diff --git a/books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine.md b/books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..df60c93521315398c5a45776019bb49540510e48 --- /dev/null +++ b/books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine.md @@ -0,0 +1,129 @@ +[[!meta title="In the Age of the Smart Machine"]] + +## Index + +* Taylor, 41, 42. +* Body's dual role in production: effort and skill. + +## Excerpts + + Technology represents intelligence systematically applied to the + problem of the body. It functions to amplify and surpass the organic + limits of the body; it compensates for the body's fragility and vulnera- + bility. Industrial technology has substituted for the human body in + many of the processes associated with production and so has redefined + the limits of production formerly imposed by the body. As a result, + society's capacity to produce things has been extended in a way that is + unprecedented in human history. This achievement has not been with- + out its costs, however. In diminishing the role of the worker's body in + the labor process, industrial technology has also tended to diminish the + importance of the worker. In creating jobs that require less human + effort, industrial technology has also been used to create jobs that re- + quire less human talent. In creating jobs that demand less of the body, + industrial production has also tended to create jobs that give less to the + body, in terms of opportunities to accrue knowledge in the production + process. These two-sided consequences have been fundamental for the + growth and development of the industrial bureaucracy, which has de- + pended upon the rationalization and centralization of knowledge as the + basis of control. + + [...] + + Throughout most of human history, work has ines- capably meant the exertion and + often the depletion of the worker's body. Yet only in the context of such + exertion was it possible to learn a trade and to master skills. Since the + industrial revolution, the acceler- ated progress of automation has generally + meant a reduction in the amount of effort required of the human body in the + labor process. It has also tended to reduce the quality of skills that a worker + must bring to the activity of making something. Industrial technology has been + developed in a manner that increases its capacity to spare the human body, + while at the same time it has usurped opportunities for the devel- opment and + performance of skills that only the body can learn and remember. + + -- 22-23 + + The progress of automation has been associated with both a general + decline in the degree of know-how required of the worker and a de- + cline in the degree of physical punishment to which he or she must be + subjected. Information technology, however, does have the potential + to redirect the historical trajectory of automation. The intrinsic power + of its informating capacity can change the basis upon which knowledge + is developed and applied in the industrial production process by lifting + knowledge entirely out of the body's domain. The new technology sig- + nals the transposition of work activities to the abstract domain of infor- + mation. Toil no longer implies physical depletion. "Work" becomes + the manipulation of symbols, and when this occurs, the nature of skill + is redefined. The application of technology that preserves the body may + no longer imply the destruction of knowledge; instead, it may imply + the reconstruction of knowledge of a different sort. + + -- 23 + + There is reason enough to want to avoid exhausting work, but the + constancy of repugnance was not confined to forms of labor that were + extremely punishing. As noted earlier, in the membership practices of + some guilds, even the craftsworker was liable to be an object of con- + tempt because of the manual nature of that work. Such repugnance is + in itself an act of distancing. It is both a rejection of the animal body + and an affirmation of one's ability to translate the impulses of that body + into the infinitely more subtle behavioral codes that mediate power in + complex organizations. Once this translation occurs, the body is no + longer the vehicle for involuntary affective or physical displays. Instead, + it becomes the instrument of carefully crafted gestures and behaviors + designed to achieve a calculated effect in an environment where inter- + personal influence and even a kind of rudimentary psychological insight + are critical to success. In the interpersonal world of court society, the + body's knowledge involved the ability to be attuned to the psycho- + logical needs and demands of others, particularly of superiors, and + to produce subtly detailed nonverbal behavior that reflected this + awareness. + + -- 28-29 + + The differences between the work performed by the skilled + workers and the laborers was not of an "intellectual" versus manual + activity. The difference lay in the content of a similarly heavy manual + work: a content of rationality of participation for skilled workers versus + one of total indifference for laborers. 5 5 + + The work of the skilled craftsperson may not have been "intellec- + tual," but it was knowledgeable. These nineteenth-century workers + participated in a form of knowledge that had always defined the activity + of making things. It was knowledge that accrues to the sentient body + in the course of its activity; knowledge inscribed in the laboring body- + in hands, fingertips, wrists, feet, nose, eyes, ears, skin, muscles, shoul- + ders, arms, and legs-as surely as it was inscribed in the brain. It was + knowledge filled with intimate detail of materials and ambience-the + color and consistency of metal as it was thrust into a blazing fire, the + smooth finish of the clay as it gave up its moisture, the supple feel of + the leather as it was beaten and stretched, the strength and delicacy of + glass as it was filled with human breath. These details were known, + though in the practical action of production work, they were rarely + made explicit. Few of those who had such knowledge would have been + able to explain, rationalize, or articulate it. Such skills were learned + through observation, imitation, and action more than they were taught, + reflected upon, or verbalized. For example, James J. Davis, later to + become Warren Harding's Secretary of Labor, learned the skill of pud- + dling iron by working as his father's helper in a Pennsylvania foundry: + "None of us ever went to school and learned the chemistry of it from + books. . . . We learned the trick by doing it, standing with our faces in + the scorching heat while our hands puddled the metal in its glaring + bath. ,,56 + + -- 40 + + In Braverman's influential critique of what he called the "degradation + of work" in this century, he used Bright's study to make a very different + point. Where Bright saw the glass half full because the physical demands + of work were curtailed, Braverman saw the glass being drained, as work- + ers' skills were absorbed by technology. For Braverman, the transfer of + skill into machinery represented a triumph of "dead labor over living + labor," a necessity of capitalist logic. As machinery is enlarged and per- + fected, the worker is made puny and insignificant. By substituting capital + (in the form of machinery) for labor, Braverman believed that employers + merely seized the opportunity to exert greater control over the labor + process. As the work force encountered fewer opportunities for skill + development, it would become progressively less capable and, thus, less + bl ... 85 + + -- 49