ng."31 Ayres anticipates and worries about the kinds of thinking that, I have argued, characterizeinherently political technologies. It is still true that, in a world in which humanbeings make and maintain artificial systems, nothing is "required" in an absolutesens

ll-known objections to plutonium recycling focus on its unacceptable economic costs, its risks of environmental contamination, and its dangers in regard to the international proliferation of nuclear weapons. Beyondthese concerns, however, stands another less widely appreciated set of hazards?those that involve the sacrifice of civil liberties. The widesp

ne attempt to salvage the autonomy of politics from the bind of practicalnecessity involves the notion that conditions of human association found in theinternal workings of technological systems can easily be kept separate from thepolity as a whole. Ame

Alfred D. Chandler in The Visible Hand, a monumental study of modernbusiness enterprise, presents impressive documentation to defend the hypothesis that the construction and day-to-day operation of many systems of production, transportation, and communication in the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies require the development of a particular social form?a large-scale centralized, hierarchical organization administered by highly skilled managers.

If we examine social patterns that comprise the environments of technicalsystems, we find certain devices and systems almost invariably linked to specificways of organizing power and authority. The important question is: Does thisstate of affairs derive from an unavoidable social response to intractable properties in the things themselves, or is it instead a pattern imposed independently bya governing body, ruling class, or some other social or cultural institution tofurther its own purposes?

fferences between Marx's position in Capital and Engels's in his essay raise animportant question for socialism: What, after all, does modern technology makepossible or necessary in political life? The theoretical tension we see here mirrors many troubles in the practice of freedom and authority that have muddiedthe tracks of socialist revolution

the basic case is as compelling as Engels believed it to be,one would expect that, as a society adopted increasingly complicated technicalsystems as its material basis, the prospects for authoritarian ways of life wouldbe greatly enhanced. Central control by knowledgeable people acting at the topof a rigid social hierarchy would seem increasingly prudent. In

ew machines, manned by unskilled labor, actually produced inferior castings at a higher cost than the earlier process. Afterthree years of use the machines were, in fact, abandoned, but by that time theyhad served their purpose?the destruction of the union. Thus, th

y ofhis monumental structures of concrete and steel embody a systematic socialinequality, a way of engineering relationships among people that, after a time,becomes just another part of the landscape. As planner Lee Koppleman toldCaro about the low bridges on Wantagh Parkway, "The old son-of-a-gun hadmade sure that buses would never be able to use his goddamned parkways."9

Hence, the stern advice commonly given those who flirt with the notion thattechnical artifacts have political qualities: What matters is not technology itself,but the social or economic system in which it is embedded. This maxim, whichin a number of variations is the central premise of a theory that can be calledthe social determination of technology, has an obvious wisdom

It is no surprise to learn that technical systems of various kinds are deeplyinterwoven in the conditions of modern politics. The physical arrangements ofindustrial production, warfare, communications, and the like have fundamentally changed the exercise of power and the experience of citiz

issue isthe claim that the machines, structures, and systems of modern material culturecan be accurately judged not only for their contributions of efficiency and productivity, not merely for their positive and negative environmental side effects,but also for the ways in which they can embody specific forms of power andauthority.

he past work of these authors demonstratedably how every instance of technology and education is entwined with issuesof domination, inequality, and exploitation. This work also fostered valu-able suggestions about how alternate cooperative forms and participatoryarrangements of technology and education might advance social strugglesand the liberation from domination.

In the minds of many academics, the educational applica-tion of digital technology is an inherently forward-looking endeavor wherecritical analyses of the present and/or past are simply not relevant. Thisstems, at least in part, from the fundamental desire amongst most educa-tional technologists to improve education through the implementation ofdigital technology.

Of course, thereis nothing wrong per se with wanting to do good in the world and therebyadopting a positive outlook on life. Yet this positivity becomes problematicwhen it spills over into an excess of belief, hope, and speaking from the heartrather than the head.

There has been growing creep of “rockstar-ism” in education where welook for “the person” to give us “the solution” . . . I’ve answered many ques-tions from audience members with “I don’t know” and “that depends.”People seem to find this unsatisfying. We like our so-called rock stars inthe education and technology field. We like clear answers. And it’s nothealthy for us or for our field.

Of course, a critical approach does not make academic work inherentlysuperior to other less critical work. Moreover, critical studies will never bethe most self-affirming approach to take when it comes to researching andwriting about technology and education—especially when compared to thebreathless adoration of all things digital that media academics all too easilyslip into.

As is often the case with academ-ics, most educational technology specialists are publically concerned, openminded, politically aware (if not politically active), and likely to be ideologi-cally left-of-center. In pointing out that this field needs to be more critical,the suggestion is not being made that a majority of people working in it arehappy-go-lucky, unthinking dupes. What is being suggested, however, isthat many people appear content to turn their critical faculties down con-siderably when engaging in their professional work.

