Technocentric history places inventions at the centre of history as the march of progress. Man the Tool Maker. Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age. Palaeolithic, Neolithic. The agricultural and industrial revolutions. Technology as the measure of how advanced or backward a human society is. Developed, developing and least developed nations. Guns, germs and steel. All of that.
It positions the West as the crowning achievement of mankind, its power as mostly a good thing:
- The British Empire brought the railroad to India and the bicycle to Africa – never mind that it sold millions into slavery, that empire is another word for armed robbery.
- “Where would you be without us? You would still be living in a mud hut.” Because better building materials are always more important than freedom and justice.
Technocentric history is meant to sound “objective” and “neutral” but it is not.
In 1500 the West saw religion, not technology, as the most important thing. The world was not divided into developed, developing and least developed, but into Christian, infidel and heathen. History was seen not as the rise of technology but the unfolding of God’s Word. The Salvation Model of History has been kept, but in place of God and Scripture are technology and science.
The West changes its measure of good according to whatever it is currently good at. By its old standard it has fallen into a dark age – Mother Teresa saw the West as a spiritual Third World. No matter: just change the scoring so you always get a high score.
Technology is measured completely on a Western scale.
Scoring:
- inventions: 10 points – anything invented or improved by a white person, honorary or otherwise, like the car, printing or writing;
- contributions: 3 points – anything invented by a person of colour, like printing or colour plasma displays;
- mere improvements: 1 point – anything improved by a person of colour, like the car;
- mysteries: 0 points – anything invented by a person of colour that whites do not know how to do, like the Egyptian pyramids or Incan walls.
Every invention counts as an advance – even if it leads to the death or suffering of millions, like the gun or the cotton gin. Even if it leads to global warming. There is no idea of technology causing backward progress. Strip mining is a “advance”. So is the atom bomb. Because there is no independent measure of what is good. Technology becomes an end in itself, the highest good, the measure of all.
Technocentric history supports racism:
- It makes it seem like whites are “objectively” “better”.
- It leaves out morals as “subjective”.
- It makes the rise of the West seem like the natural order of things.
Genocide and slavery are seen as “what anyone would do” if they had the same technology. As if owning a gun and committing murder are the same thing. As if humans have no morals, as if they are no better than talking animals.
Four days after Christmas, 1890: the massacre at Wounded Knee
See also:
Abagond 
Interestingly, I think religion will come back as a defining factor. Technology is to easily “stolen”, that is, bought/copied by non-West actors like China and the Middle-East.
That is why my website concentrates on religion and its advantages when it comes to neutralizing competitors.
Europe, the Middle-East and the Far East have rapidly graying populations. But only Europe has euthanasia..
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My politico-religious ideology promotes euthanasia under threat of hell and damnation, and has the best of the secular and the (regular) religious world.
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I think none of us wants to damn techonlogies themselves but this way of looking at progress and history trough it. Also, one really has to remember that this type of history does not give the honor of innovations to those to whom it belongs but to those who adapted it as their own.
It is very simplistic way to look at history and very easily manipulated in support of racism or any other ideology. Also it does not take account on the fact that not all technologies and technical inventions were actually improvements or belssings, or even needed by the people. We could call this type of looking at history as “Engineer history”, mechanistic and un human way of defining the past.
As for the religions, I really do hope that they will never ever achieve the status and influence which they had in the past. Religions, not just christianity, have caused more damage to the mankind than any other ideology outside fascism and communism, both of which incorporated religious themes into them. Just look at the history: when did the rise of the west began? Yeap, when the hold of the religion was loosened. When did the islamic world began to decline? Yeap, when religion became the dominating force.
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Both Christianity and Islam make comparable mistakes. Can God make 2+2=5? No, says Christianity, and its god withers away in impotence. Yes, says Islam, and its culture sinks down in idiocy. I say, yes, God can make 2+2=5, BUT He/She never does it. That is why we can be sure the universe has natural laws we can discover with science, without having to sacrifice Divine Omnipotence, the source and base of religion.
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What? A black person invented the plasma display? I thought it was invented at UNC by an Italian and a Dutch guy.
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Good thread subject…we are touching on some things in the “..White Inventor” thread, about defining invention, whether it only has to mean physical things or if invention can also be concept…like maybe someone invented the mechanics of a drum set but, it is black Afror Diasporic culture that truly breathed life into it.
