Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!limbo!taylor From: kling@ics.uci.edu (Rob Kling) Newsgroups: comp.society Subject: Alvin Toffler and Technological Utopianism Message-ID: <1940@limbo.Intuitive.Com> Date: 21 Apr 91 18:07:30 GMT Sender: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com Lines: 186 Approved: taylor@Limbo.Intuitive.Com I just saw an enthusiastic posting about Alvin Toffler's books "Future Shock" and "The Third Wave" on RISKS. I thought that my comments about Toffler's style of analysis might also interest readers of comp.society. Toffler's a provocative and popular journalist. But I recommend that people read him VERY critically. Toffler's Third Wave is a technologically utopian treatise whose assumptions undermine the kinds of social realism which are essential for our understanding how computerization really work out .... I see some value to utopian and anti-utopian analyses. But technological utopianism is so seductive to technologists, and dangerous (IMHO), that we should be aware of how its rhetoric "works." I've written about the character of technological utopianism, anti-utopianism, and social realism as genres of analysis which give selective insight into issues of computerization, but which also have important systematic limitations, in: "Reading 'All About' Computerization: Five Common Genres of Social Analysis" in Directions in Advanced Computer Systems, 1990 Doug Schuler (Ed.). Norwood, NJ:Ablex Pub. Co. (in press) and my new book, "Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices" (co-edited with Chuck Dunlop). (Academic Press, 1991). I'm attaching a commentary Toffler's "The Third Wave" from "Computerization and Controversy." The following paragraphs are from the introduction to a section I, which examines Technological Utopianism and Technological Anti-Utopianism. ==================================================== Alvin Toffler's best seller, The Third Wave, helped stimulate popular enthusiasm for computerization. Toffler characterized major social transformations in terms of large shifts in the organization of society, driven by technological change. The "Second Wave" was the shift from agricultural societies to industrial societies. Toffler contrasts industrial ways of organizing societies to new social trends that he links to computer and microelectronic technologies. He is masterful employing succinct breathless prose to suggest major social changes. He also invented terminology to help characterize some of these social changes -- terms like "second wave", "third wave", "electronic cottage", "infosphere", "technosphere", "prosumer", "intelligent environment", etc. Many of Toffler's new terms did not become commonly accepted. Even so, they help frame a seductive description of social change. These lines from his chapter, "The Intelligent Environment" illustrate his ap- proach. (Toffler devoted ONLY ONE PARAGRAPH in his chapter to possible problems of computerization.) Today, as we construct a new info-sphere for a Third Wave civilization, we are imparting to the "dead" environment around us, not life, but intelligence. A key to this revolutionary advances, of course, the computer (Toffler, 1980:168) . . . . As miniaturization advanced with lightning rapidity, as computer capacity soared and prices per function plunged, small cheap powerful minicomputers began to sprout everywhere. Every branch factory, laboratory, sales office, or engineering department claimed its own . . . . The brainpower of the computer . . . was "distributed." This dispersion of computer intelligence is now moving ahead at high speed (Toffler, 1980:169). The dispersal of computers in the home, not to mention their interconnection in ramified networks, represents another advance in the construction of an intelligent environment. Yet even this is not all. The spread of machine intelligence reaches another level altogether with the arrival of microprocessors and microcomputers, those tiny chips of congealed intelligence that are about to become a part, it seems, of nearly all the things we make and use . . . . (Toffler, 1980:170) What is inescapably clear, however, whatever we choose to believe, is that we are altering our infosphere fundamental- ly . . . we are adding a whole new strata of communication to the social system. The emerging Third Wave infosphere makes that of the Second Wave era -- dominated by its mass media, the post office, and the telephone -- seem hopelessly primitive by contrast. . . . (Toffler, 1980:172) In all previous societies, the infosphere provided the means for communication between human beings. The Third Wave multiplies these means. But it also provides powerful facilities, for the first time in history, for machine-to- machine communication, and, even more astonishing, for con- versation between humans and the intelligent environment around them. When we stand back and look at the larger picture, it becomes clear that the revolution in the info- sphere is at least as dramatic as that of the technosphere - - in the energy system and the technological base of soci- ety. The work of constructing a new civilization is racing forward on many levels at once. (Toffler, 1980:177--178). [(pages from paperback edition of 1980]. Toffler's breathless enthusiasm can be contagious -- but it also stymies critical thought. He illustrates changes in the infosphere with The Source -- a large commercial computer- communication and messaging system which has thousands of individual and corporate subscribers. (Today, he could multiply that example with the emergence of competing commercial systems, such as CompuServe, Genie, and Prodigy, as well as tens of thousands of inexpensive computerized bulletin boards that people have set up in hundreds of cities and towns.) However, there have been a myriad of other changes in the information environment in the United States which are not quite as exciting to people who would like to see a more thoughtful culture. For example, television has become a a major source of information about world events for many children and adults. (Many children and adults report that they watch television for well over 5 hours a day.) Television news, the most popular "factual" kind of television programming, slices stories into salami-thin 30 to 90-second segments. Moreover, there is some evidence that functional illiteracy is rising in the United States (Kozol, 1985). The problems of literacy in the United States are probably not a byproduct of television's popularity. But it is hard to take Toffler's optimistic account seriously when a large fraction of the population has trouble understanding key parts of the instruction manuals for automobiles and for commonplace home appliances, like televisions, VCRs, and microwave ovens. Toffler opens up important questions about the way that informa- tion technologies alter the ways that people perceive information, the kinds of information they can get easily, and how they handle the information they get. Yet his account -- like many popular accounts -- caricatures the answers by using only illustrations that support his generally buoyant theses. And he skillfully sidesteps tough questions while creating excitement (e.g., "The work of constructing a new civilization is racing forward on many levels at once."). ===================================== Utopian images permeate the literatures about computerization in society. Unfortunately, we have found that many utopian writers distort social situations to fit their preferences ..... We are not critical of utopian ideals concerned with a good life for all. The United States was founded on premises that were utopian premises in the 1700s. The Declaration of Independence asserts that "all men are created equal" and that they would be guaranteed the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- ness". Although utopian visions often serve important roles in stimulating hope and giving people a positive sense of direction, they can mislead when their architects exaggerate the likelihood of easy and desirable social changes. We are particularly interested in what can be learned, and how we can be misled, by a particular brand of utopian thought -- technological utopianism. This line of analysis places the use of some specific technol- ogy -- computers, nuclear energy, or low-energy low-impact technologies -- as the central enabling element of a utopian vi- sion. Sometimes people will casually refer to exotic technologies -- like pocket computers that understand spoken language -- as "utopian gadgets." Technological utopianism does not refer to a set of technologies. It refers to analyses in which the use of specific technologies plays a key role in shaping a utopian social vision. In contrast, technological anti-utopianism examines how certain broad families of technology facilitate a social order that is relentlessly harsh, destructive, and miserable. -------------------------------- >From Introduction to Section I of Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices Charles Dunlop and Rob Kling (Editors). Academic Press, Boston, 1991. -------------------- Rob Kling Department of Information & Computer Science University of California - Irvine