Social Critics and Dissident Experts: Postwar Critiques of Technology

社会批评家和持不同政见专家：战后对技术的批评

• 批准号: 0080392
• 负责人: Eric Schatzberg
• 金额: $ 5.37万
• 依托单位: University of Wisconsin-Madison
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-09-01 至 2003-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0080392&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Social; Critics; Dissident; Experts; Postwar

SES 00-80392 - Eric Schatzberg (University of Wisconsin - Madison) "Social Critics and Dissendent Experts: Postwar Critiques of Technology"This award supports first stage in a major study of post-World-War-II critiques of technology, a study that will explore both the intellectual origins of these critiques and their practical consequences. In the 1960s and 1970s, these critiques became potent social forces in the form of movements that sought to reshape the dominant technological order, most importantly the consumer and environmental movements. This project seeks to understand the origins of these movements in the social and cultural landscape of the 1950s.Historians of the 1960s have done little to explain why movements critical of technology emerged suddenly after so many years of intense technological enthusiasm. This project will seek an explanation in two amorphous groups from the 1950s. The first group comprises social critics, that is, public intellectuals who fostered critical discourse about aspects of postwar technology from big science to suburbia. These social critics included prominent scientists like Norbert Wiener, public intellectuals like William H. Whyte, and journalists like Vance Packard. The second group emerged from the scientific community itself in the form of "dissident experts" who raised doubts about key postwar technologies. These were the men and women who worked in university laboratories and government bureaus, where they conducted research and authored technical reports that provided the essential evidence needed by Ralph Nader's movement for auto safety and Rachel Carson's critique of pesticide misuse. Together, the social critics and dissident experts laid the groundwork for the movements of the 1960s and 1970s.This project will undertake an intellectual history of the social critics of the 1950s, along with a study of the origins and motivations of the dissident experts. The project will then connect these two groups with the most significant social movements critical of technology in the early 1960s, namely the resurgent consumer movement promoted by Ralph Nader and the new environmental movement inspired by Rachel Carson. These two movements followed similar paths; each inspired by a path-breaking expose that relied heavily on scientific and engineering research.This project will also examine two methodological issues of importance to science and technology studies. The first issue concerns the role of culture in shaping technological change, extending the PI's earlier work on this topic, and the second involves the relationship between theory and practice, stressing practices outside the laboratory.

SES 00-80392 - Eric Schatzberg（威斯康星州-麦迪逊大学）“社会批评家和持不同意见的专家：战后对技术的批评“该奖项支持第一阶段的一项主要研究，二战后的技术批评，一项研究，将探索这些批评的思想起源和他们的实际后果。在20世纪60年代和70年代，这些批评以运动的形式成为强大的社会力量，试图重塑主导的技术秩序，最重要的是消费者和环境运动。本项目旨在了解这些运动在20世纪50年代的社会和文化景观中的起源。20世纪60年代的历史学家几乎没有解释为什么在如此多年的强烈技术热情之后突然出现了对技术的批判运动。这个项目将从20世纪50年代的两个无定形群体中寻求解释。第一个群体包括社会批评家，也就是说，公共知识分子，他们培养了关于战后技术方面的批判性话语，从大科学到科学。这些社会批评家包括著名的科学家，如诺伯特·维纳，公共知识分子，如威廉·H。怀特，还有像万斯帕卡德这样的记者。第二个群体以“持不同政见的专家”的形式出现在科学界本身，他们对战后的关键技术提出了质疑。这些人都是在大学实验室和政府部门工作的男男女女，他们在那里进行研究并撰写技术报告，为拉尔夫·纳德的汽车安全运动和雷切尔·卡森对农药滥用的批评提供了必要的证据。社会批评家和持不同政见者共同为1960年代和1970年代的运动奠定了基础。本项目将对1950年代的社会批评家进行思想史研究，沿着研究持不同政见者的起源和动机。然后，该项目将把这两个群体与20世纪60年代初最重要的社会运动联系起来，即拉尔夫·纳德推动的复兴的消费者运动和雷切尔·卡森启发的新环保运动。这两个运动遵循相似的路径;每一个都受到一个开创性的揭露的启发，这在很大程度上依赖于科学和工程研究。这个项目还将探讨两个重要的科学和技术研究的方法论问题。第一个问题涉及文化在塑造技术变革中的作用，扩展了PI在这一主题上的早期工作，第二个问题涉及理论与实践之间的关系，强调实验室外的实践。