The Cultural Contradictions of High Tech: Or the Many Ironies of Contemporary Technological Optimism

When I published my study of Technological Utopianism in American Culture in 1985, I thought that the historical phenomenon I detailed there — an uncritical faith in technology’s ability to solve all problems — would soon be a relic of a more hopeful, if more naive, era. I believed that increasing numbers of Americans, following the lead of Europeans and others, had begun to seek healthy limits on unadulterated technological advance and were starting to express greater concern for nontechnological realms crying out for equivalent attention, enthusiasm, and funding. I sensed movement toward what I called a “technological plateau.” I still do, but my optimism, never overwhelming, has since been tempered further.