(review) Technics and Civilization

• Summary 01 A deeply informed and strongly directed work, Lewis Mumford's Technics and Civilization traces the up to 1930 (the year in which it was written) the course of technology and its interplay with the civilizations it shaped and was shaped by. He asserts that the development of technology, rather than springing up overnight, has its roots in the 1700s, and prior to that time, in the machines of the Middle Ages. He contends that the reason we find ourselves in a capitalist industrialized machine-oriented economy, whose imperfect fruits serve the majority so imperfectly, is the moral, the economic, the political choices we make, not the machines we use.
• Summary 02 This process of mechanization was not without its compromises, both from man to machine and vice versa. Mumford rather astutely points to how people now organize their entire lives around the concept of time and schedules despite the fact that many of our bodily functions and interhuman practices do not require such a formal temporality. In fact, he calls into question whether attempts to accelerate life, whether intentional or not, are in actuality efficiency losses due to the overhead they require.

Technics and Civilization is Mumford's pioneering study into the past, present, and future of technology. It is a damning indictment of Western culture and a sober reflection on the consequences of allowing ourselves to become enslaved by the product of our own design: "How in fact could the machine take possession of European society until that society had, by an inner accommodation, surrendered to the machine?" Mumford argues that the rise of technology not only changed the way society functioned, but changed the very essence of the human soul. He identifies the major technological innovations that revolutionized history and penetrated deep into the collective psyche, often to the detriment of humanity. Strangely enough, these innovations were often rooted in the most religious and ascetic dimensions of European culture. For example, the clock was the result of the almost fanatic obsession with the rigorous order that characterized daily life in medieval monasteries. Out of a holy desire to mimic the order of the cosmos, European monkery felt spiritually duty-bound to lead equally ordered lives. Everything from praying, studying, eating, sleeping, and relieving oneself was subjected to "the iron discipline of the rule". Pope Sabinianus insisted that the daily routine of the monks be kept in check by ringing monstrous bells at the appropriate times. What better way to ensure the precise timing of these bells than a mechanical device by which to accurately and reliably measure time? From the monastery, the clock was exported to every domain of society, and thus began the routinization of daily life. However, what these men of God did not realize was that the clock was thoroughly and completely foreign to human nature. Mumford contrasts "organic time", which follows the natural cycle of "birth, growth, development, decay, and death", and "mechanical time", which follows a consistent rhythm, which can be artificially set at rates that nature cannot follow, and which continues to tick after organic time has ceased to exist. In modern times, the clock has come to play such an important role in society that it is "second nature" to obey mechanical time. Mumford insightfully points out the most tragic consequence of the clock - the expression and dogmatic conviction that "time is money". The preposterous equation of time with money has led to the "increasing tempo of civilization" and to "a demand for greater power: and in turn power quickened the tempo". The result of all of this? We eat when it's time to eat, not when we are hungry. We sleep when it's time to sleep, not when we are sleepy. Even in school, children think only when its time to think. The subjugation of natural life to the "iron rule" of the clock might very well explain the psychopathic tendencies of those who cannot function in the most industrialized and "advanced" societies.

Yet, this is but one of the innumerable and brilliant insights the Mumford provides. The clock is but a metaphor for the modern age. Mumford divides technological progress into three definitive phases - Eotechnic, Paleotechnic, and Neotechnic. The division of technics into these phases gives us a framework through which to understand the defining characteristics of human civilization during each period, the rate of technological development, and a sense of where we now stand in the evolution of technology. Mumford also draws insights into organizations and their remarkably mechanical nature. The factory, the corporate office, the school, the army, the sports team, the supermarket - these systems are modeled upon the machine. To ensure seamless functionality, the machine must eliminate the domain of chance. Chance is anathema to the machine. And as the whole of society has become mechanized, our instincts yearn for something unpredictable. Hence, the obsession with sports, which provides "the glorification of chance and the unexpected". If only Mumford could have been alive to witness the debauchery of modern television…

The critical reader will forgive the book's factual shortcomings, given that it was originally written in 1934. Scholarship has since made major advances on this inquiry, albeit with the help of Mumford's groundbreaking work. The cynical reader will likely deplore what amounts to Marxist fantasies in the last few chapters. In any case, it should be pointed out that modern technics and civilization can indeed be socialized for the betterment of humanity without delving into the abysmal nightmare of Soviet-style communism. No amount of Cold War nostalgia and conservative fetishism can negate the environmental horrors and social putrefaction that are the chief products of decay by unrestrained technology. Mumford has a surprisingly positive attitude towards the potential of technology to actually improve civilization. He places strong hopes in alternative forms of energy, in socialized modes of production, in humanized work environments, and restructured economies.

Technics and Civilization is a work of history, anthropology, sociology, and philosophy. It uses a long lost, multidisciplinary approach to weave together a variety of different issues and perspectives, and with the sort of scholarly authority that only Mumford can command. Consider yourself truly uneducated until you read this singular American masterpiece.