Langdon Winner vs The Amish: How the Practice of Using Technology is a Reflection of Values
The articles, “Do Artifacts Have Politics” by Langdon Winner and “Amish Technology: Reinforcing Values and Building Community” by Jameson Wetmore both deal with the issue of technology and their influences on society. Winner brought up the point that “… the theory of technological politics suggests that we pay attention to the characteristics of technical objects and the meaning of those characteristics,” something that the Amish tend to really focus on as discussed in Wetmore’s article (Winner 12). According to Wetmore, the Amish use extreme caution when handling newer technologies that come about over time. They pay attention to the “characteristics of technical objects and the meaning of those characteristics” to determine if the technology is appropriate for their society. The Amish are very keen on the preservation of their culture. They understand that technology and social order coexist and influence each other tremendously in such a way that it, “both embeds and is embedded in social practices, identities, norms, conventions, discourses, instruments and institutions — in short, in all the building blocks of what we term the social” (Wetmore 2). This is similar to what Winner was discussing when he mentioned that some technologies that exist have political properties in themselves. These properties affect the society in which we live in. Both Winner and the Amish also reject technological determinism. Because technological determinism means that technology drives the development of social and cultural values, Winner disproves that with his example of the Cyrus McCormick’s reaper in which it was built in order to bring down labor unions, a way that society drives the development of technology. The Amish disprove this by showing how they have the power to use technology as a tool in their advantage rather than technology being an overpowering force.
There are, however, also some differences in their arguments. The Amish believe that the world is filled with distractions that have to be avoided in order to live a life full of devotion and worship. Winner does not state that he believes that all the distractions should be avoided, instead, they should be looked at in such a way for humanity to take control of the new technologies that arise and not have the technologies run humanity. The Amish also believe that separation from others whom don’t share their values is an appropriate response to the avoidance of new technologies. New technologies, in a way, are unavoidable and what Winner called, “inherently political.” Some technologies require societies to come together to operate it. Another difference is the Amish Ordnung, a spoken and understood rule that regulate the Amish community from the clothing they wear to the technologies that are acceptable and unacceptable. Rather, Winner’s “spoken and understood rule” is both some inventions are designed as a way to settle an issue in the community and others are designed to coexist with political relationships. They are more guidelines for understanding and utilizing the relationship between technology and society rather than rigid rules that everyone has to follow.
Over all, these similarities and differences between the Amish community depicted by Wetmore and Winner’s argument over technologies having politics help society understand that the practices in which we use artifacts and technologies are a reflection of our values. This is shown in both Winner’s McCormick example and the Amish’s decision making on what technologies they consider proper for their community.
