Fluent Essays

Choose three sentences from the essay by Leo Marx that struck you as important for our understanding of technology, and describe what they mean in relation to Marxs argument and to your own understanding of technology in general and writing in particular.  https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.umgc.edu/stable/40927986?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contentsTechnology: The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept Author(s): LEO MARX Source: Technology and Culture , July 2010, Vol. 51, No. 3 (July 2010), pp. 561-577 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for the History of Technology Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40927986 REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40927986?seq=1&cid=pdf- reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms The Johns Hopkins University Press and Society for the History of Technology are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Technology and Culture This content downloaded from �������������54.84.104.155 on Tue, 16 Mar 2021 11:59:04 UTC������������� All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms https://www.jstor.org/stable/40927986 https://www.jstor.org/stable/40927986?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents https://www.jstor.org/stable/40927986?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents ESSAYS Technology The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept LEO MARX . . . the essence of technology is by no means anything technological. - Martin Heidegger1 New Concepts as Historical Markers The history of technology is one of those subjects that most people know more about than they realize. Long before the academy recognized it as a specialized field of scholarly inquiry, American schools were routinely dis- seminating a sketchy outline ofthat history to millions of pupils. We learned about James Watt and the steam engine, Eli Whitney and the cotton gin, and about other great inventors and their inventions. Even more important, we were led to assume that innovation in the mechanic arts is a - perhaps the - driving force of human history. The theme was omnipresent in my child- hood experience. I met it in the graphic charts and illustrations in my copy of The Book of Knowledge, a popular childrens encyclopedia, and in the alluring dioramas of Early Man in the New York Museum of Natural His- tory. These exhibits represented the advance of civilization as a sequence of the inventions in the mechanic arts with which Homo sapiens gained a unique power over nature. This comforting theme remains popular today and is insinuated by all kinds of historical narrative. Here, for example, is a passage from an anthropological study of apes and the origins of human violence: Leo Marx is S