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Cultural Origins and Environmental Implications of Large Technological Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Rosalind Williams
Rosalind Williams
Affiliation:
Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Abstract

This essay argues that a prime source of contemporary technological pessimism is the loss of place that accompanied the conquest of space through the construction of large technological systems of transportation and communication. This loss may involve physical destruction, or it may involve the more subtle withdrawal of economic, political, and cultural meaning and power from localities in favor of these far-flung systems.

The argument proceeds in five stages. First, key terms are defined, notably “environmental damage” and “technological system.” Second, the origins of the modern ideology of circulation are traced in the development of a capitalist world-economy, and in the historical theories of Enlightenment philosophes (with special attention to Turgot and Condorcet). Third, possible relations between that ideology and nineteenth-century systems-building are briefly sketched. Fourth, the ambiguous political character of these systems — at once liberating and constraining — is noted. Finally, the cultural challenge of overcoming spatial alienation is described with reference to some late nineteenth-century writers who sought to trace new pathways both spatially and linguistically.

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Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1993, pp. 377 - 403
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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