Hass, "The Technology Question" and "Technology Studies" (Class Reading)

These are the first two chapters of Writing Technology. One of Hass' major points is that writing is material, that it takes words--which themselves have no spatial existence--and turns them into material objects. Even if the object is as small as a pixel, it still exists in space. This is the premise over which she links writing with technology.

She tells us about Derrida's critique of Plato's Phaedrus, which is where Socrates/Plato express their mistrust of the written word. It makes sense: everything is Plato's philosophy that takes place in the physical world is merely a crappy representation of the reality of that thing, which only exist in a perfect realm of ideas. The body and all material things are fallible, dead, and dying. Derrida rejects Plato's notion that speech and writing are separate things. (I think)

The Technology Question is, “What does it mean for writing to become material? That is, what is the effect of writing and other material literacy technologies on human thinking and human culture?” (p.3)

She later brings up my boy Vygotsky and his ideas about psychological processes always being social processes as well. (I don't recall exactly how she uses him, but it seems to make sense as a connection.)

Her major point seems to be that every act of literacy is an act of technology and that it is dangerous to ignore this. This means that all disciplines much see that both technology and literacy are indeed their problem, that a “division of labor” between the fields is dangerous. She relates this idea to the danger in believing that language is autonomous. Here is where she seems to invoke critical pedagogy reminding us of all the power structures that benefit from people seeing language as immutable and unquestionable, how we can be duped and misled when we have these beliefs. I think she's saying it's the same thing with technologies. She must be, since for her there is no separation between the two.

In the next chapters, she spends a lot more time explaining why technology studies must be interdisciplinary. And she brings up two myths about tech that she believes keep us from a deep, critical understadning of both tech and literacy: a- that tech is invisible or transparent, and b- that it's all powerful. For Hass, we need to see through these myths to see what powers, dagners, and possiblities technology has for society. I think.