and power. This is an accepted feature of physical proximate communities and rather than being transformed by the Internet conflicts are more likely to be carried into it. Significantly, theorists of virtual community emphasize “communities of choice”; the freedom to choose associations and ties around the globe. Castells says that the “Internet is produced by its use.” The hacker culture that he eulogizes is a male culture; in fact, predominantly a white middle-class culture, too. It is also a strange omission that he doesn’t discuss the question of whose freedom is the issue. A major use of the Internet worldwide is pornography, designed for a predominantly male audience and reflecting their choices. Moreover, cybersex entrepreneurs were the driving force behind key technical innovations, such as interactive CD-ROM software and improved on-screen image definition.13 Not only is there commercial pornography, but a parallel network of reciprocity and gift-giving of pornographic images. These, too, are communities of choice. Furthermore, the central role of women in participating in and preserving communities is overlooked. Women have historically been the preeminent suppliers of emotional support in community networks and the major suppliers of domestic and unpaid community work. The “culture of freedom” he embraces seems to be a freedom from responsibility for community networks and, therefore, an implicitly male perspective. Where women maintain family, friendship, and neighborhood ties, men have participated in a public sphere defined by instrumentalities of work. It was precisely this division that institu-

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tionalized men as designers of technology and Castells does not address the gender relations of design. As we shall see, by taking up these lacunae, cyberfeminism provides a more comprehensive and powerful account than current social theories of digital technology.

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Cyberfeminism An optimistic—almost utopian—vision of the electronic community as foreshadowing the “good society” is also characteristic of cyberfeminism. Although the literature is silent on gender issues, it shares with some new strands of feminism the idea that Web-based technology generates a culture of unlimited freedom. For cyberfeminism, however, this means liberation for women. And just as cybergurus such as Castells have attracted many enthusiastic followers, so too have many feminists been drawn to writers such as Sadie Plant, the leading British exponent of cyberfeminism. Cyberfeminist discourse is particularly appealing to a new young generation, which has grown up with computers and pop culture in the 1990s with their themes of “grrrl power” and “wired worlds.” In this section I want to read Plant’s work as representative of this expanding trend within feminism. In part, cyberfeminism needs to be understood as a reaction to the pessimism of the 1980s feminist approaches that stressed the inherently masculine nature of technoscience. In contrast, cyberfeminism emphasizes women’s subjectivity and agency, and the pleasures immanent in digital technologies. They accept the fact that industrial technology did indeed have a patriarchal character, but new digital technologies are much more diffuse and open. As such, cyberfeminism marks a new relationship between feminism and technology. For Plant, technological innovations have been pivotal in the fundamental shift in power from men to women that has occurred in Western cultures in the 1990s, the genderquake. Old expectations, stereotypes, senses of identity, and securities have been challenged as women gain unprecedented economic opportunities, technical skills, and cultural powers. Automation has reduced the importance of muscular strength and hormonal energies and replaced them with demands for speed, intelligence, and transferable, interpersonal, and communication skills.14 This has been accompanied by the feminization of the workforce that favors independence, flexibility, and adaptability. While men are ill prepared for a postmodern future, women are ideally suited to the new technoculture. The digital revolution heralds the decline of the traditional hegemonic structures and power bases of male domination because it represents a new kind of technical system. For Plant, it is technology without logos. The standard way of thinking about technology is in terms of the application of reason in the domination and mastery of natural and social environments. Social hier-

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archies are put to work on nature in an orderly way to produce highly organized systems of social and technological power. For Plant, as for other feminist writers, this is fundamental to technology as a patriarchal system and it is bound up with masculine identities. This includes sexual identities. The “ones” of Plant’s title Zeros and Ones describe a singular male identity against which female identity is measured and found to be a nothing, a “zero.” She cleverly uses the digital language of computers—sequences of zeros and ones—to evoke a new gendering of technology. There is a decided shift in the woman-machine relationship, because there is a shift in the nature of machines. Zeros now have a place and they displace the phallic order of ones. The Net, cyberspace, virtual reality, and the matrix, epitomize the shape of a new “distributed nonlinear world.” They do not develop in predictable and orderly ways and cannot be subject to control. Innovations occur at different points in the web and create effects that outrun their immediate origins. It is the ideal feminine medium where women should feel at home. This is because women excel within fluid systems and processes: their distinctive mode of being fits perfectly with the changes associated with information technology. The metaphors for this new technology are drawn from women’s worlds and looking back at the emergence of the new technology, Plant finds that women have been central to it. She traces a history of female superiority as programmers—or as “weavers of information”—from women’s skills in weaving to their contributions to modern computing. Plant derives from Freud the idea that weaving (just about the only technological initiative that Freud attributes to women) emerges as a simulation of pubic hair matted across the vagina. Plant reinterprets this idea that women are essentially suited to weaving by identifying weaving with the threads of communication that enmesh the world, the connections these allow, and the metaphor of the connectionist machines. For Freud, matted hair hid women’s lack, signifying their being other to men who defined the world. For Plant, the zero is the entrance to the matrix and to a virtual world of infinite possibilities. Plant sees continuity between the fluid identity of Luce Irigaray’s women, Freud’s hysterical women, and the anarchic, self-organizing qualities of the new machines. With the development of parallel processing, actions are distributed across a network of processors, instead of proceeding in series. The distinction is taken to be in tune with women’s ability to work at several different things at the same time, while men are thought to be single-minded. Rather than the rigors of orthodox logic, the new technology favors distributed interaction and intuitive understanding, which Plant argues, were previously pathologized as hysteria. The fluidity of women’s identity, previously regarded as a deprivation, becomes a positive advantage in a feminized future. Patriarchy’s stereotyped account of women is inverted and women’s sexual difference valorized. Plant is aware of the fact that cybernetics also has military uses, but she does not believe these to be paramount. The new technology cannot be brought

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back under the old order. “Cyberspace is out of man’s control: virtual reality destroys his identity, digitalization is mapping his soul and, at the peak of his triumph, the culmination of his machinic erections, man confronts the system he built for his own protection and finds it is female and dangerous.”15 Far from being a technology of male dominance, computing is a liberatory technology for women delivering a postpatriarchal future.

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Performing Gender in Cyberspace In this section I will consider the cyberfeminist argument that new technologies involve not just the subversion of masculine identity, but a multiplicity of innovative subjectivities. Plant’s metaphor of zeros and ones identifies the singularity of masculine identity against the multiplicity which, in the words of Irigiray, is inherent to the “sex that is not one.” Digital technologies facilitate the blurring of boundaries between man and machine and male and female, enabling their users “to choose their disguises and assume alternative identities.” For Plant, “women, who know all about disguise, are already familiar with this trip.” Identity exploration challenges existing notions of subjectivity and subverts dominant masculine fantasies. The idea that the Internet can transform conventional gender roles, altering the relationship between the body and the self via a machine, is a popular theme in recent postmodern feminism. The message is that young women in particular are colonizing cyberspace where, like gravity, gender inequality is suspended. In cyberspace, all physical, bodily cues are removed from communication. As a result, our interactions are fundamentally different because they are not subject to judgments based on sex, age, race, voice, accent, or appearance but are based only on textual exchanges. In Life on the Screen, Sherry Turkle enthuses about the potential for people “to express multiple and often unexplored aspects of the self, to play with their identity and to try out new ones … the obese can be slender, the beautiful plain, the ‘nerdy’ sophisticated.”16 It is the increasingly interactive and creative nature of computing technology that now enables millions of people to live a significant segment of their lives in virtual reality. Moreover, it is in this computer-mediated world that people experience a new sense of self that is decentered, multiple, and fluid. In this respect, Turkle argues, the Internet is the material expression of the philosophy of postmodernism. Interestingly, the gender of Internet users is a mainly feature in Turkle’s chapter about virtual sex. Cyberspace provides a risk-free environment where people can engage in the intimacy they both desire and fear. Turkle argues that people find it easier to establish relationships on-line and then pursue them off-line.Yet, for all the celebration of the interactive world of cyberspace, what emerges from her discussion is that people engaging in Internet relationships

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really want the full embodied relationship. Like many other authors, Turkle argues that gender-swapping, or virtual cross-dressing, encourages people to reflect on the social construction of gender, to acquire “a new sense of gender as a continuum,”17 However, she does not reflect upon the possibility that gender differences in the constitution of sexual desire and pleasure influence the manner in which cybersex is used. In a similar vein, Allucquere Rosanne Stone also celebrates the myriad ways in which modern technology is challenging traditional notions of gender identity. Complex virtual identities rupture the cultural belief that there is a single self in a single body. Stone’s discussion of phone and virtual sex, for example, describes how female sex workers disguise crucial aspects of their identity and can play at reinventing themselves. She takes seriously the notion that virtual people or selves can exist in cyberspace, with no necessary link to a physical body. As an illustration of this, Stone recounts the narrative about the cross-dressing psychiatrist that has become an apocryphal cyberfeminist tale. Like many stories that become legends, it is a pastiche of fiction and fact, assembled from diverse sources including real events.18 It is the story of a middle-aged male psychiatrist called Lewin who becomes an active member of a CompuServe chat line, a virtual place where many people can interact simultaneously in real time. One day Lewin found he was conversing with a woman who assumed he was a female psychiatrist. Lewin was stunned by the power and intimacy of the conversation. He found that the woman was more open to him than were his female patients and friends in real life. Lewin wanted more and soon began regularly logging on as Julie Graham, a severely handicapped and disfigured New York resident. Julie said it was her embarrassment about her disfigurement that made her prefer not to meet her cyberfriends in person. Over time, Julie successfully projected her personality and had a flourishing social life on the Internet, giving advice to the many women who confided in her. Lewin acquired a devoted following and came to believe that it was as Julie that he could best help these women. His on-line female friends told Julie how important she had become in their lives. Indeed, the elaborate details of Julie’s life gave hope particularly to other disabled women as her professional life flourished and, how despite her handicaps, she became flamboyantly sexual, encouraging many of her friends to engage in Net sex with her. Her career took her around the world on the conference circuit and she ended up marrying a young police officer. Julie’s story is generally taken to show that the subject and the body are no longer inseparable; that cyberspace provides us with novel free choices in selecting a gender identity irrespective of our material body. Stone argues that by the time he was exposed, Lewin’s responses had ceased to be a masquerade, that he was in the process of becoming Julie. However, this story can be read in a radically different manner, one that questions the extent to which the cyborg

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subject can escape the biological body. Although Julie’s electronic manifestation appears at first sight to subvert gender distinctions, it can be just as forcefully argued that it ultimately reinforced and reproduced these differences. For the women seeking Julie’s advice, her gender was crucial. They wanted to know that there was a woman behind the name; this is what prompted their intimacies. Julie’s gender guided their behavior and their mode of expression. “It rendered her existence, no matter how intangible and ‘unreal’ Julie appeared at first, extremely physical and genuine.”19 When Julie was unmasked as a cross-dressing man years later, many women who had sought her advice felt deeply betrayed and violated. It was the “real” disabled women on-line who first had suspicions about the false identity, indicating that there are limits on creating sustainable new identities in cyberspace. Relationships on the Internet are not as free of corporeality as Stone, Turkle, and Plant suggest. Although computer mediated communication alters the nature of interaction by removing bodily cues, this is not the same as creating new identities. Just because all you see is words, it does not mean that becoming a different person requires only different words or that this is a simple matter. Choosing words for a different identity is problematic.20 The choice of words is the result of a process of socialization associated with a particular identity. It is therefore very difficult to learn a new identity without being socialized into that role. Although mimicry is possible, it is limited and is not the same as creating a viable new identity. Research on artificial intelligence and information systems now emphasize the importance of the body in human cognition and behavior. Moreover, the sociology of scientific knowledge has taught us that much scientific knowledge is tacit (things people know but cannot explain or specify in formal rules) and cannot be learned explicitly. So it is with becoming a man or woman. Lewin’s false identity was discovered by people who had been socialized in the role that Lewin adopted, namely, that of a disabled woman. Bodies play an important part in what it means to be human and gendered. That this narrative is about a man posing as a woman is not merely incidental. There is evidence that many more men adopt a female persona than vice versa, and this offers another means by which men can manipulate women. The masculine discursive style of much communication on the Web is well recognized. “Flaming” or aggressive on-line behavior, including sexual harassment, is rife and has a long lineage back to the original hackers who developed the first networked games such as the notorious Dungeons and Dragons/ MUD games. These games were designed by young men for the enjoyment of their peers. This reflected the computer science and engineering “nerd” technoculture that produced the Internet and that excluded women from participation. Cyberspace first appeared as “a disembodied zone wilder than the wildest West, racier than the space race, sexier than sex, even better than walking on the moon” in cyberpunk fiction.21 It promised to finally rupture the bound-

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aries between hallucination and reality, the organic and the electronic. For cyberpunks, technology is inside the body and the mind itself. Textual and visual representations of gendered bodies and erotic desire, however, proved to be less imaginative. It was new technology with the same old narratives. Here was a phallocentric fantasy of cyberspace travel infused with clichéd images of adolescent male sex, with console cowboys jacking into cyberspace. A fan of cyberpunk, Plant’s project is to feminize this terrain. Rather than casting women as passive victims or sex objects, she maintains that the new interactive multimedia radically recodes pornographic consciousness and culture. As an arena where polymorphous sexualities can be performed, cyberspace undermines binary heteronormative subjectivities. Even sadomasochistic iconography can be reappropriated by technologically savvy cyberfeminists. A popular, contemporary version of these adventure games does feature a female character—notably Lara Croft in the popular Tomb Raider game, alternatively seen as a fetish object of Barbie proportions created by, and for, the male gaze or a female cyberstar. The orthodox feminist view of Lara Croft sees her as a pornographic technopuppet, an eternally young female automaton. By contrast, postmodern gender and queer theorists stress the diverse and subversive readings that Lara Croft is open to.22 For some she is a tough capable sexy adventurous female heroine. For others, Lara as Drag Queen enables men to experiment with “wearing” a feminine identity, echoing the phenomenon of gender crossing in Internet chat rooms. While Lara may offer young women an exciting way into the male domain of computer games, much of the desire projected onto this avatar is prosaic. The game even features a Nude Raider patch that removes Lara’s clothing. To cast her as a feminist heroine is therefore a long bow to draw. Perhaps we should let her creator Toby Gard have the last word: “Lara was designed to be a tough, self-reliant, intelligent woman. She confounds all the sexist clichés apart from the fact that she’s got an unbelievable figure. Strong, independent women are the perfect fantasy girls—the untouchable is always the most desirable.”23

Technology as Freedom Much of the pessimistic critical literature on science and technology has seen technology in a deterministic way, as potentially dehumanizing and running out of control. Plant offers a twist on this theme. She celebrates cybertechnology being out of control because, for her, out of control signifies freedom from male control. The metaphors by which she builds her case are, however, weakly related to the social reality of new technology relations, and the instances she cites are misconstrued. For example, her history of women’s involvement in technological developments, such as the typing pool and the telephone exchange, are in fact examples of women’s subordination. She gestures toward

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recognition that the interconnectivity of the Internet is a product of global capitalism that enables new forms of production and exploitation. Yet her apparent awareness of women’s exploitation does not stop her from seeing such technology as necessarily empowering women. A more consistent version of this position would be that technology itself is plastic and that therefore the same technology can have contradictory effects as the social relations and context of their use are all important. Plant does not, however, follow this path. Instead she claims that women’s affinity with digitalization means that it is inherently freeing. For Plant, there is a direct causal relationship between communication technologies and the particular cultural forms they come to be associated with. Her homage to the Internet closely echoes Marshall McLuhan’s famous aphorism, “the medium is the message,” and she acknowledges his legacy.24 Like McLuhan, she fails to distinguish between technical inventions (the digitalization of data); the socially instituted technology (the Internet); and its attendant cultural forms (e-mail, websites, interactive multimedia, etc).25 As a result, the crucial influence of media corporations and communication institutions within which technologies develop and that circumscribe their use, is ignored. Plant’s abstract theory of the Internet thus reproduces McLuhan’s technological determinism, and can be criticized in precisely the terms that Raymond Williams applied to McLuhan in Television. It is an apparently sophisticated technological determinism that has the significant effect of indicating a social and cultural determinism: a determinism, that is to say, which ratifies the society and culture we now have, and especially its most powerful internal directions. For if the medium—whether print or television—is the cause, all other causes, all that men [sic] ordinarily see as history, are at once reduced to effects. Similarly, what are elsewhere seen as effects, and as such subject to social, cultural, psychological and moral questioning, are excluded as irrelevant by comparison with the direct physiological and therefore “psychic” effects of the media.26 As Williams so forcefully points out in relation to McLuhan, the political consequence of this avant-gardist celebration of the “new media” is paradoxically to legitimate the existing social order. Plant is similarly exposed as politically conservative. If digital technology is inherently feminine, whoever controls or uses it, then no political action is necessary. Cyberfeminism may appear to be anarchist and anti-establishment but, in effect, it requires for its performances all the latest free market American capitalist gizmos. Plant’s utopian version of the relationship between gender and technology is perversely postfeminist. Rather than wanting to erase gender difference, Plant positively affirms women’s radical sexual difference, their feminine qualities. It is a version of radical or cultural feminism dressed up as cyberfeminism and is similarly essentialist. The belief in some inner essence of womanhood as an ahistorical category lies at the very heart of traditional and conservative

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conceptions of womanhood. What is curious is that Plant holds onto this fixed, unitary version of what it is to be female while, at the same time, arguing that the self is decentered and dispersed. Her mélange of postmodern/French feminist/psychoanalytic theories of the fractured identities of woman, with sets of embodiments, might have led her to emphasize the differences between, as well as within, individuals. However, she does not connect these theories on multiple identities and bodies with the multiple lived experiences that give rise to them. Rather, throughout Plant’s analysis there is dissonance between her appeal to universal feminine attributes and her conceptualization of women’s fragmented identities. As with much of the literature on cyberculture, Plant does not consider in any depth women’s actual experiences of computer facilities. Her depiction of the Internet bears little relation to how most women use it. Internet usage is predominantly for instrumental e-mail, related to work functions. The websites most visited by women in the United States are in fact shopping and health sites, such as pampers.com, avon.com, and oilofolay.com. Furthermore, Plant overlooks the physical environments within which women’s access to the Internet takes place. For example, the Internet Café is often seen as exemplary of a gender-neutral public space. Yet emerging fieldwork on cybercafés confounds this picture. While new gender alliances are being forged through interactions between computers, staff, and customers at cybercafés, old stereotypes of gender and technology are also in evidence. Most obviously, women’s bodies are used to encapsulate the cybervibe of the café, as in the recurring sculpture of glossy red lips clamped around a computer disc. Observers of Internet use conclude that specific local cultures of place and space, including the “offline landscapes” of cybercafés, are decisive in interpreting the feminist potential of the Net.27 For most women, however, their main encounter with computers is at the workplace. Computing remains a very male industry, with women having limited career prospects in the information technology, electronics, and communications sector. More broadly, the shift to the information or knowledge economy has been marked by an enormous growth among contingent workers, with women making up the majority of part-time and temporary workers. This increase in flexible work could not have occurred without the proliferation of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) that support it. Changes to work organization as a result of computerization have been mixed. As well as enhancing opportunities for autonomy and control, many working women identify the move from typewriters to computers, for example, with the intensification and monitoring of work. The dramatic growth in economic inequality between women with very different qualifications, skills, and labor market resources makes it impossible to generalize about women’s experiences with computers. The “feminization of work” that Plant lauds is characterized as much by a proliferation of casual, low-paid jobs as by high-flying globally wired

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women. New technologies may be “epistemologically open,” but many of its current forms are similar in their material relations to preexisting technologies.

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Conclusion Cyberfeminists are excited by the possibilities that the Web offers to women. They have moderated the tendency in “second-wave” feminism to portray women as victims by stressing their agency and capacity for empowerment. Young women in particular are orienting and experiencing themselves in relation to new media technologies, differently from previous generations. New communication technologies have certainly brought about new techniques for sociality and new ways of gender-bending. While there is a thrilling quality to these pioneering endeavors, we must not be hypnotized by the hype that is now ubiquitous. There is a risk that the focus on cyberspace as the site of innovative subjectivities, which challenge existing categories of gender identity, may exaggerate its significance. Throughout cyberfeminist thought, there is tension between the utopian and the descriptive. The utopian imagining is attractive and can provide a critical perspective on existing social relationships. This is especially valuable in the current political climate, where neoliberal ideologies predominated after the end of the Cold War. However, the force of utopian thinking derives precisely from being about a place that does not exist, in the light of which the present can be criticized. Utopia is about no-where, not now-here. By conflating this distinction, cyberfeminism presents the utopian imagining of cyberspace as a more-or-less adequate description of aspects of what currently exists. If what is imagined is in the process of becoming, there is no need for politics to bring it into being. In this way, cyberfeminism is postfeminist. Technology itself replaces the need for programs of social and political change. The very value of utopian thinking is undermined. Its value is precisely to create a space between contemporary experience and political desires and to turn them optimistically toward the construction of new forms of politics. This has always been the project of feminism and was one of the reasons for its hostility toward deterministic social theories. The underlying critique holds good even where what is determined is said to be in the interests of women. It would be unwise to presume that the direction of technological change has simply changed sides to benefit women where once it benefited men. The uncritical implications of the conflation of the utopian and the descriptive is more straightforward in the arguments by writers like Castells and Rheingold discussed at the start of the chapter. The virtual networks that embody freedom and represent “communities of choice” are described in terms that are reminiscent of neoliberal values of individual choice and voluntary association. The disembodied character of these values has been the subject of

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powerful feminist criticism over the last few decades. It is not just that technology is seen as an alternative to politics. On closer examination, the values that these writers embrace are themselves bound up with much that feminists have criticized. Utopian thinking is indispensable to feminist politics, but it needs a clearer distinction between description and imagination to play a useful role. Plant’s strength is her deployment of metaphors to transform the way in which we think about the woman-machine relationship. However, even as metaphors, they are somewhat strained. The fluidity and mobility of the nomadic subject exploring the Net utilizes the metaphor of exploration and travel, suggesting that it is close to female experience. The narrative of a journey is central to much Utopian thought, yet it is much more an expression of masculinity. Noting the proliferation of vocabularies of travel in cultural criticism, Janet Wolff argues that just as there are real disparities in women’s access to, and modes of, travel, so the use of metaphors of travel necessarily produces androcentric tendencies in theory.28 Western masculine narratives traditionally view travel as an escape from feminine domesticity; the site of stasis and containment. While men take to the road or to the information superhighway to find themselves, and social theorists embrace mobilities, circulating networks, and liquid modernity as their central concerns, women keep the home fires burning as they did in the physically proximate communities that virtual networks are held to have replaced.29 Romanticized ideas of virtual voyages similarly echo the gendered division of human activity in which the male life of the mind is valued over women’s confinement to the visceral body. As feminists have long pointed out, the embodied and situated nature of knowledge has been denied precisely because it is based upon the invisible work of women. Rather than dreaming of a flight from the body, feminism has argued for men to be fully embodied and to take their share of emotional, caring, and domestic work. To express this in computer jargon, an emancipatory politics of technology requires more than hardware and software, it needs wetware—bodies, fluids, and human agency.

Notes * This chapter draws substantially on Judy Wajcman, TechnoFeminism (London, 2004). 1. For an extensive overview of these early debates, see Wajcman, Feminism Confronts Technology (Cambridge, 1991). 2. Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, 2nd ed. (Oxford and Malden, Mass., 2000 [1996]); Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge, 1990). 3. Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York, 2000). 4. Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital (Sydney, 1995); Castells, Rise of the Network Society; Castells, The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society (Oxford, 2001), 91. 5. Negroponte, Being Digital.

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6. Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (London, 1962). 7. Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community (New York, 1994). 8. Castells, Rise of the Network Society. 9. Ibid., 131. 10. Castells, Internet Galaxy. 11. Ibid., 46–47. 12. Negroponte, Being Digital; Rheingold, Virtual Community. 13. Jonathan Coopersmith, “Pornography, Technology and Progress,” Icon 4 (1998): 94–125. 14. Sadie Plant, Zeroes and Ones: Digital Women and the New Technoculture (London, 1998), 37–38. 15. Plant, ‘On the Matrix: Cyberfeminist Simulations,’ in Cultures of Internet:Virtual Spaces, Real Histories, Living Bodies, ed. Rob Shields (London, 1996), 181–82. 16. Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (New York, 1995), 12. 17. Ibid., 314. 18. Allucquere R. Stone, The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age (Cambridge, Mass., 1995), chap. 3. 19. Ruth Oldenziel, ‘Of Old and New Cyborgs: Feminist Narratives of Technology,’ Letterature D’America 14, no. 55 (1994): 103. 20. Edgar Whitley, “In Cyberspace All They See Is Your Words: A Review of the Relationship between Body, Behaviour and Identity Drawn from the Sociology of Knowledge,” OCLC Systems and Services 13, no. 4 (1997): 152–63. 21. Plant, “On the Matrix,” 180. 22. Anne-Marie Schleiner, “Does Lara Croft Wear Fake Polygons? Gender and GenderRole Subversion in Computer Adventure Games,” Leonardo 34, no. 4 (2001): 221–26. 23. Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins, “Chess for Girls? Feminism and Computer Games,” in From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games, eds. Cassell and Jenkins (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), 30. 24. McLuhan, Gutenberg Galaxy. 25. Paul Jones, “The Technology Is Not the Cultural Form? Raymond Williams’s Sociological Critique of Marshall McLuhan,” Canadian Journal of Communication Corporation 23 (1998): 423–54. 26. Raymond Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form (London, 1974), 127. 27. Nina Wakeford, “Gender and the Landscapes of Computing in an Internet Café,” in Virtual Geographies: Bodies, Spaces and Relations, eds. Mike Crang, Philip Crang, and Jon May (London, 1998), 178–201; Sonja Liff, Fred Steward, and Peter Watts, “New Public Places for Internet Access: Networks for Practice-Based Learning and Social Inclusion,” in Virtual Society? Technology, Cyberbole, Reality, ed. Steve Woolgar (Oxford, 2002), 78–98; New Media & Society 5, no. 3 (2003), special issue on cybercafés. 28. Janet Wolff, “On the Road Again: Metaphors of Travel in Cultural Criticism,” Cultural Studies 7, no. 2 (1995): 224–39. 29. John Urry, Sociology beyond Society (London, 2000); Bruno Latour, Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies (Cambridge, Mass., 1999); Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge, 2000).

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Part III

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PLURALIST HISTORIES OF SCIENCE, INNOVATION, AND WAR

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Peter Burke

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CHAPTER

6

Innovation, Diverse Knowledges, and the Presumed Singularity of Science

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JOHN V. PICKSTONE

We live in a world characterized by innovation—by rapid changes in work and personal life; new forms of communication and globalization, and new techniques in informatics, agriculture, and medicine. Much of this novelty we associate with science and with scientific technology; we tend to see science as the major driver of innovation, including social and cultural innovations that may well have different roots. At least in Britain, governments dealing with contentious technical issues such as foot and mouth diseases or genetic engineering now summon expert reports on “science” as a basis for policy. Science thus tends to be reified—as if coming in packages to which nonscientists must accommodate themselves. It comes from “scientists” as from a club that includes physicists but not economists or literary analysts. In this chapter I suggest that we might benefit from focusing on these formulations and asking whether they are inevitable. I do not suggest that our handling of innovative technologies depends heavily on our understanding of science, but I do think the links are significant, both at the level of discourse and of institutions. So perhaps scholars could contribute to present debates, albeit indirectly, by calling into question the framing of the issues, and especially by historical reflection on the meanings of “science.” We now have many good studies of “science in society,” both historical and contemporary, but they tend to be of particular cases. They are rich in detail; but it is not always clear how they are supposed to “add up.” Some recent and interesting overviews of contemporary science have stimulated welcome Notes for this section begin on page 131.

