Introduction
In today’s modern society, a simple google search or dictionary look-up will bring us multiple definitions for the words information or technology. However, off the shelf definitions strip these important words away from their context and history. As I begin to reflect on the role of technology in our society, I would like to bring our attention to the historical foundations of these words through this brief blog post. This post is adapted from a submission I did in class. I want to continue this discussion and I welcome feedback, comments and critiques.

Leo Marx and Ronald Kline
In “Technology, the Emergence of a Hazardous Concept,” Leo Marx provides a historical landscape for the word technology, arguing that the creation, the emergence and adoption of the word was in response to the semantic void created by the adoption of technological systems in the 19th century. Ronald Kline investigates the archaeology of the word information technology, with a focus on the word information and its relation to society. Much of the evolution of the term information, he explained, was from a management point of view in the 1950s. Later on in the 1970s, the word received an integrationist meaning, with varying entities utilizing information in context to its respective fields.

While both authors adopted Raymond Williams’s approach to the study of cultural history through the use of keywords, I believe that Marx has successfully illuminated the problems of technology and its concerns for our modern day society by noting the existence of a phantom-objectivity. This phantom-objectivity, whereby individuals “consigning technologies to the realm of things,” will only distract us from understanding the sociological and political motivations of the users and the purposes of using it.

Phantom-Objectivity
This phantom-objectivity is an increasing concern in society because it also suggests an erosion of the individual’s critical and mindful assessment of the use of technology in our daily lives. By equating technology as a source of power to initiate change, we are running into the risk of forgetting that individuals are the key actors. Ultimately, we are the creators of technology and initiators of change. As we conform technology as the causal agent, we are directing attention away from the human relations responsible for precipitating this social upheaval. This notion is further stressed in societies with rapid development of technologies.

Condoret, Turgot, Paine and Priestley, Franklin and Jefferson did not equate human progress simply with the advancement of the mechanical arts. Instead, such scholars advocated for the mechanical arts through the measure of progress, defined as:

“Humanity’s step-by-step liberation from aristocratic, ecclesiastical, and monarchic oppression, and the institution of more just, peaceful societies based on the consent of the governed.”

I conclude by hoping that we should reconsider the meaning of progress, not with technology as the end of itself, but not as the means to an end.