Reform and revolution
“Appropriate technologists were unwilling to face squarely the facts of organized social and political power. Fascinated by dreams of a spontaneous, grass-roots revolution, they avoided any deep-seeking analysis of the institutions that control the direction of technological and economic development. In this happy self-confidence they did not bother to devise strategies that might have helped them overcome obvious sources of resistance. The same judgement that Marx and Engels passed on the utopians of the nineteenth century apply just as well to the appropriate technologists of the 1970s: they were lovely visionaries, naive about the forces that contained them.”
- Langdon Winner, The Whale and the Reactor. 1986.
Edupunks are modern-day Appropriate Technologists.How do we prevent the edupunk movement from following the same fate as the Appropriate Technology movement of the 70′s and 80′s?
update: My initial note relating the AT movement with Edupunk wasn’t really thought through, and seems to have pissed offstruck a nerve with a few people. It definitely wasn’t meant as an insult or potshot or anything like that, but that phrase popped into my head as I read the passage. Maybe a better wording would have been as a question, as modified above…
Aren’t we edupunks rather than eduhippies precisely because we recognize the forces arrayed against us and so announce our willingness to kick over some statues?
good point. that’s an important difference. the Appropriate Tech folks, as described in the book, were more utopians, building what they thought was a better world, but they stopped at the “if we build it they will come” line. Perhaps edupunks aren’t like the AT hippies, because they are aware of the establishment and are actively trying to change it (or bring it down).
The “edupunks are…” line just popped into my head while I read the passage. Not sure why. I think it may have been in response to the corrupted form of the edupunk label – it’s been ascribed to anything and everything now, and some of that feels like short-sighted utopian thinking. If we build some new edtech, we’ll fix the problems in the system. Which is obviously false, as any real edupunk knows.
Thanks for enabling comments.
This looks like an interesting book… and I’ll recognize that this kind of post is more a form of personal note-taking than anything else. But since it is public here, I can’t help but see it as something of a potshot, and in my opinion and indiscriminate one.
First off, who are the edupunks you are thinking of?
Presuming you mean the usual suspects (presumably myself as well, having overcome my discomfort with the term by some recent exposure to inspiring people in Spain, Argentina, and elsewhere who have embraced the concept and taken it to some wonderful places)… do these descriptions really fit?
“unwilling to face squarely the facts of organized social and political power” “avoided any deep-seeking analysis” “In this happy self-confidence they did not bother to devise strategies” “lovely visionaries, naive about the forces that contained them”
I don’t doubt that there are elements of naive techno-utopianism in modern web culture, but the edupunks I am thinking of don’t shrink away from “facing” and trying to understand the forces that contain them. Their analysis may be inadequate, it may even be totally wrong, but I don’t think it is “avoided”.
Indeed, I would suggest that one thing that makes people uncomfortable with edupunk is it represents an attempt by educators to frame their work in consideration of the wider world’s grim realities.
Hope this pushback does not seem too pissy… I only care enough to comment because I am a devoted reader.
Brian, I didn’t mean the post as any form of insult or sleight. It was just something that struck me as I read that part of the book. (my response to Ed, above, describes that).
The “Edupunks…” line wasn’t really thought through. I think it refers to the edupunks-in-name-only, and most certainly not the folks that started the movement. I think I was thinking more about the folks that seem to be using edupunk (or web 2.0 etc…) as “if we just build the right piece of tech, we’ll fix education/society/whatever). Which is false.
What kind of struck me was the parallels between the “appropriate technology” movement of the Carter era (distributed solar power vs. nukes, etc…) and some of the thinking of the edupunk/web2.0/etc… movements of modern day. If AT fizzled out because of lack of critical mass, lack of political momentum, or whatever, how do we prevent the current movements from losing steam when the political winds shift again?
Thanks.
Of course, ‘edupunk’ is a problematic in the same way a lot of labels are – in that it begs a question of who is being referred to? Who are we thinking of… I can’t answer that question succinctly.