White culture seems to put a lot of eggs in the basket of physical invention and physical control over its envirnment. Its sciences are based on hard core physical evidance and can hardly explain concepts like soul and spirit and are just now finding out how intuition is in control of our lives more than our logic thining brains.
The religions , Chritianity, Jewish, Islam, offer the only narrow tunnel of some kind of touch with the soul and spirit in the limited outlit of prayer, very anemic and small with huge amounts of smothering dogma and rheteric really clouding any touch with the real gateways to the soul. They just go hand in hand with the technological physical perception of the world and how you control it and try to control the spiritual aspects also.
And Im with Sam, Im not going to throw away technology, Im just going to see through the bs around it and the limitations of science and technology in comparison with being in touch with the spirit, intuition and soul…for sure not the “soul” of organised religion
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If we are talking about people of colour can we include the Japanese(they are as one would say …yellow) and look at what the have done to improve things…such as the motor car look what they have done with that hybrids…electric etc….robotics….cell phones…tv… I could go on and on. Though I don’t really think this is what was meant, the purpose of this blog is to put black people in their place, to be able to say that whites are more intelligent than blacks and here is the proof.
Africa was raped by the west and kept ignorant, it’s people were taken to be slaves and to justify this the west deemed the people to be subhuman, they were never educated as people in the west were and left to fall by the intellectual wayside for 400 hundred years. As well as being used as slaves and never given an education the colonial powers were subjecting the people of Africa to oppressive control(they were slaves in their own countries) no wonder Africa has not got a place in the technocentric history, how could it have.
Even today Africa is still being denied by the west. Nevertheless once the slave trade ended and the people were given their freedom, over time black people
began to be educated to the point where there are thousands of black
intellectuals in all walks of life today.
Though Africa as a continent may not have contributed to the technocentric
history many black people from all over the world have. (blackinventor.com)
It’s a miracle of strength and determination that there are black people
who are at the hub of science and industry, what other race of people
could have suffered such adversity and come through it all to take their
rightful place in the world today.
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Yet, I find ideas and concepts and innovations and “inventions” of ancient African people (through individuals brought over in trans Atlantic African slavery) , dominate the West , inspite of conquest, slavery, violence , total attempt to wipe out the culture,marginalisation and discrimination…
How do we define “intellect”? How to negociete in the white invented ways of learning? Are there other ways of learning and perceiving the world? Personaly, Im drinking from the body of knowledge that was brought forth by the ancient African people, and, it is not the same path as the scholar university path of learning…there are major differances in paramaters and dynamic of what a person has to learn, and, of what the benafits are
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And that is the thing, the white oriented way of organising and analysing the world and structuring everything, and pushing our life styles into the 9-5 grind, with prayer in dogma rhetoric , structured organised religions…just isnt enough…
There is a void in most of our lives….and some of these ideas, concepts, inventions and innovations from the ancient Africans , about getting in touch with intuition, the soul, the spirit, is just what we need and is the cure in the Westren world, to this void..
Drinking from the African body of knowledge, intellect, ideas , concepts, innovations and inventions, fills my soul deeply
Technology, dogmad religions, and science and scholarly analysis dont
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“The religions , Chritianity, Jewish, Islam,”
My religion is very hostile towards these three religions, and therefore highly occult.
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I’ve always looked at the ways Whites use technology to support their supposed superiority as a zero-sum-game. It’s as if the value of the accomplishments of people of color diminish as White technological innovation expands. It becomes less about the celebration of each others contributions and more about who has created more gizmos and gadgets. People today have become such technophiles they forget that technology is merely a tool, not a way of life.
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I think its very interesting that we have to look no farther than “techno-electronic music”, which , acording to various articles written recently, is one of the most fastest growing music idioms out there now.
It takes the latest computor and sound technology and all that it is suposed to represent about making music as we go into the future..
its all squarly placed on the back of ancient Afro Diasporic groove techniques. The basic four on the floor goes back to Gamble Huff and the Philly Sound, but, there are just tremendous referances to call responce , syncopated , pollyrhtymic grooves that go straight back to the incredible concepts brought to us by the ancient black Africans.Take it even deeper into Drum and Bass and it gets even deeper into those concepts…
These techy, computor, protools, advances in sounds and recording, would be absolutly nothing if they werent coupled with some of the genius principles from the Afro diaspora….they cant go into the future without going to the oldest genius concepts of rhythm out there to breathe some kind of precious soul and life into it.
