opencopy.org

- Teich, Ch. 15-18 -

In “The Year 2000: A View from 1967”, Herman Kahn makes a number of predictions about the future. Certainly some of them turned out to be quite correct. For example, Kahn’s analysis of lasers, improved materials, the food and human applications of genetic engineering, ‘psychological’ medicines, the transplanting of human organs, automated banking, and the increased importance of computers and communications technologies are really spot on. But other aspects of Kahn’s predictions turn out to be less compelling, such as; inexpensive travel, homes run by computers, programmed dreams (a la Arnold Schwarzeneger’s Total Recall).

[Here, we might want to go through Kahn’s 100 points individually in order to really get into the specific predictions, p. 176-179.] What might have occurred to you as you look at Kahn’s successes and failures are some of the claims made by Herb Brody in “Great Expectations: Why Technology Predictions Go Awry”. Certainly, Kahn is more successful than some predictors because he avoids the major problem identified by Brody. That is, he deliberately avoids the misleading missionary or technological revolution approach. Instead, Kahn suggests that, in many respects, the future will be an evolution rather than a revolution. The future will be rooted in the past. It will continue a multifold trend that “excludes precisely the kinds of dramatic or surprising events that dominated the first two-thirds of the century.

The first two thirds of the century were characterized by the development of vertically integrated corporations that pioneered more efficient production and developed a Western society where individuals were encouraged to produce and consume at rates that were unheard of for anyone except the very rich or powerful in the past. Building on an earlier Industrial Revolution, the twentieth-century added transportation, electrical, chemical, electronic and nuclear revolutions. But Kahn believes that such revolutions have largely been completed and the future will be more of the same.

Kahn comes to this position because he believes that the modern age is approaching the broad limits of its momentum. From here on in, progress will be incremental and confined to particular technologies in the advanced countries. Other countries will experience greater change as they try to play catch up with the more technologically advanced West. While these countries may experience a second Industrial Revolution, the advanced countries will resist anything revolutionary.

Why? Because the citizens of the advanced countries will be relatively satisfied with the position that they have achieved. Kahn believes that the culture of personal and family achievement that once characterized the Protestant West will be replaced by an ethic of complacency and a desire to bask or indulge in the prosperity that technology has achieved. A postindustrial society will emerge in which individuals are more concerned with leisure, self-exploration, education and entertainment than in the struggle for existence and power.

In this postindustrial society, the governments of western countries will perform many of the functions that individuals once needed to do. They will ensure that economic growth continues in an orderly fashion by priming the economic pump. Government planning will ensure the safety and stability of mass-consumption societies and make sure that nothing happens to interfere with the prosperity of the majority of people. In fact, in a postmodern society, Kahn argues that the major engines of economic growth will be governments, service industries (i.e. recreation and tourism) and education rather than more recognizably business firms.

Kahn amplifies this description of a postindustrial society by placing it with a general theory of the way that society is progressing that he calls the move to a sensate world. What does he mean by that? Well, he means that we are moving towards a view of the world that gets rid of religious symbols and meanings and elevates a more worldly approach to human problems. The emphasis is on appreciating the things of this world and enjoying life. The old warrior values of heroism, patriotism, loyalty to clan and locality are displaced by a more urban and urbane way of looking at the world. The focus is on individual pleasure and improvement within a broad-based and worldly civilization.

This postindustrial paradise may not last forever, Kahn suggests. Typically, a civilization develops its potential - in this case a rational, realistic, technically superb and materialistic view of the world - and then heads into a decline. The typical rise and fall of civilizations will likely lead into a Late Sensate period where the secular humanist synthesis will begin to break down and be undermined by protest from within by people who have “debased, vulgar, ugly, debunking, nihilistic, pornographic, sarcastic, or sadistic values.”

Now, while Kahn’s assessment of the future obviously avoids some of the dangers of techno-boosterism

1. The Sensate Culture theory suggests that societies only go through revolutionary periods of change while they are developing or being destroyed. At other times, they approach levels of stability. But many people would argue that, if anything, modern society is not stabilizing but that change has become a constant factor in our lives and its pace is accelerating.
2. Kahn’s theory suggests that people are becoming content consumers within advanced civilizations that are highly stable and impervious to change. He doesn’t take into account that modern society has a lot of tensions. Not everyone does well in our society and not everyone is content. Some might suggest that modern society is highly fragmented and alienated, despite the pattern of consumption.
3. Kahn’s theory overlooks the role of business and economic classes in our society. Writing in the 1960s, he thinks that business is losing ground to governments. But that hasn’t tended to be the case at all. Since the 1970s, the power of governments has, if anything receded against the onslaught of businesses.
4. Kahn suggests, as did many writers in the 1960s, that a Sensate Culture would be a leisure society. In other words, people would have more money and time to spend on leisure, recreational and service related activities. But the world we inhabit is very different. People actually work longer and are under more stress than they were in the 1950s and 1960s.
5. Kahn believes that the major political movement of the modern age will be nationalism and provides some interesting information on the breakdown of local values in the Third World. But two major movements in modern life have virtually eclipsed nationalism and they are regionalism and globalization. Nationalism is being squeezed to death between these two movements.
6. While Kahn’s theory of the multifold trend is towards increased materialism and secularization, we have recently witnessed the rise of militant religions that are dramatically opposed to Western secularization and the materialist values of the advanced nations. Even within the advanced nations, many citizens are opposed to the dominant value system. To be sure, Kahn describes disaffected groups who oppose the values of Sensate Culture. But those who are gravitating away from consumerism and waste are hardly the “debased, vulgar, ugly, debunking” group that Kahn describes.