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debate about the relationship between academic science and industry and government, but public discussion is not sustained in the way one might hope.1 Faced with imaginative general theses, scholars tend to snipe into their professional journals, while journalists and the public turn from difficult structural issues to find excitement in narratives of discovery, promise, and threat. And our general histories of science do not help much in this respect; few scholarly overviews have been written of late, though the old ones seem dated; so it is difficult to “place” the scientific present, and to measure the directions and rates of change. It is hard to get an overview of changing knowledges and practices, and of how conceptions of science may have changed. In this chapter I tentatively suggest that we might think more clearly about such matters if we no longer used the word “science” in that “singular” and restricted way now characteristic of the English-speaking world. I am unsure of the extent to which usage varies in other major languages, but colleagues tell me that English language uses are increasingly influential in continental Europe. Certainly, we need comparative studies to better understand our present views of “science” and whence they came; but as a start, in the hope of stimulating research, I offer this account based on Britain. I am suggesting that the British usage of “science” was a creation of the nineteenth century. We can begin to see how it was created, and understand the reasons why; but this usage was not inevitable, and it may no longer be advisable. When I use the term Science as an actor’s term for a unified activity, it will be capitalized and/or in quotes. I am hardly the first to suggest that the use of the word “science” may be a problem. In common English language usage the distinction between science and technology is unclear, and “scientific” may refer to technological process or to the products. Most intellectuals know that the English word “science” is used largely as a unitary term for the “natural sciences” (physical and biological) to the exclusion of social sciences and other scholarly activities that are included under the German Wissenschaft. Some will know that the French are less inclined to use the singular “science,” preferring, for example, to write about the history of the sciences. So why are we Anglophones so keen on the term science—under which we seem to include the sum of the various natural sciences, their supposed common features and methods, and the social apparatuses and communities that sustain them? To understand that usage better could be informative for continentals who do not (yet?) share it; it might even be reformative for those of us who live in a country shaped by the Victorians. And perhaps it could help reframe our histories of British science, which seem to have been built on a double dose of unity—a Unity of Science created by the Victorians, and a history of a Unit of Science re-created by historians in the post-World War II decades when Science was portrayed as the successful response of liberal societies to the challenge of fascism. We can begin to unearth the Victorians by digging underneath these post-World War II histories.

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Science as Seen Post-World War II Historians and philosophers of science writing in English in the post-World War II decades were keen on observing the singular history of science, including the scientific revolution and the scientific method. Philosophers then tried to characterize the method in terms of the inductive process and the relationships between observations and theory; but as that project bogged down they shifted to rationalist accounts of scientific change and theory choice that they tried to support by “rational reconstructions” of scientific research programs. Their critics, including the philosophical dadaist Paul Feyerabend, systematically undermined these cases, arguing that scientific method was whatever scientists could get away with and yet come to be counted as major contributors to their disciplines. For him, major scientific innovations always involved shifts of method; it was not possible to specify in advance which methods were acceptable.2 The debate helped energize some historical studies but professional philosophers of science seemed to lose interest in method, preferring metaphysics.3 Postwar historians of science sought the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century, evoking mathematics, the mechanical philosophy, and experimentation as components of the major intellectual shift that separated the modern world from its past, and that shaped the essence of Science thereafter. But then, in order to include chemistry, “the revolution” had to be drawn-out to the end of the eighteenth century. If biology was to be created by the Darwinian revolution after 1859, then the scientific revolution had to extend across 250 years.4 But what about Einstein, or quantum theory? Or the physicisthistorian Thomas Kuhn’s claim in 1962 that the “normal sciences” that we took for granted were created and recreated by revolutions in particular fields—under which Kuhnian scheme there is no reason to expect any end to revolutions. Science becomes a set of disciplines any of which may develop anomalies to the point where a revolution of fundamentals becomes inevitable. And inasmuch as such normal sciences were specialized communities, there is no more reason to assume that they could speak easily to each other at any given time than to suppose they could speak clearly across their own revolutions. Most historians now are pluralist in their practice and in their assumptions; they make a living from demonstrating the specificities of scientific practices and their relationships to local contexts. A high-quality literature has now built up, querying the presumptions of the postwar scholars, arguing against unity, and against any strong internal logic of science such as had allowed earlier “internalist” scholars to relegate “social factors” to the margins of the history of science. For postwar sociologists of science, the social machinery was understood merely as ensuring the resources for science and maintaining the standards, but not as affecting the content; for later social historians, a scien-

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tist’s choice of topic, materials, methods, audience, and standards are always in question, and are thus of concern to history—as a multitude of essays has shown. But if historians and sociologists have come to stress variety, this still appears as variations on a single, very fuzzy, species—science. And in common discussion, when generalizations are sought, the variety tends to gives way to a unity, and we are back with singular Science, or perhaps with disciplines assumed to be stable. For some purposes that is fine, but maybe we do need to inquire as to whether alternative models are available that put down some markers of difference, some middle-range characteristics between unity and infinite variety. That was one of my aims in writing Ways of Knowing.5 I wanted to develop a framework that would allow an analysis of STM in both past and present, without assuming the primacy and unity of Science, or relying unduly (or primarily) on disciplines or periods. I tried to include social and cultural sciences, as well as general theories of nature, whether formalized, informal, or implicit. I wanted a frame in which innovative cultures might be discussed without drawing lines between Science and the rest. In such an account, if carried through properly, Science would be replaced by its components, except when we want to discuss the presentational politics of Science as a unity. That is a tall order, and I would not have had the ambition or the courage had I not known that such a frame already existed for part of my academic field. Historians of medicine already had such a model, which they regularly used in teaching. They knew how to think of medicine as containing the biographical elements that linked the natural history of people, environments, and diseases. They could also trace the history of an analytic dimension in medicine, perhaps from the clinical examinations and the dissected pauper corpses of Paris hospitals after the Revolution. Furthermore, they could tell you about experimentalists in medicine—those who worked on animals, and those who arranged elaborate clinical trials. They knew too about the symbolism of health and disease, the meanings of sickness and well-being that go beyond the natural sciences. And they could see that all these elements—all these ways or knowing and working, from the symbolic to the experimental, are present in medicine now. Why is it that no one did that for other sciences and technologies—say, for chemistry or for engineering? And if they succeeded, would that afford a way of picturing the histories of the sciences (and associated practices) as a configuration of approaches, changing over time? Would that help us to dissect the sciences more systematically, and to see why and how unified notions of Science were put together and sold to publics and governments? And if we better understood those operational and presentational dynamics, would we be able the better to see the changing configurations among which we live now? Could medicine, in all it manifest variety, be a guide to a richer understanding of the forbidding unity of Science?

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Ways of Knowing As a focus for discussing innovation past and present, medicine has many advantages. No one worries much about what is medicine and what is not (though quarrels between “orthodox” and “alternative” have been endemic at many times and places). Historians of medicine do not try to judge what can be classed as medicine and what is to be regarded as “external.” They accept the fact that medicine runs into daily patterns of eating, into philosophy of the body and mind, and into the economics of populations or international corporations. That is the joy of the subject and also its promise; it can be shared with wider publics, all of whom having some direct acquaintance with medicine. Public discussions of medicine are generally better grounded then for “science”; we all know, for example, that modern medicine takes many forms. Though it is sometimes presented in the media as a monolith, most people, from experience, have some idea how to break it up and to link the bits to life. But other sciences and technologies might also be seen in this way—as compounded of natural history, analysis, experiment, and invention—all wrapped in meanings. And if dissected in this way, these elements would naturally link with social sciences, literary studies, and other aspects of our common life. There would be no need, for us, to reify Science; we could relate the elements directly to the issues at hand. We could see where they led us—in the past and for our now. Natural history, for example, often gets lost from Science. It may be seen as important for the early modern period and for Enlightenment classification, as popular science or a background to Darwin, but most histories of science treated description and classification as preparatory or marginal, and related them only to rocks, plants, and animals. I wanted to expand the category and the range, to follow seventeenth-century usages to include medicine, chemistry, crafts, and the accounts of “torturing” nature that went into experimental histories. So medical case histories and histories of epidemics are included as natural history, along with information on the best way of staying healthy or living with disease. Much of chemistry was “natural history” and craft until the eighteenth century, and those aspects remained important, not the least for organic chemistry; think of all the catalogs of the chemicals in the world—useful and harmful, synthetic and natural. The same could be said of physical sciences. Many new phenomena were discovered in the nineteenth century; they added to the natural history of the inorganic world—for instance, fluorescence and the radioactivity of certain heavy metals. That some new phenomena were discovered in laboratories rather than “in nature” may hide this “extension of nature” after 1800; so too does our habit of recasting “outdoor physics” as meteorology or glaciology or some such science. Nor do we normally think of technical specifications as natural history, but why not? They list for us the constituents of the world of artifice that makes up most of our environment. We need infor-

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mation about the world of artifacts and of people, and we have enormous collections of such information in catalogs and collections, data banks, population counts, survey results, patents libraries, and sets of specifications for trades. If we call it “Science,” we scare people away; call it “history” or “information,” and they may be more inclined to celebrate. Most areas in which we collect information may also be the subject of analysis, but only if we can find “elements” by which we can reduce data to structured order. The complex movements of planets were the subject of mathematical analysis from the time of the Greeks, and earthly motions could be analyzed in the same way starting with the seventeenth century; but most of our other forms of analysis date from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries. For example, it was from about 1800 that diseases began to be understood as lesions of body parts, rather than as disturbances of a body’s nature. Modes of bodily analysis multiplied, so that hospital laboratories now contain many different analytic methods, from gross pathology and microscopy to immunology and DNA profiling. “Analysis,” as a general principle, was much discussed in the eighteenth century, but has rarely been featured among the topics of formal philosophy in the twentieth century. Experiment, by contrast, has been a leading term, along with “theory” and “observation.” We shall discuss experiments in a moment, but here suggest that the usual binary oppositions—for physics (theory and experiment) or for biology (observation and experiment)—leave no room for major analytic sciences such as stratigraphy, analytic engineering, pathology, or spectroscopy. Dividing scientific work into observation and experiment also hides the historical relations between the natural sciences and such social and cultural sciences as political economy and philology. The configuration of STM look very different, and the second scientific revolution is transformed, if we recognize the centrality and commonality of analysis. Analysis finds new “depths” so that familiar “kinds” of stuff can be seen as juxtapositions—of strata in geology, as organs made from tissues in anatomy, as chemical compounds in chemistry, or as systems of fertility and land-rents in political economy. In some fields, for instance, the new 19c sciences of light or heat or magnetism, a single “element” was followed through. And with elements came the principles of their actions—the order of strata, the combining powers of chemical elements, the pressure of population growth, the sensitivity or irritability of tissues, and so forth. Those who can recognize the composition of such compounds, and who know these regularities and laws, can therefore predict their behavior—fallibly no doubt, but perhaps more reliably than observers who simply relied on experience and associations. Hence the typical use of analysis in technical fields, including medicine, tends to rationalize and refine existing procedures. The analysis of weaving was a preliminary to its mechanization; the analysis of drugs and of diseases as lesions allowed a certain standardization of medical practice, at least for practice on the poor.

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If we were more ready to speak of analysis across the scholarly disciplines, from physics to politics, sociology, and literature, then we would more easily see the historical connections. More importantly, we might better see how different disciplines may contribute to the analysis of complex problems such as genetic engineering or environmental management that are paradigmatic for our public disputes over innovations. But what of experimentation? Is not experimentation the characteristic of Science, marking it off from other subjects? Here again, history is useful; in most sciences experimentation was securely established only from the mid nineteenth century. Many sciences are not experimental, even now; experimentation is but a part of science and medicine. In my book Ways of Knowing I showed how sophisticated experimentation depended on analysis, but involved a different outlook that stressed creation and novelty more than dissection and diagnosis. For example, some chemists, in the 1860s, claimed to go beyond analysis to synthesis; they had sufficient command over elements and compounds to envisage or create compounds at will, maybe compounds that had not previously existed. There were demonstrable similarities (and indeed close historical connections) between this pride in synthesis and the advocacy of “controlled experiments” in physiology. Animal experimentation was seen as controlling the elements of the body so as to produce phenomena at will; the emphasis was on product rather than on analysis. Of course, experimentation is problematic when human subjects are involved; medical scientists have used animals or tissue cultures wherever possible. But there are ways of experimenting in therapeutics, using volunteers in controlled trials to compare treated groups with controls, and there may be room for experimentation in social organization. Only after such experimentation are new medicines now introduced to the public (though even then, the natural history of their effects should be carefully observed), but the rules are different for social and managerial innovations. These are often introduced without tests, and the subjects are not volunteers. In such areas, where there is a premium on administering novelty, where remedies are often devised by traveling consultants, and where effects are hard to measure, one finds conditions similar to those under which medical quackery long thrived. In such areas, a cautious, analytic and experimental approach would have much to offer—provided it is not supposed that quantitation is the essence of experimentation, or that routines borrowed from other fields of study remove the necessity for critical analysis of proposals and results. Indeed, one advantage of our better appreciating the variety of approaches and methods in and around the natural sciences could be to sharpen questions about the choice of methods and to reduce the seductive appeal of uncritical scientism.6 And so to meanings—to the cultural framings of investigated worlds, of the research activity, and of its results, including the changing symbolic meanings of “nature” and of “science.” It is a commonplace of medical sociology that

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the meanings of disease for patients go beyond the natural history (e.g., that “the flu is going round”) to include the symbolic and “cultural” (e.g., my susceptibility to the flu is a cross that I have to bear); understanding such aspects of the disease is part of the task of a good doctor or therapist. Similarly, we know informally that public attitudes toward the environment, toward risk, or toward the beginnings and ends of human life are major determinants of public opinion on disputed questions of technical policies. I am suggesting that we might routinely include this level of understanding in our accounts of the sciences, past and present, not just when we are discussing “publics” but when we discuss professionals. There is a huge literature on science and religion, especially for the eighteenth century, but we often assume that this is marginal to secularists in the more recent West. For sure, elite Western cultures no longer see disease or epidemics as acts of God, and the connections of scientific disciplines with theology have been regarded since the early nineteenth century as a matter of personal conviction rather than as professional competence. But our overall attitudes to nature remain very important in determining policy and public responses, in public matters as well as private. The relations of fact and values are crucial, and bio-ethicists now help focus public debates. Any full account of the history of STM must be broad enough to include these issues, present and past. And any full account of technological innovation must likewise allow for the symbolic and cultural meanings of the technology, including its supposed derivation from Science. That Science is often unified and reified is crucial to studies of the meaning and use of technologies. It is from the cultural meanings of Science that many of the contemporary meanings of technology, and indeed of innovation, are derived; and if we can deconstruct the meanings of science, then we will have crossed some of the barriers that separate us from an adequate deconstruction of technology. As I tried to show in my book Ways of Knowing we are, in fact, not unaccustomed to dissecting technologies into crafts, factory production, or invention and its systematization. These “elements” of complex technologies are not far from our common understandings; they are the ways in which economic historians would discuss the development, say, of the car industry. They are potentially helpful inasmuch as we can easily see that they have different kinds of histories and social relations—crafts, for example, are long-standing and usually transmitted, systematic inventions dating from about 1870 and demands considerable social organization and education. If we can see how these elements of technology, or Ways of Working, fit together in history and in our present, then we have a good model for understanding technological innovation, including its cultural meanings. But we also have a good route to better understanding Ways of Knowing in Science. There is synergy here; indeed, there is a virtuous circle. Dissecting technologies helps us dissect Science, and dissecting Science will encourage us

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to see technologies not as Applied Science, but as complex sets of Ways of Working. Dissection, on both fronts, helps us get behind the separate and combined rhetorical unities of Science and Technology. But however far we can get as analysts, we must never forget the power of the rhetorics in question; deconstruction does not abolish that power, but it may help us understand its creation and operations.

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Pluralist Histories of Sciences and Suchlike If we think of sciences and technologies as made up of many elements and methods, wrapped in many kinds of meaning, the history will look very different from the post-World War II model. And the history of STM will have many key developments that are best not collapsed into one revolution. As we have noted, the creation of naturalism might be regarded as a Greek achievement, but the naturalization of key areas of the personal/symbolic has been persistently contentious. If analysis were to be the preferred criterion, then again the Greeks have it—for planetary astronomy—though the invention of “pragmatic elements” would point to the late eighteenth century. If we focus on experiment, then the seventeenth century has claims in mechanics, but much would then hang on the distinction between experimental discovery and experimental demonstration; and experimentalism based on analysis was not common until the nineteenth century. If we are interested in cosmologies, then the mechanization of the world picture may loom large for the seventeenth century—though less large than it did when biology and medicine and crafts were marginal to the historical disciplines. And if, instead, we stick to physical sciences, then the claims of a possible third revolution become significant—for the development of relativity and quantum physics in the early twentieth century. If we shift from method and ideas to look at social organization, then the claims of the seventeenth century rest on scientific academies and journals— but societies of physicians are earlier, and universities and their medical schools much earlier. Professional schools in the modern sense date from the late eighteenth century, universities in the modern sense from the early nineteenth, national scientific organizations from around 1830, and industrial science from about 1870. At this level, the rapid expansion of technoscience since World War II and the commercialization of much academic science at the end of the twentieth century would also have claims to be revolutionary. The general answer seems clear: there is little advantage in retaining scientific revolutions except for specified purposes—yours or theirs! So first define your problem, then look for its history and find its key periods; or identify your actors and ask what they were doing when they made claims for “revolution” in their own subjects or more generally. In either of these frames, there

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will be many revolutions to be found, partly because many scientific methods were involved, as I hope I have shown. But if all of those possibilities are open to us now, then we return with increased puzzlement to the main historical question of this chapter: Why was the unity of Science a major nineteenth-century assumption and a major scholarly theme in the postwar decades? And why is it a common assumption in science-politics now?

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Why then Was Science Singular? To answer such a question means putting together a variety of historical studies that were not focused on this point. It might suggest that we examine questions of unity/diversity for science as we would for the history of religious denominations or for religious activities more generally; and that we compare the politics of physics with those of chemistry or physiology, say, both in universities and in national associations; and of course, that we undertake serious research across nations. My purpose in this chapter is to suggest the advantages of alternative views of science, but if we wish to transcend this singularity, it may be helpful to see what kinds of explanation of singularity may be available—at least for Britain. As my Cambridge colleagues Andrew Cunningham and Perry Williams7 have amply underlined in their very suggestive study, the use of the term Science in the modern British sense is an early nineteenth century invention. It was connected with the origins of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), and with the neologism “scientist” coined by William Whewell, the Cambridge natural philosopher, to describe the various enthusiasts who might be brought under the banner of the BAAS.8 Before 1800, the word “science” had usually referred to knowledge in general, including the knowledge components of learned “arts” such as medicine. “Physiology,” then, was the theory of medicine; and such knowledges made up natural philosophy—that part of philosophy that explained the workings of the world of nature, as opposed to the world of men. Inasmuch as the philosophers were mostly Christian, natural philosophy and moral philosophy were bound up with theology. If we think in terms of ways of knowing, then eighteenth-century natural philosophy was a system of meanings that partly derived from the analytic successes of the seventeenth century, when mathematicians had shown that the movement of the planets were best explained by the Copernican system and that the same mathematical laws explained the motions of bodies on earth. Through these achievements, the “mechanical” version of natural philosophy had substantially displaced the Christian-Aristotelian accommodation of the later Middle Ages. Much of physiology, for example, had come to be cast in a mechanical or Newtonian mode, and social philosophers had begun to look

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for the laws of societal motion. But most such work was indeed “philosophical” inasmuch as it was limited to the reinterpretation of known phenomena rather than the accumulation of facts or the extension of analytic explanations. In Britain, then, analytic work was called “mixed mathematics” and enjoyed less status than on the Continent; the accumulation of data and specimens was the sphere of natural history, which enjoyed high prestige, partly through its connections with landed estates, agriculture, mining and imperial explorations. While mixed mathematics, like physiology and much of chemistry, was for the occupationally committed, natural history was open to gentlemen who dominated the Royal Society of London. In England’s state-church-universities, especially Cambridge, natural history and Newtonian natural philosophy were closely tied to natural theology. Such was the knowledge configuration of England’s ancien régime.9 But by 1830, through the changes now known as the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, the social and intellectual landscape was very different. France had a set of professional colleges and state museums through which several new analytic disciplines had been set out in textbooks—then a new form of writing. France had become the acknowledged intellectual leader in mathematical physics and engineering theory, and in the new sciences of zoology, botany, mineralogy, general anatomy, and experimental physiology. The new chemistry was also identified with France, and so was much of the new animal morphology and some geology. In Germany, the reform of universities had established “research” as a goal; and research schools had been developed in philology, mathematics, and chemistry; animal morphology and analytic embryology were conspicuously German. In England, alongside the literary and philosophical societies, more specialized societies were developing in London and in the provinces—for natural history, antiquarianism, geology, phrenology and social statistics. Provincial medical societies encouraged intellectual activity among doctors, and most cities had informal groupings of chemists who also looked to France and Germany. But England was more than a follower. Through the Royal Institution in London, Britons had made major contributions to chemistry and to the science of electricity; the Geological Society in London was an international focus for stratigraphy; and between Scotland and London, political economy had emerged as the most British of the new analytic sciences.10 In most of these subjects, the majority of British adherents were amateurs, often working at the level of natural history; but the experts, whether professionals or amateurs, followed and contributed to new analytic formations that were seen as substantially continental. In continental Europe, the institutions that formed the sciences had been created by governments, not by public campaigns; nor were the associated configurations of knowledge much shaped by general intellectual periodicals or middle-class meetings. In the peculiar crucible of partly industrial Britain, how-

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ever, the image of Science could not emerge from state-funded professional colleges or from research-minded universities because none of these existed, at least in England. Savants were amateurs, schoolteachers, or odd fellows in the two ancient universities. Science for England was constructed as a cause—in campaigns and by public debates; it predated the institutions it would help create. We can begin to get a sense of this construction by considering three generations of English activists, who busy around 1830, 1860, and 1880.

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Cambridge Savants and the Reinforcement of the Old Order One reading of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), as founded in 1831, sees a consolidation of provincial scientific societies into a national, middle class, peripatetic, campaigning organization comparable with the beginnings of the British Medical Association, or indeed with the campaign for Free Trade. On this reading, the BAAS was symptomatic of the age of reform, as driven from the newly industrial provinces by young businesspeople and professionals; Science was part of the creed of reformers, as they attacked the rotten institutions of “old corruption.”11 But like the story of medical reform in Britain, or indeed that of politics generally, that rise of British public Science turns out to be a matter of accommodation rather than of replacement. Provincial pressures in fact helped metropolitan reformers to modernize the decayed and threatened agencies of the ancien régime, rather than replacing them. Though coordinating provincial activity and boosting the public image of the sciences were indeed among the chief purposes of the BAAS, by the mid 1830s the enthusiasm of the local societies in the new industrial cities was being directed by gentlemanly experts based in Cambridge and London. They were mostly Oxbridge teachers or devotees with private incomes, and they were secure enough not to be primarily concerned with professionalization. They were not advocates for the particular disciplines they helped lead; rather they wanted to secure respect for Science. They looked for reform of the Royal Society, and to place experts above aristocrats, but they abhorred the “French materialism” then evident in some medical schools and among the elites of the emergent working class. As S. F. Cannon showed, Science for the Cambridge network remained, essentially, a system of natural philosophy, underpinning theology. In my terms, the new analytic sciences were deliberately bound into an older natural philosophy. The BAAS was organized in sections, but this was no federation of equals: the key sciences were physical; at the apex was astronomy.12 This was the oldest analytic science, but it was not presented as a technical specialism—rather as the archetype of mathematical natural philosophy, sanctified by Newton and long-established through the Greenwich observatory and the post of astronomer royal. Geology (stratigraphy)—the favorite of landed gentlemen—was the ranking nonmathematical science; medicine and engineering were marginal. Political economy—though a very British form of analysis—was not

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included, nor were philology or archaeology. That the word “science” was being appropriated for natural sciences, to the exclusion of the “moral sciences” and other forms of knowledge, did not go unnoticed.13 The scope and the shape of the BAAS version of Science be seemed natural, not the least post World War II, but the story is more complex than such similarities may suggest. The next generation of advocates of Science, who came to prominence about 1850, were worlds away from the first gentlemen of the BAAS.

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Metropolitan Naturalists and Free Inquiry By the mid-1850s within the British government there was a Department of Science and Art—formed by adding Science to the department of Practical Art (i.e., industrial design). The profits of the 1851 Great Exhibition were targeted for new museums in South Kensington, and a new generation of young men were emerging as spokespersons for Science. But as we know from the excellent work of Roy Macleod, Adrian Desmond, and others, T. H. Huxley and his friends in London were not Oxbridge graduates; nor were they devout; they were mostly freethinkers from humble backgrounds. For them, science was a profession that the state ought to fund, chiefly because research produced material advancement—or “public goods” in the language of political economy. The young advocates pursued their analytic disciplines that they saw as distinct, but they did so in the collective name of Science. Huxley, as professor of Natural History in the Museum in School of Mines was the great proponent of biology as the analytic science life. His group were biologists or would-be physicists, without much earning potential. Their common banner, one might say, covered the weakness of their disciplinary prospects.14 Necessitousness, one might argue, was a mother of their Unity Some of the new men of science, and especially those who had studied in Germany, saw the future in terms of new university posts; others gave preference to the provision of public laboratories and state funding for researchers. The new men presented Science not as a stable system of belief proved by time, but as open enquiry respecting no authority but nature; in this respect it epitomized liberal individualism. Science was also practical knowledge, oriented to the future and productive of material benefits. Huxley was not himself an experimenter, but he stressed experimentalism, or more generally the importance of “hands”-on experience, especially for medical students and intending teachers. If Science was organized common sense, that sense was common to the sciences. And if Science did not wholly exhaust the scope of rational inquiry, it was surely the model of productive investigation.15 It seems likely that Huxley and his friends saw the new analytic sciences in a loosely Comtean series. They did not all reduce to physics; they had independent methods; but mathematics was necessary for physics, physics for chemistry, and all of these for biology, or at least for physiology that used phys-

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ical and chemical tools and explanations. This kind of scheme seems to have been built into new degrees in Science, beginning in the 1850s when the University of London established a Bachelor of Science and a Faculty of Science; and this was influential inasmuch as the University of London was the examining body for many of the nation’s smaller colleges. Historians have yet to explore the ways in which “prerequisite” courses may have moulded the collective identity of specialists in different disciplines, separating them perhaps from subjects that did not share these ontogenetic pathways. (One hardly need note that sociology was then but an intellectual interest of writers and social reformers— or that Auguste Comte was little followed in suggesting that the series of natural sciences was essential preparation for sociological analysis.) Intriguingly, however, the national campaign for more teaching and research posts was aided by a vocal group based in Oxford University and led by a classical philologist with German training. It was this group that called for the “endowment of research”—not for Science in the British sense, but for Wissenschaft. But Oxford was unsympathetic even to scientific classicists, and the group’s national periodical, The Academy, soon reduced its coverage of natural sciences and of scholarly research more generally. It became a literary magazine, and the attempt to professionalize the whole of Wissenschaft along German lines had few echoes.16 Campaigns for research were usually seen as campaigns for Science in the narrow sense.