For those who dont get it, its frivilous nothing, regulated to mindless entertainment….to those of us who can actualy make the connection, its absolutly mind blowing to see these ancient principles absolutly dominating our march into the future
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@ Abagond
I think this is one of your better posts. The technological bias for evaluating a cultural peoples achievements is, as you point out fundamentally flawed. Its a one-sided narrow perspective or lens from which to view the world. But its this perspective – the technological perspective which is shoved down our throats day in, day out in films, history, the media, education and science.
Its this type of flawed judgemental perspective of other people’s culture that has lead to and is directly responsible for the enslavement and genocidal destruction of indigenous native peoples all over the world. But most importantly its this adoration and placement of objects – technological objects – as the crowning glory of a peoples cultural achievements. -The mark of its test as a civilised society – which has ultimately led to this dysfunctional society we call Western civilisation.
Western society has been constructed on a non-spiritual division of people and objects, This is why even today we are indoctrinated to believe that the accumulation of wealthy, weapons and technological devices are far more important than peoples, lives; poverty, starvation, basic food and shelter; their basic well being. Injustice and inequality become secondary issues or concerns. They are not as important as the next technological breakthrough!
The real test or gauge of a civilised society is the way its treats ALL of its peoples. Technological progress is measured as the ultimate extension of an already spiritually evolved people. That is a people that have evolved sufficiently to the extent that everyone’s basic needs have been met fully. Then technology can be used further to enhance those needs at the expense of the many NOT the few.
This is a basic common tenant of a people’s natural spirituality (even animals display this) which has been lost from Western society. Correction…It was never there to begin with!!!
Its interesting to note from my reading of many accounts of ET abuctees experiences. The ETs often state that they judge a planets state of civilisation by its state of spiritual evolution NOT by its state of technological evolution. Which is commonly stated by ETs with technology thousands of years ahead of Earth’s.
This shows just how backward, warped and dysfunctional Western society really has become.
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ET’s are such bigots, sitting up in their spaceships generalizing people. Just because they have advanced technology doesn’t give them the right to judge anyone. Why are they here any way? They probably f*cked up their own planet and have the nerve to come tell somebody how to run theirs.
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Evolution and natural selection can be thought of as “technological processes”. Cultures have out competed peers via warfare, demographics, and economics whose advantages were often based on technology, so it’s no surprise that emphasis is placed on these.
Abagond:
Aren’t genocides and slavery exactly what groups of people all over the world have been doing to each other for millenia?
Humans are no “better” than talking animals, but no worse either. It’s interesting that anthrocentric arguments seem to view the rest of the natural environment with a pronounced prejudice.
As for the technological view of history promoting morals as being “subjective” perhaps someone could enumerate morals or moral codes which are not subjective.
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@ Someguy
Remember its not how advanced our technology is. Its how advanced our spirituality is. They are here because they were responsible for us to begin with. They watch us because they have seen other planets f*ck up precisely in this way before so they are naturally curious to see whether we will do the same.
Its not looking good is it?
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People, in general, give too much credit to modern inventors. Inventing new technological devices often requires a great deal of labor and money (also there is little appreciation for the processes that were invented by the ancients that make all this new technology possible).
The reason the U.S. has been on the leading edge is b/c unlike other places in the world, the U.S. has had world’s best system of venture capitalism. Many countries in the world just the venture capital or the resources to make impactful high-tech inventions possible. It has nothing to do with intelligence.
Although Steve Jobs receives all the credit, Apple would be nothing without its investors or the techies who worked tirelessly for free for a long period of time before it paid off. Anyone can make anything possible with the will, the manpower, the right resources….and plenty of moolah.
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@resjan
corrections:
U.S. has had THE world’s best system…..
many countries in the world just DON’T HAVE the venture capital….
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Kwamla,
Can you offer an example of a desirable “advanced spirituality”?
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What I find particularly comical are when whites take credit as a group for ‘inventions’ whilst it was only a minute number that actually did the inventing. More often than not, these same inventors were usually persecuted until the powers that be realized they could make some cold hard cash off their inventions. 99% of white folk had nothing to do with these invention but enjoy the ‘benefits’ just as anyone else does. The lengths some folks will go to to feel good about themselves is mind boggling.
