IN HiS letter concerning the nuclear energy debate' C. Gardner manages to make a totally obvious point and yer to show a very useless understanding of what he temms 'a political question, not simply a technological one'.
POr o cobre 1K. - ecological groups follow from this and are well known. However his original approach to the nature of lechnology is seriously unheipful. Yes, obviously, it is the 'social relations" that this is not a one-sided MCLANTEI movement developing (how? by sugestion is made) and people then utilising it either the ruling class or a transformed What of the pressures around the development itself? This ncludes the reasons for why money is allocated to certain areas of rescarch as 'obscure area connected to this of what stage the ruling class is passing through down to the psyches of male scientists. These conscious and subconscious distortions of human creativity mean there are no technologies 'in themselves" as Gardner talks of.
The whole qucstion of why nuclear energy, as brought up by Gi. the same page (warfarei is bence skired by Gardner. A very relevant example of the effect -DIE theoreticaily is the whole issue of contraception - the direction it has been developed in and the methods available show health of women, and this fact being on the woman can capitalist wish determine their own reproductive role.
----- pull-quotes -----
Socialist Challenge