1
Third Draft of the catholic studies paper.
Teachers merely articulated lessons to their students with the usage of
technology that was available for the teachers and the students. The paper
will also focus on where the word technology came from and how it affected
society. Although George Parkin Grant and Christopher Dawson share
similar theories on technology in the education system both have different
interpretations on how technology is used.
H. D. Windhorst suggested that Grant used the term “the copenetration of knowing and making.”1 to define technology. The definition
was the starting point on where he moved the term of technology in his
academic writings in three different phases that spanned his career. The
word ‘technology’ combines the Greek word for ‘art’ and the word for the
‘systematic study’ of it, as the word ‘biology puts together ‘bios’ and
‘logos.”2 Grant’s writings tried to establish how the word technology was
developed and introduced into the English vernacular.
Edward Andrew suggest that Grant used the terms “technique and
technology interchangeably but preferred the latter because its components
techne and logos bring together making and knowledge or production and
1
Windhorst, H. D. Is technology a threat to Education: the Contribution of George Parking Grant, Ontario:
Faculty of Education, Brock University, July,1995.
2 Grant, George Technology and Justice Toronto: Anansi Press Limited. 1986, pg11
2
science.”3 This reveals that Grant understood how the making and the
knowledge to technology would also help in the sciences. Grant suggested
that
when ‘technology’ is used to describe the actual means of making
events happen, and not simply the systematic study of these means,
the word reveals to us the fact that these new events happen because
we Westerners willed to develop a new unique co-penetration of the
arts and sciences, a co-penetration which has never before existed.4
This suggests that this type of word never existed before, so the word
appealed to westerners who incorporated it in their vernacular. Grant
suggests “the English word technology with its Greek parts and the novelty
of combining words in such a fashion, shows what a transformation took
place in our sciences, our arts and their interrelation, from what they were in
our originating civilization from which the parts of the word came.”5 This
reveals that the technology brought the arts, sciences and the
interrelationship with the civilization where the word came from.
Hugh Donald Forbes suggests that Grant’s writings on technology
display the belief that “the development of technology was serving to
3
Andrew, Edward. George Grant on the political Economy of Technology. Bulletin of Science,
Technology & Society (2003) 23:479-485.
4 Grant, George Technology and Justice Toronto: Anansi Press Limited. 1986, pg. 12.
5 Grant, George Technology and Justice Toronto: Anansi Press Limited. 1986, pg 13.
3
increase human freedom, even though it might in fact be gradually limiting
or undermining our freedom.”6 Paul Massolin agrees with Hugh Donald
Forbes on Grant’s attitude toward technology saying that “technology
alienated the individual from his true self because it reduced his higher
philosophical goals to the mere objective of obtaining technological
freedom.”7 The technology in a sense is taking over the individual’s
freedom is trying to peruse more higher philosophical goals in their live.
Grant’s works was that he wanted to understand the word of technology and
then other writings saw how technology was freeing the individual but also
restricting the individual from the philosophical goals.
Even though technology offers a sense of freedom for an individual,
that the individual is losing a piece of himself in trying to achieve this
technological freedom. Massolin explains: “people become servants to the
machines and they lack true freedom precisely because the pursuit of
technology became their dominant activity so, much in fact that it curtailed
the pursuit of other societal goods.”8 People are so preoccupied with the
pursuit of technology that it is taking over their lives, and they are missing
6
Forbes, Donald Hugh. George Grant: A guide to his thoughts. Toronto; University of Toronto Press.
2007 pg 29.
7 Massolin, Philip. Context and Content: Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, and George Grant and the Role
of Technology in Modern Society. Past Imperfect, Vol 5 1996,pp 81-118.
8 Massolin, Philip. Context and Content: Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, and George Grant and the Role
of Technology in Modern Society. Past Imperfect, Vol 5 1996,pp 108.
4
what is happening out in the real world. Massolin continues: “Grant also
objected to the way in which modern technology controlled an individual in
two ways understanding of himself and of his historical circumstances.”9
This shows that the individual is not concerning themselves with the true
understanding of themselves and not looking back on how the individual
got to this time and place. The usage of technology has taken away all of the
exploration of understanding one’ self and the history behind the individual.
Modern technology is taking the individual’s identity and his past
away from himself. Massolin suggests, “the individual was therefore
restricted in what he could think or believe, since technology itself limited
the terms by which the world could be understood.”10 This suggests that
technology is closing the mind of the individual, and limiting it to only
understanding what technology can explain. Arthur Kroker mentions that
Grant explores “ the meaning of technology as the dependency that has been
thought within the broader categories of self and civilization.”11
Kroker says “Under the pressure of rapid technological change, the
centre may no longer hold but this just means that everything lies in the
9
Ibid 109.
