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Turning Away from Technology: A New Vision for the 21st Century

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This book's point of departure is the widely held notion among many academics and concerned intellectuals that immediate meaningful action must be taken to curb and blunt the massive negative social, economic, and environmental side-effects of the runaway revolution in technologically-based innovations. With a impassioned foreward written by ardent neo-Luddite Theodore Roszak (The Cult of Information), the book is in substance really the minutes of two separate seminars convened to discuss the nature and extent of our current technologically-induced crisis, and a corresponding healing vision for an alternative approach to using, managing, and controlling such technical innovation in the 21st century. The collected experts ask key questions regarding the real impact of technology on our cultural and political lives, and grapple with the myriad of issues and problems associated with the effects of a technological revolution gone mad.

Editor Stephanie Mills ("In Praise of Nature") masterfully culls the gist of ongoing discussions in these two seminars into very readable narratives, and one gets the sense that he or she is sitting through the seminar listening to the various aademics and intellectuals add to the ongoing discussion. She presents the ideas and opinions of critics of biotechnology, free trade, corporate colonialism, the proliferation of military technologies, and technological means of social control into a very entertaining, provocative, and educational experience.

This book is not for the socially faint-of-heart, however. Most of the participants represent a fairly radical but eclectic group of Neo-Luddites and fellow travelers who understand the critical state the world is reaching in terms of ecological degradation, human suffering, and social control all at the hands of an uncaring and out-of control technology, and all speak their minds in terms of what is wrong and what needs to be done to correct the situation.

As far as I am concerned, this book should be required reading for any concerned citizen because it offers a penetrating description of the many faces of the problem, provides all the details concerning the current state of technology in all its permutations and disguises, and describes what have to be considered as realistic, humane and sustainable alternatives to such dangerous implementations for the future. Read and enjoy!

For those puzzled by the motivations of anti-globalization protestors, this book provides insight into the beliefs that drive these movements. As is usual in discussions from within this movement, the participants in the conferences summarized by this book present an entire laundry list of things that they oppose. These contain the expected capitalism and nuclear power but also include, perhaps surprisingly for those outside of this movement other things including television, computers etc.

This extensive list of unacceptable technologies and systems confuses people who try to understand the mass protests which thereby seem unfocused an pointless. However reading this book shows that they all stem from a common root. This is a movement that is opposed to individuality. It has been created by people who find their identity in community. They see technology as Jacques Ellul saw 'technic' as creating the 'one best way' which destroys local communities and leaves the individual without a system of belief with which to structure his/her life. The long of things thy oppose from the WTO to globalization to television are all things which they see as antithetical to the community-derived beliefs which they see as the basis for any fulfilled life.

The book's subtitle is "A New Vision for the 21st Century.' The vision that these people have is not new. Indeed it is entirely conventional. They find meaning in their lives by the ability toi live within a comforting structure. In this they are very similar the `family values' movement. Indeed the opposition that both of these movements have to television are based on the same root of damage to community. Both movements look to the community to define values. They prefer the legitimacy of traditional and shared beliefs to what they see as reckless and dangerous innovations that they fear will leave people rootless. This is most evident in the chapter 11 which discusses the role of woman and the effect of technology on that role. There is real discomfort in the description of the discussions about thuis topic with the difficulty in making feminism compatible with a belief in a strongly structured community. The participants use the jargon of feminism but as the editor points out the largest number of them support strongly defined gender roles. This is obviously incompatible with the goals of feminism which is a powerful political force and a strongly legitimizing set of beliefs for modern activists.

To see the lengths to which members of this movement can go to render these incompatible belief systems compatible, I recommend the book `Gender' by Ivan Illich. `Gender' is not a deep book by any means nor does it provide any significant set of facts or analysis. Rather it is interesting in the lengths that Illich goes to try to show that culturally-defined gender roles are not what they seem when the come from traditional communities. Illich tries to declare that whit is black if it comes from traditional communities and fails in a very spectacular way.

The book is a summary of the contributions to conference discussions. With this, it cannot be the lear development of any one set of ideas. It does give an overview of the points of view of many of the thinkers in the movement. However it is more of a book for sampling than fro deep study. It is a collection of extemporaneous remarks and the drifting focus of a conversation. The book `Liquid Modernity' by Zygmund Baumann is a much better description of the ideas that technology is depriving people of structure that gives meaning. An interesting counter- by Paul Levinson argument to can be found in the book `Soft Edge' which argues that community and technology are co-evolutionary and that any technology that is dehumanizing cannot succeed. It will hinder the community that created it and will thus be eliminated by selection.

This book is interesting as a sampler to discover the concerns of the people, in this movement. In this, it is well worth reading. However it is not a book of scholarship or even of clearly expressed ides. It is more of a collective rant - a cry of anger and despair at forces these people see as challenging their defining beliefs. For clear analysis and insight one has to go elsewhere. Ellul, Postman and others can provide an analysis based on the ideas presented here in a much more lucid coherent and cogent way.

This book is worth reading for anyone who wishes to understand the motivations of the anti- globalization protests. However it is as unfocussed and full of anger as that movement is. It is worth reading not for its ostensible content but as a witness to the attitudes and belief that drive that content.

As a true Luddite, I refuse to recognize the technology of printing and book-making. How many trees have to die before we stop printing books? Books, and this is a book make no mistake about that, have helped us to lose our cultural identities by subverting the art of storytelling.