After the Second World War, however, a significant body of literature developed -- you can think of it as beginning with Martin Heidegger's "Question Concerning Technology" -- that claimed that technology was not at all neutral, that technology (at least some technology) exercises as much power over us as we do over it. For example, we might say that the existence of nuclear fission technology has determined the nature of global politics as well as our sense of personal security whether or not anyone chose to have it be so influential. The non-neutral view of technology is sometimes called the "substantive" theory.
Obviously, the role you think computers should play in education depends a bit on your position concerning the neutrality of technology/technologies. In chapter 4, Ullman addresses the neutrality issue explicitly, but you might consider the entire book a comment on this issue. What is Ullman's position on the neutrality of computer technology and how does it compare to your own views on the subject?
"It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement -- that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life."Ullman's book is clearly about conflict as well, but what is the conflict about? If you were to imitate Freud's sentence so as to make it appropriate for a beginning to CLOSE TO THE MACHINE, how would you write it?
In Chapter 5, however, the narrator talks about the experience of aging close to the machine, and specifically in a profession in which age is associated with obsolescence and valuelessness rather than expertise and wisdom (as it is in the Law or the Theater for example). Does this distinguish the life/work of the software engineer (and perhaps computer workers generally), and what do you think is Ullman's argument about its significance?
"We can count, but we are rapidly forgetting how to say what is worth counting and why."and Kranzberg's explanation of what he calls the "First Law" of technology:
"Technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral."
1. What is a system of education for, and what are institutions of education for?
2. Who is state-sponsored education for and what is it for?
3. What is and should be the relationship between schools and the social/political structures in which they exist?
4. What difference should the existence of computing technologies and computer networks, and their place in contemporary society, make in our consideration of questions #1-3?