Ibid 109.
11Kroker, Arthur. Technology And the Canadian Mind :Innis/McLuhan/ Grant. Montreal: New World
perspectives 1984. 48.
10
5
balance between catastrophe and creation as possible human destinies.”12
Technology is changing the balance of human destinies very quickly and
destinies are becoming entangled with the pressures from technology.
Kroker discussed “technology is now the deepest language of politics,
economy, advertising and desire.”13 This shows that technology is well
advanced, and in turn it can control men. And technology can control
men’s capabilities to control politics, economy and the education system.
This analogy that Kroker uses is from the Québec film maker, JeanClaude Labrecque, when he was talking about “ the threat of cultural
obliteration posed by the new technologies of communications: It’s like
snow: it keeps falling and all you can do is go on shoveling.”14 The Québec
filmmaker was concerned that the technologies that were being developed
for communications were going to obliterate the culture that already existed.
Then Kroker uses that analogy of snow to explain how “technology is snow,
or a nuclear winter; that is Canadian, and by extension a world situation.”15
Once technology has been developed it is just like snow, it just comes more
quickly and harder for everyone to keep up.
12
Kroker, Arthur. Technology And the Canadian Mind :Innis/McLuhan/ Grant. Montreal: New World
perspectives 1984. Pg 125.
13 Ibid 127.
14 Ibid.129.
15 Kroker, Arthur. Technology And the Canadian Mind :Innis/McLuhan/ Grant. Montreal: New World
perspectives 1984. Pfg. 129.
6
Andrew mentions that in Dennis Lee’s article on “Grant’s Impasse”
“technological society has deprived us of any standards by which our world
can be judged; our lives are so informed, indeed constituted, by technique
that we have no standpoint outside the technological civilization that we, as
moral agents are required to judge.”16 The citizens really forget to stand up
for their rights because technology has been part of society for so long.
Tom Abels states that, “technology is an extension of and not separate
from humans.”17 Today technology is part of our lives and we cannot be
separated from it. He then states that “technology amplifies the human
capabilities and an expression of what makes us human and simultaneously,
it modifies the human on many levels.”18
Forbes explains in the later writings of Grant- “Grant himself critized
the common assumption that technology as simply a collection of practical
techniques a set of tools, procedures, devices or tools that were used in the
pursuit of freedom, with whatever ends the people choose.”19 This shows
that Grant did not believe that it was used as a tool or instrument but it was a
way of knowing and relating to the world and other people.
16
Andrew, Edward. George Grant on the political Economy of Technology. Bulletin of Science,
Technology & Society (2003) 23:479-485
17 Abels, P Tom Technology, Globalization and the University. International Journal on World Peace. Vol
15 No. 3 September 1998 29- 44.
18
19
ibid, 29.
Forbes, Donald Hugh. George Grant: A guide to his thoughts. Toronto; University of Toronto Press.
2007 pg 31.
7
Andrew states, “at the same time, he appeared to think that these
technological developments were inevitable, that moral argument and
political action could not limit the direction and use of the technology.”20
This suggests, the use of technology has led to a moral argument for men.
Technology can be a part of politics, and the direction t it takes can led to
certain political actions with the usage of technology.
Edward Andrew explains that Grant’s thoughts on technology are set
up in two ways: “1) that technique is not simply something that we use but
also is something that uses us and constitutes our very identity and 2) that
technique depends on money and power or is contextualized in political
economy.”21 This suggests that human beings use technology to gain more
power and money over other human beings. Technology is part of our
identity and it is hard to step back from it.
Kroker believes that Grant meditated on two possible thoughts
towards technology.” The two thoughts are “mediate and immediate, of
technology on the self and the implications of technological society in the
broader question of the direction of Western civilization.” 22 The idea is that
20
Andrew, Edward. George Grant on the political Economy of Technology. Bulletin of Science,
Technology & Society (2003) 23:479-485
21 Andrew, Edward. George Grant on the political Economy of Technology. Bulletin of Science,
Technology & Society (2003) 23:479-485
22 Kroker, Arthur. Technology And the Canadian Mind :Innis/McLuhan/ Grant. Montreal: New World
perspectives 1984. Pg, 48.
8
technology has a huge impact on the western world, and how technology
influences the individual. Kroker suggests that Grant “meditates upon
technology from the inside and outside, this is from the perspective on
psychology and aesthetic experience.”23 This is suggesting, that from a
human perspective that technology should be experienced both inside and
out and that the mind and body can enjoy the experience.
