Alec Perkins

Phelan Seminar
Weekly Paper
1.29.2008

The readings for this week describe the country as being seen as a land of

possibilities, both in a sense of having resources to provide those possibilities and

the technological means to realize them. Associated with this idea of a land of

opportunity is the notion that technology is generally good, or even inherently so,

ignoring potential negative impact a technology may have. Americans thought

others wanted to hear their ideology, assumed that their means of production were

natural and inevitable, even obvious, fitting perfectly in line with Manifest Destiny

and its associated territorial expansion. Each group saw technology as a way to

reinforce their existing ideology. Since the dominant groups in America originally

came to the continent to start fresh, technology and possibilities were readily

associated.

Technological nostalgia sounds not unlike the idea behind the term

‘retroactive continuity’ (retcon), a term popularly applied to fiction series that

maintain self-consistency by making newer, contradictory information canon,

overriding their previously established reality. In this case, the power of previous

technologies is lessened, helping the modern technology to seem even more new

and exciting, as well as enhancing its perceived power. Also, in a “good old times”

mentality, technological nostalgia seems to only see the best, forgetting both the

negatives of the technology, as well as the extent of its influence. This means

people are less likely to criticize or at least critique newer technologies since the

last one was not that influential. “The last one wasn’t so bad, how bad could this

one be?” This way, new technology is essentially better by default. Winner points
out the cyclical nature of this attitude toward technology and argues that the

enthusiasm surrounding the new overshadows actual discourse and debate about

the technology, preventing valuable criticism. This brings the question, are there

some ideals that Americans have that put technology on a pedestal and where do

those ideals come from?

As in current times, ads were being used to define the ideals, what people

should strive for, in addition to simply informingthat the product exists. The product

is now seen as just part, though an important one, of what the consumer is buying,

so much so that “sell the experience” is even considered cliché. Framing the

product as fulfilling the consumer’s own motivations by playing off of the desire to

move up in the world in some ways defines what moving up is, through association.

There certainly are some of the motivations already inherent to many in

America, specifically seeing it as a land of opportunity. However, it is clear the

advertisements are not simply reflecting those motivations, but instead distorting,

by increasing the importance of the ones that lead to purchase of their products. As

mentioned by Marchand, the concepts of the two car family, planned obsolescence,

and multiple styles of functionally the same product were born out of a need to sell

more products, now that the market was effectively saturated. One question iswhat

drives those distortions? In a chicken or egg scenario reminiscent of technological

determinism, are these motivations truly inherent, and only now enabled and

satisfied by certain technology? Or, is the capability of technology being used to

define the ideals? The desire of Germany and Russia discussed by Hughes to

possess the same production capacities suggests such motivations are not entirely

limited to the United States. How universal is the concept of technology as an

enabler? Is it only because technology is automatically associated with possibility?

The definition of technology given by Hughes suggests that technology is inherently

enabling, or at least seen as such, as it is created for that exact purpose, however it

would seem that fitting the technology into the social context is necessary to

determine whether or not it enables.