Caught Between Technophilia and Technophobia: Culture, Technology and the Law

Abstract

New technologies change the world and make people react. When a new technology emerges and starts to spread – if you look at cultural history – it is both welcomed as visionary and feared as a threat to culture. Is this justified? Does technology really shape culture and society? Or is it actually the other way around: does technological development depend on the culture, politics and economics of a society? This either/or controversy has now more or less been settled. There are close mutual influences between technological and cultural developments within society. It is only once a certain level of cultural development has been reached, that certain technological processes which lead to innovations are enabled. And vice versa: developments in technology influence the politics, economics and culture of a society. What does this recognition mean for the law? As an important part of culture, the law is involved in this mutual influencing – simultaneously as both a subject and an object. It influences technological developments and at the same time is itself shaped by them.