Hughes Discussion, Chapter 4

In chapter 4, Hughes makes the move from the mechanization and industrialization era to the development and utilization of systems that contribute to and shape technology. Hughes writes that “large-scale complexity” began in the time period following WWII, and that systems claimed the area of focus that machines once held firmly. Synthesis became the method of thinking instead of the dissection of hard machinery that held no real form of complication other than the inner-connectivity of its parts. The trend that technology and the evolution of ideas had followed for the past few thousands of years continued, and even accelerated with the systems era as the world became connected in countless ways and provided the average person a global perspective that at one time was often tremendously localized due to a lack of technological communication.

The era of military empowerment and the connections to industry and universities is explored and commentated by Hughes, who offers an honest and condensed version of what many feel to be the corrupt practices of the military and government during the Kennedy and post-Kennedy eras of leadership. Hughes asserts here that the large-scale systems approach was developed by the military who, during that time period, had to develop a method to keep track of and manage the many contractors and projects that were underway during the time. Because of the amount of money being spent and the government contracts that were at stake, this became an extremely sensitive subject, and caused a level of distrust in government that has never disappeared from the public’s opinion.

In this time period, the military wasn’t the only “industry” experiencing growing pains. Urban growth continued in large eastern cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and others. Civil engineers and planners determined that a systems approach that had been recently “tried out” by the military would be an answer to the problems that these cities were having. The problem that the systems approach provided for urban areas was the beginning of a complex governmental issue that we still experience today. When a task needs completion in an urban area, the multiple steps and bureaucracy that must be “conquered” is such that many simply choose not to complete a task, or the costs to complete these tasks are so great that more money is wasted on the process than the project itself. The systems approach that may have proved helpful in some circumstances has proven to cause more trouble than its worth in most instances.

As systems grew to become “Megasystems,” Hughes explores the idea of an information revolution, which he states is a concept too new to be defined or historically recorded. However, we can see the impact of controlling the massive amounts of information that were being generated in this new age, and that was the invention of the computer. Granted, at this point, it was not a microcomputer yet, but filled an entire room or building in some cases, and had relatively little power, even less than a low-end smart phone. However, it did impact the evolution of the information generation and control age as there had to be a method for organizing and recalling information at specific times and for specific uses.

Hughes then begins a long and exhaustive journey through the history of the computer, microcomputer, World Wide Web, and Internet, and how they have connected us locally, and finally globally. The point is made that the information revolution has “revolutionized” every aspect of our lives’, and he is mostly correct in this assumption. Once an organized and efficient method was developed to share and utilize information and data in the most advantageous ways. Businesses are now streamlined and management techniques changed in that the control of information changed the ways in which we conduct business.

Hughes then then ends the chapter with a return to Postman type of section where the downsides of this new technological era are explored. Although Hughes provides a much less negative view of technology and does not catastrophize the continued use and growth of the technological process. However, the notion of very serious consequences arise if and when the information system “hiccups” or has a breakdown altogether.

After reading Hughes’ discussion of systems, education could be argued as a closed or “open” system, technologically speaking. Unfortunately, education has a tendency to be a very segregated area of our culture where those considered to be professionals are very traditional and resistant to changes. In this way, education could be conceived to be a closed system as very few new ideas and techniques are permitted entry into this sacred realm of humanity. Education used to be a very simplistic system as recently as 100 years ago in many areas of the world, and still is to some degree. However, as our world and culture became more complex, so did education, and its drive to meet the needs of the students, which somehow has failed, but is another discussion for another day. An open system could be defended in education because of the new strives we are making regarding distance education and the integration of technology into almost every classroom around the country. However, this was not always the case, and probably a good decision as the careful analyzation of the impacts that technology would produce on students had yet to be decided. Therefore, I feel that in many ways education is “opening” up to some new ideas and it’s a good idea since everything else we have done has seemed to fail.

Hughes takes quite a long and winding road to get to his point that systems are basically what technology is now based upon, and are as multifaceted and complex as our current technological trends are. Regardless of the causes for our culture to have grown and developed as they have, we still must work to maintain a level of control and caution when dealing with technological trends and developments. Systems have taught us to think on a higher and more critical level, which is a positive impact that we have experienced from their development and refinement. In a way, systems have always been present, especially on an organic level, but a need for a refined system came into effect when technology developed to the level that it currently is on.