
Questions concerning AMAT,
technology and human reproduction
Dr. Patrick Fitzsimons,
Auckland Medical Aid Trust, 1999.
Mail address: P.O. Box 29095, Greenwoods Corner, Auckland

The Auckland Medical Aid Trust (AMAT)[1]
was incorporated under the New Zealand Charitable
Trusts Act in 1974. Although AMAT is
charitable, it is public rather than private, and is located in the 'not-for-profit'
discourse[2]. As a public institution it must make itself
accountable. This report is one of its means
of accountability.
AMATs objects can be summarised as
empowering it to address issues concerning: the support of human reproduction; and the
provision of education -- including the research, publication and dissemination of
literature -- about human reproduction. But
ideas such as 'research', 'education', 'human', and 'reproduction' are problematic in that
they depend, in part, on how they are interpreted under modern technologically mediated
conditions. As an example, to the extent that technological change is
proceeding beyond the capacity of many of society's institutions to interpret and adjust,
it is an inadequate move to attempt to explain knowledge
concerning human reproduction under one domain (e.g., within a medical discourse). There is therefore, considerable importance to be
attached to placing discussion of technologies on an agenda for critical debate especially
about how they will, and ought to, impact on education -- on learning, teaching, and
evaluation -- and also on the very process of policy formation[3]
-- and therefore, their impact on the objects of AMAT.
This paper contextualises AMAT's objects
within a space circumscribed by the discourses of technology, economics and culture[4].[5].
This emphasis concerns AMAT because
economic, cultural, and technological developments change the ways in which we know
ourselves[6],
what it means to be human, and therefore, reproduction of the human. This is relevant in terms of the objects of AMAT
because in an international context there is an educational focus to the relations between
neoliberalism[7],
globalisation and electronically mediated communications technologies[8]. Interpretation of its objects is therefore
important to AMAT.
AMAT as a 'Not-For Profit' institution
The philosophical basis underlying recent
societal and economic changes in New Zealand and several other Western countries has been
explained as neoliberal. Neoliberalism
represents a major shift in thinking about the role of government and its institutions
such as AMAT. Prior to 1984 New Zealand had a
tradition of organic solidarity which found expression in the welfare state where the
ethics of ordinary life shaped the economy. On
the back of international movements, the policy direction since 1991 has been to devolve
responsibility for welfare to local communities, especially the Not-for-Profit
organisations, sometimes referred to as the third sector, or the shadow
state[9]. A previous New Zealand Prime Minister[10]
argued that Not-For-Profits in the community are essentially part of the
governments targeted funding policy environment.
The role of recent New Zealand welfare reforms in supporting the overall
economic restructuring emphasises the role of community, with strategic result areas that
help to operationalise Government strategies[11]. In the Not-For-Profit language of the new welfare
economics, individuals are to become more 'self reliant while at the same time being
dependent on the community. This
situation is more than just a paradox; it disguises the ways in which charities are
increasingly being expected to supplement government funding.
Interpreting AMATs objects
An analysis of the language employed in
interpreting the objects of AMAT is important, as it is the place where actual and
possible forms of social organisation, and their likely social and political consequences,
are defined and contested[12]. As explanations for economic, cultural, educational
and technological developments change, so to do the ways in which organisations affected
by those changes (such as AMAT) can interpret or read its objects. By 'read' we mean to extend the category of what normally
falls under this verb. Certainly, to read out
aloud parts of a text (remember sitting on the schoolroom mat?) could be claimed as the
'reading' here. But that response relies on a
rather limited notion of reading. These types
of surface readings rely on a belief that there is a one to one correspondence between
language and the world which, of course, there is not.
Reading,
however, is rather more than this; it is to develop and test out interpretations. These interpretations produce new
readings which requires research, analytical and critical approaches, the
examination of arguments, and communication with others in community. In other words, since
interpretation[13]
suggests there is no essential meaning in the language itself, the reader (who interprets)
actually creates the meaning in a particular social context.
The value of that interpretation is, of course, itself a matter of
interpretation. Reading then, is another way of expressing the
idea of interpretation. As is already
apparent, this method (way of proceeding) stands against the inoculation
theory of reading where having read something once, you never have to read it
again. It is to suggest there are many
different types of reading, and that different kinds of texts require different kinds of
reading. The
AMATs objects then, have no meaning without a reader. And as the ways in which we read the discourses
change, so too do the possibilities for action and vice versa. Even legislation is interpreted in judgements in
Courts of Law and Acts of Parliament where interpretations are based on discursive change.
Suffice to
say that the AMAT objects require continual interpretation to produce
readings. However there is no
final reading as through (re)search and discourse developments many perspectives will be discovered. This
approach emphasises that knowledge is always politically interested (and thus partial) and
although different interests may increase the knowledge, it does not imply that knowledge
lacks neither objectivity nor truth. Neither
must this approach be understood as meaning that any logically possible interpretation
will do, but rather, that each meaning or change of meaning is an expression of particular
interests i.e., an exercise of power. Michel
Foucault, the French philosopher, calls this power/knowledge.[14] This continual exercise of power relations over
what counts as knowledge necessitates continual research on human reproduction
in order to facilitate the production of information for the 'public good' of New Zealand.
