The Contested Rise of a Modernist Technology Politics

Abstract

that gained speed in the nineteenth and twentieth century in the western world, a typical modernist practice of technology politics emerged. The concepts of modernization and modernity need to be handled with care, of course, since their use may easily lead to an identification with modernizers, actors who have invented and used these labels to advance their cause. In addition, using these concepts for analysis might lead to finalism, as if past developments have led right up to the present. When these two pitfalls are avoided, the concepts of modernization and modernity are useful categories to discuss various structural changes in western societies since the eighteenth century. The concept of modernization refers to a new mode of social organization, a new social order, and a discontinuity in history (Wehler 1975; Giddens 1990). It is best understood as a process associated with a specific time period (eighteenth century to the twentieth century) and geographical location (the western world). The concept of modernity furthermore refers to a specific mode of thinking in which technology is identified as the main way of advancing the modernization process. Technology has been far more central to the making of modernity than is usually recognized (Brey, chapter 2, this volume; Hard and Jamison 1998; Latour 1993). The modernist politics that slowly emerged consists of separating the promotion of technology from the regulation of technology. In this practice, technology development is perceived as a neutral, value-free process that needs to be protected and nurtured (because it creates progress, material wealth, health, etc.). Special “free places,” often called laboratories, are created where engineers, inventors, and other 9 The Contested Rise of a Modernist Technology Politics