Positivism mistook technological advance for social progress, hiding capitalism’s grip on technique.

Evidence

The crisis of the present day consisted, for Benjamin, in the destructive consequences of a defective reception of technology' which was characteristic of the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century's reception of technology ignored the fact that technology serves this society solely for the production of commodities’. … It also escaped the positivists among the theoreticians of Social Democracy that the development of technology made it more and more difficult for the proletariat to take possession of itan act that was seen to be more and more necessary.’ — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 221

Categorization

• XREF: Directly resonates with the Frankfurt School reading of positivism as built on a nature-control interest. — connects to: Positivists mistook technology’s social regression for scientific progress — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 827; Technical innovation followed capitalist social relations rather than dictating them — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 760; Positivism distorts science by hiding its constitutive interests and historical origins — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 606 (+9 more)
• DEFINE: Names ‘defective reception of technology’ as a conceptual term for how a society misreads its own tools.
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Positivists mistook technology’s social regression for scientific progress — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 827; Technical innovation followed capitalist social relations rather than dictating them — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 760; Positivism distorts science by hiding its constitutive interests and historical origins — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 606 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Positivists mistook technology’s social regression for scientific progress #corroborates (0.93) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 827