Patrick Friel

ENVS 02

Paper #2

Professor Everbach

February 20, 2003

The Influence of Culture on Human Technology:

Causal or Feedback Relationship?

Arguably one of the most vital technologies that humans have developed throughout their history on Earth is irrigation for agriculture. Both irrigation and agriculture technologies have been identified as one of the primary reasons why cities were either formed or able to be formed. It is at the time when these technologies are first used that a large number of cultural items, such as arts, crafts, and other things that do not have any real purpose begin to appear. M.S. Drower wrote that “with both (irrigation and agriculture) is bound up the emergence of Neolithic man as a being of corporate life, with settled habits, living in villages, cultivating plants, often making crude pottery, and domestication animals” (Drower 520). The theory follows that with agriculture and irrigation, new classes of people in society were created that had little or nothing to do with the act of making or procuring food. It can be argued that this new culture of artisans, academics, and other people who are left with no tasks other than to explore different possibilities is the cause of modern society and the technology that comes with it. Any causal relationships cannot be established concerning whether culture or technology is responsible for the other’s advancement. It is most likely that technology and culture cyclically feed each other in the sense that a development in one of the two areas inevitably sets off developments in the other area.

In the previous example irrigation and agriculture were the technologies that seemed to set off a chain reaction of allowing people to live together, to then specialize in specific areas, and eventually freeing up a large portion of the labor force to pursue tasks other than food procurement and preparation. Paul Ehrlich offers in his Human Natures, that the result of being able to support large groups of people with the agriculture technology was that new cultures were created to legitimize class distinctions and manage the new organizational structure needed for such a city/agriculture system to work (255-257, Ehrlich). Religion and concepts such as city-states arose to handle distribution of food and labor within the new agricultural based communities. Colin Chant and Ehrlich both cover these developments well, but there is no clear determination of whether religion and political organizations were needed first to organize the people into agriculture or if there were many people participating in agriculture and then the need for centralized organization and planning came about. In order to answer this question specifically and to answer the more general question of how do technology and culture interact with each other it is necessary to develop a sound methodology with which to analyze.

With incomplete information on the past, especially during the times when irrigation and agriculture began in Mesopotamia and the Near East it is impossible to determine the relationship between culture and technology. Much of the problem lies in the fact that the earliest written documents possessed describing this particular time already mention religious organizations, political groups, and the construction of irrigation canals. While this presents the idea that perhaps record keeping and written languages were also a direct byproduct of irrigation and agriculture, it further frustrates the discussion at hand. Instead of looking at uncertain information from the past it might be more beneficial to look at current developments in human culture and technology and how each affected the other and then comparing them to basic, logical truths about human nature. The invention of the automobile is considered a technology. The automobile made possible the massive suburban society in which we live in presently. The reconstruction of our modern landscape was designed with this one technology in mind. The automobile resulted in many different cultures, the significance and classification of them which is still ongoing.

It is clear that the automobile created new cultures. However, it is left unclear what caused the creation of the automobile. Was there a culture that already wanted to move out of the urban environment or did people simply see this new invention as a better way and adapt to it? Even with all of the written evidence it still cannot be determined what, if anything caused the invention of the automobile.

To see an example of a culture creating more technology one can look at the present tech-culture that seems to have enthralled our society. It is a culture that lives and breathes the integrated circuit. The culture is that there is a mindset and new class in society that is dedicated to applying advancements in electronics to every aspect of human life and society. This tech-culture has bred entire new lines of technology never envisioned by the first integrated circuits that were developed. Looking at now common computer applications such as playing music, video games, or email it is easy to see how the tech-culture took what was originally just a device envisioned to process large mathematical equations with lots of data and made it into something else.

The two illustrations of culture creating technology and technology creating culture show fairly well that there is not a way to say or show which factor caused the other. Referring just to the word “tech-culture” is a good description of the real situation. Culture and technology are very much the same thing and now because our lives are inundated with cultural and technological changes it is actually easier to see how interconnected the two are. Applying this to the original situation of agriculture, cities, religion, and political organizations, a pattern is realized. The pattern is that our culture is a reflection of technological advance and technological advance is driven by cultural change. Ultimately, a cyclical, if not simultaneous, model of human advancement resulting from technology and culture is displayed throughout history.