Technology and Yourself Essay Revisions are due next Friday, 3/01, 11:00pm
Plan for the Day
- FYI: Valentine’s Day Marriage Article (population size and statistics)
- Here’s the academic article the authors eventually published
- Notice the n for Waves 1 (1,361) and 2 (840)
- Finish discussing Rachel Weber’s “Manufacturing Gender…”
- Specifically, let’s discuss the perspective of female officers seeing a demand of special rights from women in the military (p. 378).
- Discuss Fallows’s “The American Army and the M-16 Rifle”
- Discuss Hunter Havelin Adams III’s “African Observers of the Universe: The Sirius Question”
- Return to discussing American Values
- Social Construction of Technology Essay: Cultural Values, Technology
- Ideology: beliefs, attitude, values of a culture that are often prevailing social attribute.
- Monolithic: in terms of theories, an idea that is essential to the entire theory–rigid and uniform.
Fallows’s “The American Army and the M-16 Rifle”
Expedient: tending to promote some proposed or desired object; fit or suitable for the purpose.
{Notice the word isn’t synonymous with expedite–make something (e.g., a process) faster.}
{Also notice that it doesn’t imply the “best” solution–just a solution.}
This article often upsets readers (civilian and military alike). One of the first reactions is anger that an inferior weapon that most likely cost soldiers their lives was designed to meet the “traditional” requirements of those in charge and not the context in which the weapon would be used. I’m stunned about how little has been said about this significant %&#@-up in the history of the Vietnam War.
As we discuss the article, consider how technologies don’t come to be just because they’re the best. Many more factors go into their development. Remember, this reading is a story of the M-16 and not THE story. I guess that means there are plenty of other versions to pick and choose from in order to accommodate one’s worldview.
- What are the political issues carried out in the construction of the M-16?
- How come the tests didn’t catch the problems of the M-16?
- What is the relationship between the military and business?
Some key passages from the reading:
- The M-16’s failures “were entirely the result of modifications made to the rifle’s original design by the Army’s own ordnance bureaucracy” (p. 382).
- Six hundred-page “forgotten document….is the purest portrayal of the banality of evil in the records of modern American defense”
- Note on writing: the above statement is an assertion. The rest of the article proves or, more accurately, argues/supports that statement.
- Wound ballistics and tumbling bullets (p. 383).
- “The ordnance corps had been in charge of small-arms design for the Army for more than a hundred years” (p. 384).
- Ordnance corps focused on contexts more appropriate for marksmanship as opposed to troop combat (p. 384).
- Ordnance corps stuck to tradition and had “an air of coziness” with the ammunition developers (p. 385).
- Why is it important to note that the AR-15’s preferred bullets () allowed “almost three times as many rounds” to be carried (p. 385).
- Comptroller of the Defense Dept. in 1962: “‘…the AR-15 is up to 5 times as effective as the M-14 rifle'” (as cited in Fallows, p. 386).
- Ordnance corps chose tests that showed the AR-15 to look bad (p. 387).
- The fight wasn’t in the Arctic or Mars but in Vietnam (pp. 387-388).
- What might be an argument in support of an “all environment” standard as opposed to a context-specific standard applied to the ENTIRE military?
- Even after the Air Force and Army testing showed ball powder to be an issue, the Army still ordered the inferior gun powder (p. 390).
- “William Westmoreland…saw that his men were doing very badly in the fire fights against the AK-47 and that the casualties were heavy” (p. 390).
What do the letters at the end of the article (pp. 392-393) demonstrate about the relevant social group, the soldiers? Of all the relevant social groups, whose perspective should have been privileged? {Trick question because there’s only one correct answer.}
Scientific Authorities
I hesitate to ask, but, if you can relate Havelin’s article to pandemic-related messaging, let’s start there.
- Who are knowledge authorities? What do they look like? What are their backgrounds?
- What does it take for you to believe another person (speaking or writing)?
Adams, Hunter Havelin III. “African Observers of the Universe: The Sirius Question.”
This article discusses how Western scientists went to great lengths to discredit the possibility that the Dogon of Mali–an ethnic group south of Niger–could possibly attain astronomical knowledge without the use of modern science and technology. While the issue is far from settled, the purpose of the article in our context is to think critically about alternative epistemologies.
- Brecher on myths vs. scientific theory (p. 31).
- In the above case, “myths” equate to mythology, made up stories.
- Standards of scientific truth and myth from Carl Spight (p. 31).
- The influence (hegemony) of European “way[s] of knowing, values, ideas, etc. (i.e. their reconstruction of reality) has become the model for the rest of the world. (p. 32).
- Temple on extraterrestrial knowledge diffusion (p. 36-37).
- Sagan on travelers telling the Dogon about the Dwarf star, Sirius B (p.37).
- Adams feels Sagan’s conclusion shows “he is full of contempt toward any non-European” epistemology (p. 37).
- Absurdity of the explanations “deny credit to the Africans for their astronomical knowledge” (p. 38).
- Primitive telescopes possible (p. 41).
- What are other possibilities?
- “Nobody has a monopoly on the truth….Their are ways of knowing.” (p. 41)
- How do we come to the “truth”?
- Western views of science (and we could say any epistemology) have “rules that are valid only in a certain range of conditions” (p. 43)
- In order to change Western science, “there must first be a transformation of values: a revolution in paradigms” (p. 43).
- Who talks about paradigms in science?
Next Class
We’re going to do some brainstorming on your Social Construction of Technology Essays., and I’d like you to have something typed–notes, an outline, a list of musings. Don’t forget that your Midterm Exam is on Thursday, 2/29!