About technological leadership and history

We live in a world apt to compare technological progress within the familiar frameworks we know. So, it is not too uncommon to hear people pronouncing on the rapid pace of technological progress, while at the same time appearing to rationalize to themselves that yet another new application or functionality introduced for mobile phones - to mention one of the most immediate from a long list of examples - is the ultimate and most authoritative prognosis of such progress.  

Allow me today to offer the proposition that this phenomenon generally evidences a lack of technological acuity among ourselves. We have these observations simply because we do not understand that technological progress is actually measured against a much more complete and authoritative yardstick. We say these things because we find ourselves in an environment suffering a dearth of technological leadership. We have not had introduced to ourselves the basic tenets of technology and we have no or little inclination to pursue a higher level of technological literacy. We bear with these symptoms because we are neither told nor led to rethink our basic premises about technology.  Now, if it was not for the serious economic or socio-political consequences of this shortcoming in our society it would be best to simply leave it for eternity to judge. Yet in the past week South Africa and the world at large witnessed quite a vigorous debate which had as common denominator technology together with its various manifestations over a period of 500 years across an Old World which had neither choice nor consent in this regard. Allow me to indulge with a few broad brushes on the canvas of technology history.

A ship navigated to a pristine horizon because the passengers on board have tamed Western Europe and the Mediterranean.   Thanks to increased technological insights they have learnt to better conceive of and built agricultural implements, to better harness the energy of the horse for tilling the soils and for processing their produce. Thanks to printing, knowledge has rapidly multiplied and at macroscale natural laws are better understood. At microscale more insights were gained into the composition and behavior of those immediate materials they have been working with, whether iron, lead, copper, gold, clay, wood, potatoes, wheat, water or indeed the human body.  They have learnt to insulate their homes, to produce more than immediately necessary for survival and to specialize as farmers, bakers, carpenters, and plumbers, interspersed by doctors, lawyers and more preachers and priests. Starting with the Industrial Revolution of 1779 several more techno-economic revolutions follow in rapid succession, leaving the world with steam, electricity, heavy industry, rails and harbors. The net result is an increase in Western Europe’s population, the end of arable land, increasing prejudice, political and religious intolerance, and the inclination to explore yonder horizons which should be a reality now that the earth is found not flat but spherical.  To these travelers technological progress was simply too slow, as indeed it was for the rulers of these European countries as well.  Better, perhaps then, to simply use it to project power, to pursue brutal imperialism to conquer new territories and to open up new lands for relief of the many socio-economic and political pressures at home.

For those indigenous people ashore it certainly would have been a surprise to learn at an immense cost to life, limb and commons how the technology now projected to control their lives have gone beyond what they have learnt about fire and the basic tools they needed for hunting, survival, building and art. Obviously, for these indigenous people observations about technological progress must have been that its outcomes are strange and yielding amazing if not magical outcomes - progress far quicker than was their readiness or need to internalize. But did they, in fact, need more, or was what they had at hand at the time adequate for their circumstances? Were they able to transcend technological barriers themselves for survival and prosperity? Put in another way, were the technologies supplanted to indigenous shores relevant (was there an immediacy of need), were they appropriate (was there a fitness for purpose) and were they functional (were these technologies more efficient for the purposes of those indigenous societies than were existing technologies)?  

The lesson from the above is that while command of a particular class of technologies allows one society abundance, if not affluence, and yet another mere sustenance it should not produce any conclusion that one is superior to the other, nor so for the consequences of one in comparison to another. On the contrary, what becomes increasingly clear about technological indulgence in the so-called First World is that it destroys the planet, it harms the cosmos and leads its adherents on a road to demise. Compare that to the basic yet appropriate technologies of the indigenous communities of 500 years ago which left to their own devices may have continued to live a life content with adequacy.  So much is attested for by various world views, multiple ruins, artefacts, historical writings, rock art and recounts of indigenous knowledge and wisdom.

Ultimately, technological leadership constitutes of the combination of basic philosophy, local logic, indigenous art and superior knowledge, in this sequence, to lead societies towards careful use of what is available, whether natural or synthetic, whether sourced from the techno-nutrient or the bio-nutrient cycle, whether built up or broken down, whether simple or complex, to name a few considerations in this regard, as long as it increases sustainability and does not degenerate global health or reduces old world societies further to harm, eternal poverty, suffering and the accompanying lack of freedom, equality and dignity. These latter outcomes, though, are arguably the most recognizable results of colonialism projected through technologies of control.