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University Labs and Fundamental Science From the 1870s and especially from the 1890s, substantial private and government funds were drawn into the support of science. By the end of the century, technical colleges were developing rapidly and some were approaching university standards. The provincial colleges had professorships and other posts in all of the main nineteenth-century sciences, and some had outstanding research schools, especially for chemistry. London had a huge new museum for natural history, two major university colleges, and the complex of government-funded institutions that became Imperial College (for mining, technical education, chemistry, and the physical sciences). Crucially, for our purpose, while Oxford remained dominated by classics and philosophy as components of liberal education, Cambridge had nascent experimentalist laboratories in physics and physiology, as well as great strengths in engineering and mathematics. Contrary to midcentury expectations, Cambridge had become the imperial intellectual capital for these disciplines (though not for chemistry, which thrived in busier places).17 What had happened here, and how is it relevant to our main questions? By the end of the century, the leaders of science were not the young men of the 1850s who had often struggled to create the positions they came to occupy. The next generation’s elite were beneficiaries of that effort; they had the resources to create research schools, especially in Cambridge where college funds were sometimes available and where young men congregated who had

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the private resources to follow intellectual vocations on the edges of established professions. The bread and butter for science came from students seeking degrees, and especially from medical students for whom preclinical laboratory subjects were now compulsory. In some ways, the lobbies for Science were now alliances of university teachers developing “preprofessional” courses and practical classes for doctors and engineers, especially in physiology and physics. But that is not how they saw themselves. Instead, they developed the rhetorics of the midcentury and saw themselves as collectively representing Science, through research and now especially through experiment. For them, clinical medicine, engineering, and industrial chemistry were not professions to which the sciences were preliminary; they were “applied” sciences—at best. At worst they were areas of rote empiricism (read “natural history”?), which might eventually be transformed by the extension of the scientific approach (read “analytic experimentation”?). By forming common cause around Science, physiologists could escape from the medics, and physicists could distance themselves from engineering. They could be fundamental rather than preparatory, especially in Cambridge, which was far removed from industry and had little clinical medicine. There the fundamentals took precedence over “application.”18 But Cambridge, if far from industry, was not far from political power. It was one of the two ancient universities, but it was now open to the nonconformists who had backed local scientific societies and the BAAS though the first three-quarters of the century. Unlike Oxford (which followed in the twentieth century), it had developed research schools in the experimental disciplines. Here, the new sciences were reconnected with social privilege and political influence, especially when, from about 1890, the British state became increasingly worried about the industrial and military challenge from Germany. And from the end of the nineteenth century, Cambridge researchers once again became crucial to the Royal Society that represented Science to the state, issued grants, and provided advice. In 1835, Science in Britain had been a unified creed, connecting new disciplines and new cities. It was allied with state religion, promoted by the BAAS, and centered on the Cambridge network that tried to raise the intellectual standard of the ancien régime, even as it was being bypassed. By the 1860s, Science was a hoped-for set of professional occupations, a federation of analytic disciplines, distanced from the ancient universities, looking for state patronage, presenting itself as the way of the future. By the 1880s, this stress on freethinking had antagonized many and produced a reaction against irreligious, selfserving state-parasites,19 and by then there was a new public creed—about public utility and the role of experts in the state. Concurrently, less publicly, yet crucially for the future shape of Science, experimentalists were establishing themselves inside a citadel of higher education. In Cambridge, where old privilege and endowments could be exploited by new men with lots of students, research

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schools could be created and propagated; experimentalism could thrive where mathematics had been queen. Much of the public rhetoric was about utility for the purposes of industry, or directly for the state; but much of the private investment, especially the investment of talent, was in the sciences which were seen as pure. Physiology had higher prestige than clinical investigations; Sir Ernest Rutherford’s radioactivity studies seemed more fundamental, demanding, and attractive than electro technics. The successes of the experimentalists in higher education’s higher reaches also meant that technologies were more likely to be seen as “applied.” Where once, in medicine or engineering, science was the formal knowledge to which a practitioner appealed at the limits of routines, now it was the fundamental knowledge that practitioners sought to apply in a world that was much more difficult and much less intellectually satisfying than the experimentalist laboratory. The sciences came to form a distinctive region in the universities, bound together by the need for elaborate resources and by linked undergraduate programs. By the Edwardian period, most of the larger universities seem to have had faculties of science, which partially separated Science from the humanities and the social sciences (and from clinical medicine). And as universities pushed for better preparation in schools, so “science streams” became separated from the humanities and languages, both in private boarding schools and in the public grammar schools. By about 1900, universities had become the key agents for the propagation of elite science in Britain; and through the Royal Society, the BAAS, and government grants, academic scientists shared machinery for influence and patronage that were denied to other university subjects.20 Though Oxford had enormous influence in national politics, it was exercized largely via personal contacts. Such fields as history and philology developed in Britain as the universities grew, but they did not have the governmental supports of the sciences; they relied on private monies or public funds that the universities were free to distribute between disciplines as they wished. Around 1905, R. B. Haldane and others promoted universities, not just science, and they recognized the importance of education for commerce and for social investigation. But university professors in Britain never seemed to have developed any collective identity as intellectuals; the scientists hung together, the rest reacted, or so it seems. No one in the aftermath of World War II wrote histories to show the unity of knowledge, or the need for better education in the social sciences. Rather, a history professor wrote a history of Science to show that Science had transformed the world.21

Does it Matter? The questions we have raised suggest many inquiries, both historical and contemporary. We need comparative studies of Germany and the United Kingdom/

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United States, comparing Science and Wissenschaft, in singular and plural forms. Did any country other than Britain, have a century of calls to Science? We also need better studies of present English usages, and to discover how debates around Science and technologies are constructed. For example, for genetic engineering, the British government recently sponsored an inquiry into economic aspects, and another into “the science.” The latter in fact dealt with two issues—safety and possible environmental effects, but it seems unlikely that either issue was best left to natural scientists. Would not experts on risk perception and management or the social sciences of rural (human) life have been useful? So why were these two questions linked and limited as “Science” rather than announced as multidisciplinary inquiries into questions of safety or environmental protections? Inserting “science” here seems designed more to confuse and exclude, than to clarify and include. It may also direct attention away from the technology as such; we go directly from Science to economics, and on to public impacts. We are encouraged to think of new knowledge being applied in an economic frame, but we are not encouraged to ask about the technologies currently in play, about the possibilities they hold, about the social relations they incorporate, and the social systems of which they are a part. Similarly, inquiries into foot and mouth disease were divided into three parts—on “the science,” the handling of the last epidemic, and lessons to be learned—a division that again is hard to explain except by the institutional alignments. Two of the inquiries were around specific questions, with staff chosen to fit; the other was given to the Royal Society, as representing Science, even though the Royal Society had been heavily involved in the formulation of emergency policies. The government’s chief scientific adviser had brought in a mathematical epidemiologist recommended by the previous adviser who was now president of the Royal Society. That none of these scientists had much experience with animal diseases mattered less than the cerebral authority of the Royal Society to sort out any problem that counted as Science— even when that problem might have been seen as primarily a disease of the rural economy, caused in part by failure to learn from history and by failure to update emergency plans.22 But to get that focus means thinking of modern husbandry as a complex technological system, with many elements—biological, technical, economic, and social. The pathologies of such a system, whether epidemic or endemic, require experts’ inputs form many disciplines, each open to interactions. There is no good reason why economic analysis should be separated from population modeling—historically they have much the same roots and methods. In facing complex technological problems we should use several forms of analysis, plus various other ways of knowing and working. For example, we need lots of basic information about plants, animals, and people—and our thinking of them all as aspects of natural history may avoid distortions and gaps. Likewise, if we stop pretending that experiments are pivotal to all natural sci-

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ences and irrelevant elsewhere, we might get a healthier estimate of the limitations of natural sciences, and be spurred to careful experiment in social matters. And if we take care to remember the symbolic and emotional aspects of all knowledge and practices, we may be better ready to appreciate the huge emotional and moral costs of such epidemics and the associated technologies of control. More generally, public debates over Science are no longer about theology, or even about the support of scientific research; they are about the handling of complex sociotechnical problems and the need for expertise that is independent of commercial interests; they are about Science and the social order, but usually mediated through many-sided technologies. The choices are not about how much Science we should have; rather, they are about the kinds of sciences that should be developed and used, about who directs research, and about how noncommercial interests can be defended. They need to include explicit attention to the operations of technological systems, including the various kinds of work involved, and the various kinds of inputs—whether crafts or the many kinds of more formal knowledges. Science, as a block, ceases to be a useful category for public debate. Indeed, the monolithic presentation of Science may now be detrimental even for the natural scientists. Of all the self-designations that a researcher in natural sciences might choose, “scientist” seems to be the least popular with the public—better be a cancer researcher or even a chemist. We probably do no one a favor by equating research, or systematic inquiry, or empirical knowledge with Science. Why not, for example, speak of research—in many fields, natural and social; and of the natural history—of many kinds of phenomena; or of analyzing—across all systematic inquiries; and of experimentation—for all systematic, controlled, and analyzed assessments of organized novelty? When the Oxford promoters of “The Academy” launched their multidisciplinary periodical in 1870, they thought it could substitute for the lack of any formal national academy (other than the restricted Royal Society).23 It did not do so, and the gap remains, There are welcome signs that the plurality of knowledge is coming to be recognized, for example, through the formation of a British research council for the arts and humanities. But is there not still room for a national forum where the elites of all disciplines would confer, and that could mobilize experts from all disciplines when their interaction is required by the public interest? One might reply that we cannot afford to lose the mid Victorian notion of Science; that in a world of commerce and instrumental views of knowledge, the echo of Aldous Huxley serves to remind us of unbiased knowledge, free inquiry, and the search for truth. I am inclined to sympathize. We do need more robust procedures to prevent universities from losing a commitment to public knowledge and to the highest standards of criticism and openness. But those standards must apply to all inquiries—in communication technology as well as

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in genetic engineering. I see no public advantages and many disadvantages in grouping some forms of inquiry as Science, and using that unity as a ground for hierarchy and exclusion. Better perhaps to recognize the plurality of practices within STM and their continuity with other forms of disciplined inquiry and practices. That could be one step toward a more common culture, and a recognition that the complex problems of innovation demand all the information and insights we can muster.

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Notes 1. Helga Nowotny, Peter Scott, and Michael Gibbons, Re-Thinking Science. Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty (Cambridge, 2001). 2. Paul Feyerabend, Against Method ( London, 1975). 3. For example, Samir Okasha, Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2002). 4. For a discussion of the historiography, see Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich, Scientific Revolution in National Context (Cambridge, 1992). 5. John V. Pickstone, Ways of Knowing. A New History of Science,Technology and Medicine (Manchester, 2000 and Chicago, 2001). The following section of this chapter is largely drawn from this book. 6. Jerome R. Ravetz, Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems (Oxford, 1971). 7. Andrew Cunningham and Perry Williams. “De-Centring the Big Picture: The Origins of Modern Science and the Modern Origins of Science,” British Journal for the History of Science 26 (1993): 407–32; and Cunningham, “Getting the Game Right; Some Plain Words on the Identity and Invention of Science,” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 19 (1988): 365–89. 8. Jack Morrell and Arnold Thackray, Gentlemen of Science, Early Years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford, 1981): 20. 9. John Heilbron, “A Mathematician’s Mutiny, with Morals,” in World Changes. Thomas Kuhn and the Nature of Science, ed. Paul Horwich (Boston, 1993), 81–129; also Heilbron, “Experimental Natural Philosophy and Simon Schaffer on Natural Philosophy,” in The Ferment of Knowledge. Studies in the Historiography of Eighteenth-Century Science, eds. George S. Rousseau and Roy Porter (Cambridge, 1980). 10. For a review see Colin Russell, Science and Social Change 1700–1900 (London, 1993). 11. The key text is Morrell and Thackray, Gentlemen of Science, which greatly extends the work of Susan F. Cannon, Science in Culture; The Early Victorian Period (New York, 1978), 1–72. 12. Morrell and Thackray, Gentlemen of Science, 28. 13. Ibid., 241. 14. On T. H. Huxley and his friends see the wonderful biography by Adrian Desmond, Huxley; the Devil’s Disciple (London, 1994); and Roy MacLeod, “The X Club. A Social Network of Science in Late Victorian England,” reprinted in MacLeod, “The Creed of Science” in Victorian England (Aldershot, England, 2000). Also the first section of the chapter by Frank Turner, “Public Science in Britain, 1880–1919,” Isis 71 (1980): 589–608. 15. H. E. Roscoe, “Original Research as a Means of Education,” in Essays and Addresses by the Professors and Lecturers of the Owens College Manchester (London, 1874). 16. MacLeod, “The Support of Victorian Science; The Endowment of Research Movement in Great Britain, 1868–1900,” reprinted in MacLeod, Public Science and Public Policy in Victorian England (Aldershot, England, 1996), 208–9. 17. Donald S. L. Cardwell, The Organisation of Science in England (London, 1957). 18. Gerald L. Geison, Michael Foster and the Cambridge School of Physiology (Princeton, 1978); Mark Weatherall, Gentlemen, Scientists and Doctors; Medicine at Cambridge, 1800–1914 (Woodbridge, England, 2000); Romualdas Sviedrys, “The Rise of Physical Science at Victorian Cam-

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bridge.” In Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 2 (1976): 127–51; and the essays by MacLeod and Moseley reprinted in MacLeod, “Creed of Science” in Victorian England. 19. MacLeod, “Support of Victorian Science,” 222–26. 20. Ibid., 230. 21. The reference is to Herbert Butterfield’s Origins of Modern Science. 1300–1800 (London 1949). 22. For an historical account of the politics of foot and mouth disease in Britain see Abigail Woods, “Foot and Mouth Disease in 20th Century Britain: Science, Policy and the Veterinary Profession” (Ph.D. diss, University of Manchester, 2002); and Woods, A Manufactured Plague? The History of Foot and Mouth Disease in Britain, 1839–2001 (London, 2004). 23. Academy 5 (14 February 1874): 188.

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CHAPTER

7

Scientists on the Battlefield Cultures and Conflicts JEAN-JACQUES SALOMON*

This twentieth century of ours is the century of fear. Albert Camus1

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The Culture of War There are very few more instrumental and determinant forces underlying technical innovations than those that lead nations to fight against one another. It is on the battlefield, more than in any other domain, where one finds the multiple and changing interfaces along which the technosciences meet with economic and political pressures and opportunities. And, although the culture of war has always accorded pride of place to technological progress, our age has seen a proliferation of innovations, as well as the ever-increasing centrality of the role played by war as a motor force in economic progress in general: from nuclear energy and transportation systems to information and communications technologies, there are very few sectors of economic, social, and cultural endeavor that have not been transformed in the twentieth century by research programs initiated or supported by the military. Furthermore, thanks to the progress of science and technology, to prepare for war in order to assure peace (in keeping with the famous maxim) is no longer enough. In our day one must threaten one’s enemy with total annihilation, no matter how destructive that enemy’s first strike; and thus the potential outcome of a given war has become directly related to the technological and managerial capacity of the countries involved to anticipate all of their adversaries’ potential innovations, both civilian and military. Notes for this section begin on page 150.

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In this new age of global innovation, the military is called upon to foster science as much as science is called upon to stimulate and reinforce security and defense requirements. The culture of war is so much a part of the contemporary scientific project, and scientific research is so much a part of the culture of war, that the scientific establishment has today been forced into a role far removed from that which it had played until World War II. Prior to that period, science, scientific research, and scientists themselves had enjoyed the status of an ideal institution, one dedicated to working exclusively for the welfare of humanity and to making a contribution to the improvement of the lot of both individual and society. And yet, despite the many examples of science’s tangible benefits to humanity, the pre-Hiroshima vision of science was in fact itself already a form of ideology, a propagandistic enterprise intended to present science as entirely autonomous, independent from any social constraint or pressure, free from any project of exploitation in the economic realm, and thus foreign to the conflicts of interests and values that have always nurtured the spheres of political and financial affairs, and in which science has been involved since long before World War II. Archimedes resisting the Romans with his burning glass, or Galileo contributing to the Venice arsenal: these are pioneering figures in the long association of scientists and the military. The scientific revolution of the 1700s merely constituted a further step on this same path, by introducing onto the battlefield mathematical tools and physical innovations resulting from scientific research. Indeed, it was the intellectual advances made by the likes of Galileo, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Sir Isaac Newton that started the nation-states investing in research activities, and that led them to expect science to participate directly in their military objectives. When the Royal Society, on Newton’s initiative, put a price on the solution of the problem of longitudes, it was immediately followed by the other European academies. What was at stake, after all, was nothing less than the mastery of the oceans, and thus of world trade and the project of imperial colonialism. The advent of the twentieth century saw the Industrial Revolution further step up the symbiotic relationship between the pursuit of knowledge and the management of war, to the extent that a great many innovations in the civil sector today derive from the war industry. As Lewis Mumford has shown in Technics and Civilization, the military and the practice of war were meant to be the sole consumers of the new system of mass production: machine tools, standardization, interchangeable parts, separation of line and staff, and division of labor, all of these first served the preparation and management of war before being turned over to the civil sector. In this sense, as the historian of science Everett Mendelsohn has suggested, it is to Mumford that we owe the first sketch of the “military-industrial complex,” which has been unceasingly consolidated by the multiple intersections of science with the economy and the military over the course of the twentieth century.2

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These twin aspects of science, and its capacity both to help and to harm, coexist in such a manner that all of the benefits we owe to the practice of rational discovery cannot prevent us from raising questions about the other side of the scientific project, what André Malraux, speaking of the use of poison gas during World War I, called “the first negative in the balance sheet of science.” Unless one gives oneself over blindly to the pre-Hiroshima ideology of science just described, one cannot but attempt to reconcile oneself with the parallel existence of what Robert K. Merton, founding father of the sociology of science, has called “the ideal and the utilitarian conceptions of the scientific project.”3 And yet there was genuine astonishment evident in a headline printed in the French newspaper Le Monde on 19 January 2002. “Genetically manipulated plants also serve to wage war,” it read, as if the laboratories’ work had simply been diverted to military ends. But as has been shown most recently by the UN experts sent to Iraq, ours is an era in which it is precisely impossible to distinguish between an agricultural and a military laboratory, when research into the genetic manipulation of plants, which has therapeutic and economic objectives, may also produce weapons of mass destruction. It is no accident that we speak of the dual-use capacity of contemporary technologies, which may be the result of basic research carried out in industrial laboratories or on military sites, and whose innovations may serve at once military and civilian ends. Technological innovations spur economic growth even as they assist governments in the implementation of their strategic defense policies; at the same time, public investment and the reduction of barriers to technological development in the private sector, as well as the provision of incentives for such development, may contribute to the strength of the defense establishment, which for its part need not attend to the same economic pressures operant in the private sector.4 And, as politics and strategy have become more and more reliant on scientific research, science has become increasingly dependent upon state support. Technological innovations have changed the rules of the game on the battlefield, and war has become a favored period of technological expansion. Indeed, one might go so far as to suggest that the culture of war has become a subspecies of the all-pervasive, late-modern culture of technology.

From Scientist-Soldier to Strategic Asset With technology increasingly shortening the gap between its discoveries and their applications, the association between scientists and the military has become ever more intimate. But this alliance (one might even call it an “osmosis”), already evident during the American Civil War and further fine-tuned during World War I, can in fact be discerned as early as the seventeenth century, in the person of Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban (1633–1707). The virile figure cut by

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De Vauban as an architect of fortifications has attracted much attention: and was he not also a scientist by the very same criteria as were many others of his era? A good mathematician, a hydrologist, a ballistician, a pioneer of population census, this Maréchal de France was also an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Sciences.5 By the same token, the Ecole de Mézières was of course first and foremost a school for the training of military engineers, as was the Ecole Polytechnique that grew out of it; and yet to insist narrowly upon this function is to ignore the center of scientific discoveries that these institutions represented for such well-known scientists as Gaspard Monge, ClaudeLouis Berthollet, and Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot, whose vocation was the service of science as much as that of the army. Nevertheless, the world has seen a real existential change in the identity of such scientists since the glory days of the ancien régime. Along with some of his fellow officers from the Ecole de Mézières or from the Ecole Polytechnique, De Vauban did not shrink from his baptism by fire; indeed, he risked his life as a soldier on the battlefield. When he was twenty-six years old, De Vauban had already been involved in fourteen sieges and had been wounded more than twelve times. Nor did Louis XIV ever discourage him from spying on enemy fortresses, which De Vauban did frequently. Conversely, today’s scientists in the pay of the army hardly leave their laboratories; many of them remain attached to the university system, and when they do venture out to perform their defense work, it is in order to take part in experimental tests; only exceptionally, during military maneuvers, are they exposed to the same dangers as are faced by common soldiers. The fate of such scientists today is radically different: since they have access to defense secrets, scientists are prevented from traveling in foreign countries as they wish, their movements and contacts are kept under constant surveillance, if not directly investigated, they may not publish anything related to their research used for military purposes, their Ph.D. defenses take place in closed rooms, and their dissertations are not necessarily authorized for publication. In short, today’s scientists constitute a type of booty much more valuable than the weapons abandoned by a defeated army. The lesson of World War II was precisely that the availability of such “intellectual capital” is much more decisive than the brute force of armored divisions, and thus one aim of those preparing for war has become the co-opting of scientists in the enemy camp, their conversion to one’s own camp at any price, and the prevention of their defection to the service of potential adversaries. In our day, researchers have become “strategic assets” in their nations’ quests for military victory by way of scientific superiority. Geneviève Schméder has made the following distressing observation: “The scientists’ mobilization in favor of war constantly outweighed their active goodwill in favor of peace.”6 Certainly one cannot escape the fact that, whether consenting or resistant, manipulated or manipulating, their ambivalence has been more apparent than ever in their relationship to the military-industrial com-

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plex. Of course one cannot generalize, nor can one talk of the scientific community as if it were a homogeneous group. It includes scientists (the vast majority) for whom social responsibility is not a prime concern. To be fair, one must recognize that, whatever their formal links and ideals, they cover too wide a range of activities, professions, specialities, institutions, and nations to speak (or make themselves heard when they speak) with one voice. It continues to be the fact that the increasing professionalization and specialization of science have tended to widen the gap between the “two cultures” so criticized by C. P. Snow. Nevertheless, in spite of the gap produced by different training, education, knowledge, and professional practices, the natural sciences have not been alone in their service to the military: the social sciences also played an important role during the Cold War, on both the communist and the liberal sides of the divide. Benjamin Disraeli’s formula, that “a book can be as great as a battle,” was obviously applied on a large scale during this period of intense ideological confrontation. The unprecedented level of organized propaganda certainly reflected a real innovation in terms of the intellectual resources, both material and human, made available to the two antagonist causes. Culture evidently does matter, and it began to matter as much as weapons, if not more so, when the battles of the Cold War were waged by the agents and using the methods of the counterespionage services. The example of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, whose meetings, exhibitions, and publications were supported by the CIA through the Ford Foundation, as well as of the World Movement for Peace, which was supported by the KGB, show clearly how social scientists, willingly or not, can be associated with the military and can act, in many cases, as just so many soldiers among others.7 The scientific research into products of nature has been no less deserving of military sponsorship than that into the products of culture. For instance, pelagic birds of the central Pacific came to play a long-running role in the theater of the Cold War. Roy MacLeod has recently shown how ornithological programs carried out in the 1960s provided a cover for Pentagon research into the effects of chemical and biological weapons.8 The Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program (POBSP), under the aegis of the American Museum of Natural History, was officially engaged in banding birds in order to follow them during their migration as well as at the same time testing whether they carried traces of experimental testing for military purposes on viruses, microbes, or chemical agents. The POBSP collected a vast amount of data from a quarter of the world little known to science and inaccessible to civilians; its reports were, and remain of, great scientific value. But the reason for the Pentagon’s keen interest in such questions remains unknown, as does the nature of the military applications tested and their real implications for biological and chemical weapons. More than one million birds were surveyed in what was likely a two-pronged investigation, one designed both to determine the movement of

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disease carriers (the Program’s “defensive” aspect) and to explore ways of creating “germ” and anticrop weapons (its “offensive” aspect). Thus while the official mission was fundamentally for research purposes, it was at the same time fully oriented toward top secret military objectives. In 1969 the study was brought to a halt, after six years and $2.7 million (U.S.), in the wake of several indiscretions. This led to the Washington Post announcing that “Smithsonian Bird Research [was] tied to Germ Warfare Study” and provoked a great scandal, made all the worse for its taking place during the era of demonstrations against the Vietnam War and the use of pesticides in that conflict. (The Federation of American Scientists called for a ban on bacteriological warfare and George Wald, the Harvard Nobel Prize Winner, delivered a scathing address at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.) The story was damaging to the image of the Smithsonian Institute, a body cherished by Americans, as MacLeod underlines, as a sign of Western progress in general as well as of the ecological cause. The Institute was denounced as producing weapons of mass destruction in the guise of the pursuit of basic knowledge. This in turn allows MacLeod to take as his ironic epigraph the words of Harry Truman, uttered long after leaving office: “You have got to keep an eye on the military at all times, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s the birds from the Pentagon or the birds in the CIA.” A message, says MacLeod, which might be read today “as the Old Testament lesson for a sermon about real birds: … ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’ …”9 These words, from the Gospel of St. John (chap. 8, v. 12), are etched in marble in the foyer of the original headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), but the truth of the POBSP still deserves to be told, constituting as the project did, one among many civilian research programs supported by the military and run with secret intentions having nothing to do with the ostensible aims of academic science. Thus in the course of their research careers, both in and out of the laboratory, scientists may by turns act as warriors and as peacekeepers, as well as inventing new weapons systems, producing and manipulating bombs, missiles, satellites, poisons, gasses, radiation, and various forms of information, all of which may be at the source of the worst evils threatening humanity; and these same scientists may also serve as conciliators or mediators, helping to mitigate conflicts, resolve tensions, and put an end to international quarrels. Now in the uniform of the soldier, now in the cloth of a missionary, allied at once with the war party and with the victims, some of these scientists have played two roles and honored two commitments. One may be, for instance, a Freeman Dyson, a great theoretical physicist and professor at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, who acted both as advisor to the Pentagon in its search for new nuclear weapons and as a member of the Nassau Presbyterian Church, taking part each Sunday in prayers for nuclear disarmament. One week he may be moved by the testimony of the

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specialist in pediatric leukemia who has suffered an overdose of nuclear radiation, and the following week he may go to Washington to discuss improvements of a new atomic weapon with a certain general. The double bind, as formulated by the renowned anthropologist and psychoanalyst Gregory Bateson, describes the situation in which one is compelled (or compels oneself) to face two absolutely contradictory alternatives, the impossibility of which situation may lead to madness. For the scientist-warrior, however, these two alternatives seem to be in fact reconcilable, however intense the struggle with their conscience may be. Dyson had little trouble participating in the logic of the two worlds to which he felt he equally belonged, among the “warriors” and the “victims.” His own description is worth quoting. “The world of the warriors is the world I see when I go to Washington or California to consult with the military people about their technical problems,” a world dominated by men and women, both hawks and doves, generals and academic, who speak the same language in the same way, deliberately without emotion or elaborate arguments, applauding dry humor and abhorring all sentimentality.10 By contrast, “the world of the victims is the world I see when I listen to my wife’s tales of childhood in wartime Germany, when we take our children to visit the concentration camp museum at Dachau, when we go to the theater and see Brecht’s Mother Courage, when we read John Hersey’s Hiroshima or Masaji Ibuse’s Black Rain, … when we sit with a crowd of strangers in church and hear them pray for peace, or when I dream my own private dreams of Armageddon.” This is a world dominated by women and children, where young people outnumber the older generation, where more attention is paid to poets than to mathematicians, the world of pacifists and ecologists, but also of scientists whose respect for nature and for life matches their passion for their subject. “The warriors’ world describes the outcome of war in the language of exchange ratios and cost effectiveness; the victim’s world describes it in the language of comedy and tragedy.” This ambivalence of the scientist-warrior—contradiction, dichotomy, or even schizophrenia—sheds an ambiguous light on the scientist’s new role in international relations. And it is the very novelty of such a role that raises many questions concerning the responsibility he assumes, consciously or not, in our societies.11 For instance, it may seem convenient to offer the pursuit of knowledge as an excuse for taking advantage of the state’s largesse. As Sir Michael Atiyah said at the end of his term as president of the Royal Society, the subservience of certain scientists to the military-industrial complex resembles prostitution. Among other aberrations and in terms that the far left would not have rejected during the Cold War, he also criticized the financial cost of nuclear weapons—and the role that scientists have played in developing and building up the nuclear arsenal, which, he stressed, has done so much to undermine their integrity:

