Technological Imperative | The Elitist Rationale For Global Imperium

Characterized as an aspect of technological determinism and autonomy – mirroring precepts governing the inevitability thesis – its actualization emphasizing the irreversibility of progress in the development and manufacture of advanced systems of technology.  

Figure 1. Hasan Özbekhan, noted author and scientist of Turkish descent who, in collaboration with Alexander Christakis - a physicist and research systems designer, Erich Jantsch, and Italian Industrialist Aurelio Peccei (Peccei is best known as the founder and first president of the Club of Rome, a global planning agency and elitist enclave that actively promotes eugenicist policy and population reduction as standard prerequisites in the realization of environmental sustainability) served as a co-founder and director of the Club of Rome. Özbekhan authored the original prospectus for this clandestine assembly, entitled ‘The Predicament of Mankind' - a thematic synopsis whose written content was later expanded on by Alexander Christakis in cooperation with the Institute For 21^st Century Agoras, the context of which lead to the science of structured dialogic design. The academic luminary is the noted author of the following publication: Toward a General Theory of Planning, a 128-page dissertation incorporating environment as an experiential milieu of humanity, the prevailing societal construct/ hierarchal order as a function of causality, and the prospect of ecological balance as a fundamental component of the evolutionary standard. In his later years Özbekhan was also a recognized member of Mankind 2000, a global think tank promoting the establishment of the international futures research movement, and a renewed focus on the premise of psychosocial development.

Figure 2. Mankind 2000’s corporate logotype, yet another Elitist ensemble incorporating the use of ‘666’ as its principal theme of conveyance.

Hasan Özbekhan, a Turkish American systems scientist, cyberneticist, philosopher and planner who was the Professor Emeritus of Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, stated the following as it pertains to the necessity of innovation as a function of societal development:

“The doctrine of the technological imperative is that because a particular technology means that we can do something (it is technically possible) then this action either ought to (as a moral imperative), must (as an operational requirement) or inevitably will (in time) be taken.”

Arnold Pacey, noted and distinguished author of several MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Press publications (Meaning in Technology, The Maze of Ingenuity | Ideas and Idealism in the Development of Technology, The Culture of Technology, and Technology in World Civilization | A Thousand-Year History), offered the following assessment as it pertains to the concept of technological determinism:

“It is the irresistible lure of always pushing toward the greatest feat of technical performance or complexity which is currently available.”
 
John von Neumann (December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957), a Hungarian and later American pure and applied mathematician, physicist, inventor, polymath, and polyglot, responsible for pioneering the conceptualization and design implementation of explosive lens catalysts needed to compress the plutonium  core of the Trinity Test and the "Fat Man" weapon used in the atomic devastation of the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, came to the following conclusion regarding the subject of technological progressivism:

“Technological possibilities are irresistible to man.” (Excerpt taken from page 186 of Lewis Mumford’s September 29^th, 1971 publication ‘The Myth of the Machine: Technics and Human Development')

Jacques Soustelle (February 3, 1912 – August 6, 1990) made the following proclamation regarding the development and eventual use of atomic weapons:

“Since it was possible, it was necessary.” (Excerpt taken from page 99 of Jacques Ellul’s October 12, 1967 publication ‘The Technological Society')

Figure 3. William Kristol, American neoconservative political analyst/ media consultant and principal founder and editor of the Weekly Standard - best known for his role in the establishment of the Project for the New American Century, what eventually became a collaborative venture with Robert Kagan - shares Soustelle’s philosophy on the development and manufacture of advanced weapons systems. Kristol’s disappointment at the thought of not having the opportunity to use nuclear weapons technologies is noted in the above statement.

Fatalists and antihumanists, sensing the imminence of global annihilation, embraced the following axiom:

“Since we can now destroy the planet, in time we will.”

The technological imperative exists as the unacknowledged assumption of commentators, media moguls, and business magnates lauding the benefits of innovation who cite the inevitability of the ‘information technology revolution’ as evolutionary milestone in the advancement of humanity. The aforementioned topic of discussion implies a suspension of ethical judgment or social constraint: individuals and society are seen as serving the requirements of a technological system which shapes their purposes. Ellul argued that technology becomes an end in itself rather than a means to an end, a phenomenon dubbed ‘teknosis’ by John Biram (Biram is the accredited author of ‘Teknosis: The Death of the World') also refers to those accepting this as ‘teknotic’ – Excerpt taken from Michael Shallis’ ‘The Silicon Idol: The Micro Revolution and Its Social Implications, who warned of the ‘silicon idol’ that, were it to become the object of veneration that he predicted it might, would divest society of its humanity and its soul - Shallis is quoted as having stated the following with regard to the emergence of newer technologies and its effect on civilization:

"A computer-based society becomes a fragile society, easily disrupted, held in the grip of a small technical elite who would have enormous potential power.”

Shallis also had the foresight to pair this philosophy of technological innovation with the emergence of a vast surveillance network, a fact alluded to in the following statement where he cautioned against the development of advanced systems of computation for fear that it would lead to a consolidation of undue power and influence in the hands of questionable parties:

“Spreading the computer network into every house, just as television has spread, appears to be bringing the power of computer and information systems to every corner of society. What it in fact does is to tighten the grip of a few on the many.”

Abbe Mowshowitz, Professor of Computer Science at the City College of New York and an accredited member of the Doctoral Faculty in Computer Science at the City University of New York, made the following statement regarding the notion of technology’s perceived indispensability and its cumulative effect on society:

“To assert that technology has become an autonomous agent of change is not to attribute an occult quality to the growth of modern society which transcends human choice. It simply means that mechanization has affected social organization and individual behaviour in such a way as to create a foundation for further development along certain lines. We have cultivated a special relationship to technology wherein needs and conflicts are almost invariably formulated as technical problems requiring technical solutions.” [what are usually called 'technical fixes'] (Excerpt taken from pages 256 and 257 of Abbe Mowshowitz’s ‘The Conquest of Will: Information Processing in Human Affairs’ - Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1976) 

Major critics of the pursuit of the technological imperative have been Jacques Ellul and Ivan Illich. Michael Shallis, quoted in earlier stanzas of this particular article, notes that:

“The Chinese discovered gunpowder but chose not to develop the gun. We in the West generally accept the notion of the technological imperative which, like natural selection and evolution, inevitably leads where it will and precludes purposeful change, directed progress.”

“The imperative implies that the invention of a new technique demands its adoption and development, and although there are countless examples of 'useless' inventions that no one wants and which are not developed but fade away, the general tendency has been to pursue possible developments for their own sake. The technological imperative concerns that self-motivated pursuit and implies that it is somehow inevitable... Technology is promoted... as if the idea of the imperative was true."

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Technological or Media Determinism | The 'Technological Imperative' by Daniel Chandler

CONCLUSION: The Technological Imperative serves as the unspoken rationale of the scientific community, who by and large, endorse precepts of innovative design and systems advancement as an essential component of the evolutionary cycle with little to no thought of their consequence on future generations.

“As the pursuit of profit becomes absolute; human interaction, individuality, even base instinctual articles of preservation, perish beneath the weight of an Elitist contrived obsolescence.”

- Michael Reign