I recently finished reading John Ralston Saul's biography of Baldwin and Lafontaine (another in the Extraordinary Canadians series - honestly, I cannot stress how amazing these books are. I fully intend on having a shelf full of them in the very near future). One small, almost throwaway point, has stuck with me. In his introduction Saul argues that the 1849 burning of Parliament in Montreal by Protestants angry with the Rebellion Losses Bill was Canada's equivalent to the 1848 revolutions that swept Europe. He offhandedly mentions that it was the advent of the telegraph that helped fuel the revolutions as they spread across the Continent. It was the brand new communication technology and it allowed local newspapers to report on the events in other countries almost instantaneously. While he doesn't come out and say that the telegraph was the 19th Century version of the Internet, he certainly implies it. Like the Internet (and the railroad), the telegraph effectively shrunk the distances between places and peoples. It's not something I had ever really thought of, the telegraph usually ranks pretty low on the list of revolutionary inventions of the 19th Century after the steam engine, the railroad, the breach loading rifle, the Gatling gun, mechanization, industrial uses for rubber and photographic film.
All of which is a roundabout way of saying that I think I'm becoming a bit of a technological determinist.
Generally speaking, I've always been sympathetic to the structuralist interpretation of history. That is, the way a society was structured, and which social structures were present, goes a long way to explaining why a society (or nation) developed as it did. (the theory gets more complex - far more complex for me to understand. I stick with this very simplified version, it's treated me well). This is why I look towards the New England town meetings and the Virginian House of Burgesses to explain why the American colonies sought independence from Great Britain in the 18th Century and Canada didn't - America had far more experience with local (and active) governance than Canada.
If you think this sounds vaguely Marxist, you're right. Structuralism (or how I interpret it) is heavily influenced by the Marxist historians of the early 20th Century (although for them the defining structures naturally revolved around labour and production).
Lately though, like I said, I'm finding much to agree with Thorstein Veblen about. Technology isn't just something that affects our daily lives, it is in a very real sense the prime mover of history. This is why I look to the printing press and the explosion of the written word to explain why the Protestant Reformation spread as quickly as it did, and why I look at the ungodly military buildup in the late 19th/early 20th Century to explain why the First World War was inevitable (instead of the alliance system story we keep telling our high school students). I don't mean to imply that technological explanations of history haven't been present before, they absolutely have - the two examples I just gave are well known theories. What I mean to say is that when all things are considered equal, I tend to defer to the technological explanation.
I suspect this personal shift is part of a larger narrative - the reason why structuralism has become less compelling as an historiographical lens and technological determinism has become moreso is that in contemporary, developed societies, social structures just don't have the same influence that they used to and technology has come to define every aspect of life at the beginning of the 21st Century. Unions simply do not wield the influence they once did, and the days of Tammany Hall and the Orange Order deciding elections are a distant memory. On the other hand, one only needs to look at how significantly social media has influenced the election campaigns of Obama and Rob Ford (to a lesser extent) to see how technology is becoming the driving force in society.
Put another way, I suspect that my historiography is being influenced by the times in which I live. This of course is not all that strange - the times in which a historian lives have a dramatic influence over his/her historical analyses (not that I'm a "historian" in any stretch of the imagination). What I think is interesting is how rapidly it is changing. Structuralism made more sense in a world where Communist and Fascist governments actually existed and really did structure their societies along strict organizational lines (Mussolini called it "corporatism"). Perhaps it is here where I can concede that the Fukuyaman end-of-history thesis has some validity (I can't believe I just wrote that - I might have to shower :). It hasn't taken very long to move away from binary worldview and towards a more amorphous one. Likewise, technological determinism is far less rigid a historiography than structuralism is.
Anyways, this is what I've been thinking about for the last little while. Thoughts?
BAH! INTERESTING! SO MUCH TO SAY!
ReplyDeleteFirst: I DID read a book about how the telegraph was the equivalent of the Internet, called "Victorian Internet," by one of my FAVOURITE Economist contributors, Tom Standage. VERY cool. You should check it out.
I think technological determinism will probably influence my Ph.D. dissertation (if, you know, I ever get around to writing one...) - mostly as it relates to the way changes in technology impact how we see the spaces we live in (as ever-shrinking). In many ways, everything is local, and as local as it can be (i.e. no more than a few clicks away). So what's the point of investing in the local at all? And what's the point of any supra-local structures at all (such as the "nation" or the "province")? Well, I suspect the point is that they regulate information and service (to a point).
I often tend to emphasize the "continuity" narrative over "change," though, if only to comfort myself that the end isn't as nigh as I think it may be sometimes. Technology can radically change some things (i.e. information flows), but in many other ways also just helps to speed up our existing ways of thinking/conceptualizing our environments. Sometimes it's a whole new lens through which to see the world, but sometimes it is only a new thing to see. Know what I mean?
Great post! Very thought-provoking.
Thanks for the kind words and the equally thought-provoking response.
ReplyDeleteRiffing on your idea about the ever-shrinking spaces which we inhabit...I find it pretty fascinating that while concrete public space is disappearing at an alarming clip, virtual (for lack of a better word) public space is exploding (all caveats about the internet not really being free of course apply).
I also suspect that structuralism and technological determinism aren't mutually exclusive either - after all, technologies are for the most part controlled by organizations. Although that might just be me holding onto an outdated paradigm 'cause it's cozy :)
That's why I like (devour) good sci-fi. Postulate some technological or environmental change. Then write a story about the changes to the structure of society caused by the new underlying baseline of environment and available tools.
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