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Close collaboration with governments, both for military and for industrial purposes, has brought substantial material benefits. But this support has been bought at a price, and public suspicion is one of the consequences.… The crucial question we scientists face is how to conduct our relations with government and industry so as to regain the confidence of the public. Here we need humility. It is no use complaining that the public is simply ill informed and needs re-educating.12

There is, no doubt, something paradoxical in the spectacle of the scientific endeavor, which (in Lucretius’ superb formula) frees us from the terrors of nature and to which we owe so many benefits, corrupting itself into a source of terror and damaging aftereffects. Is it going too far to underline such a paradox? René Cassin, the Nobel Peace Prize Winner who was the main author of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man, delivered a speech at the end of his life where he did not hesitate to go even further. Heir as it is to the legacies of rationalism and the Enlightenment, science bears the hallmark of a universality little different from that enjoyed by the rights of men and women. And yet, noting that respect for the Declaration is too often challenged by the facts, René Cassin wrote that the progress of science can by itself run counter to the progress of the rights of men and women. Indeed, he speaks of the “scientific barbarism” presided over the massacres, exactions, and tortures of the twentieth century, from the concentration camps to the atomic bomb.13

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Sin and Redemption Two particular twentieth-century changes, obviously linked, deserve to be underlined so as to clearify why the shift in the contemporary scientist’s role in military affairs raises new problems. The first change is best illustrated by the invention of the atomic bomb during World War II. From then on, science as such began to intervene directly—from the very first phases of theory and discovery—in the conception and production of new weapons systems. After all, it was not only Albert Einstein’s theories that were applied on the battlefield: Einstein himself alerted the American administration to the importance of the research in nuclear physics being carried on in Europe. In fact, Einstein signed the two letters written by Leo Szilard that led Roosevelt to launch the Manhattan District Project, and thus to embark upon the work that would issue in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Einstein did so unwillingly, in part because he did not believe that an atomic weapon could be built so rapidly, but mainly because his pacifism made him sense the political consequences of the bomb’s realization, and dread them. This leads to the second novelty provided by the twentieth century in the history of the long-standing liaison between science and the military: the destructive capacity of the new weaponry was such that many scientists associated with the military-industrial complex immediately became deeply uncomfort-

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able with their role, or at least ambivalent about it. The best-known pacifist in the contemporary scientific community had been the one to pave the way to the making of the most destructive weapon ever conceived of; and Einstein’s doubt and discomfort, shared by others of his colleagues, were soon developed into a guilty conscience when the bomb, meant to anticipate the Nazi weapon thought to be in development thanks to Heisenberg’s leadership, but that did not in fact exist, was actually used against Japan after the German defeat. Until that point, the scientific institution had been able to take advantage of being above, if not outside, political passions. From then on, however, scientists could no longer dissociate either their discoveries or themselves from the political use being made of them, and the feeling of a particular responsibility arising from the very nature and implications of their work would lead many of them to take a stand and involve themselves in the political arena, turning some of them into protesters, rebels, and dissidents. At best, this involvement would deprive them of the financial support indispensable to their research work; at worst, it would send them into exile, deportation, or prison. This turning point institutionalized the scientific bad conscience. J. Robert Oppenheimer summed up the pathos of the experience thus: “In a sort of brutal significance, which no vulgarity, no pleasantry, no exaggeration can wholly abolish, the physicists have known sin, and that is a knowledge which they can never lose.”14 Furthermore, the scientists have been co-opted by means of their own greatest asset, their passion for the scientific project, which may well scrutinize its means without necessarily worrying about its ends. What turned these scientists into warriors was not so much their patriotic sense of duty as the irresistible pleasure of research. In Freudian terms, the death culture, which nurtures the military arts, finds in scientific research devoted to weapons of mass destruction a true source of erotic and narcissistic satisfaction. This is what I have called “the complex of technical sweetness,” in reference to Oppenheimer’s famous formula in opposing Edward Teller’s program for the development of the thermonuclear bomb. Oppenheimer opposed it first because he considered the available nuclear arms sufficient to resist the Soviet threat, but also because he thought that the program was simply doomed to fail. When Teller and Stan Ulam proved that it was possible, he rallied to it by saying: “The program we had in 1949 was a tortured thing that you could well argue did not make a great deal of technical sense.… The program in 1951 was technically so sweet that you could not argue about it. It was purely the military, the political, and the humane problem of what you were going to do about it once you had it.…”15 “The sin of the physicists at Los Alamos,” Freeman Dyson emphasizes clearly, did not lie in their having built a lethal weapon. To have built the bomb, when their country was engaged in a desperate war against Hitler’s Germany, was morally justifiable. But they did not just build the bomb. They enjoyed building it. They had

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the best time of their lives while building it. That, I believe, is what Oppy had in mind when he said they had sinned. And he was right.16

This same Dyson, however, relates how “the fifteen months that I spent working on [Project] Orion were the most exciting and in many ways the happiest of my scientific life.”17 What was this project? A rival to the Apollo program, it aimed at designing a spaceship that would travel through the solar system driven by atomic explosions. The project, after one year of theoretical calculations, experiments, and flight testing, was terminated (for obvious reasons, necessitating as it did an engine that might drop radioactive waste on earth), which led Dyson to denigrate it subsequently despite having been a fanatic advocate, convinced of both its scientific value and its possible nuisance. In 1958, he had written that “we have for the first time imagined a way to use the huge stockpiles of our bombs for better purpose than for murdering people. Our purpose, and our belief, is that the bombs which killed and maimed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki shall one day open the skies to man.”18 In 1979, Dyson wrote that “by its very nature, the Orion ship is a filthy creature and leaves its radioactive mess behind it wherever it goes. In the twenty years that have passed since Orion began, there has been a fundamental change in public standards concerning the pollution of the environment. Many things that were acceptable in 1958 are no longer acceptable today. My own standards have changed too.”19 The question one may raise is: What happened to the scientific standards? Working on the H-bomb, Andrei Sakharov found similar words to discuss “the ethical and human aspects” of his work, and especially to explain his dedication to it: “One reason for it (though not the main one) was the opportunity to do ‘superb physics’ (Enrico Fermi’s comment on the atom bomb program).… The physics of atomic and thermonuclear explosions is a genuine theoretician’s paradise.” And he goes on: “What was most important for me at the time, and also, I believe, for [Igor] Tamm and the other members of the group, was the conviction that our work was essential.”20 Sakharov recalls that, when the H-bomb was already being tested, he became aware of the fact that it could not be transported by the missiles then available to the Soviets. Thus he started to conceive of a giant torpedo launched from a submarine and capable of destroying the great American harbors. When he proposed this Project Torpedo, however, he was surprised by Rear Admiral Fomin’s reaction: “shocked and disgusted by the idea of merciless mass slaughter, [Fomin] remarked that the officers and sailors of the fleet were accustomed to fighting only armed adversaries, in open battle. I was utterly abashed, and never discussed the subject with anyone else.”21 It is this testimony in Sakharov’s Memoirs that led Karl Popper to judge harshly the man who was to become a fervent dissident and champion of the Committee for the Rights of Man, and whose struggle most certainly contri-

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buted to the end of the Soviet regime. “You can see here,” Popper noted, “that Sakharov was not a passive worker doing anything he was ordered to do, but that he took on an active role.… As I said, I still have a high opinion of Sakharov’s later years, but I do have to correct my overall judgement of him. I have to say that he began as a war criminal, and I cannot say that he is, so to speak, fully excused by what he later did.”22 There’s the fatal word, without concession or compassion and not used by just anybody: is the scientist who works on weapons of mass destruction, inattentive to the consequences of what he or she does and devoted to the sole pleasure of research, in the obsession and the narcissism of the “technical sweetness,” bound for an international court as a war criminal? As if to further intensify this collaboration of Eros and Thanatos, the problems scientists have been asked to solve since the advent of the nuclear era have more often than not been of their own choosing in the first place, rather than imposed on them by ignorant laypeople. The Pentagon did not come up with the idea of the atomic bomb, or of the “Star Wars” antimissile shield: it was Leo Szilard (using Einstein’s name) in the first instance, and Edward Teller in the second. More revealingly still, such scientists have meant to anticipate and even exceed what was possible in the making of new weapons, as demonstrated by Herbert York, one of the best experts in the field and leader of the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Agency for more than a decade. York’s working philosophy at the start of his career recognized no compulsion apart from innovation at all costs. This “called for always pushing at the technological extremes. We did not wait for higher government or military authorities to tell us what they wanted and only then seek to supply it. Instead, we set out from the start to construct nuclear explosive devices that … carried the state of the art beyond the currently explored frontiers.”23 In keeping with this aim of technological extremes,York one day proposed to President Eisenhower the construction and explosion of a considerably bigger bomb, over twenty megatons, and was surprised to see the former general grow angry—a reaction quite like that of Fomin when confronted by Sakharov on a similar topic. “Absolutely not; they are already too big!… The whole thing is crazy; something simply has to be done about it.” It is the same man who, just before leaving his functions at the White House, uttered the gravest warning against the risks of a public policy becoming captive to a scientific and technological elite, and of the military-industrial complex to which that elite owes its existence. A general denouncing the power exerted by the scientists associated with the military as a serious threat for the very functioning of democracy: this was a shock for the media, the Congress, the Pentagon, and especially for a great part of the American scientific community, so much so that George B. Kistiakowsky, then special assistant to the president for science and technology, had to publish an “authorized” statement making it clear that Eisenhower had not been speaking of scientists in general.24

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Nevertheless, the prestige, privilege, and power enjoyed by these scientists as a reward for their successes in nuclear weaponry (in the ex-USSR as well as in the United States) did not afford them a corresponding influence in international relations and policy making. On the contrary, since the very first atomic bomb was tested in the New Mexico desert, on the eve of Hiroshima, the scientists involved had been aware of the fact that they did not control its uses and that the decision to deploy it against a particular target remained fully in the hands of politicians and their staffs. This was for many scientists tantamount to being dispossessed; it was the frustrating discovery of an asymmetrical relationship, and only a few of them were to attempt, in vain, to oppose the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. This meant discovering that, in spite of the weight the product of their research activities may have had on the links between peace and war, they may have been said to inform the decision, but not to form it; indeed, it escaped them altogether. The history of the battle fought by some of them to change the decision concerning Hiroshima and Nagasaki is well known, as is that of the battle fought some time later against the program that led to the making of the “Super,” a million times more powerful. There is no need to return to that history, if only to recall that it was the scruples of these scientists that led to the creation of the American Association of Atomic Scientists, whose Bulletin still represents those who campaign, as the members of the Pugwash conferences, for the reduction of nuclear weapons, if not for general disarmament. This may perhaps be seen as simply another cultural and institutional innovation, namely, the scientists’ collective involvement in political issues. Not that those who take part in these organizations are pacifists—on the contrary, most of them are closely connected with the military-industrial complex—but they feel that the program in which they have been participating must apply the brakes, or even come to an end. In this they follow what York concluded early on in view of the arms race confronting the United States and the former Soviet Union: “There is no technical solution to the dilemma of the steady decrease in our national security that has for more than twenty years accompanied the steady increase in our military power.”25 Einstein once noted that those who had helped develop the atomic bomb were driven to work for peace in expiation, and I have myself written that the arms control discussions provide an area where science, which has known sin, can find redemption.26 No doubt the Pugwash conferences afforded something like a truce of God, a kind of religious pause in which, during the worst periods of the Cold War, American and Soviet scientists could meet to prepare the negotiations that would ban testing and reduce nuclear arms. The contribution made by these meetings to bringing the two superpowers together, even while they were outbidding each other in the arms race, cannot be underestimated. From this standpoint, the Nobel Peace Prize has rarely been more deserved than when it was awarded in 1995 to the Pugwash conferences and to their secretary-general, Joseph Rotblat.

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Once tribute has been paid to such success in the field of nuclear weapons, however, there remains the fact of the limits of this type of cross-border, transnational, indeed mainly interideological dialogue among scientists. The common language, the objectivity of the method, the habit of exchanging information and participating in meetings whose aim is consensus building via rigorous demonstrations: all of these of course help scientists to isolate their discussions from historical passions, interests, and violence. Remaining on good terms during scientific meetings, even in times of tension if not war, does indeed suggest that a technical consensus not only fosters understanding, more importantly it renders impossible “the demonizing of the other” in which the anthropologist Nur Yalman sees—with good reason—the privileged source of misunderstanding and war between nations.27 A common language, the vehicle and channel of a kind of understanding that is reserved to specialists, acts as a token of friendship and trust that some would like to extend beyond the arena of technical discussions. Thus it was that, after World War II, natural scientists represented their expertise as a factor in the peace process, a source of universality and a way to bring together people and nations; indeed, they envisaged a world government whose scientists would be ex officio the most legitimate ministers. Here again, however, we see the workings of an ideology, for although its common language and tradition of cooperation may well make the scientific community an ideal model for humanity in general, yet the scientists’ competence in their specialized fields does not in fact make them experts in other fields, especially international relations. When Father Dominique Dubarle, one of the first members of Pugwash (a real “Pugwashite,” as they call themselves) wrote that “science is the first worldwide human power to have emerged among humans,” he admitted straight away—and lamented over it—that “the theologian would readily add that science does not yet seem to him to be a confirmed power in its universally human function.”28 The contemporary scientist may think like Plato’s philosopher: but while he may of course dream of becoming king, or of seeing the king become a philosopher, he is at best just one adviser among many others at the prince’s court. Moreover, one must recognize that the Pugwash conferences have led to agreements only in the highly specialized field of weapons of mass destruction, where the scientists closely involved in building such weapons do indeed enjoy exclusive competence—and privileged responsibility. When the Pugwashites have devoted themselves to other tensions or confrontations outside the Cold War, their influence has been far less evident. And, if one considers the conflicts between Greece and Turkey or between India and Pakistan, or indeed of war in the former Yugoslavia, or the Israel-Palestine tragedy, it is difficult to see how such “parallel diplomacy” has had any impact, to say the least. On the contrary, such “good offices” are today provided with greater success by other mediators, as, for instance, in Africa by the community of San Egidio (its name

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comes from the monastery in Rome that serves as its headquarters), which is made up of Christian industrialists, businesspeople, and managers.29 Here we find ourselves no longer strictly confined to problems whose resolution depends upon the tools and methods of the natural sciences, for instance, the ability to distinguish an atomic explosion from an earthquake. The fact is that the political negotiation of peace is not a matter for rationality and the scientific method, particularly since, without exception, all of the new conflicts we have been witness to since the end of the Cold War have featured a “demonizing of the other” whose religious dimension further deepens the irrationalism at the root of these clashes between nations, sects, or tribes. In sum, scientism’s greatest illusion is its expectation that the model of the natural sciences can provide an “operational” tool capable of solving the conflicts faced by societies, that oppose societies to one another.

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Living with Contradictions If the scientists’ “parallel diplomacy” was able to work, albeit uneasily, amid the tensions of a potential nuclear holocaust, the end of communism and of bipolar confrontation has ushered in a very different cycle of violence and threats of war. The game played by the United States and the ex-Soviet Union was in the end a match between two adversaries who honored the same code of good conduct, and from this standpoint the nuclear deterrent was finally a moderating factor: as Gen. Lucien Poirier has written, the bomb also represses violence.30 Each of the two enemy partners knew perfectly well that they could not tempt fate. Conversely, the new adversaries of the United States, real or potential, among which Bin Laden’s troops and the “rogue states” are lumped together, do not subscribe to the same rules as dictated by the strategic posture of the American-Soviet duopoly. There was a foretaste of this new situation in the global rearrangements that initiated the Cold War: Wernher von Braun and his Peenemünde team, who went cheerfully from Nazi service to the American side and thus realized their lifelong dream of moving from V1 and V2 designs to the production and success of the Apollo rocket, were akin to the scientists now emigrating from formerly communist countries who risk falling under the influence of terrorist states or groups. In other words, while some researchers have become aware of the fact that they face at least a dilemma (if not a moral challenge) when they participate in the making of weapons of mass destruction, others simply continue to work as technicians, insensitive to the repercussions of their activities, motivated solely by the pleasant duty of serving their personal ambitions and offering to the highest bidder their scientific skills, so many vulgar mercenaries selling their know-how in military matters. A perfect case in point (and especially germane considering the current threat of minority terrorist groups acquiring weapons of mass destruction) is that of

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Abdul Qadeer Khan, builder of Pakistan’s atomic bombs and missiles, who shared most of his secrets with Libya, Iran, and North Korea as well as selling those countries a host of technical tools indispensable to mastering the production of such weapons. There was no great merit in my announcing, prior to 11 September 2001 in Le Scientifique et le Guerrier, that coming conflicts would take governments and military headquarters unawares, in spite of, or because of, scientific-technological developments, and that the project of an antimissile shield would not guarantee American territorial sanctuary from terrorists’ aggressions.31 And yet the current wave of incidents does not represent an innovation of modern warfare: rather, it recalls the medieval sect of the Assassins and the “Old Man of the Mountain,” who might well have inspired Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda by scattering terror throughout both the Christian and Sunnite worlds.32 Still it is striking how in many Muslim countries the engineering schools have been transformed into cradles of fundamentalism and training camps for terrorists. As has been recently noted about such evolutions in the Islamic world, the failure of the ideology of science has left a vacuum into which the ideology of religion has returned, a substitution made all the easier by the fact that the popular imagination often allows science and religion to form one entity, or even to merge.33 The ideology of the Cold War, of course, demonstrates clearly the limits of science as a basis for ethical action. One day in 1961, Sakharov stopped by the office of his young colleague,Victor Adamsky at Sarov, the Soviet equivalent of the American nuclear research site at Los Alamos, to show him the science fiction published that same year by Leo Szilard, in The Voice of the Dolphins. Sakharov advised Adamsky in particular to read “My Trial as a War Criminal,” which recounts how, after the United States loses a destructive war against the Soviet Union, the author is arrested with several physicist colleagues and tried by an international tribunal. Even though Szilard had led a crusade against dropping the bomb on Japan and had written many articles in support of nuclear agreements with the Russians, he is deemed to be a war criminal. But his trial along with his fellow physicists is interrupted, and all the accused are freed, following the outbreak of an epidemic caused by the Russians, who find that that their vast stocks of the vaccine to protect their own people against the virus are useless. In the ensuing chaos, the American physicists manage to avoid further prosecution. Adamsky tells how he, Sakharov, and some of their colleagues were amazed that neither Szilard’s physicists in the dock nor their lawyers could produce the slightest coherent proof of their innocence. “We were stunned by this paradox. We could not ignore the fact that we were developing weapons of mass destruction. We thought it was necessary. We were convinced it was. But the moral aspect of the matter would not allow Andreï Dmitrievich (Sakharov) nor certain others amongst us to live in peace.” Thus it was that Szilard, who had been

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the first scientist to imagine a chain reaction (in 1933) and who wrote the letter to Roosevelt signed by Einstein warning him that the Nazis might outstrip the United States in the nuclear arms race, was also the one to make Sakharov aware of the moral implications of his research. According to Richard Rhodes, who records the anecdote, it was “like a message in a bottle thrown into the sea addressed to a secret Soviet laboratory.”34 Let us turn our attention to what appeared to Sakharov as a paradox, for it sheds light on the specificity of the role that scientists play in this field. Nobody, of course, would think of reproaching them for contributing, as any other citizen, to the defense of their country. Personally, taking into account my own experience during World War II, I would be the last to say that a country, and mine in particular, can do without either the military or a defense policy. But we must stress something else here: the scientists who, like Einstein, proclaimed their pacifism by invoking the doctrine of nonviolence were extremely rare; indeed, Einstein himself, like Mahatma Gandhi, admitted that the use of force is unavoidable when one has to oppose an enemy who aims to destroy life as an end in itself. The moral problem faced by the scientists does not lie in the fact that they are mobilized within their very laboratory: it stems from the very nature of the weapons of mass destruction that they alone are in a position to conceive of, to invent, and to produce. Scientists allied with the military-industrial complex have given abundant testimony to the fact that they have often discovered, like the sorcerer’s apprentice, that they have simply gone too far. Here, however, we see a further ominous innovation of our age: whereas for the accused heretic Galileo scientific truth was finally disjoined from religious obedience, by a conception of knowledge entailing a separation of powers among the competent authorities, in J. Robert Oppenheimer’s case, when the technical advice provided by the expert is revealed as erroneous, he is himself revealed as unworthy of his function, since scientific research is tied so closely to the state and its options that there can be no strict line of demarcation between the powers of the competent authorities. The ground of debate is no longer that of scientific truth at odds with something alien to it, but of technical advice at odds with the political decision of which it is the ground. Galileo could appeal to eternity against the Holy Office, but Oppenheimer had no recourse against history.35

New Scientific Standards? On the one hand, then, there is the technical intoxication, the pleasure or sweetness of research, of the excitement of solving problems and having brain waves: since it is possible, one must do it with the irrepressible enthusiasm that led to the discovery of a New World. On the other hand, there is the ambiguous char-

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acter of history, of its conflicts of values, interests, and responsibilities, which are not the scientist’s business but that of society, which latter may or may not derive some benefit from the scientists’ encounter with the exigencies of war. At Geneva, in late 2001, during renewed negotiations for a treaty banning biological weapons, several delegations fought in favor of an article denouncing as enemies of the human species (hostes humani generis) those scientists, politicians, military people, and businesspeople who contribute to the production of, and trade in, such arms. These negotiations were to be interrupted by the departure of the American delegation after 11 September. With a certain degree of optimism (and with the memory of the Americans’ own indispensable efforts in beginning the treaty process in the first place, as early as the Nixon administration), one might conclude that the adoption of such a treaty has simply been postponed, and one could console oneself with the thought of all that has already been achieved in the quest for human rights and international law: we have seen the emergence of international courts, as well as legitimate humanitarian intervention, and war criminals are under arrest and on trial, and some have even been indicted for crimes against humanity. The prosecutor charged with the proceedings of ex-Yugoslavia at the court of The Hague has noted that we have effectively moved from cooperation with states to imposing constraints upon them. And no doubt this constitutes an innovation since the Nuremberg trials, a turning point in international relations that permits one to think, with Raymond Aron, that there might after all exist something like “the germ of a universal conscience,” however incoherent it may appear to some. And thus we may hope that there will come a time when the science which, in Freudian terms, exploits the Eros of research for the sake of the Thanatos of warfare will effectively be sanctioned as an enemy to the human species. One may, of course, be inclined toward pessimism—and the current American attachment to preventive wars and unilateralism, and its aversion to the United Nations as the best answer to the international challenges of the twentyfirst century, does nothing to improve this mood. One might thus be tempted to think that in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, the world has emerged as more uncertain and fearful than it had been during the Cold War, as a place where rational hopes for the progress of international law and universal conscience may already be obsolete. This may indeed appear to be the most striking innovation in relation to the proliferation threat, an innovation not only in warfare but also in the Kantian political culture that led “Old Europe” to dream of an international order not subjected to any empire: on the one hand, there is the great fear of silent weapons of mass destruction available to any terrorist at the cheapest possible price thanks to the mercenaries of science; on the other hand, as Stanley Hoffmann has written, there is “the destruction of some of the main schemes of cooperation that have been established since 1945 and are aimed at introducing some order and moderation into the jungle

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of traditional international conflicts.”36 And thus, thanks to the ever-increasing involvement of science and scientists in warfare and international relations, the twenty-first century may go on to challenge its predecessor’s claim (according to Albert Camus) to the title of the century of fear.

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Notes * I would like to express my profound gratitude to Rafaël Newman for checking my translation of this chapter, which was originally written in French. His superb editing improved not only my English, but the chapter itself. 1. Albert Camus, “Le siècle de la peur,” Combat, November 1946, reprinted in Essais (Paris, 1965), 331. 2. Everett Mendelsohn, “Science, technology and the military,” in Science, War and Peace, J.-J. Salomon (Paris, 1989), 54. Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (New York, 1934). Jacques Richardson’s recent book, War, Science and Terrorism: From Laboratory to Open Conflict (London, 2003), is the state of the art, with many examples and references. 3. Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe, III., 1957), 556. 4. See Lewis M. Branscomb and James H. Keller, Investing in Innovation: Creating a Research and Innovation Policy that Works (Cambridge, Mass., 1998). 5. For details on the account of Sébastian le Prestre de Vauban given here and following, see Bernard Pujo, Vauban (Paris, 1991); and Nicolas Faucherre and Philippe Prost, Le triomphe de la méthode (Paris, 1992). 6. Geneviève Schméder, “A Reconsideration of the Idealistic Vision of Science for Peace,” in Technology in Society, eds. Jesse H. Ausubel, Alexander Keynan, and Jean-Jacques Salomon, special issue, “Scientists, Wars and Diplomacy: A European Perspective,” 23, no. 3 (August 2001): 441–50. 7. See Pierre Grémion, Intelligence de l’anticommunisme: le Congrès pour la liberté de la culture à Paris 1950–1975 (Paris, 1975); and Frances S. Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (New York, 1999). 8. Roy MacLeod, “‘Strictly for the Birds’: Science, the Military and the Smithsonian’s Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program, 1963–1970,” in Science, History and Social Activism: A Tribute to Everett Mendelsohn, eds. E. Allen Garland and Roy M. MacLeod (Dordrecht, Netherlands, 2002), 307–37. 9. Ibid., 307. 10. Freeman Dyson, Weapons and Hope (New York 1985), 4–6. 11. See Raymond Aron’s definitions of interstate relations, expressed in, and by, specific actors, those of the diplomat and the soldier: Aron, see Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations (New York, 1966). For all of these reasons I have already added in Science and Politics the scientist as a new symbol of the state in relation to other states. 12. Sir Michael Atiyah, Royal Society News, no. 8 (November 1995). 13. René Cassin, “Science and the Rights of Man,” Impact: Science and Sociéty 22, no. 4 (Paris, 1972) (translated from the French issue). Jules Isaac, the celebrated French historian, published a book when he came back, seriously wounded, from World War I, whose title was already revealing: Paradoxe sur la science homicide et autres hérésies (Paris, 1936). 14. J. Robert Oppenheimer, “Physics in the Contemporary World,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 4, no. 3 (March 1948): 66. 15. Richard Polenberg, ed., In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer:The Security Clearance Hearing (Ithaca and London, 2002), 110–11. Italics added. 16. Freeman Dyson, Disturbing the Universe (New York, 1979), 53. 17. Ibid., 114.

