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What s Technology

Stephen. KlineIn the ate2Oth entury, here sonly one hing mostpeople agree about concerning technology - it isimportant. t is discussed lmostas much as theweather, nd sometimest seems,with as ittle effect.But what s "technology?" fwe look with evenalittle care,we find this sameword is beingused orepresent hings, actions,processes, ethodsandsystems.Technology" s alsousedsymbolically san epithet, or important workingprocedures, ndto representprogress.This much conflict withinthe usage f oneof our central ermswon't do; itcan leadonly to chaos.Even more important, thecurrent vagueuse of the word "technology" hidesfrom view two central concepts,and a central pat-tern of humanbehavior hat we musthave o makesense f our views of many critical questionsn thecurrentworld ncludinghow we understandnnov-ation, how we can communicateacrossSnow'sculture gap, and how we understand he way inwhich we humansmakeour living on the planet.

We cannotgeton with our work n STS studieseven reasonablywell until we "unpack" the word"technology" - take apart the various usagesandagreeon names or eachof the important conceptsso that we can understand one another at leastadequately. s Seneca old us two millennia ago,"When the wordsare corrupt, he mind is also."Perhaps he commonest sage f "technology"is to denote manufactured rticles things madeby

From Bulletin of Science, Technoloty & Society1 (1985): 215-18, New York, PergamonPress,CopyrightO 1985 STSPress.Reprinted y permis-sionof SagePublications,nc .@

humans hat do not occur naturallyon earth, orexample: refrigerators, eyeglasses, tom bombs,paints, automobiles,pianos, paper, rubber, glass,aspirin, penicillin, airplanes,copying machines,furnifure, roads,rifles, printing presses, oots,bi-cycles,and on and on. In the late20th century, helist is very long. Engineersoften call manufacturedarticles "hardware"; anthropologists usually callthem "artifacts." Since the phrase manufacturedarticles" is awkward, we might use either the word"hardware" or the word "artifact."USAGE 1: HARDWARE (OR ARTIFACTS):Possible denotation: non-natural objects, of allkinds.manufactured v humans.The next most common usage of 'technology'isthe process f manufacturing ardware.Usually hisusagencludes he manufacturing quipment, ndsometimes t includes in addition the peoplewhooperate he equipment. In either case his is rtruncated usage n a very important sense.Whatis usuallybeing mplied, n the mportant sensefthis usage,must be much more than iust thema-chinery and the people. t is what I will callasociotechnicalystemof manufacture.For example,a complete ystem or manufacturing irplanesorpianos,bicycles,eyeglasses,tom bombs,aspirin,blue jeans,etc.). This full usage s essentialormany reasons hat will be illustrated shortly.USACE 2: SOCIOTECHNICAL SYSTEM OFMANUFACTURE. Possible denotation: Al lthe elements needed to manufacture a particularkind of hardware, he completeworking systemincluding ts inputs:people;machinery; esources;

orocesses;nd ele l environmef, thirdcommouchnique,mehooolemicElluld.no,. tnY lorOthers, uchasused o denotgqciotechnicacvcnmore trunogY,"and i1 sgused igntltcgtions f Ellul'stranslation f thpysn6h.OthersdenotemethodBsk,as n, "weIn order to avmightcall thes,,techniquer""sociotechnicUSAGE 3: Tsses,ndProcesibledenotatiKNOW-HOW,usual ense fthWhenwe ncluofthe hreeusatogetherhe coogy."Howevethathasno comunderstandinnology" in thediscussion.winical ystemsfwhatwedo withfacturedt.

For exampsystem f roadandoperationcombined ystextend he humandour possefacture iolinsmusical nstrumorchestrasndwecanmakemscopes, AT-slnstrumentsn

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processes;nd egal,economic, oliticaland phys-icalenvironment.A third commonusage f the word "technology" suchnique,methodologitr "knom-hop." In a famouspolemicEllul uses the word "technology" todenoteany form of rationalized methodology.Others, uchas Brooks,suggest technology" beused o denote the knowledgeneeded within asociotechnical ystem of manufacture. These areevenmore truncated uses of the term "technol-ogy," and in some nstances his truncation hascausedignificant onfusions, s n some nterpret-ations f Ellul's that occured n part owing to thetranslationof the term "La Technique" rom theFrench.Others appear to use "technology" todenotemethodology for accomplishing any giventask, s n, "we have he technologyo do the ob."In order to avoid thesepotential confusions,wemightcall thesevarious lunctions: knowledge,""technique," "know-how," "methodology" (or"sociotechnicalystem")asappropriate.USAGE 3: The information, skills, proce-sses, nd procedures or accomplishing asks:Pos-sible enotation:KNOWLEDGE, TECHNIQUE,KNOW-HOW, OR METHODOLOGY in theusual ense fthesewords.Whenwe ncludethe many variationsand shadingsofthe hreeusages iscussed bove, hey constitutetogetherhe common usages f the term "technol-ogy."However, there is a fourth related conceptthathasno common name,but which is essentialounderstandinghe human implicationsof "tech-nology" n the ways intended by much publicdiscussion.will call this fourth concept ociotech -,ttcal ystems/zsa. Such systems orm the basisofwhatwe do with the hardwareafter we havemanu-facturedt.For example, we embody automobiles n asystem f roads,gasstations, aws for ownershipand peration, ules o[ the road,etc., and use hecombinedsystem the autos plus all the rest) toextendthe human capacity or moving ourselvesllld our possessionsbout transport.We manu-tactureviolins, pianos,drums, guitars,and otherrnusicalinstruments. We then embody them in0rchestrasand bands to extend the ways n whichwecanmake music. We build microscopes,ele-scopes,CAT-scanners, hermometers, nd otherlnstrumentsand utilize them in svstems o extend0Ur

