In this blog post, we will examine whether technological advancement is a natural and inevitable process that leads to social change, or whether it is the result of human will and social context.
When dividing history into different eras, historians often use major technological developments as reference points, such as the Paleolithic Age, the Neolithic Age, the Iron Age, and the Industrial Age. This shows how important technological development has been to human history, both socially and economically. Since ancient times, humans have constantly developed ways to use the things around them to make their lives more comfortable. To protect themselves from external threats, they invented spears and axes instead of clubs, and to replace their unstable food supply, they learned how to farm and make containers to store grain. Groups that invented new technologies became richer and more powerful than those that did not, and other groups followed suit, spreading the technologies widely. Since then, new technologies have continued to be invented and used, with useless technologies quickly disappearing and useful technologies spreading widely, leading to the development of civilization. The powerful force of technology gave rise to technological determinism, which asserts that it is technology, not people, that determines social change.
Technological determinists argue that social change is not caused by our will, but by the inevitable progress of technology that accompanies scientific development. For example, the invention of metal movable type spread books and brought about dramatic changes in medieval European society. The spread of the Bible, which had been the exclusive property of a certain class, led to a religious revolution and raised the level of consciousness of the people, leading to the Renaissance. In addition, the invention of stirrups led to the development of mounted combat, which gave rise to the knight class and formed the feudal system of the Middle Ages. Technological determinism argues that these social changes were an inevitable process brought about by technological progress. If so, are all social changes caused by science, regardless of human will, and are they inevitable results of technological inventions that will occur someday as science develops? No, they are not. Technology is developed according to human intentions and is subordinate to human society, and social change brought about by technology is not inevitable. Although science and technology are often referred to as “science and technology” and are closely related, they are different concepts.
Science is the experimental and theoretical proof of the laws of the existing world, and technology is the creation of useful methods and tools for humans based on this scientific foundation. In other words, science is discovery, and technology is invention. For this reason, science and technology differ in their development processes. Science is the process of exploring truths that have already been determined. It is like reading a book that has been written many times. Humans cannot change the contents of a book of unknown authorship; they can only read it page by page. Although people’s reactions to a book vary, the contents of the book cannot be changed. Whether the contents of a book are useful or harmful to us does not prevent us from reading it. We simply continue reading, step by step, without knowing when we will finish. However, technology is different. Technology is created by humans. If science is the process of reading a book that has already been written, technology is the process of reading that book and writing an essay. Just as an essay has an author and contains the author’s thoughts and intentions, so does technology. Technology is a creation made by an individual or group applying scientific laws in their own way, and it contains the intentions of its inventor. For example, swords and axes were created with a clear purpose based on the needs of the people at the time, such as to kill enemies or to hold food. Therefore, science is independent of human society, but technology is dependent on human society.
Technology is created based on human needs. In other words, technology is created by inventors or groups to satisfy their own desires. The fact that new technology development increases rapidly during extreme situations such as war shows that human desires influence technological development. In that case, can we say that new technology created new demand that did not exist before and changed society for members of society other than the inventors who were living comfortably? The demand revealed by technological inventions is not demand that did not exist before, but hidden demand that was not revealed. In other words, it is demand that has existed for some time but has not been realized due to a lack of technology. Among newly invented technologies, some disappear because they are not used by others, but others become widely used and influence social change. This depends on whether the newly invented technology meets the hidden demand of people. Even if someone creates a technology out of necessity, if other people do not need it, that is, if there is no demand, the technology will not be used. If a newly invented technology matches hidden demand, that hidden demand will surface and people will start using the technology. For example, before the invention of stirrups, people took it for granted that they had to ride horses without stirrups, so there was no demand for them. However, even before stirrups were invented, people wanted to ride horses more comfortably. They just didn’t know how to make riding more comfortable. Stirrups met people’s unexpressed desire to ride horses more comfortably, creating strong demand, spreading widely, and leading to a major social change: the emergence of the feudal system.
In modern times, most research is conducted from the outset to develop technologies that meet the hidden needs of society, rather than for personal gain. In other words, researchers develop technologies while predicting and anticipating where and how their technologies will be used and what changes they will bring about. They even predict to some extent the major social changes that will result from their technologies and deliberately lead those changes. Social change brought about by technology usually presupposes large-scale consumption of that technology. Since most modern technologies are developed for financial gain, social change that consumes those technologies is also desirable for their developers. The spread of smartphones in recent years and the rapid development of related industries are the result of smartphone technology companies deliberately creating smartphone technology in order to make more money.
However, it is not easy to predict how new technologies will affect human society. This is because even the same technology can elicit different responses depending on the social group that uses it. In other words, social change brought about by technology is not inevitable. Examples of this can be seen in how the East and West, with their different ideas and ways of life, reacted to the same technological inventions. The printing press and metal movable type, which had a decisive influence on Western society, as mentioned earlier, were actually invented in the East. Hundreds of years before Christ, China had a powerful cavalry that used stirrups. However, unlike in the West, there was no change that led to the creation of a knight class and the emergence of a feudal system. This was because China already had its own feudal system based on blood ties. Similarly, the invention of metal movable type did not lead to a religious reformation or the Renaissance in the East. This was because Chinese religion was very different from Western religion, and China’s level of civilization was higher than that of the West at the time. As such, even the same technology can have completely different effects on society due to numerous factors, such as institutional, religious, and cultural differences.
In this way, technology is influenced by humans from its invention to its spread. Technology emerges from the scientific level of society in response to social needs, interacts with various characteristics of society, and causes different changes depending on those characteristics. Therefore, technology is completely dependent on society, and the fundamental cause of social change brought about by technology lies in the society itself, which independently invents and consumes technology. Even now, many engineers are researching numerous technologies that will bring about social change. Social change is not an inevitable process that occurs under the influence of technology, but rather the result of technology that is dependent on society.