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18. Ibid., 112. 19. Ibid., 115. 20. Andrei Sakharov, Memoirs, trans. Richard Lourie (New York, 1990), 96–97. 21. Ibid., 221. 22. Karl Popper, The Lesson of This Century: With Two Talks on Freedom and the Democratic State, Popper interview by Giancarlo Bosetti, trans. Patrick Camiller (London and New York, 1997), 25 and 27. 23. Herbert F. York, Making Weapons, Talking Peace: A Physicist’s Odyssey from Hiroshima to Geneva (New York, 1987), 75. 24. New York Times, 22 January 1961. 25. York, “Military Technology and National Security,” Scientific American 221, no. 2 (August 1969). This warning was pertinent for the antagonism between the two superpowers; it is less sure that it applies in the same fashion to the war against terrorism. The gigantic increase since 11 September regarding the expenses for defense R&D decided by the Bush administration, turns its back on such reasoning. Actually, it illustrates a radically different conception, that of the preemptive war. 26. Salomon, Science,War and Peace, 38. 27. Nur Yalman, “Science and Scientists in International Conflict: Traditions and Prospects,” Technology in Society 23 (2001): 489–503. The author deals primarily with the tensions between Greece and Turkey and between India and Pakistan. 28. See Dominique Dubarle, La civilisation et l’atome (Paris, 1962), 162 (italics in the original); and Dubarle, “Toward a World Community of Scientists,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 15, no. 5 (May 1959): 178–80. 29. See Philippe Leymarie, “Les bâtisseurs de paix de San’Egidio,” Le Monde diplomatique, September 2000; and Mario Giro, “Une grammaire de la reconciliation,” Le Courrier de l’Unesco, Paris, January 2000. 30. Lucien Poirier, Stratégie théorique II (Paris, 1987), 324–25. 31. Salomon, Le scientifique et le guerrier (Paris, 2001), 120. 32. See Bernard Lewis, The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam (New York, 1987 [1967]). 33. Hocine Khelfaoui, Les ingénieurs dans le système éducatif: L’aventure des instituts technologiques algériens (Paris, 2000). 34. Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (New York, 1995), 582. 35. Salomon, Science and Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), 195–202. 36. Stanley Hoffmann, “America Goes Backward,” The New York Review of Books, 12 June 2003, 74.

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Part IV

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THE ADOPTION OF INNOVATIONS IN DIFFERENT CULTURAL CONTEXTS

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Peter Burke

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CHAPTER

8

From Prophecies of the Future to Incarnations of the Past Cultures of Nuclear Technology

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PATRICK KUPPER

“You’ve never had it so good!” This was the motto used by the English conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan during his successful election campaign in 1959.1 Political stability and economic growth were the characteristics of that time. In “Age of Extremes,” Eric J. Hobsbawm describes this period as “the golden years” of the “short” twentieth century. In Hobsbawm’s opinion, the 1950s and 1960s were reassuringly different compared to the preceding “age of catastrophe,” but also to the time after 1973, which he labels “the crises decades.”2 “You’ve never had it so good!” Indeed, societies in the Western Hemisphere prospered from an unparalleled growth in affluence. One year of booming economy was followed by another and after an initial skepticism, which was nourished by memories of the recent past, people grew more and more confident. Finally, at the beginning of the 1960s perpetual economic growth was considered to be the norm. In the technology field, nuclear energy had a lot to offer for the future. “Atomic energy may in the future supplement the power that now comes from coal, oil, and falling water,” declared U.S. president, Harry S. Truman in his first statement after the Hiroshima bombing of 6 August 1945.3 After the president’s speech, Henry L. Stimson, secretary of war, explained the atomic bomb in detail and also highlighted the future civilian use of nuclear energy. “Already in the course of producing one of the elements, much energy is being released, not explosively, but in regulated amounts. This energy, however, is in the form Notes for this section begin on page 165.

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of heat at a temperature too low to make practicable the operation of a conventional power plant.” He added, “It will be a matter of much further research and development to design machines for the conversion of atomic energy into useful power. How long this will take no one can predict, but it will certainly be a period of many years.”4 The Swiss interpreted nuclear bombs and the U.S. government’s accompanying statements as signs of an imminent “atomic revolution.”5 Paul Scherrer, professor of physics at the ETH Zurich and an acknowledged expert in nuclear technology, wrote in the leading Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (November 1945): “An old dream of mankind has come true … and it seems as if a new era of energy production is about to begin—the ‘era of subatomic energy’.”6 The “atomic age” was born. Terrible visions of an atomic war were superseded by hopes for a “peaceful” use of atomic energy. A second wave of enthusiasm, which ended in mere ecstasy for nuclear technology, was set off by the famous “Atoms for Peace” speech, delivered on 8 December 1953 at the UNO by U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower. It symbolized the reversal of American policy on nuclear technology from keeping it secret to international cooperation. The first conference on the peaceful use of atomic energy took place in Geneva in 1955. It intensified the public impression that a fundamental reorganization of the world’s technological systems was about to take place.7 In their report on the conference, German publicists Gerhard Löwenthal and Josef Hausen wrote, “The age of atomic energy, with its industrial and economical aspects will hardly have more similarity with the age of steam power as a jet with the first old-fashioned sports aeroplane.”8 Popular technological utopias were further nourished by such statements.9 The world powers—the United States, the former Soviet Union, France, and Great Britain, but also less powerful nations like Canada, Sweden, or Switzerland—made tremendous efforts after 1945 to initiate nationally organized research and development programs, which were usually under government control. After several nuclear testing and demonstration facilities had been built, the first commercial nuclear power plants were built in the mid1960s.10 However, by the 1970s and after some turbulent years, worldwide demand for nuclear reactors began to decline, dropping continuously until the 1990s when it stabilized at a very low level. (See fig. 1) Many of the countries that were among the first to build nuclear power plants, did not permit new sites after 1980. Given these numbers one can identify a rise, crisis, and fall in the civil use of nuclear energy. The inferred question is how this cycle of nuclear technology can be explained. In the following, a group of technological, economical, and cultural factors is brought forward. These are the main hypotheses: 1. Nuclear power plants were commercially introduced in the mid-1960s, although they had not reached the technical level needed for this step.

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Fig. 1. World Nuclear Reactor Construction Start-ups, 1960–98 The scale is the electrical-generating capacity in gigawatts. By using the number of power plants instead, the line would soar even faster in the 1960s as plant size increased several times over during these decades. Data source: Worldwatch Institute, 1999.

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2. The rise of nuclear power in the 1960s was influenced not only by technological and economical factors, but also by cultural factors. 3. The crisis and fall of the nuclear power economy after 1970 must be examined in relation to its rapid rise in the 1960s. The following remarks are drawn from my recently published study Atomenergie und gespaltene Gesellschaft (Nuclear energy and social fission,)11 which traces the history of nuclear energy in Switzerland from the 1960s to the 1990s, and examines the case of the Kaiseraugst Nuclear Power Station Project—a nuclear power plant that remained in the planning phase for a period of twenty-five years, from the mid-1960s to 1990, without ever being built. This project marked an historical turning point in the history of nuclear energy in Switzerland, a point where euphoric beliefs in planning and realizing the atomic age were substituted by endless controversy. Unlike previous accounts, I was able to base this research on sources and information from the Kaiseraugst project management as well as from government authorities.12

The Rise In the mid 1960s, the electricity industry decided to build nuclear power plants, first in the United States and shortly afterward in other countries. This

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is quite surprising, as the same branch of industry acted rather reluctantly worldwide toward this new technology, much to the displeasure of the national authorities. What was the cause for this change of attitude? In the following section, this question is examined on behalf of the Swiss case. It has come to light that the Swiss government placed strong political pressure on the electricity industry to enter into the field of nuclear energy.13 There is, however, no proof of this. Of course, the pronuclear and anticonventional thermal attitude of the government brought additional impetus to the planning of nuclear power plants, but definitely not to the extent that made it relevant to the final decision. There were points on which national authorities and electricity industry officials disagreed, and to which they demonstrated opposition, specifically with regard to the development of a Swiss reactor line. While the authorities were strongly supporting it, the electricity industry had their doubts about the prospects of success for this program. In particular, they opposed everything obliging them to purchase the end products. The most relevant arguments for the fundamental change of attitude of the Swiss electricity industry were formed otherwise. In addition to harsh local opposition toward the planned conventional thermal power plants, the observation of a fast-growing market for light water reactors in the United States attracted the attention of utilities managers. This development was initiated by the Jersey Central Power & Light in December 1963 when they decided to choose a General Electric nuclear power plant instead of a thermal power plant for Oyster Creek.14 Shortly afterward, the two major American reactor constructors, General Electric and Westinghouse, made their way to Europe where their first foothold was in Switzerland. This is not surprising. In Switzerland, they met relatively weak government institutions and electricity companies acting autonomously. Prohibition of imports to protect one’s own research and development programs such as in France, were not set up in the political landscape of Switzerland. Thus, already in 1964, General Electric and Westinghouse received contracts from two public Swiss electricity companies to build nuclear power reactors.15 By 1967, over half a dozen projects for nuclear power plants had been publicly announced. There is no doubt that the American reactor vendors were able to make attractive offers. Nevertheless, it is still astonishing how eagerly the Swiss electricity industry accepted their offers. By the end of 1963, the ten most important Swiss electricity companies had affirmed their opinion that nuclear technology was not yet ready to be deployed commercially, and that it was therefore necessary to build a few thermal power plants using coal or oil.16 The managements of these utilities were not willing to allocate significant resources to the planning of nuclear energy production sites. They followed the technological development with keen interest, but did not let themselves get caught up in the optimism of the prophets of the atomic age. What these men were waiting for was concrete facts and authentic experiences. Walter Boveri, president of the

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BBC (ABB today), the largest, globally operative Swiss company in the machine industry, expressed his thoughts at a Motor Columbus board meeting in 1962 (Motor Columbus—a company specializing in the planning and financing of large electrotechnical facilities, and later initiator of the Kaiseraugst Nuclear Power Station Project). He said, “As for nuclear energy, one is still unsure about its economic value. Everything relies on theoretical calculations. Up to now, there is not a single nuclear power plant working properly.”17 Even after the commercial breakthrough of nuclear power in the United States, there were still several reasons against its application in Switzerland. First, nuclear power plants needed—like hydropower plants, but unlike conventional, coal or oil-fired, thermal power plants—a large amount of available cash. But capital was scarse at that time. Second, they were only suitable for permanent production and therefore meeting the need for base load. Deficits of production, as they occur at peak times, could not be met by the inflexible production of the nuclear power plants. Third, there was no place in the world where anyone had experience with commercial reactors. The facts about economic efficiency and security of nuclear power plants were based almost exclusively on data provided by the major U.S. reactor manufacturers. Fourth, economic efficiency of nuclear power was said to be achievable only with a certain minimum of plant size. However, in the small, and above all strongly segmented Swiss electricity network, large plants were difficult to integrate. Furthermore, plants of such size did not even exist at that time. Fifth, the Swiss industry lacked any knowledge of nuclear technology. Experts in nuclear technology were rare and had to be sought, recruited, and familiarized in a short period of time. And finally, regulations for the building of nuclear power plants in Switzerland were very vague, so that many insecurities were attached to such a project. For example, in 1965 regulations were still missing for site selection, for reactor shielding, or for the rise of temperature in water used for cooling purposes. American regulations could not be applied in Switzerland without adjustments as they were based on different geographic circumstances and on different population densities. An impressive list of arguments, whether taken individually or in their entirety, could have prevented any management from running a nuclear power plant project. Why did they pursue it, nevertheless? The behavior of the Swiss electricity companies’ management is incomprehensible unless their fields of experience and expectations are taken into account.18 After World War II, a powerful discourse described a goal-oriented technical development, at the end of which stood nuclear technology. The milestones of this development have already been mentioned in this chapter. Strong technological determinism was also expressed in the metaphoric language used at the time. It was speculated whether the “intermediate stage” of “conventional” thermal power plants could not be “skipped,” or whether one could not step “directly” from hydropower to the use of nuclear energy.

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Entrepreneurs in the electricity industry were habitually skeptical toward excessively optimistic visions of an atomic age. Yet, when in 1963–64 the first signs became apparent that civil use of nuclear energy was becoming commercially attractive, they dispensed of their skepticism immediately. The typical mechanisms of a self-fulfilling prophecy revealed themselves. There was no longer any need to discuss how these signs ought to be interpreted. It was apparent, that the one future technology of energy production was about to take the step toward industrial application. Now the aim of the companies was to secure a place for themselves in the nuclear sun. And as nuclear technology was a knowledge-intensive high technology, it was conceivable that only a small number of potential players would be able to participate in the future nuclear market. A two-class society seemed to develop in the electricity business. Therefore, each company carefully observed its competitor’s steps and tried to strengthen its own market position by building networks of personal contacts. “There are more than enough wallflowers who are very eager to set foot into the nuclear business.” With these words,Walter Boveri, in a Motor Columbus board meeting in March 1966, described the ongoing push in the nuclear market.19 Moreover, the attribution of the term large-scale high technology is likely to have influenced technological development in favor of nuclear technology. This positive characterization represented the images of the “real technology” of the engineers who were dominating the electricity industry. With this came the belief in technological progress as an imminent potential for solution. Solving pending problems such as the handling of radioactive waste or reactor shielding in densely inhabited areas, could easily be postponed to a later time. To summarize the first part, two main factors can be identified, which led to a distorted perception of entrepreneurial chances and risks in the nuclear business. First, general expectations for the future technological innovation process and second, the tough competition for future market positioning. Above all, this affair gained momentum: competitors were observing one another and against the background of incomplete information and insufficient knowledge, their observations became important as it allowed them to have faith in their actions. As all protagonists were going in the same direction, they assured themselves reciprocally that they were “on the right path.” The whole issue can therefore be interpreted as a collective misinterpretation of existing insecurities.

The Crisis This collective misinterpretation did not only lead to speculative expectations, but also to the situation that by the mid-1960s, far too many projects were launched at the same time amid fierce competition. What was the problem with this? Competition caused time to be a factor of inadequate importance.

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It was crucial for a company to have references in their own national market in order to be able to enter the international nuclear market. At the same time, the participants knew that Switzerland only had space for a limited number of nuclear power plants, not only because demand for electricity was limited, despite fast growth, but also because of the proposed cooling systems based on the use of river water. As a result, the only projects that stood a chance of realization were those, that were able to reach the construction stage as fast as possible, that is, time became the most scarce of all commodities. In consequence the alliances, which were built around the different projects, tended to be heterogeneous and correspondingly shortsighted. Possibly even more crucial was the effect of missed chances to exchange experiences within the projects. While stimulating each other through demonstrated commitment to the new technology, concrete planning activities were mutually kept strictly secret. The cost incurred by this can hardly be overestimated. The consequences of false expectations at the start of a planning phase can be illustrated by using the example of the failed Kaiseraugst Nuclear Power Plant Project. This project had been launched in the mid-1960s by Motor Columbus. A consortium had been formed at the beginning by Motor Columbus, the private Swiss electricity trading company Aare Tessin AG (Atel), and the state-run Electricité de France (EdF). The same partners were at that time building a hydropower plant in the Swiss-French Alps. However, as time went by Motor Columbus, as project manager, realized that their wealth of experience made by projecting hydropower plants could not be directly adopted for nuclear technology. The general conditions, which Motor Columbus had to handle were anything but favorable for the planning of such a novel and large-scale technological project. They had to cope with technology that had hardly come out of the experimental stage, with an ever-changing international market— similar to the technology—with partners attaching different aims to such a plant, and to institutional regulations that had just been implemented, but not proven in practice. These factors were overlooked in the euphoria for the seeming technological breakthrough of nuclear technology, or rather they had become subordinate to the unquestioning aspiration to establish oneself in the nuclear business. To support this point, two of these difficulties shall be explored in more detail. First, Motor Columbus assumed a reduction of cost for the construction in connection with a future upscaling of plants, as well as further progress in the technological sector. “Too cheap to meter” were to be the production costs of nuclear energy in the foreseeable future. However, costs did not decrease but increased during the planning phase of Kaiseraugst, by an average of approximately 10 percent annually. In the United States the average costs of the nuclear power plants whose construction had been started in 1966 and 1967, were about twice the amount than had been predicted in contemporary studies. For plants whose construction had commenced in 1968 and 1969, the

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gap between predicted and effective costs of construction widened further to up to three times the calculated amount. Later on, it became known that the American reactor constructor companies achieved their competitiveness by offering their products as loss leaders in the market, which brought them an estimated deficit of up to $1 billion (U.S.).20 The further increase of costs in the 1970s and 1980s was mainly caused by additional regulations concerning security and environmental protection and by delays in the construction program. Second, work inside the consortium at Kaiseraugst, which in the end consisted of thirteen companies from three countries—Switzerland, France, and Germany—posed enormous difficulties with even the first participating companies expressing different aims. While Motor Columbus sought to establish themselves via the Kaiseraugst project as a planning and engineering company in the global nuclear energy market, Aare Tessin AG was hoping for a cheap base load for their distribution networks. Electricité de France on the other hand, was not so much interested in the production of electricity as to gain insight into the American technology of light water reactors, which they were not allowed to test in their own country because of domestic problems. In Belgium, the French state-owned enterprise was involved in a project with a Westinghouse pressurized water reactor, whereas in Kaiseraugst, it intended to gain experience with a General Electric boiling water type. Dealing with all of these conflicting interests caused a considerable loss of efficiency. When, by the end of the 1960s, the first serious opposition to the projected nuclear power plant in Kaiseraugst arose, the consortium met the criticism in a surprisingly inflexible and defensive way. The delicate composition of the project, the constraints of national procedures for approval, and rising pressure from the public made the decision makers persistent in their once adopted attitude. The result was a dramatic narrowing of the options that remained available to these protagonists. One main result of the nuclear controversy was the change of context in which nuclear power plants were planned, built, and operated. Until the 1970s, it was only a matter for the projectors or the operators of the nuclear power plants respectively and some government authorities. But since then, politicians and the public have taken an active part in it. The institutional structure, which supported the introduction of nuclear technology in the 1960s, was not able to cope with this rush. The pronuclear attitude taken by the national authorities in the past did not fit their other function as controller and made it therefore difficult for them to play the required role of neutral mediator between the opposing sides. The trust once lost was almost impossible to rebuild. Consequently, both the pressure on authorities to legitimate themselves, and the number of international requirements for the safety of nuclear power plants increased. Society now called for foresighted solutions concerning, for instance, radioactive waste, which, in the 1960s, had been entrusted with much selfconfidence to technological progress.

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The Fall

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The antinuclear movement formed the image of the omnipotent nuclear power economy, strongly affiliated with government authorities. This image dissolves in the historic analysis. The nuclear power economy was a giant with feet of clay. Intense competition during the 1960s weakened it as a whole. Only by 1970 did the companies involved succumb to internal and external pressure and change their attitude from competition to collaboration. They began to take part in each other’s projects for nuclear power plants. However, this broad coalition within the electricity industry could not repair the damage done during the preceding years. From then on, the electricity industry and its wellmeaning circles united their political power. However, the aim for which they were fighting was not a well elaborated and organized construction program for nuclear power plants, but rather previously uncontrolled growth superficially unified. The deficiencies of the program were obvious: precarious coalitions built under pressure, and too many planned power plants with varying technological designs and suppliers. Opposition to nuclear power stations was composed of a very heterogeneous group of people as well. The first time opposition achieved public response was at the end of the 1960s, when they were able to connect to the lively debate of the decade—water protection. It received

Fig. 2. Swiss Atomlobby Illustration in a booklet of a radical Swiss anti-nuclear organization with the title Atomlobby Schweiz (Swiss nuclear lobby). Drawing by Franz Goldschmidt. Reprinted from Gewaltfreie Aktion gegen das AKW Kaiseraugst, ed. Atomlobby Schweiz,Wirtschaftliche und personelle Verflechtungen im Schweizer Atomgeschäft. Basel, Switzerland, 1985.

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additional impetus through the federalist protection of vested rights, which helped to build an institutional backing by the two cantons of Basel. The city of Basel, the second largest agglomeration of Switzerland, was situated only a few kilometers downstream on the Rhine from the construction site of the Kaiseraugst Nuclear Power Plant. For many individuals and groups forming part of the opposition against the power plants from the 1970s onward, nuclear technology and Kaiseraugst were not the basic cause for resistance, but rather an occasion for it. During the years around 1970, a fundamental redefinition of the relationship between humans and the environment occurred. Along with this transformation the social references, within which nuclear technology was seen, changed as well. In a short period of time, the carrier of hope became an ecological and social problem. Thus, the real causes for the protests were to be found in society itself, in the uprising of a large number of citizens against a postulated and practiced treatment of fellow human beings and the natural environment. The crisis of the orientation of society, which arose at the beginning of the 1970s, formed the frame in which the conflict around the nuclear power station at Kaiseraugst developed into a sociopolitical arena. As such it had a strong influence on Swiss domestic policy. To those who in one way or another engaged in nuclear energy, society’s change of attitude in the 1970s left a bitter aftertaste. At that time, the impression was already widespread that nuclear power plants were the “scapegoats” or the “whipping boys” for many different and disparate undesirable developments. While opponents thought that nuclear technology would make society more misanthropic and eventually lead to a totalitarian Atomstaat,21 supporters looked at their technology as a victim of the irrational fears of a misguided society. Depending on the viewpoint, the buck was either passed to technology or to society. Both points of view are partially blinded because they do not take into consideration how closely technology and society are linked. In the years following 1945, nuclear technology and postwar society developed into a close and symbiotic relationship. No other technology was so heavily burdened with values and ideals of postwar society. It was to this symbiosis that atomic energy owed its unparalleled promotion. This symbiosis was also accountable for the much higher acceptance that this technology had in society compared to others. This was true as much for the population as for political institutions from local to international levels. These postwar patterns of orientation disappeared more and more during the 1960s. It was a time of dependent coincidence that commercially operated nuclear power plants, shortly after splitting their first atoms, also started to split societies. However, it was by no means a coincidence that atomic energy found itself in the focus of the social controversy, which arose around 1970. It was a result of its own coherent logic. In the struggle for the prevalence of new and

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old worldviews the promoters of new points of view did not simply go after any ordinary boat, rather they sought a flagship of the old order.

Conclusion The view of the history of the civil use of nuclear energy from different angles—from the companies of nuclear economy, from the authorities, and from the organizers of the opposition—makes it possible to show a sophisticated image of how technological progress comes about. Thus, one can perceive that it makes sense to talk of sociotechnological change or of cultures of technology. Evolutionary worldviews and technological aesthetics; quests for innovation, corporate cultures, and economic competition; institutional arrangements; and confidence-building communication were significant aspects, which guided nuclear energy to its breakthrough. Yet, they also led it to its crisis and—as it appears today—to its fall. For many, it seems that within only a few years nuclear technology turned from prophecies of a wonderful future to incarnations of a technocratic past.

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Notes 1. Cited in Eric J. Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes,The short Twentieth Century 1914–1991 (London, 1995), 257. 2. Ibid. 3. Statement to the Secretary of War, War Department Press Release, 6 August 1945. 4. Ibid. 5. See Ladislas Mysyrowicz, “Aux origines de la problématique nucléaire,” in Le nucléaire en Suisse, jalons pour une histoire difficile, eds. Jean-Claude Favez and Mysyrowicz (Lausanne, Switzerland, 1987), 9–107. Tobias Wildi, Der Traum vom eigenen Reaktor, Die schweizerische Atomtechnologieentwicklung 1945–1969 (Zurich, 2003), 19–34. 6. Paul Scherrer, “Atomenergie – die physikalischen und technischen Grundlagen,” in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 28 November 1945. Original phrase in German, “Ein alter Traum der Menschheit ist in Erfüllung gegangen … und es scheint, als ob ein neues Zeitalter der Energiegewinnung anbrechen wolle, das ‘Zeitalter der subatomaren Energie.’” 7. See Mysyrowicz, “Aux origines de la problématique nucléaire,” in Le nucléaire en Suisse, jalons pour une histoire difficile, eds. Jean-Claude Favez and Mysyrowicz (Lausanne, Switzerland, 1987), 71–107. 8. Gerhard Löwenthal and Josef Hausen, Wir werden durch Atome leben, (Berlin, 1956), 16. Original phrase in German, “Das Zeitalter der Atomenergie mit seinen industriellen und wirtschaftlichen Aspekten wird mit dem Zeitalter der Dampfkraft wohl kaum mehr Ähnlichkeit haben als ein Düsenflugzeug mit dem ersten altmodischen Sportflugzeug.” 9. See, for instance, Steven Del Sesto, “Wasn’t the Future of Nuclear Engineering Wonderful?, in Imagining Tomorrow, ed. Joseph Corn (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), 58–76. 10. A still useful survey is cited in Bertrand Goldschmidt, The Atomic Complex, a Worldwide Political History of Nuclear Energy (La Grange Park, Ill., 1982). 11. Patrick Kupper, Atomenergie und gespaltene Gesellschaft, Die Geschichte des gescheiterten Projektes Kernkraftwerk Kaiseraugst (Zurich, 2003). If not cited specially, all statements refer to this publication.

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12. For a—sometimes astonishingly—similar case in the United States, see Joan B. Aron, “Licensed to Kill? The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Shoreham Power Plant,” Pitt Series in Policy and Institutional Studies (Pittsburgh, 1998). 13. Peter Hug, “Elektrizitätswirtschaft und Atomkraft, Das vergebliche Werben der Schweizer Reaktorbauer um die Gunst der Elektrizitätswirtschaft 1945–1964,” in Allmächtige Zauberin unserer Zeit, Zur Geschichte der elektrischen Energie in der Schweiz, ed. David Gugerli (Zurich, 1994), 167–84. 14. See, for instance, Robert Pool, Beyond Engineering. How Society Shapes Technology (New York, 1999), 99–117. 15. See Wildi, Der Traum vom eigenen Reaktor, 187–206. 16. “Eingliederung der ersten Atomkraftwerke in die schweizerische Energiewirtschaft,” in Bulletin SEV/VSE, no. 24 (1963): 1037–43. 17. Archiv Motor Columbus, Verwaltungsratsprotokoll 111 (11 May 1962): 2–9. Original phrase in German: “Was die Atomenergie anbelangt, so kann man sich über deren Wirtschaftlichkeit noch nicht aussprechen. Alles beruht nur auf theoretischen Berechnungen. Bis heute gibt es noch kein einziges wirklich einwandfrei funktionierendes Atomkraftwerk.” 18. For theoretical considerations see Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past, On the Semantics of Historical Time, Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1985). 19. Archiv Motor Columbus, Verwaltungsratsprotokoll 126 (14 March 1966): 3. Original phrase in German: “Es gibt gar viele Mauerblümchen, die gern in das Atomgeschäft kämen.” 20. See Steve Cohn and Steven Mark Cohn, “Too Cheap to Meter. An Economic and Philosophical Analysis of the Nuclear Dream,” in Radical Social and Political Theory, State University of New York Series (New York, 1997). 21. Robert Jungk, Der Atomstaat.Vom Fortschritt in die Unmenschlichkeit (Munich, Germany, 1977).

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CHAPTER

9

The Mining Industry in Traditional China Intra- and Intercultural Comparisons

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HANS ULRICH VOGEL

In the Encyclopaedia Britannica “culture” is defined as a behavior peculiar to Homo sapiens and includes language, ideas, beliefs, customs, codes, institutions, tools, techniques, works of art, rituals, and ceremonies. As a term describing the unique mental ability of humans the word “symboling” has been proposed, by which is meant the assigning to things and events of certain meanings that cannot be grasped with the senses alone.1 Heinrich Rickert in his Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft of 1926 speaks of value-free nature (wertfreie Natur) and value-loaded culture (wertbehaftete Kultur). Therefore, for him, nature is all that is free of meaning, that can only be perceived, and that cannot be comprehended (verstehen) (or, perhaps, better: cannot be assigned with value), while culture is all that is meaningful and that can be comprehended (or: assigned with value). Objects like nature are accessible to the organs of perception, but are totally free of sense and meaning. Objects of culture, on the other hand, refer to meanings that are loaded with value and go beyond sensual perception. Without a relationship of objects to values there is nothing that can be comprehended (or: evaluated) in a meaningful sense.2 For Rickert, religion, the church, law, the state, customs, science, language, literature, art, and the economy, but also all the technical means that are necessary to keep up the economy’s operations are—at least at a certain stage of their development—cultural objects or goods, exactly in the sense that the value that sticks to them is acknowledged— or expected or demanded to be acknowledged—as valid by all members of a society. Technical investigations are made with the help of natural sciences; Notes for this section begin on page 183.

