I am hugely indebted to Langdon Winner’s 1986 The Whale and The Reactor [1] for the ideas dicussed here. Of course, any misinterpretation is mine and I certainly recommend reading the whole book.
In the chapter entitled ‘Do artefacts have politics?’, Winner explains that technologies can be political in two ways. First when the invention, design, or implementation of a technology is biased to shape human relationships in a certain way, e.g. by favouring certain users over others. I plan to consider this issue in more detail in a follow-up post on inclusive design. For now, the key point here is that the political consequences (intended or not) are present ab initio rather than being a side-effect of the technology’s professed use. Second, when technologies are “ ‘inherently political’ ”, a proposition that admits a strong statement, later referred to as (a): certain technical systems require a particular socio-political environment to operate; and a weaker statement (b): certain technical systems are strongly compatible with a particular socio-political environment. [1 p.32, my emphasis].
A clear example of (a) is the atom bomb, which requires an authoritarian chain of command to avoid any unpredictability in its use, even if the regime holding it is a democracy. Unsurprisingly, this model of organisation spreads to affect anything nuclear and as Jerry Mander wrote: “if you accept nuclear power plants, you also accept a techno-scientific-industrial-military elite” [2, quoted in 1 p. 32]. This leaves Winner to worry that the possibility of recycling plutonium as nuclear fuel combined with the risk of terrorist attacks will lead to a drastic, unwarranted reduction in civil liberties. I would argue that large-scale energy projects, particularly those involving unconventional extraction methods, suffer similar issues. For example, fracking is a polluting technology, which requires large-scale infrastructures over vast areas of countryside. The scale of the project calls for a centralised, hierarchical organisation; the dangers involved means it can only be politically imposed from the top-down by industry leaders and governments, with civil liberties at risk [e.g. 3].
Discussing energy sources leads us to examples for the weaker statement (b). In the 70s, environmentalist David Hayes wrote that “dispersed solar sources are more compatible than centralized technologies with social equity, freedom and cultural pluralism” [4, quoted in 1 p.20]. Indeed, a very recent example, Enova Energy is the first Australian community-owned renewable energy retailer, which grew from the Northern Rivers communities’ successful fight against the fracking industry [5, 6]. Closer to home, York Community Energy is “an independent, volunteer-run charity aiming to set up a community-controlled renewable energy generating cooperative in the City of York area” [7].
However, Winner cautions that even if a technology is more compatible with community control, it won't be a necessary consequence of the rolling out of that particular technology, e.g. if the production and maintenance of the equipment is centralised in the hands of a few corporations. In addition, in the case of renewable energy production, there is a difference between having pannels or a small windturbine on one’s roof and the installation of large-scale wind or solar farms. The crucial point here is that community control is not going to happen without the conscious political decision to make it happen. So far, we have been ‘technological somnambulists’ to use another of Winner’s expressions, accepting dramatic changes to our ways of life one innovation after another, turning into fully fledged consumers while dissociating ourselves from corporations and governments, letting them create for us whatever type of society their interests call for.
It is therefore high time to reawaken the political debate without getting quagmired as Winner warns by issues such as ‘efficiency’ and ‘risks’.
Indeed, there is a danger that what seems to be the most efficient way to run a factory (typically, authoritarian) comes to be viewed as the most efficient way to run a country, leading to a technocratic approach where experts ‘know best’ and technical imperatives are used to justify any practices. “It is characteristic of societies based on large, complex, technological systems, however, that moral reasons other than those of practical necessity appear increasingly obsolete, ‘idealistic’ and irrelevant” [1 p.36] and thus the moral discourse becomes subordinated to efficiency requirements. For example, a genuinely political debate on nuclear versus renewable energy, considering for example whether we would chose a culture of fear and reduced civil liberties over the freedom allowed by small-scale, locally controlled energy production, could easily by hijacked by numbers with reports investigating which method is the most ‘efficient’ at producing a given amount of kWh. I am not saying that economics and technical details don’t matter; I am only emphasizing that they shouldn’t be left to tell the whole story for that would be abdicating our citizenry.
On the question of ‘risk’, I am returning to fracking since in spite of increased media coverage, it seems to me that there is no debate to speak of [see e.g. 8]. The industry and government officials repeat the same arguments ad nauseam, while opponents point out the accumulating evidence of the harms caused by this technology. It isn’t clear in fact when enough evidence will be enough. Never perhaps, for the industry will argue that the technology keeps improving; the government will argue that regulations are gold standard while refusing to answer specific questions; more time and resources will be devoted to further studies that are unlikely to be more conclusive. The establishment prefers to talk about the ‘risks’ of fracking rather than its ‘dangers’, for risks are taken but dangers avoided. And who knows, perhaps the risks are worth it? For without people taking risks we wouldn’t have cars or planes, I have been told. Yet I am not sure whether we are better off with either: certainly air quality isn’t and this is a high price to pay. Of course such discourse will be branded heretical, for surely we couldn’t do without cars, nor can we ‘halt the march of progress’. Yet again I have to make clear that I am not against technology nor innovation. My emphasis is that believing that progress will magic a technological fix to all our woes is a powerful and dangerous myth; and my contention, which runs throughout these posts, is that the direction we want technological development to take should be given thought. Technologies, Winner writes, are “ways of building order in our world” [1 p.28]. Once a technology develops, it loses flexibility as money is invested, hardware and infrastructures are built, and social habits develop. It is therefore crucial to make sound decisions at the initial stages.
To return to fracking, the people are wise to call for a debate even before its economic viability in the UK is ascertained. However the debale should not be an engineering debate about the ‘risks’ of fracking, which might never be settled. It should be a political debate about the kind of society we want to live in, and how we go about building it. Such a debate should be welcomed and encouraged by the government of any democratic nation.
As Winner writes, it is high time to tackle “a problem that has been brewing since the earliest days of the industrial revolution - whether our society can establish forms and limits for technological change, forms and limits that derive from a positively articulated idea of what society ought to be” [1 p.52].
____________________________
[1] Langdon Winner, The Whale and the Reactor. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1986. The pages quotes refer to the paperback edition, 1989.
[2] Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. New York: William Morrow, 1979.
[3] R. Hayhurst, "Human rights campaigner urges oil company to drop High Court bid for injunction", 17th March 2017. Available: https://drillordrop.com/2018/03/17/human-rights-campaigner-urges-oil-company-to-drop-high-court-bid-for-injunction/ [last accessed: March 21st 2018]
[4] D. Hayes, Rays of Hope: The Transition to a Post-Petroleum World. New York: W.W. Norton, 1977.
[5] B. Shoebridge, Producer, The Bentley Effect. [documentary]. Details at: https://www.thebentleyeffect.com [last accessed: March 21st 2018]
[6] https://enovaenergy.com.au [last accessed: March 19th 2018]
[7] http://yorkcommunityenergy.org.uk [last accessed: March 19th 2018]
[8] R. Hayhurst, "Live updates from Pickering debate on fracking regulations: MP vs the engineer", 8th March 2017. Available: https://drillordrop.com/2018/03/17/human-rights-campaigner-urges-oil-company-to-drop-high-court-bid-for-injunction/ [last accessed: March 21st 2018]