Interpreting the idea of reproduction
A basic assumption of this paper is that as
technology and knowledge interact, changes in one affect the other. It is important therefore to note their
developments and the relationships between them rather than searching for definitive
'causes'. In this sense, scientists and social
commentators need each other to interpret human reproduction and technological
developments in the light of each other.
The very idea of reproduction conjures up
images on the one hand of copying something already in existence and producing it again;
and on the other hand producing something new. Medieval
copyists regarded this as a pedagogical (teaching) relationship. (Re)production in the sense of copying something
already in existence could be regarded pejoratively as mere mimicry or cloning. Reproduction in this sense is merely repeated
production and that collapses the notions of production and (re)production i.e., there is
no difference.
A more adequate interpretation of
(re)production -- and one that AMAT subscribes to -- defines knowledge as evolutionary. That allows for the creation and integration of
responses to the world including our conceptual heritage, recent technological
developments, changes in the nation state and regional and global policy regimes.
Globalisation
Globalisation is an emergent feature in
explanations about our social life today. It
relates to the increasing interdependence and internationalisation of both formal
institutions (businesses, nation-states, media, the Internet) and dimensions of personal
identity (such as ethnic affiliation). At
first glance the rhetoric of globalisation seems to suggest that nation states are in the
process of powerful, irreversible social changes. Yet
there are also indications to the contrary: the resurgence of cultural, national and
ethnic forces; poststructuralist literature that problematises such notions; the
interactive relationships between nation states, global cities, and the regional and
global organisations supported by those same nation states[15]. The emergence of representations of the world as a
single place brought about by global homogenisation tends to imply either an ahistorical
account of the present or one that regards the history of globalisation in social
evolutionary terms. This is problematic insofar as contemporary globalisation is seen as
emerging out of earlier developments as the only possible present and the only conceivable
future[16]. In some sense, of course, the world has been
'global' for 500 years or more; and in an ecological, sense the world has always been
global. Yet contemporary trends seem to
indicate that something qualitatively different is occurring today.
Sassons[17]
interrogates the relationship between the nation state and the global economy under three
components of what she terms a new geography of power. The first component concerns the territorial
exclusivity of sovereign states and their importance in the international system. The second component concerns the ascendancy of a
new legal regime for governing cross-border transactions.
The third component is the problem of electronic space overriding all
existing territorial jurisdictions -- which may contribute to a crisis of control that
transcends the governing capacities of both the state and institutional apparatus of the
economy. An illustrative case is the attempt
to address these sorts of issues is the legislation[18]
enacted by the New Zealand Government as a result of its recent signing of the Hague Convention which is an international
agreement to regulate inter-country adoption according to rules negotiated under a variety
of discourses.
An almost instantaneous flow and exchange
of information, and capital and cultural communication now characterise the global economy[19]. These flows organise and shape both consumption and
production, including education. The networks
within which the flows occur reflect and constitute distinctive cultures. Both they and the information they distribute are
largely outside regulation by the nation state. The
growth of a global economy in conjunction with the new telecommunications and computer
networks that span the world has also profoundly reconfigured institutions fundamental to
processes of governance and accountability in the modern state. State sovereignty, nationbased citizenship,
the institutional apparatus in charge of regulating the economy, such as central banks and
monetary policies all of these institutions are being destabilised and even
transformed as a result of globalisation and the new technologies. As the idea of national borders becomes
problematic, so too does knowledge based on them.
Knowledge -- its economics and productivity
-- has become important as the basis for national competition within the international
marketplace. In a report on a recent
conference held in New Zealand, Bowen[20]
writes that "globalisation is allowing successful business models to enter new
geographies (and that) the explosion of information available from the Internet and
electronic commerce will reshape the way businesses function". Thurow[21]
suggests that a technological shift to an era dominated by man-made brainpower industries
is one of five economic tectonic plates which constitute a new game with new rules: today
knowledge and skills stand alone as the only source of comparative advantage. They have become the key ingredients in late
twentieth century economic activity. The
redefinition of knowledge as an informational commodity is underpinned by a rationality
that is different from traditional liberal definitions of knowledge. A glance at any modern western university calendar
shows that a study of knowledge in the liberal tradition includes such topics as:
scepticism; foundational, coherence and externalist theories of knowledge; apriori and
empirical knowledge; idealism and realism; truth; and relativism. These topics clearly do not figure in the discourse
of globalisation where information, by contrast, merely finds its utility in the market. With information then, there is something very
different from what has traditionally been understood as knowledge.