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they do not, however, belong to the objects of natural science research, but to that of cultural science research.3 If we take definitions like these, there can be no doubt that, first, culture not only matters in the history of technology, but that culture is an inalienable part of technology. And it follows that phenomena in the history of technology can be closely related to other aspects of cultural history, such as society, the economy, politics, religion, and customs. The structure of modernity is another important topic for which definitions should be introduced. This is necessary in order to come to better grasps with structural differences between traditional periods and modern times. I follow here Richard Münch who in his book on the structure of modernity dedicated one chapter to science and technology in which he defined modern Western science as the interpenetration of theory, techniques, logic, and experience. In other words, while in the past achievements had been attained in individual domains of these four areas in individual cultures, such as traditional China, Islam, or the West, it was only in the West that a close interpenetration between abstract theoretical and terminological formation, deductive-logical proof, rational-empirical experiment, and practical technology took place.4 Expressed in more social terms, it was the cooperation between scholars, inventors, artists, craftsmen, and merchants, as they were characteristic for the scientific communities of the Italian Renaissance and the seventeenth century in England that made this interpenetration possible. The precondition of this type of cooperation and interpenetration was the result of the dissolving of status differences and the rise of a general urban class of citizens.5 Some words should also be said about the term innovation. In recent years, the history of technology did not focus so much on the history of inventions, but rather on innovations, diffusions, and transmissions. The reason for this shift in attention has to do with the insight that inventions have to pass through quite different lengths of ripening time until they can be put to economic use, and that it is often only by further innovations that their economic profitability can be improved and guaranteed, thus making sure that a diffusion of the innovation takes place. Moreover, it should also be noticed that those products that later are driven off from the market by the new invention do not disappear immediately, but may continue to be produced and sold, and may even undergo improvements by themselves.6 In his investigation of the history of the German salt industry during the period from 1550 to 1650 Peter Piasecki defines innovation as the attempt to create, or the realization of, new technical artifacts or changes in the operational structures (ownership and organization) of salines with the aim of improving their economic performance. He, moreover, differentiates between process, basic, product, and improvement innovation. Diffusion is the process by which an innovation spreads through certain channels and over a certain period of time among the members of a social system.7 Transmission may be understood as a special case of diffusion, that is, the diffusion of a technique from one culture to the next. An interesting type of

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intercivilizational transmission is the concept of “stimulus diffusion” discussed by Joseph Needham and other scholars before him. It must be realized, Needham says, that the wholesale taking over of idea-systems or patterned structures is not a necessary supposition when discussing possibilities of influence passing from one civilization to another in premodern times. A simple hint or faint suggestion of an idea might be sufficient to set off a train of development that would lead to roughly similar phenomena in later ages, apparently wholly independent of their origin.8 Stimulus diffusion thus might be defined as “new pattern growth initiated by precedent in a foreign culture.”9 The topic of stimulus diffusion is of great interest for the history of the mining and salt industries, because one of the stock examples of Needham for this type of intercultural diffusion is the technique of deep drilling for brine and natural gas as it was invented in China centuries before the West.10 As was shown by research in the last few decades, traditional Chinese culture was no doubt rich in inventions and innovations. This also holds true for the mining and metallurgy sectors. The high level of bronze technology, the invention and use of cast iron, the production of zinc on an almost industrial scale for producing brass, as well as the adoption of deep-drilling methods for extracting underground brine and natural gas are some examples demonstrating the technological potential in traditional China. Some of these inventions were made in China centuries before the West. At the same time, however, it can be noted that other eminent Chinese discoveries and inventions such as the compass and gunpowder were never used in mining. These and other limitations in the unfolding of the innovative potential of discoveries and inventions have to be explained in economic, social, political, and cultural terms. What kind of attitude toward production techniques and technology did exist in the various segments of traditional Chinese society? And what was the role of the state, scholars, and officials in the hindrance and promotion of technologies? These are some of the questions that will be explored in this chapter, taking the mining industry as paradigm. On an intracultural level this chapter will elucidate the position that this production sector occupied within the economic, social, and political setting as well as the intellectual realm during various stages in the history of traditional China. As far as space allows, some similarities and differences especially between the traditional Chinese mining and salt sectors will be highlighted. On an intercultural level I will attempt to make some selective comparisons with western historical developments in mining.

The Importance of Mining Mining, metallurgy, and metal trade were important economic activities in such developed premodern societies as those of Europe and China. Progress in the production and trade of metals introduced new elements into the econ-

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omy, society, and politics. This development was characterized by increased demand for, and supply of, metals, prosperity in trade, and the creation of new patterns of settlements and housing, and progress in techniques, technology, and science. Intensified division of labor, a rise in the number of miners, smelters, and other workers, as well as the use of sophisticated machinery resulted in a strict organization of the labor force. This led to the formulation of mining laws and the beginning of labor legislation. Mining, smelting, and metal trade also influenced culture. Finally, an important aspect was the relationship between the production and trade sector on the one hand and political authorities on the other hand. Many of these effects were universal; their intensity, however, varied in different eastern and Western civilizations.

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Mining Techniques11 While many similarities in the mining techniques existed in Europe and China, one conspicuous difference can be observed in their varying degrees of mechanization, particularly in drainage, ore hauling, and ore crushing.12 Although in China suitable basic technical devices were available, it seems that they were not systematically used and further developed for mining and smelting purposes. For instance, although waterpower was already being used to drive the bellows of Chinese blast furnaces in the first century AD.13 (fig. 3), and although use of water-power for such purpose is also mentioned for the fourteenth century,14 the piston bellows at the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Yunnan copper mines, then the leading mining region in China, appear to have been mainly man-powered.15 Capstan drums driven by animal power were in use in early seventeenth-century Sichuan for the hauling of bamboo brine tubes,16 and the Chinese knew a variety of devices for raising water, such as swapes, windlasses, scoop-wheels, square-pallet chain-pumps, paternoster pumps, pot chain-pumps, and norias.17 For fighting fires, even cylinder-and-piston pumps, projecting a jet of water, were known since 1627 at the latest.18 In late eighteenthand early nineteenth-century Yunnan, however, only two drainage methods were mentioned, namely, the construction of special drainage adits, and the adoption of piston pumps. These pumps too were driven by manpower, and it is not clear whether they worked with the creation of a partial vacuum.19 The use of these relatively simple devices may be explained by the fact that copper was mined in Yunnan mostly with the help of adits, and not of shafts, so that the problem of drainage appears to have been less serious. In fact, drainage adits were also used in many European mines, like in eighteenth-century Cornwall, England, copper mines and in Freiberg, Germany,20 and were a highly effective means for draining water. In Europe, however, drainage operations became increasingly mechanized in those places where drainage adits were not feasible. First, windlasses, pot chain-

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pumps, paternoster pumps, and cylinder-and-piston pumps driven by horsepowered capstans and gearwheels gradually replaced manpower. Second, the formula “water is raised by water” gained in importance. For this purpose, the hydraulic experts diverted watercourses and built sophisticated waterwheels for driving their pumps and windlasses. For instance, the so-called Kehrradmaschine (lit.: turn-wheel-machine), which could be manipulated to turn in both directions, was so solid and effective that one was installed in Freiberg as late as 1856.21 In Europe, historical research has brought to light the activities of generations of expert families or companies of German (particularly Nuremberg), bohemian, and Jewish origin in the mining centers from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Members of these families or companies were real hydraulic specialists, who by migrating from one mining region to the next were instrumental in setting up pumps and water-lifting machines, in draining many flooded mines,22 and thus in diffusing technical knowledge. Evidence for the high esteem that was shown for technicians can also be found in the European salt industry. In the sixteenth century at the latest the status of technical experts and Künstler (artists) who implemented production improvements in European salines was much higher than in China. Although inventions and innovations were certainly not absent in the Chinese salt industry, much fewer names of inventors or innovators have been transmitted in records and archives than, for instance, in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Germany, where dozens of names of technical experts, often in the service of dukes and kings, are known.23 Moreover, in the Chinese case, reports of discoverers of salt resources, inventors, and innovators are often of a legendary or religious nature and thus do not focus on production techniques as a subject of independent and central importance per se.24 In Europe, technical specialization and the growing esteem for production techniques and technology resulted in the rise of specialized periodicals and publication organs and in the emergence of circles of specialists discussing the advantages and disadvantages of production methods. It can be easily seen that such professionalization and academization of technical knowledge did neither exist nor emerge in China. Drilling experts in Sichuan were often illiterate men who, as a rule, did not maintain records about their drilling experiences. They proceeded in a more or less exclusively empirical way. All of the records we have come more or less from scholar-officials, that is, members of the elite, who wrote about the salt industry either with the aim of providing for their fellow officials helpful instructions for the salt administration or because they considered some of the phenomena, like “fire wells” (wells producing natural gas), strange or extraordinary and thus worthy of being noted down. Moreover, the introduction of, and experiments with, Sichuan deepdrilling methods in Europe25 show that technicians and engineers transcended national and cultural boundaries by trying to benefit from experiences in other parts of the world. This was not only the case in the sector of deep-drilling,

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but also in agriculture as the cases of the plough26 and the winnowing machine27 suggest. Before the ore was smelted it had to be concentrated and cleaned. Generally, this included stamping, picking, sieving, and washing. In these areas, too, the degree of mechanization in the West was higher than in China. Although the Chinese used man-powered and water-powered stamping mills with horizontally arranged beams for crushing grains,28 similar devices were not systematically used for crushing ore. Processing of ore, particularly crushing of ore, was mainly done manually.29 In Europe, on the other hand, water-driven stamping mills with vertical beams were widespread. Moreover, from the first half of the sixteenth century wet-stamping was adopted, which reduced the generation of dust and, through improved ore processing, saved fuel during smelting. It also enabled miners to work poorer deposits.30 These examples all reinforce the impression that mining and processing of ore were more mechanized and exhibited greater innovative potential in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe than in eighteenth-century China. The first use of gunpowder for mining in Europe that has been documented so far took place in the Venetian mining area of Schio in 1574. Although gunpowder was used in a number of Central European mines from the 1620s onward, it was probably not until the middle of the eighteenth century, or in some cases even later, that the difficulties in handling this dangerous explosive were mastered, and that socioeconomic conditions became favorable to a more widespread adoption in European mines.31 Although the Chinese were the inventors of gunpowder, its application in mining appears to have been practically unknown prior to the late nineteenth century.32 Peter J. Golas enumerates four reasons that might have been responsible for gunpowder not being used in Chinese mining. First, the rather poor explosive force of Chinese gunpowder; second, cheap labor costs versus high equipment costs; third, the danger connected with the application of explosives; and fourth, the existence of the firesetting method as an alternative.33 Another conspicuous difference between the arts of mining in Europe and China existed in the field of mine underground surveying (Markscheidewesen). In the early sixteenth century, European surveyors used methods of descriptive geometry to draft mining maps, and toward the end of the sixteenth century the adoption of trigonometry became part of European mining surveying methods.34 Increasingly, compasses were also used for surveying mines, particularly in the salt mines of Hall in Tirol, Austria, from the beginning of the sixteenth century onward.35 As with the case of gunpowder, it appears that the Chinese as inventors of the compass did not use this device in mining.36 Likewise, Chinese sources are silent on mine-surveying methods whatsoever, and thus raise the impression that this art was not very far developed in Chinese mining.37 This would not be very surprising, considering the fact that geometry was not a strong point of premodern Chinese science.38

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To sum up, the available evidence shows that the use of waterpower, animal power, and mechanical devices appears to have been more widespread in European mining regions than in those of China. In Europe labor was comparatively expensive, while in the late traditional Chinese economy the combination of cheap labor, but increasingly expensive resources and capital was a widespread phenomenon.39 Chinese entrepreneurs were therefore more prone to employ cheap labor than to invest in expensive machinery. Moreover, miners in China sometimes opposed the introduction of labor-saving devices, as actual instances from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries suggest.40 In addition, officials were often suspicious of the adoption of such labor-saving devices, because they feared increased unemployment among miners and thus social unrest and banditry in their wake.41 This shows that the development of mining and smelting techniques was not only a matter dependent on the evolution of the production techniques themselves, but was decisively influenced by economic, social, political, and cultural conditions and attitudes.42 In spite of the comparatively low degree of mechanization in certain fields of Chinese mining and smelting, the absolute output of premodern Chinese mines was in some sectors higher than in Europe. Western and Chinese absolute output figures must, however, be seen in the light of the relative sizes of the economies concerned, and in relationship to the specific demands for certain metals, for instance, by the mints. Moreover, it must also be taken into consideration under which circumstances these metals were extracted from the earth. Golas, in his recent work on the history of Chinese mining uses the expression “high production—low technology.” By this he means that perhaps nowhere else in the world were mediocre ores exploited with such a high labor input and such marginal individual returns than in late imperial China. Extensive mining activities in late imperial China were therefore rather a sign of poverty, than of prosperity.43

Mining Literature, Education, and Science44 Great differences between Europe and China existed in the field of mining literature, education, and science. In Europe, under the influence of the Renaissance, a substantial number of books on mining and smelting emerged. The first was Ulrich Rülein von Calw’s “mining booklet” (ca. 1500), which is similar to a textbook and that still exhibits alchemical traits. This was followed by the more comprehensive and detailed books on mining, mechanics, pyrotechnics, and assaying methods of Biringuccio (1540), Agricola (1556), Mathesius (1562), Ercker (1574) and many others. These works initiated a process of development that eventually resulted in the formation of a rational science of mining (Bergbauwissenschaft). Taking the example of sixteenth-century writings on mining and metallurgy Pamela O. Long has shown that there existed in Europe an explicit endorse-

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ment of openness in the natural sciences that was, moreover, associated with empiricism. These are considered by her significant “events” in intellectual history and in the development of scientific methodology. Sixteenth-century mine and metallurgical authors occupied a border area between learned, elite, and craft cultures. Not only was there a great diversity in the types of works that they wrote, but substantial differences also existed in the aims of authorship and in intended audience, such as specific patrons, the world of humanist learning, wealthy potential investors, as well as practitioners. Such authors like Agricola were familiars of all of these worlds, thus strongly suggesting that in Europe the gap between the scholar and craftsman was not as large in the early modern period as has sometimes been suggested. Moreover, their affirmation that knowledge should be transmitted openly was closely associated with beliefs related to early modern mine and metallurgy capitalism. Wealth was considered a positive good and investment in mining was encouraged and would pay off in riches. Clear technical language and understandable discussions of technical processes, careful measurements, honest and precise assaying, and practical skills are all necessary to high productivity, while craft secrecy would run counter to this aim.45 In the educational field, some kind of mining education already existed in Europe in Joachimsthal (Bohemia) in 1717 and in Schemnitz (Hungary) in 1724. These educational schemes were followed by others with similar curricula in Schmölnitz and Oravica (both Hungary) in 1747.46 A professorial chair for mining science was established for the first time in Prague in 1762–63. Soon thereafter it was deemed necessary to combine theory with practice, with the result that mining schools were officially established in the centers of important mining regions. The first of these mining schools were those established in Freiberg (Germany) in 1765–66 and in Schemnitz in 1763–1770. Many of the books published there became models of scientific mining literature for the Western world.47 In premodern China no such mining schools as in the West were established. Moreover, the array of mining literature was less impressive than in Europe. Information on mining techniques or metallurgy is often contained in works of broader context, such as the pharmacopoeias, in the alchemical literature, or in books of an encyclopedic nature or consisting of miscellaneous records. Early works dealing with mining and smelting were extremely rare in China. It was not until 1844 that Wu Qijun’s Yunnan kuangchang gongqi tulüe (An illustrated account of mining and mining tools of Yunnan), containing a detailed description of premodern Yunnan mining and smelting methods, was published.48 Wu Qijun’s work, however, is mostly a compilation of texts of various origin. Moreover, it hardly can compete in comprehensiveness, details, and systematization with Agricola’s De re metallica.49 The prosperity of eighteenthcentury Yunnan copper mining resulted in the production of a series of other exclusive compilations, but all of them deal mainly with administrative regulations pertaining to mining. They do not contain any technical information,

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but exclusively list mining and mint quotas, regulations on state copper transport and purchases, and other fiscal or administrative matters.50 Moreover, all of these works or manuals were not written by miners themselves, but by officials responsible for the administration of the mines as a guide for their fellow officials succeeding them in this task. There can be therefore no doubt that in the traditional Chinese mining sector a large gap existed between those who wrote on mining and those who worked in the mines.51 The combination of theory with practice or of science with technology was of equal, or perhaps even greater, importance in the salt industry. It is certainly true that in the West chemical knowledge for a long time also had only a limited impact on the improvement of the largely empirical salt production techniques. Yet, chemical and geological knowledge about salt was there and, when time and conditions demanded it, could be successfully called for, not only for the production of sodium chloride, but also for the production of other salts such as Epsom salt, Glauber’s salt, and especially soda, which gave rise to the tremendously important chemical industry. In China, however, theories on the origin and properties of salts were quite rudimentary and sterile.52 Accounts of salts were rather descriptive, and very little revolutionary knowledge can be observed. Moreover, there is also no convincing evidence that traditional theoretical knowledge about salt and its deposits would have been combined with empirical knowledge in such a way that this would have resulted in a substantial rise of production or productivity. The empirical side was perhaps, as for a long time in the West as well, much more decisive for the introduction of technical improvements.

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Mining Laws and Codes Considerable differences existed in mining law and legislation between premodern Europe and China. In 1158, in the Roncalian Constitution, Frederick Barbarossa claimed the mining regale as part and parcel of imperial sovereignty. This meant that the king, or later the feudal territorial rulers, more or less totally claimed the right of disposal of certain minerals. In the process of growing fiscalization, they could grant the right to mine to individuals or groups, which was mostly combined with a royalty, usually amounting to 10 percent of the ore or metal produced. The mining regale and with it the fiscal demands thus became perquisites of the king, who, however, had to relinquish the practical utilization of this right to the territorial lords.53 Besides the mining regale, the other characteristic of medieval European mining law was the legal separation between the ownership of soil and the right to exploit ores (in German called allgemeine Bergbaufreiheit). The Alpine character of medieval mining facilitated this divorce. Mining policy, regale, and the right to mine resulted in a great upsurge of mining in central Europe and, for

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the time being, in the development of a community of free miners who had their own semi-independent legal institutions.54 Legal concepts found their expression in countless mining codes (Bergordnungen). They emerged at every place where deposits were rich and mining towns were established.55 With the growth of the absolutist power, however, the semi-autonomy of earlier European mining communities in judicial matters was gradually abolished, and it were the regalian lord’s mining officials who exclusively decided legal cases.56 In China something similar to the mining regale existed. The mining of ore—with the exception of trifling surface deposits—had to be reported to the officials and had to get the approval of the emperor.57 Mining and smelting taxes had to be handed over to the state, either in kind or in money. The percentage of taxes levied varied from dynasty to dynasty. If we take the case of copper, it ranged between 10 and 30 percent of the total output.58 Mostly, the state imposed a purchase monopoly on the remaining copper because it needed the metal for its mints. In Yunnan, the most important copper-producing region of eighteenth-century China, the state moved in the direction of reducing taxes in order to spur production.59 Chinese mining laws are probably best known from the Ming and Qing periods, but in these periods the usual official compilations of basic laws and precedents also dedicated only few paragraphs to mining. Moreover, most of these paragraphs deal with mining prohibitions and define how illegal mining is to be punished according to the number of people involved and the quantity of ore extracted.60 In spite of the official promotion especially of mint metal mining from 1736 onward, mining should have been still restricted to border provinces; and agriculture, houses, graves, and geomantic features were prohibited be harmed or destroyed.61 Disparate concepts existed with regard to the right to mine when compared with the West. In 1675 and 1679 the Chinese central government stipulated that the respective landowner should be given priority to work a mine. Only in the case that he could not afford it were people of the same district or department permitted to apply for a permission to mine.62 Although later rich investors were also sometimes recruited for mining, and miners migrated from province to province, it is interesting to note that in the view of state officials and scholars agriculture was always ranked higher than mining and that landowners were given priority to exploit mineral deposits. Therefore, we can safely conclude that in China the legal separation between the ownership of land and the possession of underground ore deposits had not reached the European level.63 While there were countless European official mining codes, we find only few references to special mining codes in China.64 In China, with the exception of serious crimes, the mining communities retained quite a high degree of autonomy in judicial matters. This, however, was not an expression of a special privilege, like in Europe, but fitted well into the then prevailing, idealized con-

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cept that minor legal cases should be dealt with by respected community elders without official interference.65 No doubt, miners or mining entrepreneurs adhered to customary law,66 but at the same time the lack of special official codes seems to be indicative of the weak legal position of mining communities visà-vis the state. The state did not treat miners as a legally distinct and privileged group, but adopted the already existing methods of jurisdiction and control to keep these apparently socially dangerous and unruly communities at bay.

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Conclusion In this chapter, I have mainly concentrated on aspects dealing with techniques, science, education, and law related especially to mining and smelting. While these aspects are important in explaining some of the reasons why different paths of development and involution were followed in Europe and China, other factors of political, economic, social, and cultural dimension should be taken into account in order to arrive at a more complete and interrelated picture. One aspect that is the most striking is the conspicuous disparity in the general attitude toward mining that existed in Europe and China. In Europe, mining for metals was directly or indirectly promoted by rulers as a substantial source of revenue. In China, mining was mostly considered an economic, social, and political danger. Only in more recent times, that is, in the eighteenth century, was mining reassessed in more positive terms and some of its benefits (especially in occupational terms and with regard to monetary policy) acknowledged. These conceptual differences are most clearly reflected in the social status of miners and in mining legislation. Chinese miners never enjoyed the status and privileges of their Western counterparts, nor did they benefit from incipient social security systems. Likewise, no distinct legal definitions and official mining codes such as those known in the West evolved in China. Despite the specific social and administrative characteristics of Chinese mining communities, miners were never considered a privileged group, and in fact were lower in status than peasants. The Chinese salt industry shared some of the characteristics of mining and smelting enterprises and thus of proto-industrialized production, such as largescale enterprise structures, division of labor and wage labor, rationalized organization of production, and supralocal markets.67 Moreover, the structures of social organization both in the production area and trade sector showed specific particularities different from those of other professions and production sectors, especially agriculture. Production of salt was an important industry in traditional China, generating fiscal income and supplying a basic necessity of life. Besides agriculture, spinning, and weaving, it was considered to be one of the most prestigious areas of production. Due to its fiscal relevance, the salt industry and salt monopoly were often discussed by scholar-officials, and special

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treatises were written about them. Salt production, including salt trade and salt administration, is thus one of the most well-described sectors of the traditional Chinese economy, second only to agriculture and weaving, and far surpassing mining.68 The differences in the general attitude toward mining were important factors influencing actual mining policy. In sixteenth-century Europe the free and semi-autonomous mining communities that arose in the Middle Ages became increasingly restricted by absolutist power, particularly when abuses and mismanagement within the mining communities increased. In order to secure mining royalties and taxes, rulers willingly took over responsibility for guaranteeing the continuation of production. Their influence increasingly extended to all aspects of mining and metal trade. This was sometimes simply a product of the necessary response to the economic difficulties encountered by many mines, though in the long run it certainly impeded the rise of private and independent mining entrepreneurs in central Europe. It should be mentioned that England was an important exception to this, as mining there was freed from monopolistic claims of the crown toward the end of the seventeenth century. In China, state involvement was strong only in the mint metal sector, where the main objective was to guarantee a sufficient supply of metals for the mints. In the areas of zinc, lead, tin, and, especially, copper mining the state increasingly relinquished direct management and abolished corvée labor. Private management of mining was promoted, although close state supervision remained an absolute precondition. Connected with this trend was the state’s willingness to recruit rich investors or merchants, but lack of private capital and transport facilities often required substantial state investment, especially in the copper-mining sector. Substantial differences are also noticeable in mining and smelting techniques. Waterpower, animal power, and mechanization appear to have been more widespread in European mines, where labor became more and more expensive. Decreasing labor costs, but increasingly expensive resources and capital were a common phenomenon in the late imperial Chinese economy. The compass and gunpowder, two key Chinese inventions, were not used in mining there, as they were after they had reached Europe. The growing importance attached to mining and smelting techniques in Europe resulted in the development of an exclusive mining literature and mining education that was almost completely absent in China. Limitations in the application of available technical devices and knowledge are also evident in the traditional Chinese salt industry. Chinese salt production techniques present an ambiguous picture. On the one hand, there were technical developments, some spectacular—the invention of deep-drilling in eleventh-century Sichuan, the adoption of methods of hydrometric measurement, and the use of solar evaporation, especially successive basin solar evaporation, at the coast—which must have spurred salt production, and that provide evidence of the inventive and innovative potential of traditional Chinese soci-

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ety and its economy. On the other hand, the development of production techniques was not smooth and unbroken, because there were periods of evolution alternating with stagnation and even decline. Moreover, as can be shown by the case of Sichuan in the late imperial period, salt yards with a high technical level, substantial input of capital, a high degree of labor division, and large salt output coexisted with many small yards with much simpler technical equipment, low capital investment, low degree of labor division, and small-scale salt production.69 This coexistence of industries with various levels of production techniques, productivity, and organizational scales is quite a well-known phenomenon in economic history, and points to substantial disparities in the quality of marketing, transport, and trade network structures in different localities. Another quite revealing phenomenon was the dominance of highly laborintensive salt production methods along the Chinese coast well into the nineteenth century. As sea salt accounted for 80 to 90 percent of empire-wide salt production, we have to regard the methods of its production not only as dominant for the salt sector, but also as representative for large parts of the Chinese economy as well. While the labor-intensive method of leaching soils or ashes impregnated with salt particles and boiling the resulting strong brine to salt70 was not unknown in Europe, it was replaced there by methods of successive basin solar evaporation probably due to labor shortages. China’s most notable invention in salt production, deep-drilling methods in Sichuan, only had a chance to emerge and thrive because Sichuan was a secluded province far from the sea. Its borehole techniques were never transmitted to other provinces. Thus, the Sichuan salt industry, impressive as it was in many respects, was the exception rather than the rule, while Chinese traditional sea salt production methods were truly representative of the allocation of fixed capital and human labor. Even when more and more solar evaporation was introduced at the coast, the prime motivation was not saving on labor costs, but rather saving on expensive fuel. From this it also follows that, while the technical achievements in the Sichuan well salt production sector—deep-drilling, tubing of wells, the use of jars, and the utilization of natural gas—were impressive by premodern standards, it is only in a very limited sense that the Sichuan deep-drilling techniques can be considered to be the “father of the [modern] petroleum welldrilling industry.” Petroleum has often been an unwelcome side-product of salt wells, be they shaft wells or deep-drilled wells. The rise of the modern petroleum industry in the United States did not necessarily have its origin in the discovery of underground petroleum resources, but rather in the achievements of petroleum technology in creating first lamp oil and then fuel, by which a large market demand could be created for this bituminous substance. The differences in the general development of mining and smelting in Europe and China may be of great significance, if we take into account the likely contributions of the mining and smelting sectors to the Industrial Revolution and to the process of modernization in Europe. In Europe, mining and smelt-

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ing techniques were enhanced by mechanization. This stimulated the deliberate combination of theory and practice, as demonstrated in the setting up of mining schools in mining regions and the institutionalization of a rational mining science. This development formed a basis for the application of new technical and scientific discoveries in mining and smelting. Mining and smelting exhibited many modern characteristics. It required large amounts of capital, so that specific forms of capital investment and entrepreneurial organization evolved. It involved industrial production, insofar as large numbers of workers were often involved, and production passed through distinct and separate stages of processing. Specialization in professions and a high degree of labor division arose. It was difficult and strenuous work, so that workdays and restrictions on working hours became important.71 The incipient social solidarity and security systems in many European mining communities were certainly exemplary for the time. Finally, mining and smelting were considered distinct occupations separate from agricultural production. Due to their benefits for the economy and state revenue, they conferred special status on the miners and smelters, and enhanced the importance of nonagricultural pursuits in premodern Western societies. Why did mining and smelting not have the same impact in China? If being demanded to evaluate the individual factors that hindered a more revolutionary development of mining and smelting in China, I tend to give priority to basic socioeconomic conditions and structures. These conditions and structures were often closely related to other areas, such as politics and culture, and thus formed an interrelated and often inseparable mix. Such an approach, however, should not underestimate the potential of human creativity that has created these structures and that is also capable of destroying or changing them. Moreover, it also should not lead to oversimplifications or prejudices, for instance, in the sense that China was immutable and did not change at all. This chapter shows that, both in Europe and China, mining policy as well as mining and smelting themselves changed over time in reaction to the demands and altering conditions of society and economy. Humanity is thus certainly not fatally subject to economic and materialistic factors, but these factors may be less well recognized, analyzed, and—if necessary—overcome in traditional societies where the facilities of a self-critical evaluation of one’s own strengths and weaknesses are less developed. While keeping the caveat of humanity’s mental and physical creativity in mind it nonetheless can be ascertained that the history of mining and smelting as well as of salt production in China in many respects fits the model of the “high-level equilibrium trap” as it has been delineated by Mark Elvin in 1973. The reasons for the phenomenon of quantitative growth, but qualitative standstill of the late imperial Chinese economy and society is seen by Elvin in cheapening labor and in increasingly expensive resources as well as in a high degree of commercialization characterized by mercantile versatility and cheap transport facilities. These decisive factors made

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profitable invention and the adoption of labor-saving devices more and more difficult and discouraged technical and scientific progress. It were these basic factors that decisively influenced the course of history in late imperial China, and not so much problems of inadequate capital and restricted markets, smallscale, and short-lived enterprises or political obstacles to economic growth.72 While there was perhaps no less potential for inventions and innovations in China than in the West, traditional China did thus not experience a modernization in science and technology characterized by a close and systematic interpenetration of theory, techniques, logic, and experience.

