IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2020 - 79

There is no doubt that different cultures today are
exposed, and in some cases interact with each other,
through communication and media technology more
than ever before. But Ihde's theory of pluriculture regarding cultural convergence, has two major disadvantages.
First, pluriculture does not mean the cohesion and unification of the cultural principles and foundations of the
societies that have contradictions with Western thought.
There are theories and philosophies behind basic cultural contradictions to the West that cannot be unified in
pluriculture. Therefore, infrastructure and philosophical
disputes in these societies have led to deep social gaps
between various groups and, even further, have resulted
in the dichotomy in the individual's personality. Second,
Ihde's claim regarding the destruction of the West's centrality is likely to be true in some of his examples such
as cooking.15 However, if we consider the big picture of
what he calls pluriculture, fundamental contradictions
between various cultures and the West have always
ended up with the Western thoughts prevailing. To demonstrate the second critique, we have described the fundamental incompatibility of some cultures with the
West, but we have not mentioned enough evidence
regarding Western cultural dominance. What follows will
explain the reason behind this dominance.
In short, Ihde uses concepts such as multistability
and ambiguity of technology to deny technological
determinism and the possibility of adapting technology
to the culture of destination communities. He uses
some examples of exceptional applications of technology based on the cultural context of societies such as
primitive New Guineans' headwear decorated with oval
sardine cans. This statement might be true for an individual example or case, but Ihde rushes to a major conclusion about communities and technology's presence
in other cultural contexts by these individual examples.
When technology first enters society with its specific
cultural contexts, it can have a different function than
what its designers intended, but this does not mean that
the technology will be used the same way over time.
Although technologies might seem to be specific tools
that can be adapted to another cultural context, they
must be placed into a network of tools and understandings in order to be used in the correct way. For further
explanations of this critique, we must apply the model
of Latour, the French philosopher, to have a networkbased description of technology.
Latour states that technology must be placed in a
network of actors in order to make sense. This network
is hidden for users until it breaks down or there is a
15
Although in the case of cooking, there are also serious issues of forbidden foods in different religions. For more information, see " Responses to
religious norm defection: The case of Hui Chinese Muslims not following
the halal diet " [40].

DECEMBER 2020

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theoretical approach to understand it [27, p. 183]. In
other words, the understanding and operation of a technological tool takes place in a set of related technologies that create a network. As the meaning of the word
" actor " conveys in the theater, each member of the network is obliged to play his role in the screenplay as an
actor [28, p. 46]. This theory of Latour's has two
aspects; the first aspect is the fact that each tool finds
its application in a network of other tools and the second aspect, which is more related to our subject, is the
direction that the network gives to actors over time. This
means that when a network of technologies is almost
set up, it changes meaning for the actors and gives
them a new role. Therefore, changing the function of a
technology may seem possible at the time of its entry,
but for long-term stability, it should find its meaning on
the indigenous technological network. Practically, over
time, puzzle pieces of foreign network-actors will gradually change the meaning of older devices that have had
different functions. Suppose that in a theater on stage,
an actor does something irrelevant to the role of other
players and the theater design. In such a situation, the
show will look vague and be disordered. Therefore,
either the show will finish with no meaningful ending, or
the actors and the director must manage the show in
order for the outlandish player to find his meaningful
role in the new story and gradually join the entire show.
To clarify further, let us look at an example from Iranian society. As mentioned above, the architecture of
today's houses in Iran is far removed from its traditional
and cultural infrastructures. However, this change has
not happened overnight. The new style of urbanization
in Iran has no long history behind it and dates back to
at most eighty years. Examples of these houses still
exist. These buildings have been constructed using the
new tools and technologies of that time, but the designers have tried to maintain the cultural and traditional
principles and beliefs. These houses contain an interior
(a place dedicated for the members of the family and
not observable from outside) and an exterior (a shared
place where guests were hosted), as well as a toilet that
is located somewhere outside the house. Certain parts
of Iranian architecture, such as traditional pools, continue to exist. However, as time goes on, these concepts
are gradually eliminated from Iranian architecture and
features similar to Western architecture begin to
emerge, from open kitchens to large windows and undivided living spaces. To study this evolution, we must
observe a group of factors, technologies, tools, and
ideas that have lost their relevance to traditional Iranian
houses and architecture over the years. Similar to many
other undeveloped societies, Iranian society has been
invaded by modernization and use of Western technologies for the last half a century, and as it has been said,

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