Artifacts?

Do artifacts have politics? Of course not. such(prenominal) has been for m each years the common sense answer: adept objects argon as neutral as Aesops tongue. They simply present the shape given to them. But when the philosopher Langdon Winner raised the question, some(prenominal) decades ago, his answer was a resounding yes: far from being neutral, technologies could embody subjection in such a devious way that it was do irreversible. One of his favourite examples will be familiar to completely urbanists. When Robert Moses began to redesign New York parkways, he made sure that the tie giving access to his beloved beaches and recreational parks would be so low that buses could not pass under them. Since, at the epoch, blacks were not rich enough to own private cars, this meant that Moses, without both apartheid laws, without even the appearance of impropriety, could maintain his beaches as free of any miscegenation as if he had created a racist natural law to enforce his edict: For whites only. Hence Winners shoemakers last: not only artifacts have politics, but its the most contrary of all since they hide their biases under the appearance of objectivity, efficiency or mere expediency. This is indeed a nice story.

And there is no doubt when you drive along New York parkways that, to this day, parkways bridges are indeed low, so low in fact that trucks and buses motionlessness ram into them regularly. But what does it mean to say that bridges embody, reify or stuffise some political intent? That designers use detours through material objects to enforce types of behaviour, everyone who has been made to slow down near a school because of the silent presence of a speed pickle (also called a sleeping policeman) would readily agree. Yes, we are made to do things we would not have done otherwise every time we enter into contact with an artifact: when we want to boil water for our morning coffee, lock a door behind us, reduce our seat belt before our car engine starts, and so on about two... If you want to get a extensive essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com

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