Fig. 3. Mining operations in nineteenth-century Yunnan, as depicted in the Yunnan kuangchang gongqi tulüe. Reprinted from Wu Qijun, Yunnan kuangchang gongqi tulüe [An illustrated account of mining and miningtools of Yunnan], 1844, A, 3b–4a.

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Fig. 4. The construction of a sixteenth-century shaft, as depicted in De re metallica Reprinted from Georg Agricola, Zwölf Bücher vom Berg- und Hüttenwesen [De re metallica libri XII] 1556, 94.

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Fig. 5. Carrying the ashes and pouring them into the leaching basin. Reprinted from Chen Chun, Aobo tu [Illustrated boiling of seawater], ed. Siku quanshu, 1334, ill. 24.

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Notes 1. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1994–2001: “Culture.” 2. Heinrich Rickert, Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft (Stuttgart, Germany, 1986 [1926]), 37–9. 3. Ibid., 40. 4. Richard Münch, Die Struktur der Moderne: Grundmuster und differentielle Gestaltung des institutionellen Aufbaus der modernen Gesellschaften (Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1992), 200. 5. Ibid., 215. 6. Helmuth Schneider, Einführung in die antike Technikgeschichte (Darmstadt, Germany, 1992), 3–4. 7. Peter Piasecki, Das deutsche Salinenwesen: Invention—Innovation—Diffusion (Idstein, Germany, 1987), 44, 48. 8. Joseph Needham et al., Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 1, Introductory Orientations (Cambridge, 1954), 244. 9. Ibid., 247. 10. Ibid., 244–45. 11. This chapter is based on Xia Xiangrong et al., Zhongguo gudai kuangye kaifashi [The history of the development of the ancient Chinese mining industry] (Beijing, 1980), 219–340; Wu Qijun, Yunnan kuangchang gongqi tulüe [An illustrated account of mining and mining-tools of Yunnan] (1844); E-tu Zen Sun and Sun Shiou-chuan, trans., T’ien-kung k’ai-wu: Chinese Technology in the Seventeenth Century, by Sung Ying-Hsing (Pennsylvania and London, 1966), 235–59; Georg Agricola, Zwölf Bücher vom Berg- und Hüttenwesen, 1556 (Munich, Germany, 1980 [1956]); Werner

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Arnold, “Technische Höhepunkte im europäischen Bergbau des 15. bis 18. Jahrhunderts beim weiteren Vordringen in die Tiefe,” in Eroberung der Tiefe, ed. Werner Arnold (Leipzig, Germany, 1983), 107–17; Gerhard Heilfurth, Der Bergbau und seine Kultur (Zurich, Switzerland and Freiburg, Germany, 1981), 27–50; Josef Vlachovic, “Die Kupfererzeugung und der Kupferhandel in der Slowakei vom Ende des 15. bis Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts.” in Schwerpunkte der Kupferproduktion und des Kupferhandels in Europa 1500–1650, ed. Hermann Kellenbenz (Cologne, Germany and Vienna, Austria, 1977), 150–53. For an excellent study of the traditional Chinese mining industry see Peter J. Golas, “Mining,” in Science and Civilisation in China, ed. Needham, vol. 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology (Cambridge, 1999), part 13. 12. This impression is mainly based on a comparison between Agricola, Zwölf Bücher vom Berg- und Hüttenwesen, 1556; and Wu Qijun, Yunnan kuangchang gongqi tulüe, which contains the most detailed account on premodern Chinese mining and smelting (in Yunnan). 13. Needham, The Development of Iron and Steel Technology in China (Cambridge, 1964), 47. 14. Yosida Mitukuni, “The Chinese Concept of Technology: A Historical Approach.” Acta Asiatica, no. 36 (1979): 60. 15. Wu Qijun, in Yunnan kuangchang gongqi tulüe, does not mention water-driven bellows in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Yunnan. However, we know from Émile Rocher’s and J. Coggin Brown’s accounts that such bellows were in quite widespread use for iron, silver, and lead smelting in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Yunnan. At the same time, both Rocher and Brown cite many examples of human-powered bellows, particularly for coppersmelting furnaces. See Rocher, La province du Yünnan (Paris, 1879), 2: 198–99, 203, 204, 214, 216, 224, 229, 234; and Brown, “The Mines and Mineral Resources of Yunnan, with Short Accounts of its Agricultural Products and Trade,” Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India 47 (1923): 88, 90–91, 93, 107, 115, 129, 132, 135. 16. E-tu Zen Sun and Sun Shiou-chuan, trans., T’ien-kung k’ai-wu: Chinese Technology in the Seventeenth Century, by Sung Ying-Hsing (Pennsylvania and London, 1966), 1119–120. 17. See Needham, et al., Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 4, Physics and Physical Technology, part 2, Mechanical Engineering (Cambridge, 1965), 330ff; and also E-tu Zen Sun and Sun Shiou-chuan, T’ien-kung k’ai-wu, 13–25. 18. See Mark Elvin, “The High-Level Equilibrium Trap: The Causes of the Decline of Invention in the Traditional Chinese Textile Industries,” in Economic Organization in Chinese Society, ed. William E. Willmott (Stanford, 1972), 99. Elvin maintains that this pump was of foreign origin. 19. Cf. Wu Qijun, Yunnan kuangchang gongqi tulüe, A, 4b, 47b–48. Elvin, “Skills and Resources in Late Traditional China,” in Chinas Modern Economy in Historical Perspective, ed. Dwight H. Perkins (Stanford 1975), 100, thinks that these pumps did possibly work without the creation of a partial vacuum. The use of similar pumps in Japanese mines, however, suggests the contrary. For Japanese pumps see Emil Treptow, Der Altjapanische Bergbau und Hüttenbetrieb dargestellt auf Rollbildern (Freiberg, Germany, 1904), 5; Heinrich Winkelmann, Altjapanischer Goldbergbau (Wethmar, Germany, 1964), 15, 23–24; Bruno Lewin, trans., and Andreas Hauptmann, ed. Kodôzuroku,“Illustrierte Abhandlung über die Verhüttung des Kupfers, 1801”: Zur Geschichte der Kupfergewinnung in Japan (Bochum, Germany, 1984), 28. 20. See D. B. Barton, A History of Copper Mining in Cornwall and Devon (Truro, England, 1968), 21ff; and also Walter Hoffmann, Bergakademie Freiberg (Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1959), 27. 21. Heilfurth, Der Bergbau und seine Kultur, 33–35. 22. Wolfgang von Stromer, “Wassernot und Wasserkünste im Bergbau des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit,” in Montanwirtschaft Mitteleuropas vom 12. bis 17. Jahrhundert: Stand,Wege und Aufgaben der Forschung (Bochum, Germany, 1984), 50–72. 23. See, for instance, the long list of technical experts or “salinists” listed by Peter Piasecki, Das deutsche Salinenwesen, 301–4. 24. On Chinese salt gods and salt saints who are often related to inventions or innovations see Hans Ulrich Vogel, “Salt, Saints, and Gods in Premodern China: A Religio-Economic Land-

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scape,” Beitrag zum Workshop “Religion and Economy in East Asia,” Blaubeuren, 16–18 March 1998a. 25. Vogel, “The Transfer of Mining and Smelting Technology between Asia and Europe in the Sixteenth to Early Nineteenth Centuries,” Journal of the Japan-Netherlands Institute (Papers of the first conference on the Transfer of Science and Technology between Europe and Asia since Vasco da Gama (1498–1998), Amsterdam & Leiden, 5–7 June 1991) no. 3 (1991a): 84–90. 26. Francesca Bray, Agriculture, in Science and Civilisation in China, ed. Needham,Vol. 6, Biology and Biological Technology, part 2 (Cambridge, 1984), 576–87. 27. Vogel, “The Diffusion and Transmission of the Rotary-Fan Winnowing-Machine from China to Europe: New Findings and New Questions,” forthcoming in History of Technology. 2004. 28. E-tu Zen Sun and Sun Shiou-chuan, trans., T’ien-kung k’ai-wu, 91–93. 29. Tin ore mills partly powered by animals are, however, mentioned in early twentiethcentury Gejiu,Yunnan Province. Nonetheless, most of the other ore-processing techniques were carried out manually. Cf. Golas 1990: 17–25. Brown also mentions the adoption of water-powered stamping mills for the crushing of lead and silver ores in early twentieth century Yunnan. Processing of copper ores was, however, carried out manually. Cf. Brown, “Mines and Mineral Resources of Yunnan,” 114–15, 133. 30. Karl-Heinz Ludwig, Die Agricola-Zeit im Montangemälde: Frühmoderne Technik in der Malerei des 18. Jahrhunderts (Düsseldorf, Germany, 1979), 79–82. 31. For a critical discussion of the sources of information on the use of gunpowder, the state of modern researches on gunpowder application in mining, and the socioeconomic and technical preconditions for the spread of gunpowder use in European mining see Ludwig and Fritz Gruber, Salzburger Bergbaugeschichte: Ein Überblick (Salzburg, Austria and Munich, Germany, 1982). Ludwig particularly refutes the widespread legend that gunpowder was first used in mining in Schemnitz, modern-day Banská Stiavnica in Czechoslovakia, in 1627. 32. Treptow, in Der Altjapanische Bergbau und Hüttenbetrieb, 4, mentions that the use of gunpowder for mining was introduced to Japan by the Freiberg mining engineer Raphael Pumpelly (born in New York) in the year 1860. 33. Golas, “Chinese Mining: Where Was the Gunpowder?” in Explorations in the History of Science and Technology in China, eds. Li Guohao, Zhang Mengwen, and Cao Tianqi (Shanghai, 1982), 453–58. 34. Michael Ziegenbalg, “Aspekte des Markscheidewesens mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Zeit von 1200 bis 1500,” in Montanwirtschaft Mitteleuropas vom 12. bis 17. Jahrhundert: Stand,Wege und Aufgaben der Forschung, eds. Werner Kroker and Ekkehard Westermann (Bochum, Germany, 1984), 40–49. 35. However, in spite of continual instruction, surveyors of other nearby mining areas did not immediately master this technique. Cf. Rudolf Palme, “Alpine Salt Mining in the Middle Ages,” Journal of European Economic History 19, no. 1 (1990): 129. On the slow spread of the use of compasses in European mining see also Herbert Spickernagel, “Über die Entwicklung des Markscheidewesens bis zum 16. Jahrhundert unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des alpinen Bergbaus,” in Bergbauüberlieferungen und Bergbauprobleme in Österreich und seinem Umkreis; Festschrift für Franz Kirnbauer zum 75. Geburtstag, eds. Gerhard Heilfurth and Leopold Schmidt (Vienna, Austria, 1975), 180. 36. The compass was, however, used by Japanese mining surveyors. Evidence for this is provided by a scroll probably from the middle of the nineteenth century. See Treptow, Der Altjapanische Bergbau und Hüttenbetrieb, 5. 37. Wu Qijun, in Yunnan kuangchang gongqi tulüe, several times refers to the occurrence of bitter disputes over ore deposits, and that these disputes had to be mediated by some sort of semiprivate mining officials. His description is suggestive of unplanned and uncontrolled activities in digging adits. At any rate, no mine surveying methods are mentioned by Wu Qijun. On this question see also J. C. Brown, Mines and Mineral Resources of Yunnan, with Short Accounts of its Agricultural Products and Trade,” Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India 47 (1923): 48, 114. 38. Needham, Wissenschaftlicher Universalismus: Über Bedeutung und Besonderheit der chinesischen Wissenschaft (Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1979), 22.

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39. On the supply of labor in the Chinese textile industries see Elvin, “High-Level Equilibrium Trap,” 153–155; see also Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past (Stanford, Conn., 1973), 314; Ramon H. Myers, The Chinese Economy: Past and Present (Belmont, Calif., 1980), 42. 40. For examples of miners’ opposition in the late nineteenth century see Ellsworth C. Carlson, The Kaiping-Mines (1877–1912). 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 46. 41. Frank H. H. King, Money and Monetary Policy in China 1845–1895 (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), 234–35. 42. For a more detailed discussion of these influences see Vogel and Elisabeth TheisenVogel, “Kupfererzeugung und -handel in China und Europa, Mitte des 8. bis Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts: Eine vergleichende Studie,” Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung 1991 15 (1991): 1–57. See also Golas, “Mining,” 387–428. 43. Golas, “Mining,” 432. 44. Smelting is also included as an important topic in mining literature, education, and science. 45. See Pamela O. Long, “The Openness of Knowledge: An Ideal and its Context in 16thCentury Writings on Mining and Metallurgy,” Technology and Culture 32, no. 2 (1991): 318–20, 352–53. The classical study on the role of university scholars, humanists, and artisans is Edgar Zilsel, “Die sozialen Ursprünge der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft,” in Die sozialen Ursprünge der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft. Herausgegeben und übersetzt von Wolfgang Krohn. Mit einer biobibliographischen Notiz von Jörn Behrmann, Edgar Zilsel (Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1976), 49–65, but contrary to Zilsel later scholars evaluated especially the humanists’ contribution to modern science in more positive terms. See Wolfgang Krohn, “Zur soziologischen Interpretation der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft,” in ibid., 26, 29. 46. Günter B. Fettweis, “Zum Systemaspekt in den Bergbauwissenschaften,” in Heilfurth and Schmidt, eds., Bergbauüberlieferungen und Bergbauprobleme in Österreich und seinem Umkreis, 67. 47. See Heilfurth, Der Bergbau und seine Kultur, 160–61; and also Heinrich Kunnert, “Bergbauwissenschaft und technische Neuerungen im 18. Jahrhundert—Die ‘Anleitung zu der Bergbaukunst’ von Chr. Tr. Delius (1773),” in Österreichisches Montanwesen: Produktion, Verteilung, Sozialformen, ed. Michael Mitterauer (Vienna, Austria, 1974), 181–98; and Z. Gyulay and A. TárczyHornoch, “Schemnitz als eines der wichtigsten bergbauwissenschaftlichen Zentren Europas im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert,” in Heilfurth and Schmidt, eds., Bergbauüberlieferungen und Bergbauprobleme in Österreich und seinem Umkreis, 88–96; and also Hoffmann, Bergakademie Freiberg, 31–52. 48. A translation of the technical, social, economic, political, and religious sections of Wu Qijun’s work was recently finished by Golas and Vogel and will soon be published. 49. The difference in technical representation also becomes clear when the illustrations of these two works are compared. Cf. figures 3 and 4. 50. Vogel, “Chinese Central Monetary Policy and Yunnan Copper Mining, 1644–1800,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Zurich, revised version of 1989): appendix A. 51. Golas, “Mining,” 21ff. 52. Vogel, “Chinese and Western Scientific Explanations of Sichuan Brine and Natural Gas Deposits Prior to 1900,” in East Asian Science: Tradition and Beyond. Papers from the seventh international conference on the History of Science in East Asia, Kyoto, 2–7 August 1993, eds. Hashimoto Keizô, Catherine Jami, and Lowell Skar (Osaka, Japan, 1995), 479–87. 53. On the origin of the mining regale as a distinct legal category and the developments of its fiscalization and refeudalization see Dieter Hägermann, “Deutsches Königtum und Bergregal im Spiegel der Urkunden: Eine Dokumentation bis zum Jahre 1272,” in Montanwirtschaft Mitteleuropas vom 12. bis 17. Jahrhundert, eds. Kroker and Westermann, 13–23. 54. See John U. Nef, “Mining and Metallurgy in Medieval Civilisation,” in The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, eds. Michael Postan and E. E. Rich (Cambridge, 1952), 2: 442–56; Heilfurth, Der Bergbau und seine Kultur (Zurich, Switzerland and Freiburg, Germany, 1981), 62–8 Hue, Die Bergarbeiter (Stuttgart, Germany, 1910), 79–93; and also Palme, “Rechtliche und soziale Probleme im Tiroler Erzbergbau vom 12. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert,” in Westermann and Kroker, Montanwirtschaft Mitteleuropas vom 12. bis 17. Jahrhundert, eds., 111–17. 55. Heilfurth, Der Bergbau und seine Kultur, 64.

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56. Eckhard Seelig, “Die Entstehung des Direktionsprinzips im sächsischen Bergrecht und seine Weiterentwicklung im Merkantilismus” (Ph.D. diss., University of Clausthal, Germany, 1971), 15–20, 69–70. 57. See, for instance, Wu Qijun, Yunnan kuangchang gongqi tulüe, A, 18a. 58. For details, see Vogel and Theisen-Vogel, “Kupfererzeugung und -handel in China und Europa,” 36. 59. Vogel, “Chinese Central Monetary Policy and Yunnan Copper Mining,” chap. V, 3, a. 60. Bernd Eberstein, Bergbau und Bergarbeiter zur Ming-Zeit (Hamburg, 1974), 157–59; and also Wei Qingyuan and Lu Su, “Qingdai qianqi kuangye zhengce de yanbian (xia)” (The evolution of policies concerning the mining industry in the early and high Qing dynasty, Part 2). Zhongguo shehui jingjishi yanjiu (The journal of Chinese social and economic history) no. 4 (1983): 20. 61. Vogel and Theisen-Vogel, “Kupfererzeugung und -handel in China und Europa,” 36. 62. See Qingchao wenxian tongkao [Encyclopedia of the historical records of the Qing dynasty]. Compilation ordered in 1767. Reprint Taipei, 1963: 4972b–c, 5129b; and also Guy Boulais, Manuel du Code Chinois (Shanghai 1966 [1924]), 311f. 63. That the landowner had his or her share or rent in a mining enterprise is reflected in many mining partnership contracts. See Tang Mingsui, Li Longqian, and Zhang Weixiong, “Dui Deng Tuo tongzhi ‘Cong Wanli dao Qianlong’ yiwen de shangque he buzhong” (Supplementing and discussing comrade Deng Tuo’s ‘From Wanli to Qianlong’), in Zhongguo zibenzhuyi mengya wenti taolunji, xubian (Collection of articles dealing with the problem of the sprouts of capitalism in China, continued), ed. Nanjing daxue lishixi Zhongguo gudaishi jiaoyanshi (Nanjing University, Department of History, Ancient History Teaching and Research Section) (Beijing, 1960), 191–196; Teng T’o (Deng Tuo), “En Chine du XVI au XVIIIe siècle: les mines de charbon de Ment’ou-kou,” trans. Michel Cartier, Annales, Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations 22, no. 1 (1967): 53. 64. For a few regulations and prohibitions see Wu Qijun, Yunnan kuangchang gongqi tulüe, A, 18–20; Fang Guoyu et. al., Yunnan shiliao mulu gaishuo [Abstracts of historical material of Yunnan] (Zhonghua Shuju, 1984), 3: 1278 ff. 65. For instance, the stone inscriptions containing the rather severe mining regulations at the Gejiu zinc mine in Yunnan had been jointly set up by merchants and gentry of Gejiu (Gejiu shangshen tongli) in 1798. See Fang Guoyu et al., Yunnan shiliao mulu gaishuo, 3: 1278 ff. 66. See Wu Qijun, Yunnan kuangchang gongqi tulüe, A, 18a. For shareholders’ contracts in coal mining see Deng Tuo, “Cong wanli dao Qianlong—guanyu Zhongguo zibenzhuyi mengya shiqi de yige lunzheng” (From Wanli to Qianlong—An argument on the period of the sprouts of capitalism in China), in Zhongguo zibenzhuyi mengya wenti taolunji, xubian (Collection of articles dealing with the problem of the sprouts of capitalism in China, continued), ed. Nanjing daxue lishixi Zhongguo gudaishi jiaoyanshi (Nanjing University, Department of History, Ancient History Teaching and Research Section) (Beijing, 1960), 133–82; Tang Mingsui et. al., “Dui Deng Tuo tongzhi ‘Cong Wanli dao Qianlong’ yiwen de shangque he buzhong.” See also Teng T’o, “En Chine du XVI au XVIIIe siècle,” 50–87. 67. Thomas Hellmuth and Ewald Hiebl, “Kulturgeschichte(n) des Salzes (18. bis 20. Jahrhundert) – Einführung in neue Forschungsperspektiven,” in Kulturgeschichte des Salzes, 18. bis 20. Jahrhundert, eds. Hellmuth and Hiebl (Vienna, Austria and Munich, Germany, 2001), 21. 68. On the types and characteristics of Chinese sources on salt history, see Vogel, “Important Sources of the History of Premodern Chinese Salt Production Techniques,” in Zhongguo keji dianji yanjiu – Diyijie Zhongguo keji dianji guoji huiyi lunwenji, 1996, 8, 17–20, Shandong Zibo (Study on ancient Chinese books and records of science and technology – The Colloquia of 1st ISACBRST, 17–20 August 1996, Zibo, Shandong, China), eds. Hua Jueming, Su Rongyu, Dai Wusan, and Gao Xuan (Zhengzhou, 1998b), 189–200. 69. Vogel, Untersuchungen über die Salzgeschichte von Sichuan (311 v. Chr.–1911): Strukturen des Monopols und der Produktion (Stuttgart, Germany, 1991b), 148. 70. This process is described in great detail in Tora Yoshida and Vogel, Salt Production Techniques in Ancient China: The Aobo tu. (Leiden, Netherlands, 1993). See also fig. 5.

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71. See Ludwig, “Historische Aspekte des Zusammenhangs von Arbeit, Technik und Arbeitszeit,” in Techniksoziologie, ed. Rodrigo Jokisch (Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1982), 147 ff.; Ludwig and Gruber, Salzburger Bergbaugeschichte, 60. As a positive element, it is often mentioned that women participated in waged labor, mostly outside the mines in selecting and washing the ore. One should, however, not forget the negative elements of mining and smelting labor, which is the exhausting work and the employment of children. 72. Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past (Stanford, 1973), 285–319.

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Epilogue

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INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND THE INNOVATION PROCESS

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Peter Burke

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How to Organize Spaces of Translation, or, the Politics of Innovation

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JOACHIM NETTELBECK

When I first spoke with Helga Nowotny about the key concepts to be addressed at this workshop—Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation—I thought of those situations, described by Tom Hughes, in which people from different functional spheres (e.g., science, industry, and administration) have cooperated in an efficient manner. Why is this so difficult to organize in continental Europe? One thinks of the German effort to sell science to the public, a project known as PUSH (Public Understanding of Science and Humanities). My impression is that the public is very polite with science, listening to whatever it has to relate and buying the books written by science writers for the general public. Scientists, however, pay scarce attention to what the public has to say. Societal interests hardly influence the problem choice of scientists. Why is this so? I would like to sketch out a possible answer: We lack spaces where a culture of translation could be learned, I maintain, and I believe that networks could provide such spaces. As the administrator of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin I am responsible for with organizing scientific innovation. An institute for advanced study is intended to be a breeding ground for new ideas. The political reason for supporting such luxurious and elaborate institutions is the expectation that the invited fellows will produce unexpected insights and contribute to innovation. Such institutions provide opportunities for learning not only from other disciplines, but also from other cultures, a feature of increasing importance in a globalizing world as well as within a European Union in the process of unifyNote for this section is on page 195.

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ing and enlarging itself. That is why the word “culture” in the title of the workshop made me think of language and interculturality, in short, of translation. But what do I mean by translation?

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Translation or Languaging The inherent contradiction of the subject of the workshop, the quest for innovation, as well as of the objectives of institutes for advanced study, is obvious: expect the unexpected; organize the unforeseen. When one tries to perform this task, however, one realizes that culture matters, or, more specifically, that language matters. Innovation is often the result of new combinations of disciplines, collaborations between science and culture at large, between ideas and technological opportunities, and between theoretical and practical concerns, each embedded in a particular jargon. That is why I use the term language not only for national languages such as English or German, but also for the languages particular to a range of specialized scientific and social functions whose mutual unintelligibility increasingly provokes misunderstandings and hinders inspiration. Translation is therefore a necessity not only between national languages, but also between these various jargons. If language matters for innovation, then institutions must organize spaces of translation where such cognitive differences can be studied. I like A. L. Becker’s concept. He calls this exercise “languaging” or “beyond translation,” a kind of linguistics of the particular, a reconstruction of the context of the sources of the text and of the translation, an investigation of omitted and added meaning. According to Becker,1 implied modes of analysis of the translation include such questions as the following: What prior texts are evoked? In science, these are normally stored in disciplines. What is the meaning of words used when interacting with other people? Words can have a performative character; they can be seen as acts of meaning (Jerome Bruner) in the social endeavor of science and scholarship. How do they refer to an outside world; how indeed do they help to construct such an outside world? I insist on these modes to demonstrate how complex translation can be if it is understood as an anthropological investigation of intercultural situations, as a tool for understanding differences, once the equivalent words have been proposed. Translation in this sense becomes a means of transgressing the traditional boundaries of specialization and culture.