What is Technology?ability to sense ariousaspects f the world aroundus .We make ifles,pistols,grenades, tom bombs,and other weapons nd diffuse them into armies,navies and air forces which are systems forextendingour capacity o kill, to oppressotherpeoples,and to protect ourselves rom being op-pressed y others.And, we do all this in order toperform tasks which individual humans cannotperform without such systems.USAGE 4: A SOCIOTECHNICAL SYSTEMOF USE i s a svstemusing combinations f hard-ware and people (and usually other clements) toaccomplish asks that humans cannot performunaidedby such systems to extendhuman cap-acities.I am makinga pointof saying thesesystems"andnot us t "hardware"because earlyalwayswe needmore than just the hardware o create heseexten-sionsof human capacities. ven f a singlehumanis usinga musical nstrument, here s the need orknowledge f music and ngrainedneuromuscularskills, from long practice, to make even adequatemusic.To create band, a systemof transport,anarmy,or a football eam akesmanymore elements.The central point is that we have earned o vastlyextendour muscular, ensing, nd mental capaci-ties through the use of sociotechnicalsystemsofmanufactureand use.

These extensions f human capacities y useofsociotechnical ystemsare both quantitativeandqualitative.Using autos or trains we can moveover the land much faster han we can unaidedbysuch systemsof transport. Using sociote chnicalsystemsbuilt to exploit airplanes,we can fly, afunction hardly any of us can perform unaided.Using various weapons n armies, navies or airforces,we can vastlyextendour ability to kill andoppress.Using telescopes nd microscopes,X-raysand otherhardware n appropriate ystems, ecansee ar beyond he scopeof the nakedeye.Usingengines nd motors n appropriate ystems, e cancreatemanifoldextensions Iour musclepower. na relatively ecentsetof systems,we areextendingour memory and data manipulatingcapacities yuseof computersystems.

Without sociotechnicalystem f use, he manu-factureofhardware vouldhaveno purpose. akentogether, sociotechnical ystemsof manufactureand sociotechnicalystems fuse form thephysicalbases f all human societies astand present.The

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StephenJ. Klinehuman consequencesf this statement rso pro-found that thev need a book for complete elabor-ation, but I will givea few ll ustrations ere.

The pattern of creating hardware n specialsociotechnical ystemsof manufacture and diffus-ing the hardwarento other sociotechnicalystemsof use n order to extendour human capacitiessnot a product of the "high-tech age." On thecontrary, the pattern was first adopted by ourevolutionary ancestors two species before webecame homo sapiens, oughly two million yearsago according to tbe best current evidence frompaleoanthropology. e humanshavebeenmakingour living on earthby useofthis pattern or so onga ime, hat t hasmaterially ffected ur evolution-ary path.

Other animals use sociotechnical systems(beavers, nts, bees,and prairie dogs, o mentiononly a few) . However, we humans ar the onlyspecies hat purposefully makes innovations nour sociotechnicalystemsn ord er to (hopefully)improve their function ing.This characteristic fpurposeful nnovation n sociotechnical ystemsdistinguishes umans rom other animalsas eastasclearly san ysingle haracterist ic.

ReferencesStephen . Kline (1977).Toward the Understand-ing of Technology n Society: Part One - TheBasicPattern.Mechanical ngineering9/l: 40-5.

The historl,of changesn sociotechnicalystern5is a history that accelerates ith major eraseachroup;hlva period of ten times shorter than 11.preceding period for the past million or 1$,qyears.The changesookmuch ike a growth func-tion. There is a sharpbreak n the rate ofacceler-ation in the extension of human powers viasociotechnical ystemsabout 1840as both Lien-hard (1979) and Kline (i977) have documentedindependently.

Without sociotechnical ystems,we humansmight not exist as a species, nd if we did, rygwouldbe relativelvpowerless,ew in numberxn4of little import on the planet.Using the extensionsthat becomepossiblewith current sociotechnicalsystems,we have in a large measure become helordsofthe planet. fwe are o exercisehe powersof lord ship well, we will certainlyneed o be clearon the source of those powers and the processesthrough which they areexercised.

F'ew opics are more basic to STS studies hanan understanding f the nature of sociotechnicalsystemsand the pattern in which we humansusethem to create he physical bases or our societiespastandpresent.

John H. Lienhard (1979).The Rate of Techno-logical mprovementBeforeand After the 1830s.Technology nd Culture 20.

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i PerIErnst Kapp inwasprobably ttweenman'sorive ntelligencoilanguage uTooll (1880)wfrom nature, created is owtool making an(DasMenschh1922),JosOrtutopiscem llesagree hat thefrom man's or(1940),using Hbeing,describevated nvironma ackofspeciaconsequentlyephysical urvivenvironmentafire, and huntinbehavioral pattspecies,o thatmust efer o boFrom Research(1983): 2O$-1Rogers nd CarAnsicht erTechalter, ed. HansandGeorgWeipPP. 101-18. RElsevier cience