Hughes says he has “ learned about the Janus face of technology.” How do you def

Question

Hughes says he has “ learned about the Janus face of technology.” How do you define the meaning of the Janus face of technology?

{Having taught the history of technology for decades and having faced the difficulties of defining it in detail, I have resorted to an overarching definition, one that covers how I use the term in the following chapters. I see technology as craftsmen, mechanics, inventors, engineers, designers, and scientists using tools, machines, and knowledge to create and control a human-built world consisting of artifacts and systems associated mostly with the traditional fields of civil, mechanical, electrical, mining, materials, and chemical engineering. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, however, the artifacts and systems also become associated with newer fields of engineering, such as aeronautical, industrial, computer, and environmental engineering, as well as bioengineering.

Besides seeing technology associated with engineering, I also consider it being used as a tool and as a source of symbols by many architects and artists. This view of technology allows me to stress the aesthetic dimensions of technology, which unfortunately have been neglected in the training of engineers, scientists, and others engaged with technology.

My background helps explain why I have chosen a definition emphasizing creativity and control. Before earning a Ph.D.in modern European history, I received a degree in mechanical and electrical engineering. In the 1950s, I found engineering and related technology at their best to be creative endeavors. Not uncritical of their social effects, I still consider them potentially a positive force and expressed a tempered enthusiasm for them and their practitioners.

Since then, I have learned about the Janus face of technology from counterculture critics, environmentalists, and environmental historians. Yet the traces of my enthusiasm still come through in my publications, especially this one. Hence my defining technology as a creative activity, hence my willingness to sympathetically portray those who have seen technology as evidence of a divine spark, and hence my interest in those who consider the machine a means to make a better world. Yet this sympathetic view is qualified by what I have learned from critics of technology. }

Explanation / Answer

The Janus face in tecnology is the two faces of tecnology, one of which is helping the civilization to prosper while another face of it is damaging the environment, creating many conflicts and amplyfying it. Technology has immensly helped the civilization to utilize the resources wisely and drove it towards a better future. It has not only reduced the human sufferings but also provided them luxury. But on the other hand, it also hastened the environmental and biological degradation which in the longer run will increase the human sufferings.

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