ADVERTISEMENTS:
The term ‘technology’ should be understood in sociology in a much wider sense than the meaning usually attributed to it. The term does not simply mean machines and scientific instruments. It also implies an appropriate attitude, habits of thought and action.
The reason is obvious. In the absence of the latter, mere installation of machine does not yield the desirable result Machine does not work on its own. It has to be worked by man.
The effectiveness of the machine, therefore, depends on the way it is worked. If we make a comparative study of the working of the same type of machinery in different societies, we shall find to our surprise that in one society eighty to ninety percent of the productive capacity of the machinery might have been obtained while in another society the percentage might be forty or fifty or even less.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The differences in the utilisation of the productive capacity of the machinery have to be attributed to the differences in the personnel behind the machine. In one case the men who work the machine may have the right attitude and the right motivation whereas in another case they may not have similar attitude and motivation.
The observations of G.M. Foster are very pertinent:
“Technological development is, indeed, a complex process. It does not simply mean the overt acceptance of material and technical improvements. It implies a cultural, social and psychological process as well. Some writers, therefore, prefer to use the term socio- technological development”.
Max Weber in his classic book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, discussed at length the relation between the dominant values and the entrepreneurial role of those who share those values. The same analysis applies to the use of machinery as well. The observations of Kingsley Davis are very illuminating.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
“One common feature of the fixed society is what might be called diffuse other worldliness the tendency to fix attention on transcendental world and to view the material world primarily as symbolic of transcendental realities. Since technology and science deal with the intrinsic relations between phenomena, the insistence upon a supernatural interpretation in every detail is a serious obstacle”.
Professor D.P. Mukherjee brings out this point very forcefully thus:
“The ideal pattern of Hindu values was woven round ‘wantlessness’. How could technology and machines geared to the production of goods for the satisfaction of wants, which created more wants, joint wants, derived wants, the infinite hyperbola of wants, be consonant with the pattern of Hindu norms? How could such norms square, for that matter, with economics, ground as it was one wants and their satisfaction? If absolute separation of the soul from the body be the utter sum of existence, then Gandhiji, and with him every Hindu… would raise the eternal query: Why this craze for machinery? Why machine civilisation at all?”
The full utilisation of machine demands a flexible attitude and receptivity to new ideas and new methods. “Some cultures value positively novelty and change for their own sake. The fact that something is new and different is sufficient reason to examine it and perhaps to try it”.
There are some cultures, on the other hand, which are not favorably disposed towards novelty and change and discourage all attempts toward introducing novelty and change. Technology does not yield the best results in the hands of those who are not open to the pragmatic test, more hedonistically rational and experimental.
The foregoing discussion establishes beyond doubt the close relationship between values and technology. When we discuss the type of changes which technology brings about, we should bear in mind that technology is both a promise and a demand. When the demands of technology are fully met, only then can we expect the promise of technology to be fulfilled in large measure.