After reading the article written by Vannevar Bush, I noticed a paradoxical link. So much of the effort and innovation of scientists during World War Two went to developing weaponizable technologies, such as the atom bomb, to win the war instead of these scientists’ actual areas of research. Moreover, many of the scientists who developed war technology later regretted it or had misgivings from the start, most famously Robert Oppenheimer. However, one can make the argument that without the menace of the Axis powers, many technologies originally used for warfare, but soon after adapted into commercial purposes, would not have been invented. Furthermore, I think this relates to a tangent we had at the end of class on Monday. A spider makes its web to catch flies. Without the need to catch flies, why would the spider need a web? Similarly, without the threat of military defeat why would the nations involved in the war have developed technologies such as nuclear fission, jet propulsion and better radar? I find this argument to be central to the question of why human beings do anything in the first place.
Does this mean that war is necessary for innovation? Conflict at least is in my opinion. If there is no discomfort, or vision of how things could be better, then no one would ever change anything. An unequivocal way to evoke change is through a stimulus. This may just be a regrettable fact of existence here, but it is inalterable.
I think you make a valid point about some form of exterior motivation being necessary for innovation, although I don’t think that stimulus is always war or conflict. For example, many recent technological developments are motivated by entertainment and consumer satisfaction. The newest iPhone, for example, seems to come from a desire to make technology easier and ore pleasurable to interact with. And, of course, a desire for money. Maybe the innovations that target more serious issues come from more serious conflict.
Hey Gray,
I think your observation about the historical connection between important technological innovations and the military/armed conflict is correct and well taken. This is certainly the case in the history of the internet, as well as Global Positioning Satellites, and the technologies which came out of the Cold War during the Space Race. We can even go as far back as looking at cartography, the study of map making. Advancements in the field of map making were largely motivated by imperial interests, yet had many positive consequences for trade and increasing cross cultural exchange and cosmopolitan sensibilities.
“Does this mean that war is necessary for innovation? Conflict at least is in my opinion.”
I think we need to be careful when we talk about the historical inevitability of conflict because it allows for the treatment of people as a means to an end, (I’m thinking of WWII here.) But I do agree, there does seem to be something paradoxical at play here.
In talking about Western technology and innovation we often tell the story of Progress in which Reason and discovery lead toward some Utopian future. Typically the story of the rationalization of society is traced back to the Enlightenment, the emergence of the free market, the industrial revolution, and the emergence of democracy. However these innovations also led us to great atrocities like the Holocaust and the Atomic bomb.