Extract
[...] Subjected to the infernal rhythm of the assembly line, workers have the impression of 'melting'. Instrument of domination The worker's work is timed, constantly controlled by the very rhythm of the assembly line. Reduced to being a slave of the machine, and through it, a slave of those who profit from the worker's labor, the human being feels alienated, that is, deprived of its freedom and humanity, to the point of feeling a stranger to itself. In addition to being a threat to the free development of workers' faculties and their capacity for self-determination, technical development could threaten the rights of all citizens. [...]
[...] Can we still make technical development a true progress for our freedoms? Mastering Technical Development Technical development could work for human freedom provided it is mastered. In the face of technical development, it is then necessary to exercise our freedom of thought as an exercise of our critical spirit: we quickly accept technical development as an insurmountable fact, submit to it, and make it a new idol. Technophilia can then turn into the sacralization of technical development, from which we would expect the solution to all our problems, starting with those it itself causes. [...]
[...] Since technical inventions are made by human beings, why should their development escape us? Thus, for Bergson in Les Deux sources de la morale et de la religion, human beings do not have to undergo technical development. Technology being of human origin, it is up to human beings to set its goals and move away from the naive representation of an autonomous technology: for the truth is that technology has given what we asked of it and has not taken the initiative, he writes. [...]
[...] Inapt to survive due to Epimetheus' carelessness, subject to other animals and the whims of the climate, the human species enjoys no freedom, as it is constantly threatened by something stronger. But Prometheus comes to correct his brother's mistake by offering human beings fire, a symbol of technical knowledge. These can then free themselves from oppression and constraints that weigh on them. For example, agriculture allows human beings to no longer depend on what nature can immediately provide: they can plan the production of their means of subsistence. Thanks to technology, the power relationship with nature is even reversed. [...]
[...] In the first part, we will see that technology seems to have as its initial goal the liberation of human beings. In the second part, however, we will show that technical development can take an alienating form in that its logic is indifferent to human freedoms and values. Finally, we will try to think the conditions under which technical development is synonymous with progress for our freedoms. Freedom of the human being At first, technical development seems to have as its goal the freedom of the human being. [...]
