IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020 - 76

second category that has both adapted technology to its
own culture and coordinated their culture with the technology using its own cultural reforms. Ihde writes:
" Between the extremities of successful resistance to
culture-technology and its counterpart quick acceptance there lie the approximate adaptations in which
selected ( " appropriate " ) technologies are adapted without total or major disfigurations of indigenous cultures "
[14, p. 131]. Although this answer is reasonable, it
seems somewhat obvious and does not solve the problem of the relations between culture and technology in
the target communities. The solution given by Ihde has
also been given by most of the scholars and even politicians like Nehru in India [25, pp. 7-8], or N'krumah in
Ghana but in practice [34, pp. 51-55], they faced many
problems when it came to implementing their ideas. In
some ways, the answer given by Ihde poses this question: if the pattern of technology transfer without losing
indigenous culture is desirable, why have the many societies that have had such goals been incapable of achieving them, and have only been able to rank among the
other three categories in practice?

But Ihde does not pay attention to the
fact that, at the end of the day, it is the
network of technology that dictates its
specific culture to the target community.

Although Ihde does not directly address this question, he specifically outlines concepts which, when analyzed, one can see the seriousness with which Ihde
treated the subject. For example, we see that Ihde
acknowledges that the issue of the relation of culture
and technology in the target communities cannot be
solved by a mere solution that would lead to the preservation of indigenous values and to adaptation to the
new technology. This is because in many cases the values that new technology brings with itself are in fundamental contradiction with the traditions of target
community societies. In this case, finding a solution
that can solve these conflicts is very difficult. Ihde specifically refers to Islamic societies and the issue of the
role of women and hijab [17, pp. 138-139], which cannot be downgraded to a narrow theoretical controversy
between modern Western civilization and Islamic societies. Modern society's requirement and that of media
technologies for women to be unveiled or to dress in a

way that is traditionally considered immodest is definitely contrary to Islamic teachings and way of life. Thus, it
is not easy to ignore this issue.
The first solution that Ihde discusses in detail is to
focus on the infrastructure that separates technology
transfer from the mere transmission of a product. In
response to the question of why some societies have
been able to industrialize by following the path of technology transfer and why some failed, Ihde says that
societies have succeeded in transferring technology
and industrialization that have provided the technological infrastructure in their own society. The two examples of the major infrastructure that Ihde discusses are
the number of graduates and students of experimental
science and the economic infrastructure needed for the
commercialization of scientific research. " A supportive
condition for a high-technology culture is an intensive
science education as part of the infrastructure, which
supports the enterprise. This crucial factor separates
First and Third World developments. " [17, p. 136].
Although this diagnosis of Ihde's can be a casual and
functional response, it has not been able to address the
deeper layers of the causes of such harms. Ihde's
answer, even if accepted, still leaves the question of why
some societies have not been able to transfer the requisite technological infrastructure. In some way, Ihde's
solution is one layer of a casual explanation and should
be analyzed in order to find deeper layers of reality.
Sohail Inayatullah has introduced the method of casual
layered analysis to analyze such phenomena, according
to which method, in order to discover the causes that
affect a social phenomenon, one can and should refer
to the deeper layers of the causative factors affecting
that phenomenon [22].
Perhaps if this answer was given by a technology policymaker, in a managerial context, it would have been
convincing, but when it comes to addressing the issue
of technology transfer from an abstract and philosophical point of view, theoretical infrastructures must be
explained. Theoretical infrastructures can clarify the
causes of phenomena such as a lack of economic infrastructures in the target communities of technology. If
the only issue is the number of graduates in the experimental sciences, a country like Iran ranks fifth in STEM
graduates, above many European countries [29], but it
is still considered a developing country. Possibly Ihde's
answer to this critique is that in countries like Iran, economic infrastructure has not been properly provided.
Perhaps a country like Iran has economic infrastructure
problems, but South Korea, which today is among the
industrialized nations, is also having the same kind of
problems. In an article devoted to technology impacts
in South Korea, Hyungsb Choi poses a question about
the South Korean community, asking why graduates

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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020

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