Social Theory and Technology: Unraveling Intellectual Development and Interrogating the Relationship
A reflection on the status of technology in social theory and political economy
This past semester I had the opportunity to teach a graduate seminar entitled "Culture, Politics, and Society in Networked Environments.” It was the first time I taught such a class, which I centered around the topic of the history of computing. I believe understanding the social and historical origins of computing are key to understanding the “question of technology” in our era. This question is no longer adjacent or supplemental to social theory and political economy. Rather, it is a central question with regard to all areas of research in labor, institutions, development, policy, and so many others. I also believe this is a broader question than the presentist focus on topics such as the impact of social media and, more recently, artificial intelligence. Social theory and historical sociology in particular need to move beyond outdated theories of the “information society” and instead address the array of problems and challenges of the computer age (or what some cheerful proponents have called the “second machine age”).
In addition to the excellent and exceptional students I had in the seminar which enabled us to collectively explore these questions, the seminar provided an occasion for me to critically reflect on my own intellectual relationship with the topic of technology, as it not one I have addressed explicitly in my research. It also provided an occasion to examine how the interest in technology intersects with my interests in phenomenology, social theory, and political economy.
When contemplating my relationship with technology, particularly computing, I personal encounters are a useful place to start. As an individual of a certain generation that experienced the end of the Cold War (from the perspective of a disintegrating socialist society) and the encounter with the first personal computers within the context of a “late developing country,” I experienced the wave of computerization and digitalization of human life that the world has undergone over the last decades. Technology certainly forms an undercurrent that has shaped my work and intellectual development, though never explicitly theorized as such. Turning my investigation from the personal-biographical realm and to the intellectual formation derived from the type of work I have undertaken, I am led to the following observations.
One significant milestone in this journey is my dissertation, which studied what can be described as the technology of ruling.1 In studying how the early Albanian state established its authority in remote regions of the country, I examined the tools employed in governance, ranging from guns to utensils utilized for generating and delivering handwritten notes that served as the chief means of communication for state officials. In my research (spanning the era 1914-1944), I saw how these tools evolved, embracing typewriters and formal letterheads and telegraphic communication. There is unspoken though present throughout the intricate network of communication that connected the periphery to the political center. There is an unacknowledged recognition that technology plays a crucial role in shaping power dynamics and governance structures in the modern era, but which I did not explicitly address in the work.
After my dissertation, I published a book that tackled the problem of technology, with a specific focus on industrial technology, against the backdrop of the Cold War and after. I grappled with the complexities of technology transfer and its political implications. By scrutinizing technology’s combined technical and political status, what is revealed to me in retrospect are the underlying issues within social theory, which often portrays technology as natural or neutral. In reality, technology possesses a causal dimension that can influence and shape social structures and political processes. It became clear that social structures generate technical ensembles, which, once stabilized, exert causal effects on society itself. At the same time, technology is not merely a technical ensemble or the effect of the rationalization of work. It also carries its own symbolic dimensions which are especially relevant in the political realm. This critical perspective raises questions about approaches within Science and Technology Studies (STS) that may overlook or downplay these causal relationships.
While technology is a recurring motif in my work, I did not however thematize the underlying problems with social theory’s treatment of technology as neutral or natural. There is clearly a strong relationship between social structures and the emergence of what following Simondon (an underappeciated theorist whose work I assigned) can be called technical ensembles, but I did not emphasize the causal relationship between technology and society. Such a view challenges the assumption that technology is merely a product of social factors, suggesting instead that it actively shapes and influences social structures. By unpacking these issues, there is clearly a need to shed light on the inherent complexities of technology’s role in society, urging for a more nuanced understanding in social theory.
Within this context, phenomenology emerges as a valuable framework for a historical sociology of technology. Phenomenology enables us to explore the intricate connections between technology, knowledge, and the social. By placing emphasis on lived experiences and the subjective perspectives of individuals interacting with technology, phenomenology brings to light the subtle ways in which technology shapes our understanding of the world and influences social structures. This approach challenges the notion of technology as an external force acting upon society, instead emphasizing the mutual shaping between technology and human perception, as the work of Don Ihde in particular has shown. There is also the critical problem of technology, technical knowledge, and the status of knowledge and expertise in modern society, which Alfred Schutz makes intimations towards in his writings. Following Schutz, in our present era of artificial intelligence, there is the question of the very disembodiment of human knowledge itself, as human knowledge (“general intelligence”) is increasingly disembodied and transformed into the possession of machines.
This intellectual journey has led me to critically examine my own understanding of the relationship between social theory and technology. By interrogating the assumption of technology’s neutrality and uncovering the causal effects of technical ensembles on social structures, I see the need to highlight the importance of incorporating phenomenological perspectives into the study of technology as a means of addressing gaps in social theory and political economy. By considering the intricate interplay between technology, knowledge, and society, social theory can develop a more nuanced understanding of how the mediations and extensions of technology influence social dynamics, and provides a foundation for better grounded sociological, cultural, and political-economic analyses.