Hughes Discussion, Chapter 5

Chapter 5 in Hughes’ book is titled “Technology and Culture,” however, I found there to be as is characteristic of Hughes, only partial descriptions of culture, mostly involving art, architecture, and a little tiny section about culture as a whole. In the 43 pages that Hughes takes to commentate on Technology and “Culture,” we find that approximately 15 or more of those pages are spent interpreting works of modern art and architecture and describing at length their contradictions and critiques. Not that I do not appreciate the education, however, this book really is not about art. I see the connection to technology, but I’m wondering at this point if Hughes needed to have a specific amount of pages written and decided to insert these pages of blather to fill space or meet a deadline. Again, I do appreciate the interpretations, however, I would much rather Hughes stick to the point and get on with how I am supposed to think about technology, because frankly, if this is his idea of thinking about technology or anything for that matter, I may need to have an IV of adrenaline hooked up.

How does the machine oriented esthetic relate to the educational movements of the Twentieth Century? For example, what value is expressed by educational television? New math?

When one thinks about the machine oriented influence on art and technology in the Twentieth Century, I think that we often think of these straight lines, bland colors, and almost “dingy” feel that the works provide to the viewer. The industrial age had a major impact on the arts and architecture as the “frills” that once accompanied most aspects of life had disappeared, and a practicality had taken over as the overwhelming way to live life and experience fulfillment. For many Germans and Americans this was the case, and we need look no further than many of our grandparents and great-grandparents as they view efficiency as the most valuable trait that a person can have. This was valued and respected in that day and time, and still is in many parts of the country, especially in rural America, where I VERY happily reside. J

This pragmatic and very controlled sense of culture was transmitted to education in many forms. First, as we learned, public television which later transitioned to educational television, took its cues from the Bauhaus School, which promoted experimenting with these “practical arts” to develop a product that was digestible for most forms of education. Who can forget Slim Goodbody, the Alphabet People, and most importantly, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood with the very terrifying and freakish land of puppets that the trolley visited every episode? (I still have nightmares about this show, and the voice that was given to the puppets is my personal idea of what hell is filled with). However, this was what was considered to be the newest and most exciting form of technology’s cultural impact, and was greeted with open arms from a tired people who had just experienced a world war which impacted tragically the lives’ of countless global inhabitants.

The world turned its focus to the operation of machines, and how we could imitate them in our own lives’ and movements. Since the world had embraced the industrial age so rapidly, that idea impacted the everyday citizens with their “boring” jobs and middle-class income, but what is so striking is that even the often socially outcast artists of the day embraced this form of thinking and began to create the many works of art and architecture that Hughes discussed at length here in Chapter 5. Functionality ruled in every way and Hughes says that, “Function dictated design,” (pg. 118). He brings an interesting point to light that in many ways this functionality brought the finer things to the middle class by mass production, which was a notion loathed by many Europeans as these goods were specifically reserved for the upper-class citizens. This is not only an idea brought on by technology, but embodied by what we have discussed as the American Sprit, that we are all deserving of happiness and the pursuit of such, and if that means mass produced goods that make life more convenient, then so be it, we are on board.

In this environment of command and control, mass production, and the military-industrial complex (remember chapter 4), where did the hippie movement of the 60s and 70s come from? Was there a corresponding movement in education?

Later in the chapter, Hughes addressed the era where citizens were encouraged and a movement made to rebel and resist this mechanized controlled machine that had been the center of most forms of design, entertainment, art, and life for the past 40 years or more. John Cage, perhaps the beginning of the “hippie” movement was a major influence in this fight against the mechanization of culture by creating art that seemed to have no pattern, prediction, or pretense. Cage’s art was termed as the art of “chance,” where the things that he created were all done by chance and nothing was planned or predetermined during the making of such. Obviously, these forms of art and rebellion were met with much resistance by the controlled system that had dictated everyday life for many Americans as well as the governmental system that looked to control (and still does) as many areas of life as voters permit. Interestingly enough, the architecture field, Hughes also pointed out, joined the rebellion and began to design and construct structures that embraced the organic blended with functionality that struck a likable balance with many Americans, and is visible in a drive throughout any “non-suburb” or older, more established areas.

Disappointingly, Hughes only grants current technology a few pages to describe the changes to culture. Mostly, we find that computer graphics have been the leading impact on art and architecture, as both of these functions can now be produced with little more than a cheap computer and software program. The freedom and flexibility that these computer programs offer does lend artists the ability to blend the popular architectural and artistic forms that have ruled the past 100 years to offer critics the often exciting “eye candy” which has also delivered these sophisticated arts to the masses through computer animated movies, which seem to have taken over our theatres today.

Again, it is disappointing that Hughes does not address the changes in education that modern technology’s cultural movements have provided, however they are present. As resistance to the control of mechanisms grew, so did the resistance to the very controlled and rigid structure of education. The role of education became more student centered, and has led to students as individual learners as opposed to students as groups of learners. Technology has enabled us as educators to address the needs of individual learners and encourage them to achieve at their own level regardless of that of peers. With the acceptance of radio, television, and now computers in the classroom, technology has proven that in moderation, technology of any type does serve as a relevant and effective form of lesson enhancement and provides a valuable resource to over-worked teachers. This is most likely a result of the “opening” of this educational system which has historically been reluctant to adapt to newer types of learning methods or theories.