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Humans are no “better” than talking animals, but no worse either.
I beg to differ. Animals, especially the ones who live in cold climates and have bigger brains are infinitely smarter than the smartest human. I read it in the National Enquirer! Not only that, some are cute and cuddly!
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@herneith my thoughts exactly. the same logic white supremacists use to prove their “superior” can be used to prove they’re a bunch of homocidal manics
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@ Randy
“…Can you offer an example of a desirable “advanced spirituality”?…”
There are many examples of ancient cultures of people in history. The trouble is we don’t know that much about them because they had the sense to leave or disappear. A typical example would be the Mayan civilisation. Only an advanced spiritual culture could do this.
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Kwamla,
Wouldn’t the Mayans be at the far end of the desirability continuum, considering that they practiced brutal human sacrifice on a massive scale?
If one attempts to order spiritual practices on the basis of creating peaceful social environments, I would suppose that Jainism might be towards the top of that list, perhaps along with certain Buddhist / Taoist practices.
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“…The trouble is we don’t know that much about them because they had the sense to leave or disappear…”
That sentence was important Randy so I am repeating it again. You asked for examples. Why would you presume to be able to understand or appreciate something you are clearly unfamiliar with?
This is reflective of the problem inherent in technology focused Western societies.But that presumption is also reflected in at least one other aspect of Western society you still remain unfamiliar with: Racism
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Randy said:
Pretty frightening stuff – but not surprising given the history of his people.
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The other thing is, all the inventing of tech stuff doesnt do anything to address the problem of “tech junk”, the huge gargantuan amount of waste materials
If Western society was really progrisive, they would make sure that for any invention put out in mass quantities, there would be equal research and care for how these technologies would be regulated and cleaned up
How could a car be let out on the world and no regulations to stop it from killing enormous amounts of people that it does
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I would have to agree with this posting. Looking at history in only one way is self-defeating at best, and cannot help but distort what we may find.
Technology is a wonderful thing, but in the end it is just a thing. I don’t know what I would do without a lot of it myself, we couldn’t even discuss things online without it. Far more importance should be given to how we handle ourselves and treat others.
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People are talking animals. We’re just smart enough to make excuses for the horrible things we do. We, as in all of us, on a daily basis.
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[…] technocentric history […]
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I thought you were linking to the GMO study, the Mon 8 Oct 2012 comment and didn’t notice the new comment.
I think there are good reasons to be against specific kinds of GMO, but not GMO as a whole.
I wasn’t intending to convince anyone that vaccines age good. I respect people’s rights to make terrible decisions. 😉 But I do think that saying you do not know what’s in vaccines, but consider them “toxic” and “poison” anyway, is pretty frickin ignorant. That’s what I was criticizing.
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@Legion
That’s the reply I posted in the wrong thread:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/how-daily-life-has-changed-in-the-last-30-years/#comment-212778
“Some of the horror stories out there about vaccines are like seeing others getting bitten by a snake.”
I do not agree with that analogy. In the snake example there is causality. Snakes actually bite people and they definitely can cause harm. We even know how dangerous particular kinds of snakes are.
In the case of vaccines there are only correlations. So the analogy should be closer to this: kids got cancer in a bunch of families. The parents got together and noticed that all of the families recently got cats and the parents started blaming the cats for the disease. A lot of scientists studied the cases and their connections to cats and didn’t find anything conclusive, but concerned people everywhere heard the stories and some started believing cats are bad for you.
The main difference between the vaccine reality and the cat story is that cats do not have a proven positive effect on people and getting rid of them is just a personal choice. When people don’t get vaccinated that’s a decision that has impact on those around them too. It puts them at risk too.
Just so we are clear – I think being skeptical is always great. Being a laymen who had been forced to make a difficult decision and then had been explaining and defending it, is OK whatever the decision may be. Being a laymen who is simply spreading either paranoia or hype, is ignorant. Calling a substance, that has no proven negative effects, “poison” looks like paranoia to me.
The fact that people tend to be against vaccines as a whole and not just the particular ones that were linked to negative side effects looks fundamentally unscientific and unreasonable to me. What exactly is it that they all have in common that could make all of them dangerous?
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