Positivists mistook technology’s social regression for scientific progress

Evidence

The nineteenth century’s reception of technology ignored the fact that technology serves this society solely for the production of commodities'. Positivism saw in the development of technology … only the progress of science, not the retrogression of society … 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, 827

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Technological rationality has grown stronger while society grows more irrational — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 47; Scientific rationalism becomes an instrument of social domination — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 141; Benjamin blamed positivism for a defective reception of nineteenth-century technology — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 827 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Benjamin blamed positivism for a defective reception of nineteenth-century technology #corroborates (0.90) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 827
• Positivist media research defended pluralist assumptions about American society #exemplifies (0.85)
• Scientific rationalism becomes an instrument of social domination #expands (0.82) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 141
• Technological rationality has grown stronger while society grows more irrational #complicates (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 47