And problematic in the sense that at present I doubt it represents any threat to the entrenched powers whatsoever… At best, it might meet a definition of “*-punk” recently put forward by Bruce Sterling:
“The term “-punk” doesn’t mean that people are historical counterculture punks, musicians with razor-blades and torn clothing. It means that people are using modern social networks to route around established disciplines, so as to appropriate technical knowledge for their various street-level purposes. That practice is not old-fashioned. That practice is intensifying. It will go on no matter what names it has.”
Haven’t read the book (though I might, now) so I don’t know the entire context from which this quote was taken. Sure sounds like the author has drunk his own medicine – “deep-seeking analysis of the institutions that control” – which I assume he feels like his work is, and like that alone is the solution. Rage against the machine, eh?
I take it as exactly opposite. Not that the people doing appropriate technology (or “edupunk,” as you have reframed it) do not have deep critique of the institutions of control, but that they also understand that critique, when it remains solely intellectual exercise, can be quite impotent, and that it must also be a lived experience. And the fact that it becomes lived on a small scale is not a sign of its lack of efficacy. It’s a feature, not a bug. If the alternative you seek is to b grounded in the local, the autonomous, the contextual, then by definition you do NOT seek to grow it by massify-ing it, but instead by modelling it and encouraging emergence. Winner here wants to reframe these efforts against the sole criteria of power, efficacy, efficiency, which are exactly the frames which led to the problem in the first place. It is not just what we do that matters, but how. Does this leave us as “lovely, naive visionaries?” Maybe. Not in my book. I do not feel naive. Rather, I feel like I am setting myself an impossible task, and yet NOT turning away from the discomfort of that, not simply reframing it so as to cultivate a false sense of control.
Holy shit, discussion in the comments field at D’Arcy Norman dot net a lot of fun!
Have to agree with above comments. Surely the point of edupunk is not that we use technology but that we use it to explore and challenge existing institutions and power structures.
And, above all, to educate.
This exchange makes learners quite reluctant to blog in the open, as they could be concerned their phrasing will be misconstrued, and their attempts to formulate their ideas (half-baked, and undeniably first-off impressions) will result in them being asked to apologize. In my view, Norman, you have no need to apologize. I perceived no ill-will or intent to mislead in your comments. It was an idea that you released to the open – an idea balloon.
How many times have students posted ideas only to have them torn up by others? How many times have we been told our ideas meant something to someone else, and how could we say such things? Just because the perception of attribution by others does not make it so. Just because others think you insulted them does not necessarily make it so.
In such an arena, where the exchange seems to be between gladiators rather than senators, I would think the students watching on the sidelines are happy not to be in the fray.
Good point, Glenn. I’ve heard the confrontational nature of public blogging has scared away many people, and intimidated others into not posting. It bothers me, too, although I figure it’s worth putting on the shoulder pads and taking the hits. Not everyone will do that.
I’m already a bit edgy after re-opening comments here. Although it has seemed to help people to jump into the discussion with a lower threshold.
Sorry, Darcy, now I do need to apologize!
no. you don’t.
D’Arcy, how did the “appropriate technology movement fizzle”? There are FAR more instances of appropriate technologies today than there were in the 70′s (to say this isn’t to say that now all or even a majority of technologies deployed are “appropriate,” just that the idea is now much more common place, and has been taken up by many many people.) We are talking about changing the direction of economies and societies that are at least 300 years along, in a movement that is younger than I am.
There are lots of reasons why it is not wider spread. Lots of good critiques too. The fact is, most academics aren’t even willing to touch this area because it would mean acknowledging the immense conspiracy with which they are complicit. “Conspiracy” is both the right and wrong word; there ARE individuals and organizations who have done everything in their power to maintain the status quo, but to think that is the only cause is indeed naive. I say complicit because the types of knowledge and the complexification of technology and society on which the University thrives is itself part of the problem, and as actors and institutions they exist to deny there is any other way of understanding the world, let alone being in it and changing it.