A search for a model of critical engagement with technology: Feenberg's instrumentalization theory or MASIPAG's struggle against corporate control of agricultural technologies?

Abstract

Steigler's "originary technicity, " Latour's "actor network theory, " and Ihde's "post-phenomenology" accentuate the entwinement of technology and human existence. To imagine a world devoid of technology and a technology without a human being is unthinkable. The integral relations between technology and human beings are irrefutable. But while it is so, human beings' attitude towards technology, particularly modern technologies, remains ambivalent. Recognizing their inescapable relations, however, suggests that human beings may opt to simply accept or negate, or develop a critical attitude towards technology. This paper presents two models of critical engagement with technology, Andrew Feenberg's instrumentalization theory and MASIPAG's development of alternative agricultural technologies. In sum, it argues that the MASIPAG model, given the current capitalist order, holds a more promising approach to technological development than Feenberg's.