Aporta and Higgs use the example of GPS integration into Inuit culture to explore the relationship between humans and modern technology. The introduction of GPS systems into a society that had previously depended on the persistence of traditional wayfinding knowledge (incorporating wind patterns, snowdrift patterns, astronomical observation, animal movement patterns, and other natural phenomena) presented the researchers with a case where a single technology promised to “deeply modify and cause disengagement from a well-established approach […] to the environment” on which the Inuit so closely depend.
The authors invoke Albert Borgmann’s theory of technology, in particular his “device paradigm,” which holds that contemporary technologies (‘devices’) mediate our engagement with our surroundings (and arguably reality itself) by reducing the amount of complex interaction required for their use. The GPS is therefore the “perfect Borgmannian device,” according to Aporta and Higgs, in that it removes the need to engage with local conditions, it’s easy to use, and provides instantaneous results.
The authors reach a reasonable conclusion: that the introduction of new technologies ought to be analysed within ecological, relational frameworks that take into account the effects on society that they may wreak. My main concern is that the fundamental reasons arguing in favour of a cautious or even reactionary approach to the introduction of new technologies rests fundamentally on existential reasoning; while ‘enlightenment’ positivism ultimately argues a materialist case. The material and existential consequences of the enlightenment are innumerable, arguably ranging from brutal death machines and concentration camps to the significant extension of the human lifespan and reduction in physical pain, declines in infant mortality, etc. While the introduction of new technologies has helped to lead humanity down the darkest paths in history, I believe that reactions like Borgmann’s are indeed prelapsarian or quixotic, and tend to elevate the importance of abstract types of thought and engagement above the hard realities of material life: is there enough food? Do we have adequate leisure time? And so on.
To return to the question of GPS and the Inuit, there is a telling line where it is postulated that Borgmann ‘would counsel that GPS technology is well deployed as an adjunct to Inuit navigation instead of as the central or dominant device for wayfinding.’ Ultimately, such counsel would amount to nagging based on very abstract notions of value, and would have little place in a harsh arctic environment. While I feel that critical engagement with new technology is essential, romantic associations with the past have little to contribute to the project of liberating people from material hardship. Rather, we should be thinking about how to address the changes technology makes to the distribution of power in society, and how to maximize its numerous beneficial capacities while managing its tendency to concentrate expertise and power in the hands of the few.