The social influence exerted by modern technological innovations has revolutionized the

meaning of freedom and control in everyday life. Modern technology has become such an integral part
of the functioning of society that one is required to utilize it in order to function. For better and for
worse, technological mediation is part of the modern way of life. For example, it is now almost
impossible to go to college or find a job without using the internet. The infrastructure of many of our
cities and towns is designed in such a way that some form of automobile access is needed. rocery
stores trac! customer"s purchases in order to anticipate future purchases and collect meta#data on
people"s buying habits. $angdon %inner, &erbert Marcuse, and 'acques (llul discuss the new
limitations that technology has imposed on modern technological societies.
)n *+o ,rtifacts &ave -olitics./ $angdon %inner describes the social impact of technology and
writes about how power is embodied in technological innovations. -eople can consciously manipulate
the social impact of technological devices, but the fact that they have social impact is unavoidable. &e
writes, *The things we call *technologies/ are ways of building order in our world. Many technical
devices and systems important in everyday life contain possibilities for many different ways of ordering
human activity. 0onsciously or unconsciously, deliberately or inadvertently, societies choose structures
for technologies that influence how people are going to wor!, communicate, travel, consume, and so
forth over a very long time./ &e gives the example of architect 1obert Moses designing low#hanging
overpasses over the route to 'ones 2each in $ong )sland to prevent busses from being able to
transport people to 'ones 2each. Most of the people who would have ta!en a bus to 'ones 2each
would have been blac!, and this was his way of preventing blac! people from having access to the
beach. This example illustrates the power and influence weilded by those people who design the
technologies that impact everyday social life. %inner writes, *)f we suppose that new technologies are
introduced to achieve increased efficiency, the history of technology shows that we will sometimes be
dissapointed. Technological change expresses a panoply of human motives, not the least of which is
the desire of some to have dominion over others even though it may require an occasional sacrifice of
cost savings and some violation of the normal standard of trying to get more from less./ 3obody even
realized 1obert Moses" motives for designing low#hanging overpasses until after he died. This shows
how technical design is ta!en for granted. %e !now it is supposed to be there for our convenience and
utilization, and so when it has the opposite effect and is used for oppressive, hateful ends, we do not
even notice it.
)n *The ",utonomy" of the Technological -henomenon,/ 'acques (llul writes about the impact
of technology on democratic freedom. )n order for democracy to function, (llul writes, *all citizens must
be well informed and judge with full !nowledge of the facts./ The problem with this is that there is too
much conflicting scientific information availiable for any person to logically evaluate and formulate a
reasonable opinion. ,ccording to (llul, *%hat mar!s the situation is the inextricable conflict of opinions
among the greatest scientists and technicians. The more informed the citizen, the less he can
participate. 2ecause the evaluations are perfectly contradictory... There is absolutely no way the
citizen can decide for himself4/ (llul is highly critical of the government ta!ing control of this crisis. &e
explains that historically, governing entities have been greedy and oppressive. Technological
governments, he argues, by nature must be even more oppressive because the people in power in a
technological society are the ones with specialized technical !nowledge. -ower comes from the
implementation of technology, and so as a matter of course, technological innovators must be the
ones in power. &e writes, *, state qualified to dominate technology can only be made up of
technicians4/ The citizens of a state ruled by what (llul terms a *technocracy/ are completely at the will
of the technologies designed to benefit the ruling class and their limited !nowledge puts them at a
supreme disadvantage which is the antithesis of democracy.
)n 5The 3ew Forms of 0ontrol,5 &erbert Marcuse questions the possibility of freedom in a
technological society. &e argues that technology has the potential to liberate people from the daily
hardships and oppressions they currently face, but instead technology is being used as a tool for
domination and control of the masses through the creation of false needs. &e defines false needs as
5those which are superimposed upon the individual by particular social interests in his repression6 the
needs which perpetuate toil, aggresiveness, misery, and injustice.5 &is solution to this dilemma is the
rejection of the consumption of false needs. The individual can only regain his or her autonomy by
abstaining from the consumerism that society reinforces. The ability to obtain a wide variety of goods
and sevices that are not essential to survival is not the same as true freedom, according to Marcuse.
0ommodities provide the illusion of equality and are essentially meaningless when the status quo is
designed by a ruling elite that wants the masses to have the illusion of power and freedom. Marcuse
says that *all liberation depends on the consciousness of servitude, and the emergence of this
consciousness is hampered by the predominance of needs and satisfactions which, to a great extent,
have become the individual"s own./ -eople of all social classes have the same false needs. For
example, income disparity does not change the fact that most women wear ma!eup, regardless of
their income. -eople watch the same television programs, listen to the same music or radio stations,
read the same boo!s, or have the same i-hones. The freedom to choose these things is an empty
freedom, these technical objects are meaningless because they do not provide autonomy to the
individual. They have been designed by those in power to give powerless people the illusion of control
over their lives.
%inner, (llul, and Marcuse ta!e a similar position on the oppressive role that technology has
played in modern societies. ) agree with Marcuse in that the best way to overcome this oppression is
to reject the influence of materialist capitalist culture. This of course can only be effective on a large
scale if the majority of people refuse to buy unnecessary goods and services. 7n an individual basis,
however, it can serve to aide the person rejecting materialism in achieveing autonomy and freedom
from the false need#based reality that technology has created for our society. ) thin! (llul is wrong in
this particular instance about the impossibility of forming opinions due to the overwhelming amount of
contradictory information that is out there. %e do not need to !now everything about technology to
!now that it can have a positive impact on freedom but the fact is that at the present time it is used as
a tool for oppression and domination by those who have control over it. %e can regain some control
over our lives by refusing to parta!e in mindless consumerism and putting *needs/ and *wants/ in
perspective. %inner"s example of low#hanging overpasses is an excellent example of the !ind of
technological influence that ordinary people have no control over. ) thin! being mindful of these !inds
of built#in control mechanisms is probably the only way we can overcome them. &e points out that
oftentimes this sort of thing is not done on purpose, it is just an intrinsic part of technical design. There
are a lot of outspo!en social justice organizations that bring these sorts of issues to the public"s
attention, and their ongoing fight for equality gives me a lot of hope for the future.
)n conclusion, technology has a pervasive impact on our freedom and way of life. (ven in
democratic technological societies, true power lies in the hands of those designing and implementing
technological devices. %e cannot avoid this fact, but we can choose to reject the status quo and find
new ways to exist that foster autonomy and individuality.