Essay on Cultural Factor Influences the Direction and Character of Technological Change – Culture not only influences our social relationships, it also influences the direction and character of technological change. It is not only that our beliefs and social institutions must correspond to the changes in technology, but our beliefs and social institutions determining the use to which the technological inventions will be put. The tools and techniques of technology are indifferent to the use we make of them.
For example, the atomic energy can be used for the production of deadly war weapons or for the production of economic goods that satisfy the basic needs of man. The factories can produce the armaments or necessaries of life. Steel and iron can be used for building warships or tractors. It is the culture that decides the purpose to which a technical invention must be put.
Although technology has advanced geometrically in the recent past,-technology alone does not cause social change. It does not by itself even cause further advances in technology. Social values play a dominant role here. In one time and place, why are further technological advances welcomed?
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In other time and place, why are they resisted or rejected? India opposed technological innovations and refused to accept and use many of the technological products during the early stages of the British rule.
On the other hand, America welcomed almost all kinds of technical inventions during the 18th and 19th centuries. Only the cultural factors can provide a satisfactory explanation for these phenomena.
The complex combination of technology and social values produce conditions that encourage further technological change. For example, the belief or the idea that human life must not be sacrificed for want of medical treatment, contributed to the advancement in medical technology.
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Max Weber in his ” The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” has made a classical attempt to establish a correlation between the changes in the religious outlook, beliefs and practices of the people on the one hand, and their economic behaviour, on the other.
He has observed that capitalism could grow in the Western societies to very great extent and not in the Eastern countries like India and China. He has concluded that Protestantism with its practical ethics encouraged capitalism to grow in the West and hence industrial and economic advancement took place there. In the East, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Islam, on the other hand, did not encourage capitalism.
Thus, cultural factors play a positive as well as negative role in bringing about technological change. Cultural factors such as habits, customs, traditions, conservatism, traditional values, etc., may resist the technological inventions.
On the other hand, factors such as breakdown in the unity of social values, the diversification of social institutions (that is, institutions such as family, religion, state, etc., becoming relatively independent) craving for the new thoughts, values, etc., may contribute to technological inventions.
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Technological changes do not take place on their own. They are engineered by men only. Technology is the creation of man. Men are always moved by ideas, thoughts, values, beliefs, morals, philosophies, etc. These are the elements of culture.
These sometimes decide or influence the direction in which technology undergoes change. Men are becoming more and more materialistic in their attitude. They are after pleasure. Hedonic or pleasure philosophy has become a practical ethic and is in currency especially in the West today. This change in the attitude and outlook is reflected in the technological field.
Thus, in order to lead a pleasurely and a leisurely life and to minimise the manual labour and maximise merriment, man has started inventing new techniques, machines, instruments and devices.
Various electrical equipments such as electric heater, boiler, electric iron, refrigerator, grinder, tape-recorder, fan, etc., have come into being to ease the routine tasks of the people and to provide them great pleasure.