The meaning of technology varies from one discipline to another. However, technology is defined as information concerning how to utilize the resources of human societies to achieve specific needs and fulfilling human wants. Gerhard Lenski focuses on information people have and how they employ that information. Leslie While focuses on the harnessing and regulation of energy, and Alvin Toffler provides a magnificent account of the impact that humans are experiencing great social and technological organizational transformation. Technology mirrors and influences human history. As of today, the significance of technology and its shared interactions with community and culture has frequently been overlooked. Even though the concept of technology is associated with its own consensus, experts in this field today appreciate that technology does not have a firm hold on predetermined popular sensibilities. Several writers consider the evolution of technology in different perspectives which lead and affect particular elements. While the views range from one another, there has occurred various common aspects, parts, and incidences in technology that seem related. The purpose of this essay is to compare three theories of evolution, including Gerhard Lenski, Leslie White, and Alvin Toffler.
Sociologist Gerhard Lenski maintains that advances in technology are the driving force for society civilization. In one sense, culture and advances in technology go are both share a common characteristic. As such, the key to a society’s advancement is information. More particularly, the more people understand how to harness and use the natural resources, the better their capacity to improve the interests of their society (Barnett, 2004). According to Lenski, technological advances as the essential aspect of the evolution of societies and culture. Lenski posits that “societal survival has been largely a function of a society's level of technological advance relative to the societies with which it has been in competition.” He pays close attention to information, its amount and its utilization. He suggests that human beings are brought together by a mutual culture, while cultural processes become more wide-ranging as a people gain more advanced technology and information. The more knowledge and information a specific community possesses, particularly where it permits community members to influence their settings, the more improve it is. Lenski differentiates four steps of human development, depending on developments of communication. The first one involves how information is shared genetically (Barnett, 2004). In the second step, with the advancement of agriculture, human beings are capable of passing information via personal experiences. In the third, people start to employ manifestations and nurture logic. In the last state, human beings develop symbols and create language and writing. Technological advances in communication imply that developments in both a community’s economic and political system, social disparity among other factors of social life (Barnett, 2004). In this regard, technology seems to have a more robust effect than ideology.
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Leslie White firmly supports cultural evolution. According to White cultural evolution is influenced by technological changes, especially concerning the improved harnessing of energy. For White, when society’s energy that is produced by humans alone, is increased by the energy harnesses from the wind or water so does culture advance dramatically (Donohue, 2010). In this way, when these energies are harnessed technologically, does the source of energy turn out to be an essential component of people’s culture. As such, White manages to emphasize an issue with the ethical and civilizational significance of advancement in technology. His concern with identifying an economy to the improvements of civilization shows that the continual recurrence of the 19 th century perception of science as establishing the law-governed aspect of things (Donohue, 2010). He evolutionary perspectives put him in sharp contrast to the anti-evolutionary ideologies of Franz Boas. White believes that a culture is a super-organic unit that can be described in terms of itself. He speaks about the culture as a universal human phenomenon (Donohue, 2010). According to White, culture comprises three levels, including, technology level, social structure, and the ideological. All of these levels are based on the first one, and while each interacts with one another, the technological levels are the most influential one. In other words, these systems are correlated; however, they are not similar to their extent of influence. The technological system contributes to the dominant function. Furthermore, these perspectives articulate their specific the role they play within the particular culture process. The technological system is the most fundamental. Each social order is the function of technologies, and the ideology expresses technological forces and mirrors the social network. Consistent with White, the primary purpose of culture and the one that controls its level of advancement is its capacity to harness and regulate energy. Leonardi (2012) claims that when White opines that “The technology is the independent variable, the social system the dependent variable. Social, systems are therefore determined by systems of technology; as the latter change, so do the former” he is claiming the relationship between technology and organization by treating technology as an independent variable and structure.
Alvin Toffler is famous for the concept of future shock. He defines shock as an individual’s view that “too much change in too short a period of time.” He provides intriguing claims to the effect that human societies are experiences overwhelming social and technological structural transformation. In other words, Toffler establishes the concept of his examination on the phases of human progress by looking at the shifts and the fundamental aspects that have contributed to these changes and their effect on the society and experiences as a whole. In interpreting the process of social change encountered by people, he claims that all civilizations have their own contexts, including Technosphere, energy base, production system, among others (Zakaria, 2012). The central theme of Toffler’s perspective concerning future society is how transformation would impact human beings when their whole society changes itself into something new and unforeseen. Toffler also underscores the connection between power and wealth. In this regard, he viewed knowledge as the utmost quality of power, as it suggests effectiveness and employed to penalize, rewards, persuade and transform (Zakaria, 2012). Because it is the highest source of influence, knowledge is the most vital part of power and wealth. In many significant ways, as knowledge becomes the most critical apparatus in the future, it will lead to more shifts. Consistent with Toffler, this is how the future invades the society.
Conclusion
Gerhard Lenski, Leslie White, and Alvin Toffler theories treat technology as the central aspect that plays an integral part in the evolution of society. The expectation to meet the increasing needs has resulted in more advances in technology. As a result, this has impacted the nature of human society. Knowledge is a crucial factor as well because it influences the degree to which people become consistent with technological advances.
References
Barnett, B. M. (2004). Introduction: The Life, Career, and Social Thought of Gerhard Lenski— Scholar, Teacher, Mentor, Leader. Sociological Theory , 22(2), 163–193.
Donohue, C. (2010, October 1). Technological Determinism, Scientific Reasoning, and Leslie White. Retrieved from https://etherwave.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/leslie-white- technological-determinism-and-scientific-reasoning/
Leonardi, P. M. (2012 ). Car Crashes without Cars: Lessons about Simulation Technology and Organizational Change from Automotive Design (Acting with Technology). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Zakaria, W, A. (2012). Alvin Toffler: Knowledge, Technology and Change in Future Society. International Journal of Islamic Thought , 8, 52-60.
