Marlin Model 1870 30-30

Siegfried, or the twilight of an idea

I found the other day on a bookseller's stall, where I have my habits this book whose author and title caught my eye: Andrew Siegfried Suez and Panama routes world, Paris, Armand Colin, 1940. I did not read in full but I have spotted some interesting passages.

Andre Siegfried's life coincides with the era of modern colonialism: he was born in 1875, while accelerating the conquest of Africa, and died in 1959, while most French colonies preparing to become independent &Eactute; States. It is therefore not surprising that shares an idea that seems obvious to many: the superiority of the white race. It is not a fool: he sees clearly that the colonial order is challenged, it will probably not continue indefinitely in a state:

[...] and exotic breeds, awakened by us from a long sleep, like Sleeping Beauty, in turn claim their independence. The

"by us" is of course his weight in peanuts, but they are not so many who are aware of the reality of this aspiration. That's what makes the interest of the work of Siegfried: he thinks inside the system that the superiority of the white race is obvious while watching the rise of a dynamic that will eventually destroy this system: is the twilight of an idea.

Then suddenly, he tinkers certainties parts:

The technique is learned: it is with reason that many of Europe's competitors can boast to walk for European machines as well as their inventors. But run the machines is very little: what matters is to have invented, and then refine them, to renew and adapt to changing conditions. Such creative genius has so far been the privilege of the white race, even some section cettte race, and it is the first condition for maintaining our material civilization at a high level.

It is easy to sneer, and yet such was until very recent years the dominant attitude of the West towards China: they produce, we, we design, if China is the world's workers, let us to be the senior manager. The reasoning is the same.

And if this privilege inventiveness had to be shared? Remain the ultimate privilege, namely that of directing:

The qualities of this order in the conduct of a case are precisely those that the public does not see, and they fall into a sense of moral as well as the technique. How many mistakes, for example, in the Judgement of the worker, the importance of the function of the boss! This genius, who was administrative in the sense highest of the word, is the most authentic civilization, and would decline quickly if we pretended to do without.

The sneer is more difficult to remember, however, note that the concept of administrative culture is not an illusion: the chaos that has engulfed the Congo - Kinshasa after the hasty departure of the Belgian colonizers is proof. But to make it a privilege of the "white race" there are far ...

But here it is: we got rid of that cumbersome concept - turning point, extremely fast, we are still too close for us to be able to make history. In a world where he plans change, Siegfried tries to find reasons for maintaining the "supremacy", which seems an indisputable fact - otherwise, he concluded in the last lines of the book, the universal decline is assured:

Should be otherwise in the future is that the solutions of general interest, inspired by the great Roman politics, had given way in the world, to a fragmentation which civilization would survive with difficulty.

Addendum: writing this note has taken longer than expected, I found in the Monde on Tuesday a very interesting article on the launch of the latest container giant CMA-CGM, which announces the launch of future super-door containerships of 11,000 TEUs (twenty foot equivalent: a container the size of a tractor-trailer counts as two TEUs). These boats are designed and manufactured by Hyundai, Korea, and they also make it completely superseded the two-channel transoceanic which Siegfried was the hub of world trade.

As for the collapse of civilization, we are still waiting.

Babies Choking On Plegm

Tech / technology

I receive every three months, my issue of the journal Technology and Culture published by the Society for the History of Technology - the leading international publication (though mostly American, it admittedly) in the field of history of art.

But then, history of technology or History of Technology? 'd Better agree, you say. And specifically, in the delivery that I received on Monday morning to find several articles on the semantics of the word technology, in particular, Eric Schatzberg an article entitled " Technik Comes to America, Changing Meanings of Technology Before 1930" (T & C , vol. 47, No. 3, July 2006, pp. ; 486-512). It aims to explain precisely the gap between English and other European languages the word "technology" - the latter having practically substituted, in English, the term "technical , "since the 1930s. Very interesting article, for those who have not have the courage to read it, here's a summary Approximate. From

Technik to technology

The term "technology" is German invention, used for the first time by Johann Beckmann, a professor at the venerable University of Göttingen, who published in 1777 a Anleitung zur Technologie ( Introduction to technology), it is the science devoted to the study of technical processes, the same way that the mineralogy is the science that studies minerals. It is the sense he keeps throughout the nineteenth century e: for example how we should include the name of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founded in 1861. It is a rare term, although some works qualify themselves as "technology": they are general views of what was then called industrial arts, to the attention of famous public grown more than practitioners.

According Schnatzberg, the transfer of meaning occurs in the early years of the twentieth century and ^e originates not in the concept of technology as used by Beckman in thought but German Technik at the end of the nineteenth century e, where it is not far to study the manufacturing processes but to express its own logic to correction in industrial, embodied in the culture of engineering. The technical Gallicism not appropriate (English reserving to the gesture of the artist), authors in political economy continued reflection on the Technik come, faute de mieux, to reclaim the term of technology: this is the case a post-Marxist thinker steeped in social Darwinism, Thorstein Veblen, who wants to see the technology instinctive and positive momentum of humanity, however, likely to be diverted by what he calls financial institutions to form capitalism.

The term was taken by his successors, who abandoned the Marxist critique of industrial capitalism and technology are the word a synonym of technical progress, the advance of human domination over the material world.

And we, then?

the Arctic is not interested in further developments of the word, let alone the tension on the term "technology" in other languages, eg French. Yet there is much to say the contrast between the words "technical" and "technology" is at the heart of the debate on the technical facts that grows in France in the 60s and 70s - even the title is a collection of essays edited by Jacques Guillerme in 1973. The period is, indeed, marked by the linguistic turn and srtucturalisme: we scaffold loves his thoughts on a variety of critical pairs, lexicon, syntax, metaphor / metonymy, builder / engineer (I will come back from that one) ... and, therefore, technical / engineering, for those who deign to be interested in these subjects.

In this case, contrary to what was observed in the English language, the word "technology" is strictly confined to that of a type of discourse on scientific technical processes. The immediate and decisive influence of such technology on process improvement techniques seem to have been regarded as self-evident, which does not seem so obvious. Suddenly, the pitfalls are numerous: gradisme enough primary would see a technological era of applied science productionse to replace an era of routine technical ignorant; determinism to the punch for which the birth of a technological discourse leads, almost automatically, the industrial era - the introduction of technology and technology of Jacques Guillerme significant lack of caution on both fronts. Finally, taking as its starting point the opposition technique / technology, we are likely, as the English inn, to eat what we had brought: the organic link that postulates the sense that one has known the word "technology" between scholarly knowledge and technical change. Link that deserves further discussion.

Technology, Technology

And yet the language has evolved. In French and English, the term has evolved for the vast majority of people, the term no longer refers to technology or know a discourse on the art but a consistent set of technical devices. Evolution is not unusual, see psychology. Usage is even perfectly Official: it was not so long as in my profession, the ministry we basins on the "new information technologies and communication" - the top was to be charge of ICT mission very well on the cards. Until you realize that it had nothing much new.

course, one can reject this understanding of technology as anglicism - it is part. Remains that betting big on the opposition lexical technique / technology, historians and thinkers speaking techniques take a risk, increasing: that of being understood or of their contemporaries, or their foreign colleagues. Or devote, to justify their use of the term, a time that could probably be better spent.

I Think Mytoddler Has Genital Warts

Frequency Could be better

Starting tomorrow, I insist on adding an entry in this blog every Friday - because Friday is the day I am a historian.

To say what? Reading notes, reflections, lines of work ... As usual, you know. Your feedback will of course welcome.