Thoughts on the Internet and Lewis Mumford’s Authoritarian and Democratic Technics

In Lewis Mumford’s Authoritarian and Democratic Technics, the author categorizes technics into two categories: the authoritarian technology that is “system-centered, immensely powerful but inherently unstable”, and the democratic technology that is “man-centered, relatively weak, but resourceful and durable.” To exemplify these two kinds of technologies, the authoritarian ones are machines, computers, while the other includes family farms, small firms, and craftsman. Mumford strongly attacks the authoritarian technologies because in his opinion, the authoritarian technics foresees a future of centered power and lack of public participation. Democracy is in crisis as Mumford states in the article, in 1960s.

Half century after, as I read the article while immersed in all kinds of newly developed technologies such as PC, smart phones, Internet, etc. It is not an innovative idea that the Internet encourages public discuss and therefore democracy. The era we are experiencing now has witnessed a different possibility of the system-centered technics. Without doubt that the Internet is supported by servers, and definitively should be categorized as the “authoritarian” technic, but we might also see some features of democratic technics on the Internet. The revolutionary decentralization accomplished by the Internet giving great autonomy to individual users can be analogized to the men-centered democratic technics at the same time. Therefore I think the proposition stated in Mumford’s article has its limitation due to the era it was in, and the emergence of the Internet has expand our horizon to view technics in a newer, more sophisticated angle.