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The Unifying Aspects of Cultures

SECTION:

Technology and Culture

Chair of the section/Suggestions, Abstracts, Papers to:
Email: Jorge Bauer (Buenos Aires)

ABSTRACT: Culture and technology are two concepts with multi-faceted and multi-leveled interrelationships, whose mutual influences continuously become more and more interwoven.

On the one hand, it is clear and unequivocal that technology (and science) do not originate in an empty space, but are created by human beings, who integrate their individual and social knowledge, demands, needs, facts and conditions.

On the other hand, we sense more and more strongly, how the applications of science, research and technological knowledge are drastically influencing the lifestyle of millions of people.

The most visible example of this today for the "vast public" is seen in the technological trend in the field of information technology. But also in many other fields, which influence everyday life, as, for example, food production, health and/or production/work environment, drastic changes are now taking place, changes which always exert greater influence on "how people live and how our world will look today and in the future."

In this sense we cannot lose sight of the fact that today not only "power and war" are strongly interconnected with technological applications, but so too is "peace" in the broadest sense. Today the dream of the 18th century for "freedom, equality and brotherhood" is also connected with the understanding of influences, which technology exerts on culture and the economy. Especially in the case of the "Unifying Aspects of Cultures" the input of technology never behaves in a neutral way but can intensify asymmetries as well as cancel them out.
In this section colleagues in the fields of technology and cultural sciences are to address this problematic and not only describe difficulties and dangers, but also discuss new possibilities (among them an ethical view).

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THE UNIFYING ASPECTS OF CULTURES