TecC 05 - The Two Faces of Prometheus
The Making and The Enabling: Objects and Order
I have previously ranted that the term ‘technology’ is often misused, solely to mean ‘computer technology’ or worse whatever digital device one is holding and perhaps fumbling with at a given moment. To take a wholesome view instead, I’ve proposed a much broader definition of this term. Let me now get into the details of this along with why this seeming quibble matters and how it’ll enhance our objectives in the current journey.
Defining the Distinction
At the onset of this series, I proposed that we look at ‘technology’ as the sum total of all human action in modifying the environment around us, to make things that nature on its own would not come up with. In fact in the proposed technocentric paradigm1 I’m taking an even more comprehensive view by introducing my core distinction - artefactual versus institutional.
What we discussed in the previous episode, from the first stone tool to the latest electronic device, comes under what I’m calling artefactual technology - the physical or tangible tools and implements. Whilst this is the common definition of the word ‘technology’, I’m introducing a distinction of it from the institutional, because we cannot, at least in the technocentric worldview, assess and sufficiently robustly make sense of all human progress, without investigating institutional development. These are but mutually enhancing; neither exists without the other, they’re in fact the two faces of Prometheus.
By institutional technology, I mean here the cognitive processes, ideas, and solutions and such developments that are crucial to human progress, even where they do not result in the production of physical or tangible goods. Of course, in general parlance, the study of institutions is carried out under the aegis of the social sciences, and I’m not suggesting that’s not valid.
Let’s now very briefly trace the evolution of institutional technology in parallel with the artefactual technologies I chronologized in the previous episode so we can throw more light on the importance and relevance of this duonomy.
Tracing the Twin Trajectories
The advent of agriculture, as mentioned in the previous episode, necessitated huge changes in social organization. Unlike the case with hunter-gatherer societies, there was for the first time the potential of huge reserves of food - grain that lasted beyond the phase of growing and harvesting it, months perhaps even into the following year! The shift to a sedentary lifestyle beside the farms where the food was being grown implied the construction of permanent dwellings leading to the accumulation of other objects within or around such dwelling.
Early adopters of these new techniques and lifestyle would have faced some puzzling issues. Hitherto they could just roam around and pick whatever nuts and berries they could find in their environment, moving elsewhere if they’d exhausted what was available in one location. The situation now was different.2 In order to reap the benefits, quite literally, of their hard work in tilling the soil and growing the crop, they had to make sure that others who played no part in it did not simply take away the grain thus laboriously grown and harvested.
From Fields to Formalities
This necessitated the development of formal systems of recognizing the value and ownership of such labor and the consequent produce as belonging to those individuals who were indeed involved in that, yes literally again, back-breaking labor! This is what we call property rights.3 Without the formalization of a system of property rights, there was no incentive4 for individuals or groups of them to invest their time and effort to bring about the crop in the first place.
The need for establishment of such norms as property rights necessitated their enforcement. Some individuals in the society, not being confined to the task of working the fields, stepped up to offer to do such enforcing, which involved the ability to exert force, including violence, on those individuals, whether within the group or outside it, from taking for themselves, from appropriating the proceeds of such labor. This also meant guarding those storehouses of the grains, etc.
Over time, among other things, this led to the development of a select group of, shall we say forceful, men offering such protections in return for authority and privileges5 - the rise of the elite6, and eventually the framework of the State, an institution we will return to discuss whenever relevant in this and other series.
These are some of the institutional developments without which the switch to a lifestyle based on agricultural production and all the societal changes it led to would never have taken root!
Frameworks for the Formless
Similarly, the development of the printing press, another key artefactual technology we have touched upon gave rise to similar conundrums: who, for example, owns the material painstaking composed and now printed and published? This led to another system of property rights, this time, intellectual (IP) with devices such as trademark and copyright eventually coming into force.
And likewise, the advent of the steam engine and related artefactual technologies allowing for a rapid ramping up of production necessitated a further strengthening or enlargement of such institutional technologies as mentioned, with legal devices such as patents (in IP) and industrial organization and risk pooling, such as the joint-stock company and insurance, all of it buttressed by efficacious enforcement by a robust judicial framework, some of which again we’ll return to whenever relevant.
And so to repeat, these are some of the institutional developments without which technological breakthroughs such as the Industrial Revolution would never have gathered steam!
The Inseparable Bond
I hope by now you can see why I’m taking the growth of institutions, such as legal systems, social norms etc., together alongside what we would normally refer to as actual technological developments - they go hand in hand, they progress in lockstep, they’re inextricably bound.
To be clear, the previous paragraphs might seem to suggest that the mentioned artefactual developments led to the corresponding institutional ones, but I’d emphasize that they have been mutually reinforcing. The newer institutional norms further corroborated the development of the artefactual ones and the other way around, in a virtual circle.
In some ways, it can be argued, the development of institutional technology is much harder, because institutional design is much more complex - it involves the consideration of human behavior (psychology) and many other intangible factors that have a bearing on all of this. Such systems cannot be easily defined and demarcated using simple and pure mathematical formulas easily testable in controlled laboratory conditions. This is why the study of these are conventionally done separately (under the Social Sciences/Humanities) as distinct from what is conventionally the purview of science and technology.
But taking this integrated view as I’m doing in this series offers us delightful new ways of looking at all of it and, as I intend to show, useful and practical insights as well. These are the dual gifts of Prometheus - we shall harness the fire of artefactual technology supplemented by the knowledge of institutional technology, and in the end come out stronger.
So stick around, we’re only getting started!
Voice and images generated by AI.
I’ve mentioned this before and to avoid misunderstanding I will again: technocentrism is a paradigm, a way of looking at things; importantly it’s not an ideology
Or in fact, it was a situation only now!
The meaning of the word ‘property’ has changed somewhat since this term was originally formulated, more on that another time.
The concept of incentive is very fundamental to the growth and health of institutional technologies as we’ll explore in later episodes.
Of course, that’s not how they put it, you’re familiar with how they worded it - “we’re here to help”, “for your safety and security”, etc!
The word ‘elite’ is a French form of ‘elect’, and from the same root as ‘select’ as well. You might be right to protest that ‘elite’ is closer to the idea of self-selected than elected!