Christopher Dawson has three different chapters that discuss the idea
of technology in society. He discusses the early influence of Science and
Technology during the middle ages. “Before the middle ages came,
Christian education was basically a unity, including classical literature and
Christianity, this is what held education together until the arrival of science
and technology.”24 This shows that the Christians had been cemented in
their education before science and technology entered the middle ages.
Leonardo da Vinci was one of the top Middle Ages scientists that studied
and was interested in the human body and mechanical contrivance. Da
Vinci’s was interested in science and technology where he was a medical
faculty at the University of Padua. This was where humanism was founded
within the Middle Ages. (unsure if I should leave it in)
23
Ibid, 48.
Dawson, Christopher. The Western Crisis of Western Education. Washington: The Catholic University
of America Press. 1961.pg 33
24
9
During the middle ages there were new “mechanical arts were
developed and were used as instruments of Western technology- the clock,
the gun and the printing press.”25 There were already technological societies
being developed in the Middle Ages. Dawson continues to mention in
chapter fourteen that the new technology that is being introduced to the West
is disconnecting people from their spiritual Christian roots.
He continues to say “at the same time there are few who realize the
dangers to human freedom involved in the technological order or who totally
reject the spiritual values that we have inherited from the Christian culture of
the past.” 26 This is suggesting that people using technology is endangering
their freedom and not remembering their Christian culture before technology
took over their lives. Dawson argues that “ it is necessary to clarify the
issues and to show how the trend of the modern world towards inhuman
totalitarianism demands an alliance of the divided forces of humanism and
religion if it is to be mastered.”27 This shows that the modern world can get
confused that religion is the main stay in the individual life. The religion can
try to solve any confusion of the individual.
25
Dawson, Christopher. The Western Crisis of Western Education. Washington: The Catholic University
of America Press. 1961.pg 33
26Ibid, 143-144.
27 Ibid 144
10
In the section of the University Curriculum in a North American
context Grant mentions in the main topic sentence that “the primary
purpose in Canadian society is to keep technology dynamic within the
context of the continental state capitalist structure.”28 He continues to
mention that technology has gradually become the dominant field in the
western civilization and most definitely had an influence on men and
civilization. Grant discusses about how universities “within the
technological societies is the cultivation of those sciences which issue the
mastery of human and non-human nature.”29 In the last one hundred years,
the technological society controlled not only non human, but also equally the
control of human nature.
Grant also argues “that in society the demands of technology are
dominating morality and often obscured by the fact that the modern
scientific movement has been intimately associated with the moral striving
for equality.”30 Human morality seems to be on the losing side of technology
and scientific movements and technology is taking over the lives of humans.
In Abels’ article suggests how technology is taking over the
education system. The example he is “students would travel great distances
28
Grant, George. Technology and Empire. Toronto: House of Anansi. 1969. 113
Ibid, 113.
30 Grant, George. Technology and Empire. Toronto: House of Anansi. 1969 129.
29
11
to listen to lectures by scholars, but now they can access the knowledge via
the Internet.”31 This suggests that students are really comfortable in using the
Internet and that the students can have everything at their fingertips. Abels
then argues that that the “enabling technology as a meme, has infected
higher education at process, content and delivery level almost to the point
where institutions have become primary carrier of these viruses.”32 This
means that technology has taken over the students and the institutions are
losing the battle of trying to educate the students.
Dawson suggests a possible problem between technology and
education. Dawson draws a comparison between Frankenstein the western
man, and the technological order. He suggests, as Frankenstein was a
mechanical monster that got out of hand and even threaten his own
existence, he is suggesting that the same thing is happening with
technology. Men have created the technological order “but yet have not
found a way to control it.”33 So in turn it is the technological order that is
controlling men. If the men can’t find away to control it technology will
destroy them like Frankenstein did. Dawson suggests that
31Abels,
P Tom Technology, Globalization and the University. International Journal on World Peace. Vol
15 No. 3 September 1998 .30.
32 Ibid, 30-31.
33 Dawson, Christopher. The Western Crisis of Western Education. Washington: The Catholic University
of America Press. 1961.pg 145
12
“the technological order which today threatens spiritual freedom and
even human existence by the unlimited powers which it puts at the service of
human passion and will loses all its terror as soon as it is subordinated to a
higher principle.”34
The power of technology is unlimited and that the human spiritual
freedom will be subordinate to technology.
In closing the research showed the same problems of technology in
the two different eras but, the problems are still relevant today. Grant and
Dawson had the same theory about technology, and that it was imposing on
Western Civilization to better the society. Today technology is all around us
and is shared all over the world, and how students are always adapting to the
technology.
34
Ibid, 154.