Technological Utopianism in American Culture by Howard P. Segal

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 319 and then, in recent decades, to disguise that goal behind a facade of egalitarian sociability. More often, however, one is left with a sense that the products of design are mere epiphenomena of the ideas that precede them. Forty does not effectively reveal how things later take on a life of their own, impinging on the people who use them. But his attempt is not only provocative, well researched, and elegantly written; it also suggests new ways of thinking about the material cul­ ture of industrialization. Jeffrey L. Meikle Dr. Meikle is associate professor of American studies and art history at the University of Texas at Austin. He is at work on a cultural history of plastics in America. Technological Utopianism in American Culture. By Howard P. Segal. Chi­ cago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Pp. x + 301; illustrations, notes, appendix, bibliography, index. $30.00 (library binding); $14.95 (paper). Howard Segal has chosen a difficult but interesting subject that bridges the history of technology and the history of American culture. Technological utopianism, which Segal defines as “a mode of thought and activity that vaunts technology as the means of bringing about utopia” (p. 10), is a useful ifsesquipedalian label for a persistent strand of thought in American history. Segal deserves credit for popularizing this phrase, which can be used to encompass a number of cultural trends in which exaggerated powers for producing social progress have been attributed to technology. Segal has chosen to study the careers and writings of twenty-five technological Utopians who range from professional engineers to bor­ derline lunatics, a diversity that creates a strain in his analysis. Com­ pare, for instance, the distinguished engineer Robert Thurston, the first president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, with the deaf musician and writer Albert Waldo Howard, who claimed to possess “cosmic consciousness” and to be the reincarnation of Bee­ thoven. Although both types of individuals may have contributed to American ideas about technology and utopia, the differences in their motives and relative influence would seem larger than Segal allows. Surely the self-glorifying rhetoric of Thurston’s popular magazine articles—“The world owes all . . . to the inventor, to the mechanic, to the man of science . . .” (quoted on p. 30)—served quite different purposes than the utopian visions of Howard, who, as Segal says, wrote to “escape from the emotional solitude ofincapacitating physical injury [i.e., deafness]” (p. 50). A more detailed sociopsychological analysis might have illuminated the ways in which different social groups have seized on science and technology as a secular savior. 320 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Unfortunately, the author was limited by the paucity of biographical information on many of the technological Utopians, particularly the more eccentric and intriguing ones. Segal has identified forty works by his twenty-five authors as the exemplars of technological utopianism, ranging from speeches to nov­ els published during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Segal readily admits that the literary quality of most of these works is not high and that few ofthem (except Edward Bellamy’s LookingBackward) were widely read. He is thus in the awkward position of defending the historical significance of technological utopianism while admitting that it was a relatively marginal element of popular culture. His de­ fense is based largely on the assertion that the visions of the Utopians may be used to illuminate more important trends in American society. Indeed, the technological Utopians and their writings are quickly dis­ posed of in the first few chapters, and most of the remainder of the book is devoted to the broader social and cultural context. This may not convince the reader that technological utopianism is a significant element of American culture, but Segal does succeed in using the concept to organize some interesting material on attitudes toward technology of European and American intellectuals and on American social trends such as scientific management, the conservation move­ ment, and technocracy. These chapters (4, 5, and 6) would make good readings for courses in history of technology, history of ideas, or American studies. That the book is attractively illustrated and available in paperback will undoubtedly facilitate classroom use. The endnotes...