technological milieu

is a milieu in which humans are now embedded, independent of human intervention and self-determining. It the neither benign nor evil realm within which such matters as human freedom must be addressed.

Jacques Ellul, one of the leading exponents of this view, goes so far as to argue that humans are now embedded in a technological milieu (something he terms 'technique') rather than a natural milieu (Ellul 1963). This milieu is internally consistent, like nature, and is self-determining in the sense that it is independent of human intervention. Social phenomena exist within this context, not in separate-but-equivalent domains of human behaviour. The technological milieu is value-neutral, neither necessarily benign nor necessarily evil. Nevertheless, it is the essential context within which such matters as human freedom must be addressed.' (Wynn in Ingold 141) Wynn, Thomas. Tools and Tool Behavior.

technological milieu, n.All

technological milieu