Thomas posed the question of whether or not our fears of technology are well founded. Prior to reading the Yamamoto book I had never considered looking at technology from a perspective that did not see it leading to an inevitable doom and a world run by human-hating robots (thus, the Shaviro text fell more in line with the thinking I was used to). However, the Yamamoto book opened my eyes and allowed me to think of the human-technology relationship as something that could evolve and better our world.
In the western world, our relationship with technology tends to be framed in a negative light. This ongoing understanding of what could happen if technology gets too smart is something that has structured my understanding of the world as well as a stereotypical framing of the relationship that can be found throughout popular culture artifacts and political rhetoric. It is clear through the books we have read during the course that the fear of technology is not a novel concept. However, I would argue that the contemporary fear has been heightened through the political rhetoric of the Cold War during the 1980s and the artifacts of popular culture produced during this time.
It has become common knowledge among communication scholars that Ronald Reagan’s rhetoric was effective because of the way he spoke. He tended to use transcendence during his speaking, thus moving away from the day-to-day, live experiences of American citizens. Instead, he relied not only on nostalgia and a love of the past, but on the inevitable progress that would lead to the future. What this type of political rhetoric allows us to do is to think about a better place rather than having to deal with our realities. For example, the effectiveness of Reagan’s rhetoric could be found in its juxtaposition to Jimmy Carter’s rhetoric. Carter asked people to restrain from over-spending and asked the American people to see their role in a poor economy. Reagan criticized such rhetoric, blamed the poor economy on the Democrats, and asked the American public to follow his lead towards progress without having to “change” anything (of course, this led to many things; deregulation being perhaps the most notorious).
Reagan’s rhetoric of transcendence also worked to create clear demarcations between good and evil (ex. good vs. bad capitalism) and in no place is this more evident than in his framing of the American citizenry against the people of the Soviet Union. A significant element of this binary was the American human versus the Soviet machine. Thus, Americans had autonomy and freedom. Soviet citizens were more like trained machines that did everything in support of the communist government. Not only did this allow us to separate our identities from our enemies and continue seeing Soviet citizens as people very different from us, this rhetoric affected artifacts of popular culture, specifically in film, that reaffirmed the differences between humans and machines that I would argue, continue to frame our understanding of this relationship in contemporary times.
Two examples of said cultural products are The Terminator (1984) and Rocky IV (1985). In both films the villain is framed as a machine-like foreigner. In The Terminator the villain is literally a machine hell bent on destroying the human race. In Rocky IV the villain is a Soviet Russian named Ivan Drago who speaks, trains, and fights like a machine. He is juxtaposed to the film’s hero, Rocky, who is framed as human in various contexts, but not more clearly than during his training as he becomes one with nature (running in the snow, chopping wood, etc.) and thus setting himself in clear contrast to the (Soviet) machine world of Drago.
There is more depth to both films and I admit doing a bit of a disservice to the plots of each. However, the duality between human and machine that was laid out in the political rhetoric of Ronald Reagan and later mirrored in many of the cultural artifacts coming from the 1980s does make clear that humans are good and machines are bad. Therefore, to answer Thomas’s question about or not our fears of technology make sense, I would say that whether or not that make sense does not matter. It is the fact that this is how we, as members of the western world, have been conditioned to understand this relationship. Thus, Yamamoto’s understanding remains very novel to us two decades after the end of the Cold War.
I would like to offer some follow-up questions about how contemporary political rhetoric has changed our understanding of the human-technology relationship.
1. What effects, if any, has the war on terrorism had in our understanding of this relationship? Has it changed as a result of 9/11?
2. How do contemporary American films represent this relationship? Are we getting any closer to Yamamoto’s stance or have we remained loyal to Regan’s rhetoric?
Below are two clips worth viewing. The first is a pre-1980s understanding of the human-technology relationship in the form of The Jetsons. I would argue this is much closer to Yamamoto’s beliefs. The second is a clip from Rocky IV as Drago’s training in a computer lab-like environment is juxtaposed against Rocky’s training in nature.
http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=15520
In the western world, our relationship with technology tends to be framed in a negative light. This ongoing understanding of what could happen if technology gets too smart is something that has structured my understanding of the world as well as a stereotypical framing of the relationship that can be found throughout popular culture artifacts and political rhetoric. It is clear through the books we have read during the course that the fear of technology is not a novel concept. However, I would argue that the contemporary fear has been heightened through the political rhetoric of the Cold War during the 1980s and the artifacts of popular culture produced during this time.
It has become common knowledge among communication scholars that Ronald Reagan’s rhetoric was effective because of the way he spoke. He tended to use transcendence during his speaking, thus moving away from the day-to-day, live experiences of American citizens. Instead, he relied not only on nostalgia and a love of the past, but on the inevitable progress that would lead to the future. What this type of political rhetoric allows us to do is to think about a better place rather than having to deal with our realities. For example, the effectiveness of Reagan’s rhetoric could be found in its juxtaposition to Jimmy Carter’s rhetoric. Carter asked people to restrain from over-spending and asked the American people to see their role in a poor economy. Reagan criticized such rhetoric, blamed the poor economy on the Democrats, and asked the American public to follow his lead towards progress without having to “change” anything (of course, this led to many things; deregulation being perhaps the most notorious).
Reagan’s rhetoric of transcendence also worked to create clear demarcations between good and evil (ex. good vs. bad capitalism) and in no place is this more evident than in his framing of the American citizenry against the people of the Soviet Union. A significant element of this binary was the American human versus the Soviet machine. Thus, Americans had autonomy and freedom. Soviet citizens were more like trained machines that did everything in support of the communist government. Not only did this allow us to separate our identities from our enemies and continue seeing Soviet citizens as people very different from us, this rhetoric affected artifacts of popular culture, specifically in film, that reaffirmed the differences between humans and machines that I would argue, continue to frame our understanding of this relationship in contemporary times.
Two examples of said cultural products are The Terminator (1984) and Rocky IV (1985). In both films the villain is framed as a machine-like foreigner. In The Terminator the villain is literally a machine hell bent on destroying the human race. In Rocky IV the villain is a Soviet Russian named Ivan Drago who speaks, trains, and fights like a machine. He is juxtaposed to the film’s hero, Rocky, who is framed as human in various contexts, but not more clearly than during his training as he becomes one with nature (running in the snow, chopping wood, etc.) and thus setting himself in clear contrast to the (Soviet) machine world of Drago.
There is more depth to both films and I admit doing a bit of a disservice to the plots of each. However, the duality between human and machine that was laid out in the political rhetoric of Ronald Reagan and later mirrored in many of the cultural artifacts coming from the 1980s does make clear that humans are good and machines are bad. Therefore, to answer Thomas’s question about or not our fears of technology make sense, I would say that whether or not that make sense does not matter. It is the fact that this is how we, as members of the western world, have been conditioned to understand this relationship. Thus, Yamamoto’s understanding remains very novel to us two decades after the end of the Cold War.
I would like to offer some follow-up questions about how contemporary political rhetoric has changed our understanding of the human-technology relationship.
1. What effects, if any, has the war on terrorism had in our understanding of this relationship? Has it changed as a result of 9/11?
2. How do contemporary American films represent this relationship? Are we getting any closer to Yamamoto’s stance or have we remained loyal to Regan’s rhetoric?
Below are two clips worth viewing. The first is a pre-1980s understanding of the human-technology relationship in the form of The Jetsons. I would argue this is much closer to Yamamoto’s beliefs. The second is a clip from Rocky IV as Drago’s training in a computer lab-like environment is juxtaposed against Rocky’s training in nature.
http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=15520
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