A Way Through the Global Techno-Scientific Culture

“Rather than the predicted collapse of the capitalist state, or even the more modest socialist goal of a more egalitarian and democratic welfare state, we seem to face an ever-deepening capitalism. To the ends of studying how, exactly, the capitalist order is maintaining itself, Sheldon Richmond’s latest work, A Way Through the Global Techno-Scientific Culture, is a valuable and timely entry in a discussion that must be central to our contemporary understanding of relationships of power. How we, end users, relate to and through technology will undoubtedly affect how we live, and on whose terms. Works such as Richmond’s, which seeks one line of inquiry to map out that relationship, are necessary at our current moment, when many of our lives have become predominantly digital. […] In general terms, Richmond’s book is a timely intervention in our immediate political discourse, and his fundamental premise is sound. Keeping in mind the poor state of electoral politics in the United States and elsewhere, now is indeed the time to more critically study technology. The path forward that the author recommends, too, is reasonable. Treating technologies as part of culture, and thus the domain of humanistic thinking and praxis, will, I agree, begin the intellectual work of destabilizing the hegemony the technocracy. At its core, the work is a necessary reminder that what we face is, indeed, dialectical: our lived material reality with computers is influenced by how we have been taught to relate to them. Computers are as much a part of the means of production as factories ever were; therefore, if we are to achieve or even attempt emancipatory praxis, we must relate to these machines differently. In this way, the work is an update of Marxist thinking, with a clearer view of technology than Marx himself had. Much of this clarity, as Richmond notes, comes from his own experience as a self-described computer person in the corporate world. This practical experience keeps the book’s feet on the ground while still being a well-developed and thoughtful work. […] Finally, and one of the highest points about the work, it is a wakeup call to the reading public. The book, free from the often-overused jargon to be found in much of contemporary political thought, is accessible to most literate persons, were they willing to follow the ample citations. To that end, the work serves as a powerful educational resource that would be well suited in particular to graduate courses. Overall, A Way Through the Global Techno-Scientific Culture is a work I highly recommend to those interested in developing emancipatory praxis surrounding computer technologies. […] Temporally, this book could have seldom come at a better time.”

“A Way Through the Global Techno-Scientific Culture will be of interest to anyone – and that is likely most of us – who has ever felt disenfranchised and even demeaned because of a lack of technology expertise. The book concludes on a positive note: acknowledging the effort and risk entailed in implementing the programme he recommends, Richmond asserts that ‘there is hope’ (137). Humanity can make the leap to a new socio-technical structure based on full and equal participation and dialogue – but, he concedes, ‘the way there is unknown’ (143)”