Networks If networks are important for innovation, how could they be helpful for the exercise of translation in this sense? From the organizational point of view, such

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spaces of translation are subject to a contradiction similar to that faced by the organization of innovation in general. The aim may be clear—inspiration through the understanding of differences—but the mechanism necessary to arrive at this aim is uncertain. Merely bringing together native speakers of different languages does not guarantee mutual inspiration. What are the conditions, then, for fostering innovation? Although institutes for advanced study do indeed represent such spaces of translation, I do not want to talk about them directly, but rather about a fashionable kind of organization characterized by its provision of limited spaces of cooperation to “tribes” from a range of organizations: the network. Networks are often said to provide innovation by way of their unexpected effects or (to use another catchword) synergies. In this sense, networks can also be seen as spaces of translation; conversely, an institute for advanced study can be seen as a temporally limited network where researchers from different home institutions can find out whether they have anything to learn from each other. The term is so widely used that I first want to emphasize what I do not mean by network. The network is a form of organization between the company and the market providing results for participants in their home institutions. In this sense, the network is on the border between the inside and the outside. Each organization has many conventional ties to the outside world, to other organizations. It is part of a larger company, or of a state, or it dominates other organizations, as is the case with organizational hierarchies. It has regular links to providers, such as to privileged partners providing regular services or to potential outsourcing destinations. The network is something in between. Networks may be said to be efficient if they can provide results more efficiently than the market, or than organizational hierarchies. The most common aim of networks is to generate, transmit, and transform information. That is why they are so relevant to the fields of science and technology. If an organization constantly needs a certain piece of information and is aware of this necessity, it will internalize the task (e.g., research in the chemical industry). If the organization can define precisely the piece of information it needs and if there are providers on the market, it will either buy the information (e.g., accountancy) or reject it. The problem arises when it is unclear whether more information will be useful or not: which is the normal case of innovation. Network organization is thus appropriate for innovation, if it implies that people or organizations are brought together for a common purpose that may be marginal to each of them, but is of great importance to all of them if something new evolves out of the cooperation. In this case the network may be said to be efficient. However, this implies that there is something unknown to all of the members that emerges as they learn from each others’ differences, and it is this process that I call “translation.” In this sense, I would like to look at the network organization as a space of translation. This view of the network stresses elements that are important for

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designing spaces of translation, but that might be neglected if one considered efficiency or innovation as output only. Such elements are as follows: • Practical outcome: A network without objectives is lost, but the practical outcome may be so urgent that there is no time for an attempt at translation, at understanding the hidden differences. This contradiction— pursuing an objective while at the same time allowing for deviation—is normally solved by defining the available time. The difficulty of the exercise for professionals, normally, is to avoid quick solutions. • Reflexivity: Network communication is continuously threatened by inefficiency and quick solutions, by the tendency to be either too functional, thus endangering innovation, or is too irrelevant. From the point of view of translation, the danger arises from the impression that the translation is perfect—professional translators tend to neglect differences in this sense—as well as from romanticizing or exoticizing the strangeness, the otherness. The effective network presupposes a constant awareness of its participants, of the fact that they continue to be in the space of translation, of their exposure to the dialectics of conventional and unknown or surprising, or, to put it in Jerome Bruner’s terms, of the fact that they are creating a new story. If they are too distant from the conventional, they cannot be understood; if they are too conventional, they become simply boring, not innovative. The participants must arrive at the right equilibrium through an attitude of reflexivity. • Diversity and proximity: If the participants are too familiar with each other, little surprise can be expected. If the leading scholars in a given problem area are assembled, innovation will be unlikely because they are all well aware of their reciprocal potential language gains, even if they come from different disciplines or countries. Diversity must be built into the group of participants. Too much diversity, on the other hand, will lead to endless languaging. If there is no common language, translation is impossible. In this sense, attaining the right distance in the composition of the group requires skill, but is also a matter of the time available. The more time can be invested, the more strangeness is acceptable and potentially fruitful. • Equality of interest and qualification: If participants’ qualifications and curiosity about the unknown and the other is unequally distributed, the network quickly becomes monolingual, losing its mutual strangeness as a space of translation. This implies that the arrangement should be such that equality is emphasized in general, while hierarchy is only accepted with regard to formal procedures, and not to content. • Trust: Explications delivered by native speakers must be taken at face value and allowed to become part of the space of translations. Participants must be able to trust that information is not being withheld or falsified by fel-

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low participants for tactical reasons. There is a certain kind of communitybuilding proper to this communicative situation. In this sense, the translation is a new language created for the sake of this community alone. Social arrangements are very important to this aspect of the network, providing as they do the experience of trustworthiness (extrafunctional activities, e.g., meals or sport, continuity, or minor competitions or hierarchies). • Trespassing on professional competence: One of the greatest difficulties for languaging in networks is motivating ambitious professionals to listen and learn rather than to be immediately efficient. Professionals are unsettled by the prospect of not being able to rely upon their wellestablished routines, and having to accept uncertainty of outcome. This also applies to interdisciplinarity, or to the relationship between scholarship and art. Why pursue uncertain investigations, after all, if you know of a well-prepared disciplinary pathway? I have exaggerated, of course. Neither a network nor an institute for advanced study can be explained as a space of translation, but it is interesting to consider such entities on the basis of their potential for innovation. What may we conclude, then, about the two situations mentioned at the outset? In Europe, bringing together people from different functional systems still provides a source of inspiration. Of course, especially in technical fields, there are also highly developed communities of language between science and industry. On the whole, however, academics are not very familiar with the skills and perspectives of managers and public servants, and vice versa. Such a perspective on translation may even be instructive for the mutual inspiration of science and public interest; to put it another way, it may produce innovation in the sense of what Nowotny calls “robust knowledge.” The basic organization of PUSH resembles that of the church, whose authority, by the way, science took upon itself: scientists preach and the public listens faithfully. In the interests of robust knowledge, on the other hand, it might be worthwhile trying to design spaces of translation to motivate scientists to listen to the public and to integrate the public interest into their scientific problem choice. The court of law is such a space, designed to make peace among citizens by means of words and arguments. The Wissenschaftskolleg and other spaces of translation will continue to assemble people with an eye to constituting spaces between science, technology, and society in which all parties can listen and learn how to translate their differences in outlook and interest. Such spaces of translation might then become spaces of innovation.

Note 1. Alton L. Becker, Beyond Translation: Essays toward a Modern Philology (Michigan, 1995), 302–3.

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Contributors

Wiebe E. Bijker is professor of technology and society at the University of Maastricht, Netherlands. He was trained as a physicist, and has a Ph.D. in the sociology and history of technology. He was president of the Society for Social Studies of Science. Delphine Gardey is historian and researcher at the Centre de Recherche en Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques, CNRS/Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, Paris. Her work concentrates on gender history, gender and technology, gender and science, and office technologies.

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Thomas Hughes is Mellon Professor Emeritus of the history and science at the University of Pennsylvania and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His most recent books include Rescuing Prometheus, American Genesis, and Human-built World. Patrick Kupper is research associate at the Institute of History at the ETH Zurich. His field of work is history of technology and science and environment. Joachim Nettelbeck studied jurisprudence and sociology in Freiburg and in Berlin. He was administrative director of the Technical College of Economics in Berlin and the chair’s assistant and Director of the Press Office and Publicity of German Academic Exchange Agency (DAAD). He has been the secretary of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin since its founding. Helga Nowotny is director of the “Society in Science. The Branco Weiss Fellowship” at the ETH Zurich and chair of the European Research Advisory Board of the European Commission. She is professor of social studies of science at ETH Zurich and director of Collegium Helveticum. She was awarded the Bernal Prize by the Society for Social Studies of Science and has published widely in the social studies of science and technology and on the relationship between science and society.

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John V. Pickstone trained in biomedical sciences before moving to the history and philosophy of science, and to the social history of medicine. For many years he directed the Centre for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine at the University of Manchester, where he is now Welcome Research Professor. He is working on the recent histories of medical technologies and of cancer services, and on a series of essays developing the arguments of his book on Ways of Knowing. Jean-Jacques Salomon is Honorary professor of technology and society at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Paris. He founded and directed the OECD Science and Technology Policy Division and wrote many publications on the relations between science and society. His most recent books include Survivre à la science: Une certaine idée du futur and Le scientifique et le guerrier. Hans Ulrich Vogel is professor of Chinese history and society at Tübingen University, Germany. His work concentrates on the economy, society, science, and technology of traditional China, especially salt production, mining, monetary policy, and metrology. He is currently chair of the Tübingen Post-Graduate Research Program Global Challenges – Transnational and Transcultural Approaches and editor of the journal East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine.

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Judy Wajcman is professor of sociology at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. Her most recent book is TechnoFeminism. Rosalind Williams is the Metcalfe Professor of writing and the head of the program in science, technology, and society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on the cultural history of technology, and her most recent book is Retooling: A Historian Confronts Technological Change. She is president of the Society for the History of Technology.

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Index

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A Aare Tessin AG (Atel), 161, 162 Adamsky,Victor, 147 Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG), 35 American Association of Atomic Scientists, 144 American Museum of Natural History, 137 analysis, 118, 119, 121 antinuclear movement, 163 applied science, 121 Aron, Raymond, 149 Atiyah, Sir Michael, 139–140 Atomenergie und gespaltene Gesellschaft (Nuclear energy and social fission), 157 atomic age, 156 bomb, 143 energy, 155, 156 Atoms for peace (Eisenhower), 156 attitudes to nature, 120 automatic superphone, 85, 86–87

B BAAS (See British Association for the Advancement of Science) Barbarossa, Frederick, 175 Bateson, Gregory, 139 Beck, Ulrich, 61 Becker, Alton L., 192 Bergbauwissenschaft (rational science of mining), 173 Berlin Academy of Sciences, 33, 35

Bigelow, Jacob, 8 biotechnologies (see endotechnologies) Blaikie, Piers, M., 54 Bloch, Marc, 10, 29 Boveri, Walter, 158–159, 160 Bowling alone (Putnam), 97 British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), 122, 124–125, 127, 128 Bruner, Jerome, 194

C calculating machine, 83 Cambridge University, 126, 127 Camus, Albert, 9 Cannon, Susan F., 124 Cassin, René Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man, 140 Castell, Manuel, 54, 96, 97, 98, 108 Network Society, 98 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 136, 138 Chabaud-Rychter, Danielle, 82 Chambre de l’Organization Commerciale (French Employee Association), 81 change agents, 43, 44, 45 change journey, 43 changing symbolic meanings, 119–120 Charlottenburg Technische Hochschule (TH), 34, 35 chemistry, 117, 118 Chinese salt industry, 171, 177, 178 CIA (See Central Intelligence Agency) civilian, 133

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214 Cold War, 144, 147 commercial nuclear power plants, 156 Committee of the Rights of Man, 142 Commonwealth Edison Company (Chicago), 35, 36 communities mining, 177 spatial, 98 traditional, 98 virtual, 97, 98 community time, 47–48, 49 complex of technical sweetness, 141 complex systems (See also high-tech societies), 55–56 comptometer, 83–84 Congress for Cultural Freedom, 136 constructivist concept, 60 Cornwall, England, 170 cultural characteristics, 28 history, 168 perspective, 53 resistance, 43 values, 61 culture, 27, 35, 40, 136, 167, 168 advanced technological, 53 entrepreneurial, 41, 98 group, 56 hacker, 98–99 information-based, 36 innovation of, 41, 45–46, 49, 50 Internet, 98 libertarian, 99 market-oriented, 49 matters, 15–16, 192 National, 27, 32–33 nature-based, 30, 31, 36 agriculture, 28–29 industry, 29–30 objects of, 167 organizational, 56 politically driven, 35–36 shift, 47 staff, 43 technical, 53 technological, 54 technological innovation of, 44–45 technology, 10, 17, 52–54, 54, 74 vulnerability of, 61–66 technology of, 18, 19, 40, 41, 89, 165 technology-based, 29, 30, 31, 36

Index

technomeritocractic, 98 traditional Chinese, 169 translation of (See also network communication), 191 value-loaded (wertbehaftete Kultur), 167 virtual communitarian, 98 war of, 133–135 culture-transforming agent, 31 Cunningham, Andrew, 122 cybercafés, 107 cyberfeminism, 96, 100, 106, 108 cyberpunk fiction, 104–105 cyberspace, 97, 98, 102, 103, 104, 105 cybertechnology, 105

D de Forest, Lee, 33–34 De re metallica (Agricola), 174 de Vauban, Sébastien le Prestre, 135–136 Department of Science and Art, 125 devices labor-saving, 173 mechanical, 173 dictaphone, 85, 87, 88 dictation machines, 87 diffusion, 168 Disraeli, Benjamin, 136 diversity and proximity, 194 Dolivo-Dobrowolsky, Michael, 35 double bind, 139 Driver Reminder Application (DRA), 58 Dubarle, Father Dominique, 145 Dyson, Freeman, 138–139, 141–142

E Ecole de Mézières, 136 Ecole Polytechnique, 136 Edison, Thomas, 32, 33, 34 educational technology, 46 Edwardian Period, 128 Edwards, Paul, 30 efficiency of techniques, 80 Einstein, Albert, 140, 141, 144, 148 Eisenhower, Dwight D. Atoms for Peace, 156 electric utilities Chicago, 35 London, 35 Electricité de France (EdF), 161, 162

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215

Index

electricity industry, 163 energy revolution, 32 entrepreneurial faculty, 43 entrepreneurs, 52 electricity industry, 160 inventor, 27–28, 33 mining, 177, 178 Schumpeterian, 40 equality of interest and qualification, 194 ETH Zurich, 156 European Environment Agency, 64, 65 experiment, 118 experimentalists, 127, 128

F

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Felt and Tarrant, 83 feminine, 77 practices, 85 profession, 82 feminization of work, 107 feminized office technology, 84 Feyerabend, Paul, 115 Feynman, Richard, 11 First Principle, 40 flexibility-orented defense, 65 Freiberg, Germany, 170, 171 French Enlightenment attitudes and values of, 29 French Revolution, 123 functional integration, 55 future market positioning, 160

G Galileo, 134, 148 Geertz, Clifford, 17 gender, 80 bending, 108 identity, 74 relations, 74, 75 gendered, 74, 77 gendering of objects, 74, 77, 89 dictaphone, 85, 87, 88 typewriter, 76–78 gendering of technology, 74, 77, 89, 101 gendering of work, 74 typing, 77, 80, 85 General Electric, 158, 162 Geological Society in London, 123 Giddens, Anthony, 96 goal-oriented technical development, 159

Golas, Peter J., 172 Great Exhibition of 1851, 125 Greif, Avner, 15

H H-bomb, 142 Haldane, R.B., 128 Hausen, Josef, 156 Health Council of the Netherlands (see Netherlands Health Council) Hefner-Alteneck, Friedrich, 35 heroic inventor, 40 high-tech societies (See also complex systems), 59, 61, 62 historians of medicine, 116, 117 Hobsbawm, Eric J., 155 Hoffman, Stanley, 149–150 hostes humani generis (enemies of human species), 149 Hughes, Thomas P., 10 human and technology interactions, 81 Huxley, Aldous, 130 Huxley, T. H., 125 hydraulic specialists, 171 hydropower plants, 161

I ICT (See Information and Communication Technologies) identity virtual, 103–104 incremental changes, 28 Industrial Revolution, 123, 134 information age, 45, 48 Revolution, 31, 32 technology, 46 Information and Communication Technologies, 107 innovation culture for, 49 innovation policy, 37 innovation-oriented market economy, 45 innovations, 12, 27, 39, 52, 64, 113, 117, 168, 194 agricultural, 28, 29 civilian, 133 extensive, 32 future-technology, 160 global, 124, 134

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216 incremental, 28 military, 133 organization of, 193 process, 40 product, 40 promoting, 46 quest of, 192 radical, 28 rate of, 30–31 scientific, 115, 191 spaces of, 195 technical, 133 technological, 6, 18, 40, 45, 49, 120, 135 technology, 40–41 technology-based quest for, 40 innovative cultures, 116 intercultural diffusion, 169 situations, 192 international nuclear market, 161 relations, 139 Internet, 97, 98, 99, 102, 106, 107 interpretative flexibility, 56 inventors Berlin, 32–33, 34–35, 36 independent, 32, 36, 37 New York, 32–34, 36 Irigaray, Luce, 101, 102

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J Jersey Central Power & Light, 158 Joachimsthal (Bohemia), 174

K Kaiseraugst Nuclear Power Plant (Switzerland), 164 Kaiseraugst Nuclear Power Plant Project (See Kaiseraugst Nuclear Power Station Project) Kaiseraugst Nuclear Power Station Project (Switzerland), 157, 159, 162 Kaufman, Jean-Claude, 80 Kehrradmaschine, 170, 171 keyboard, 83–84, 85 KGB, 136 knowledge empirical, 175 indigenous, 53

Index

technical, 53 traditional theoretical, 175 Kørte, Jens, 55, 62 Kuhn, Thomas, 115 Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft (Rickert), 167 Künstler (artists), 171

L labor cheap, 173, 180 relations, 45 laissez innover, 40 Laky, Jean-Maurice, 80, 81 language, 192 common, 145 Lara Croft Tomb Raider, 105 large-scale high technology, 160 Latour, Bruno, 79 Law, John, 57, 58 Life on the Screen (Turkle), 102 Lifeworld, 45–46 Lifeworld crisis, 49 Limits of Growth, The, 2 linear systems, 55, 56 London Ladbroke Grove train disaster, 58 Long, Pamela O., 173–174 Löwenthal, Gerhard, 156

M machines for constructing ubiquity, 87 MacLeod, Roy, 136, 138 Macmillan, Harold, 155 Manhattan District Project, 140 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 40–50 Administration, 42 community, 46 culture, 41, 42, 43 Faculty, 41 Reengineering Project, 41–45, 49 Staff, 43 Task Force, 41–42, 46–49 Mayer, Sue, 64 McDermott, John, 39–40 McLuhan, Marshall, 97, 106 Internet Galaxy, 97 mechanical arts, 7 mechanization, 180

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217

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Index

medical scientists, 119 medicine, 116, 117 men of science, 33 mentalités, 29 mercenaries of science, 149 Merton, Robert K., 135 metallurgy, 174 military, 133, 134 research programs, 133 military-industrial complex, 140, 143, 144, 148 miners free, 176 social status of, 177 mining attitudes toward China, 177, 178 Europe, 177, 178 codes China, 176 European, 176 communities, 177, 178, 180 compasses Europe, 172, 178 education, 174, 178 gunpowder use of Europe, 172, 178 laws, 175–177 China, 175, 176 European allgemeine Bergbaufreiheit, 175–176 legislation, 175–177, 177 literature, 173–174, 178 mechanization, 171, 172 regale, 175, 176 techniques, 170, 174, 178, 179–180 borehole, 179 deep-drilling, 171, 178, 179 development of, 173 underground surveying, 172 mixed mathematics, 123 modern Western science, 168 modernity, 168 momentum, 29 Monde, Le (Paris), 135 Motor Columbus, 159, 160, 161, 162 multigraph, 79 Mumford, Lewis, 134 Technics and Civilization, 134 Münch, Richard, 168

N Nassau Presbyterian Church, 138 natural disasters, 60, 64 natural history, 117, 123 natural sciences, 130, 136, 174 Needham, Joseph, 169 Negroponte, Nicholas, 97 Netherlands Health Council, 57, 61 network communications (See also culture of translation ), 194 network organization, 193 networked individualism, 98 networks, 192, 193 Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland), 156 Newton, Sir Isaac, 134 nonhuman nature, 30 Nowotny, Helga, 27, 40, 53, 191, 195 nuclear controversy, 162 energy, 155–156, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 164 power plants, 157, 158

O office spaces, 73 work, 73, 83 worker, 85 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 141, 148 Oravica (Hungary), 174 organizational affiliations, 35 constraints, 33 hierarchies, 193 organizations gendered, 88 orientation of society, 164 Oxford University, 126, 127, 128

P Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program (POBSP), 136–137, 138 parallel diplomacy, 146 parlographe, 87 patent law, 53 peasant attitudes and values (mentalités), 29 Pentagon Advanced Research Agency, 143

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218 Perrow, Charles, 54, 55, 56, 59, 61, 63 physical sciences, 117 physiology, 122 Piasecki, Peter, 168 Plant, Sadie, 100–102, 105–107, 109 Zeros and Ones, 101 POBSP (See Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program) political values, 35 Popper, Karl, 142–143 postwar society, 164 practical drift, 55, 58–59 practical outcome, 194 precautionary principle, 64, 65 premodern societies, 169–170 privately owned electric-power systems, 36 probabilistic risk analysis, 57, 61 production costs, 161–162 objectifying of, 81 techniques, 173, 179 techniques and technology, 171 Project Orion, 141 Project Torpedo, 142 proto-industrialized production, 177 Public Understanding of Science and Humanities (PUSH), 191, 195 publication organs, 171 Pugwash conference, 144, 145 Nobel Peace Prize (1995), 145 PUSH (See Public Understanding of Science and Humanities) Putnam, Robert Bowling Alone, 97

Q Qadeer Khan, Abdul, 147 qualifications, 79 quest, 40 innovation, 40, 41, 49, 52 profitability, 40

R Rabinow, Paul, 11 rational science of mining (Bergbauwissenschaft), 173 real technology, 160 real virtuality, 98

Index

reflexivity, 194 Remington, 76, 77, 78 Renault Factory, 86 resistance to change, 43 resistant to change, 50 Rheingold, Howard, 97–98, 108 Rickert, Heinrich, 167 Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft, 167 right to mine, 176 risk, 18, 57, 61 analysis, 57, 58, 63 assessment process, 56 society, 61 robust knowledge, 195 Roncalian Constitution, 175 Rotblat, Joseph Nobel Peace Prize (1995), 145 Pugwash conference, secretary general, 145 Royal Academy of Sciences, 136 Royal Institution in London, 123 Royal Society, 124, 127, 128, 129, 134 Russell, Bertrand, 8 Rutherford, Ernest, 128

S Sakharov, Andrei, 142–143, 147–148 salient, 32 salt industry, 175, 177, 179 Chinese, 171 European, 171 German, 168 production, 177, 178, 179 methods, 179 techniques, 175, 178 SAP R/3 (software), 42, 44 Sarov (Russia), 147 SARS (See Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), 63 Schemnitz (Hungary), 174 Scherrer, Paul, 156 Schméder, Geneiève, 136 Schmölnitz (Hungary), 174 Schumpeter, Joseph A., 4–6, 52 science, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 122, 124, 125, 127, 129, 130, 134 pre-Hiroshima ideology of, 135

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219

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Index

pre-Hiroshima vision of, 134 technology, 113 Science, Technology and Society studies (STS), 52, 53, 54 scientific communities, 168 method, 115 methodology, 174 Revolution, 115 scientist warrior, 139 scientists, 138, 139, 141, 143, 144, 145, 146, 191 moral problem faced by, 148 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), 63 sewing machine, 77 Shackle, G. L. S., 13 Sichuan, 170, 171, 179 Siemens & Halske, 33, 35 Siemens, Werner von, 32 Slaby, Adolf (See also Charlottenburg Technische Hochschule), 35 smelting methods Yunnan (China), 174 techniques, 178, 179–180 development of, 173 Smithsonian Institute, 138 Snook, Scott A., 55, 56, 57 social change, 41 controversy, 164 organization, 121, 177 sciences, 136 systems, 53 technologies, 53 transformation, 76 socialization of techniques, 89 Socially Instituted Technology, 106 sociotechnical problems, 130 systems, 9 sociotechnological change, 165 sovereignty of habit, 29 spaces of translation, 193–194, 195 specialization in professions, 180 specialized periodicals, 171 Sperry Gyroscope Company (see Sperry, Elmer) Sperry, Elmer, 33, 34

Star Wars, 143 Stimson, Henry L., 155 stimulus diffusion, 169 Stirling, Andy, 64 STM, 116, 118, 120, 121, 130 Stone, Allucquere Roseanne, 103 Swiss domestic policy, 164 Swiss electricity industry, 158 symbolic technologies, 16, 17 symboling, 167 Szilard, Leo, 143, 147–148

T Taylorian, 86 Taylorism, 88 Taylorist, 80, 81 technical and organizational transformation, 85 and scientific discoveries, 180 and scientific progress, 181 change, 84 colleges, 126 devices, 178 experts, 171 intoxication, 148 inventions, 106 investigations, 167 knowledge, 53 academization of, 171 professionalization of, 171 literacy, 54 society vulnerable of, 59–61 specialization, 171 systems, 55, 59, 60 Technical University (See Charlottenburg Technische Hochschule) Technics of Civilization (Mumford), 134 techno-organizational complex, 87 technological accidents, 64 artifacts, 53, 76, 79, 84 change, 46, 80 determinism, 77, 78, 95, 106, 159 environment, 74 mediation, 78 practices, 75, 80–81 problems, 28, 33 progress, 40, 133, 160, 162

Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2006. ProQuest Ebook Central,

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220 Revolutions, 31–32 societies, 60, 61 systems, 53, 54, 59 vulnerability of, 53, 54–59 technologies, 27, 39 and artifacts, 75 bases, 30 command of, 85 communication, 106 digital, 102 endotechnologies, 10–11 exotechnologies, 11 history of, 168 integration of, 80 new communication, 108 new media, 108 nuclear, 156, 158, 159, 160, 161, 164 technoscience, 10, 95, 121, 133 technosocial system, 86 telacall, 85, 87 telephone, 85, 86 Teller, Edward, 141, 143 Telsa, Nikola, 33–34 terrorist attacks, 59, 60 Tevi, Fei, 62 theory of domestic action, 82 Theory of Economic Development (Schumpeter), 5 Tomb Raider Lara Croft, 105 totalitarian Atomstaat, 164 traditional theoretical knowledge, 175 transformations cultural, 76 economic, 76 social, 76 translations, 192, 193 transmission, 168–169 intercivilizational, 169 treaty banning biological weapons (Geneva, 2001), 149 trespassing on professional competence, 195 Truman, Harry S., 155 Turkle, Sherry Life on the Screen, 102–103 typewriter, 76–77, 76–78, 78, 80, 81, 84 typewriter keyboard, 77, 84 typing, 85 as a practice, 77, 80 typing competitions, 78

Index

U Ulam, Stan, 141 UNCED Conferences (1992) Rio de Janeiro, 61, 63 unity of sciences, 114 University of London, 126 Urban Cultures Berlin, 34–35 New York City, 33–34 US Department of Homeland Security, 60

V value-free nature (wertfreie Natur), 167 Vaughan, Diane, 56 Venetian mining area of Schio, 172 Vest, Charles, 42 Victorian Period, 114 virtual community, 97, 98, 99 virtual identity, 103 virtual networks, 108 virtual sex, 102, 103 Voice of the Dolphins (Szilard), 147 Von Siemens, Werner, 32–33 vulnerability, 52, 54, 55, 57, 58, 59, 61, 63, 64 concept of, 60, 61 constructed nature of, 61 socially constructed, 56, 58 society of, 61 systems of, 55, 56, 58 vulnerable infrastructure, 60 systems, 57

W Wackers, Ger L., 55, 56, 62 water protection, 163 waterpower, 170, 173 ways of doing, 18 Ways of Knowing, 116, 119, 120, 122 Ways of working, 120, 121 weapons of mass destruction, 145, 148, 149 wertfreie Natur (value-free nature), 167 wertbehaftete Kultur (See also culture— value-loaded), 67 Westinghouse, 158, 162 Whewell, William, 122

Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2006. ProQuest Ebook Central,

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Index

Y York, Herbert, 143, 144 Yunnan copper mines (China), 170, 176 Yunnan kuangchang gongqi tulüe (Wu Qijun), 174

Z Zeros and One (Plant), 101

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Williams, Perry, 122 Williams, Raymond, 12, 39, 106 Wissenschaft, 114, 126, 129 Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, 191, 195 Wolff, Janet, 109 women, 76–77, 79, 82, 83, 84, 85 World Movement for Peace, 136 Wu Qijun Yunnan kuangchang gongqi tulüe, 174

Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2006. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2006. Berghahn Books, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Cultures of Technology and the Quest for Innovation, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2006. ProQuest Ebook Central,