Thinking about technology: the whale and the reactor.
Thinking about technology: the whale and the reactor.
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思考技术：鲸鱼和反应堆。
DOI：
10.1126/science.233.4771.1435
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发表时间：
1986
期刊：
影响因子：
56.9
通讯作者：
C. Calhoun
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
C. Calhoun
兰登·温纳表示，通过科技，我们正在为彼此创造一个彼此生存的世界。将技术视为免除政治或道德评估，作为一种普世善或自然进化的产物，是在逃避我们对世界运转方式的共同责任。Winner并不是不钦佩现代世界的成就，他也不会将其邪恶归咎于技术。但他关心的是，我们的世界是如何工作的，剥夺了我们的自主创造力，以伤害威胁我们，加强对我们的政治统治，并将我们与自然--包括我们自己和我们周围的自然--隔绝开来。尽管它只是一种手段，而不是原动力，但技术往往会掩盖我们对其运作的责任。正如温纳在早先的一本书(自主技术，麻省理工学院出版社，1978)中所写的那样，即使是现代技术的批评者也倾向于认为它超出了人类的控制，忘记了真正的人是在创造它的效果并决定它的用途。此外，特定的技术可能具有用户容易忘记的固有偏见。虽然核反应堆、计算机、地磁工程、有毒废物和各种其他具体问题都在书中被提及，但《赢家的焦点》集中在我们对技术的思考方式上。这一点在这本书的十篇散文中的第八篇(在我看来也是最好的)《论不要撞到焦油婴儿》中可能是最清楚的。在这里，Winner关注的是“风险”的概念及其在“风险评估”实践中的应用。风险评估已成为“我们社会探索限制技术可能性的最普遍的方式”(第138页)。但温纳表示，这是一个奇怪的概念，尤其是它让我们远离了明显和现实的危险。首先，持续高的问题或伤害率只是从特定个人的角度来看的风险；从统计上讲，对整个社会来说，这些风险是可以预测的，甚至是肯定的。其次，风险的语言表明，那些不愿面对风险的人缺乏毅力，可能是胆小鬼，而冒险者是勇敢的。第三，无论是日常使用还是官方使用，都夸大了我们每个人对自己面临的危险的控制程度。与‘危险’、‘危险’或‘危险’的概念不同，‘风险’的概念往往意味着，在预期收益时，愿意接受所讨论的伤害的机会“(第145页)。简而言之，风险是一种对技术的危险和适当限制的思考方式，系统地掩盖了核心问题。作为话语和政策制定的主要框架，风险评估不足以应对现代技术的真正挑战。Winner以或多或少一致的方式讨论了一系列其他话题。他的目标是影响广大受众，而不是为了专家的利益而纠缠于细微之处或基本理论。他的提法来自广泛的政治思想和现代关于技术的论述。他的笔触轻盈，风格轻松；他的目标是快速洞察，而不是哲学的渗透或全面的报道。在“建造更好的捕鼠器”中，“适当的技术”运动受到了与风险评估相同的概念性审查。这里的结论是“它的真正目的不是从可再生资源中生产能源，而是从绝望之风中产生社会复兴的希望”(第70页；Winner从不错过任何机会来说一句聪明的话)。这是因为他对工业革命以来的“工业社会”理论和其他关于生活的描述进行了更为笼统的批评，认为这些理论“抹杀了技术和其他社会现象之间的区别”，“得出的结论剥夺了任何实际补救的机会”。带着更少的同情心，赢家是…
Through technology, suggests Langdon Winner, we are makinga world for each other to live in. To treat technology as exempt from political or moral evaluation, as a universal good or a product of natural evolution, is to evade theresponsibility we share for the way the world works. Winner is not without admiration for the achievements of the modem world, nor does he blame technology for its evils. But he is concerned with how our world works to deprive us of a sense of autonomous creativity, to threaten us with injury, to reinforce political dominationover us, and to cut us apart from nature-both our own and that around us. Though it is only a means, not a prime mover, technology tends to obscure from us our responsibility for its workings. As Winner wrote in an earlier book (Autonomous Technology, MIT Press, 1978), even the critics ofmodem technology tend to see it as beyond human control, to forget that real people are creating its effects as they make it and determine its uses. Particular technologies, moreover, may have built-in biases their users tend to forget. Though nuclear reactors, computers, ge-netic engineering, toxic waste, and a variety of other specific issues are broached in the book, Winner's focusis on the way we think about technology. This is perhaps clearest in" On not hitting the tar-baby," the eighth (and to my mind the best) ofthe book's ten essays. Here Winner is concerned with the concept of" risk" and its incorporation in the practice of" risk assessment." Evaluation of risk has become" the most prevalent way our society explores the possibility of limiting technology'(p. 138). But, Winner suggests, it is a curious notion, not least in the way it distances us from clear and present dangers. In the first place, consistently high rates of problems or injuries are risks only from the points ofview of particular individuals; they are statistically predictable, even certain, for society at large. Second, the language of risk suggests that those unwilling to face risk lack fortitude, are perhaps cowards, while risk-takers are brave. Third, both everyday and official usage exaggerate the extent of control each of us has over how many dangers we face." In contrast to the concepts of'danger,''hazard,'or'peril,'the notion of'risk'tends to imply that the chance of harm in question is accepted willingly in the ex-pectation of gain"(p. 145). Risk, in short, is a way of thinking about the dangers and proper limits of technology that systemati-cally obscures centralissues. As a major frame of discourse and policy-making, risk assessment is inadequate to the real challenges of modem technology. Winner takes up a range ofother topics in a more or less consistent manner. His aim is to reach a broadaudience, not dwell on fine points or underlying theory for the benefit of specialists. His references come from a wide range of political thought as well as modem discourse on technology. His touch is light, his style easy; he aims for the quick insight rather than philosophical penetra-tion or comprehensive coverage. In" Building the better mousetrap," the" appropriate technology" movement is subjected to the same sort ofconceptual examination as risk assessment. Here the conclusion is that" its true purpose was not to produce energy from renewable resources, but to generate the hope of social renewal from the winds of despair"(p. 70; Winner never misses a chance to turn a clever phrase). This follows from his more general critique of" industrial society" theories and other accounts of life since the industrial revolution that" obliterate distinctions between technology and other social phenom-ena" and" arrive at conclusions that deny any chance of practical remedy." With less sympathy, Winner …