This isan area that still appears to be attracting those who fancy themselves as“boundary pushers,” responsible for “flaming the revolution,” and makingan “impact.” Crucially, these are people who do not appear wholly confort-able when encountering criticism of their boundary pushing and innovation.

These tools are controlled, in their ac,tivities, as extensions of the human organs of work, including the sensoryorgans, and this feat is accomplished by an increasing human underst?n,Ling of the properties of matter - in other words, by the growth ofscientific command of physical principles. The study and understandingnature has, at its primary manifestation in human civilization, the'ing control by humans over labor processes by means of machinesmachine systems.

But it is in the nature of machinery, and a corollary of technicaldevelopment, that the control over the machine need no longer be vestedin its immediate operator. This possibility is seized upon by the capitalistmode of production and utilized to the fullest extent.

The evolution of machinery from its primitive forms, in which simple rigidframes replace the hand as guides for the motion of the tool, to thosemodern complexes in which the ell tire process is guided from start to finishby not only mechanical but also electrical, chemical, and other physicalforces - this evolution may thus be described as an increase in humancontrol over the action of tools.

The fact that many machines may bepaced and controlled according to centralized decisions, and that thesecontrols may thus be in the hands of management, removed from the siteof production to the office - these technical possibilities are of just as greatinterest to management as the fact that the machine multiplies theproductivity of labor.! It is not always necessary, for this purpose, thatthe machine be a well-developed or sophisticated example of its kind.

Less sanguine are thowners of the vast majority of the smaller metalworking firms which, iJ1971, constituted 83 percent of the industry; they have been less able ttadopt the new technology because of the very high initial expense of th,hardware: and thfl overheads and difficulties associatc:d vvith the ~UflWd[l(ibid.). In addition, within the larger, better endowed shops, where th!technology has been introduced, another change in social relations ha:been taking place.

We study more thoroughly the more we strive for a global view and apply this to thetext, distinguishing its component dimensions

Once we establish the relative point between the passage under study and our owninterest, we should make a note of it on a file card with a title that identifies it with thespecific study topic

If we really assume a modest attitude compatible with a critical attitude, we need notfeel foolish when confronted with even great difficulties in trying to discern a deepermeaning from a text.

Maintaining this curious attitude helps us to be skillfull and to profit from ourcuriousity

The act of study, in sum, is an attitude toward the world. Because the act of study is anattitude toward the world, the act of study cannot be reduced to the relationship of reader tobook or reader to text.

Sensing a possible relationship between the read passage and our preoccupation, we as goodreaders should concentrate on analyzing the text, looking for a connection between the mainidea and our own interest.

its focus is fundamentally tokill our curiousity, our inquisitive spirit, and our creativity.

Further, with this approach, a reader cannot separateherself or himself from the text because she or he would be renouncing a critical attitudetoward the text.

Studying is a form of reinventing, re-creating, rewriting; and thisis a subject’s, not an object’s, task.

In a critical vision, things happen differently: A reader feels challenged by the entiretext and the reader’s goal is to appropriate its deeper meaning.

The solution is not to "integrate" them into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become "beings for themselves."

the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his or her own professional authority, which she and he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students;

the teacher teaches and the students are taught;

Students, as they are increasingly posed with problems relating to themselves in the world and with the world, will feel increasingly challenged and obliged to respond to that challenge.

They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow. In this process, arguments based on "authority" are no longer valid; in order to function, authority must be on the side of freedom, not against it.

Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students-teachers. The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach.

Those truly committed to liberation must reject the banking concept in its entirety, adopting instead a concept of women and men as conscious beings, and consciousness as consciousness intent upon the world.

Education as the exercise of domination stimulates the credulity of students, with the ideological intent (often not perceived by educators) of indoctrinating them to adapt to the world of oppression.

When their efforts to act responsibly are frustrated, when they find themselves unable to use their faculties, people suffer.

Oppression—overwhelming control—is necrophilic; it is nourished by love of death, not life. The banking concept of education, which serves the interests of oppression, is also necrophilic. Based on a mechanistic, static, naturalistic, spatialized view of consciousness, it transforms students into receiving objects. It attempts to control thinking and action, leads women and men to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power.

Because banking education begins with a false understanding of men and women as objects, it cannot promote the development of what Fromm calls "biophily," but instead produces its opposite: "necrophily."

Solidarity requires true communication, and the concept by which such an educator is guided fears and proscribes communication.

Those who use the banking approach, knowingly or unknowingly (for there are innumerable well-intentioned bank-clerk teachers who do not realize that they are serving only to dehumanize), fail to perceive that the deposits themselves contain contradictions about reality.

The truth is, however, that the oppressed are not "marginals," are not people living "outside" society. They have always been "inside"—inside the structure which made them "beings for others."

Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology)of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry.

The contents, whether values or empirical dimensions of reality, tend in the process of being narrated to become lifeless and petrified.

No one can be authentically human while he prevents others from being so.

they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation.

Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students.