The irony of Kahn’s article is that, while his conservative analysis helps him to make more accurate predictions about the technologies that will have a future, his entire worldview is so full of holes that you could drive conceptual trucks through them. In general, maybe his view of the eventual hegemony of an increasingly secular and materialist world could win out. But certainly this mental paradigm does not fit in with much of what has really happened. We don’t have a leisure society. The business folks are more powerful than ever.

Brody’s article “Great Expectations” is nowhere near as interesting as Kahn’s. In fact it is relatively modest in its claim that successful technologies are very hard to predict because:

1. Those who promote new technologies often have a vested interest in their success.
2. Older and seemingly less effective technologies can be highly resistant because it often is cheaper and more practical to improve them than to move to an entirely new technology.
3. The development of new technologies often depends on discoveries, developments and convergences between different fields and products.
4. Without a supporting infrastructure, even the most promising technologies can flounder.
5. There is a significant gap (often as much as 25 years) between the discovery and the diffusion of an innovation.
6. The human factor is often crucial. Often discoveries and technologies are touted without any analysis of their receptivity and usability among human beings.

The human factor is one of the most intriguing. New technologies can flounder if they don’t find a market in a particular society or culture. Thus, the videodisc, a remarkable product couldn’t replace the more cumbersome videotape. This was not because the video tape player could also record, but because the videodisc was marketed improperly as something for purchase among videophiles rather than something that could be rented. Today, the non-recordable DVD machine and disc is eclipsing the videotape because it is available for rent at prices that people consider to be reasonable. Buying movies to own is still an option, but not one on which the success of this superior product rests.

The unpredictable nature of technological progress is underlined by some of Brody’s own claims. For example, he suggests that videotext was a bust; but it is now growing in importance as Web Pages provide information on everything from soup to nuts on the Internet and as the potential for Internet shopping increases. Similarly, digital photography is growing rapidly and the importance of the CD-Rom is now accepted. Ironically, Brody is probably less accurate in some of his particular examples than is Kahn. But this just proves his point that you have to take into account a great many things, including a lengthy period between discovery and diffusion, when you forecast the success of any technology.

One point that neither Kahn nor Brody really address is the power of business and governments to promote certain technologies. For example, something as ubiquitous as the personal computer was not a self-evident success without a lot of powerful people backing the industry. At first, computers were nothing more than glorified electronic writers or game consoles. Microsoft’s Bill Gates once wondered why anyone other than a sophisticated business would ever need more than 64k of memory for most of the ways they used a computer. Even now, most of us only use powerful computers and sophisticated software for relatively simple tasks.

Usability is not the issue. Many people would gladly stick with a simpler and inexpensive technology were it not for the fact that old computers and software quickly become redundant. The standard for business has become the standard for the average human being as people find that any new software simply won’t work on the old machines and that the later are considered beyond repair.

It is quite amazing also that educational institutions, funded by governments, are in on the scam that requires the average student to purchase a machine whose capability is significantly beyond most people’s needs but that actually becomes redundant within a couple of years. If cars were as user unfriendly and disposable as computers, we would all complain that we are being ripped off. But business, government, and educational institutions have all bought into the inflated promise and hype of this new technology.

Brody suggests that we can explain the failure of many technologies by the vested interests that exaggerate their promise and usability. By the same token, however, we should also critically examine seemingly successful technologies - like the personal computer - to see if they have been foisted upon us by vested interests. The “promise that has been fulfilled” can be as hollow as the “promise that has been broken.” We live in a technological society where technology in general, despite specific and occasionally dramatic failures, is now foisted upon us whether we like it or not.

The notes presented here are for the AK NATS 1760.06 “Science, Technology and Society” course offered in the Fall/Winter Semester of 2001/2002 by the Atkinson College of York University, Toronto, Canada and taught by John Dwyer. The lectures are based on the following texts:

1. Martin Bridgstock et al, Science, Technology and Society: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 1998), ISBN 0-521-58735-2
2. Kevin Robbins and Frank Webster, Times of the Technoculture: From the Information Society to the Virtual Life (New York, Routledge, 1999), ISBN 0-415-16115-0
3. Albert H. Teich, Technology and the Future (New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2000), ISBN 0-312-01885-1

For more about John Dwyer, visit: http://www.sayitagain.com/ivorytower/