The new global economy is not just the
universalisation of capitalism after the collapse of communism; it also involves the rise
of finance capitalism, supported by the emergence of new information and communications
technologies, and a series of agreements concerning the liberalisation of world trade. The neoliberal paradigm for economic restructuring
has dominated the policy agendas of most western countries during the decade of the 1980s
with the abolition of subsidies and tariffs, floating of the exchange rate, privatisation
of state assets, encouragement of foreign direct investment, and downsizing and
commercialisation of public sectors. The
dominant philosophy of neoliberalism has contributed to the formation of
transnational legal regimes that are centred in Western economic concepts[22]
that themselves embody the micro-move towards contractualism. The deregulation of domestic financial markets, the
liberalization of international capital flows, computer networks and telecommunications
have all contributed to the growth of financial markets.
It has been estimated that by the year 2000 the value of capital in
financial markets will have risen to 83 trillion dollars, three times the aggregate GDP of
the OECD (the 27 most wealthy countries). Financial
markets, rather than investments in production, now drive economies. This effect of international finance is not new but
there are three major differences from the past: the instantaneous transmission and
interconnectivity of the information technologies; the concentration of market power in
institutions; and financial innovations that increase the supply of financial instruments
for trading. The rise of electronic cash
reduces the central banks control over the money supply because electronic money moves
through computer networks, bypassing the information-gathering systems. This leads to a disciplining function on national
governments and pressures them to become accountable to the logic of the market. Not-for-profit entities like AMAT are no exception.
The move from knowledge to information
Recently, there has been a fundamental
change in the ways that scientific, social, and cultural knowledge is being produced[23]. One of these configurations is the new
informational economy that has emerged in the last two decades on a worldwide scale. The emergence of a new technological paradigm
organised around new, powerful and flexible information technologies makes it possible for
information itself to become the product of the production process. In other words, knowledge about human reproduction is being produced through technology.
In this new mode of information, research
and transmission, the two principal functions of knowledge, have also been transformed by
technical and scientific developments. These
developments are themselves based significantly on language as a game within computerised
societies as they enter into what is known as the post-industrial age and cultures enter
the Postmodern Condition[24]. Scientific knowledge now defines the object of
study, but in seeking the truth it is obliged to legitimate the rules of its own game[25]. For the last forty years the 'leading' sciences and
technologies have had to do with language. The
developments have had to do with: phonology and theories of linguistics, problems of
communication and cybernetics, modern theories of algebra and informatics, computers and
their languages, problems of translation and the search for areas of compatibility among
computer languages, problems of information storage and data banks, perfection of
intelligent terminals, paradoxology. This list
is not exhaustive.[26] Science has played a leading role in technological
developments that are constituted by, and are affected by, knowledge.
Such technological transformations can be
expected to have an impact on knowledge. Cybernetics,
for example, aids research by giving genetics its theoretical paradigm. In terms of transmission of knowledge,
miniaturisation and commercialisation of machines is already changing the way in which
learning is acquired, classified, made available and exploited. Knowledge can fit into the new channels, and become
operational, only if learning is translated into quantities of information. Along with the hegemony of computers comes a
certain logic, and therefore certain sets of prescriptions determining which statements
are accepted as knowledge statements.[27] This knowledge is exteriorised with respect to the
knower and becomes a commodity: it is produced in order to be sold -- it has
exchange value. Knowledge now as an
informational commodity ceases to be an end in itself; it loses its use value. In this respect it has become the principal force
of production and has affected the composition of the work force. The mercantilisation of knowledge affects the
privilege that nation states enjoy with respect to the production and distribution of
learning. Since there are those who have
knowledge and those who do not, it is conceivable that knowledge will become
the major stake in world competition for power.
Multinational corporations already have
cross-national access to storage and control of channels of data and what counts as
knowledge. The State must therefore reconsider
its relationship to civil society as well as to the large corporations. The idea that the State can control or even guide
investments for example, needs re-examining, which has implications for the restructuring
of the State in New Zealand. Lyotard[28]
can visualise learning circulating along the same lines as money, where the pertinent
distinction would no longer be made between knowledge and ignorance, but rather, as is the
case with money, between payment knowledge and investment
knowledge. If this were the case,
communicational transparency would be similar to liberalism.
Liberalism does not preclude an organisation of the flow of money in which some
channels are used in decision making while others are only good for the repayment of
debts. One could similarly imagine flows of
knowledge travelling along identical channels of identical nature, some of which would be
reserved for the decision makers, while the others could be used to repay each
persons perpetual debt with respect to the social bond. Lyotard refers to this position as his working
hypothesis that defines the field within which he considers the question of the status of
knowledge[29]. It is also a working hypothesis that suggests a way
for AMAT to interpret its objects.
Technology and human reproduction
Andrew Feenberg[30]
argues that explanations about technology fall into one of two major categories;
instrumental and substantive. Instrumental
theories are the most widely accepted view of technology based on the idea that
technologies are tools for human purposes, neutral in value, universally applicable, with
their only problem being the use to which it they are put.
In this view, the only price for resistance to technology on environmental,
religious or cultural grounds, is reduced efficiency.
The instrumental definition makes the problem of technology seem only a
problem of mastering it. A focus limited to
the instrumental difference makes technology seem neutral, suggesting that there is
neither good nor bad technology, only ends. According
to Heidegger this view of technology is a sinister phenomenon of modern life because
whether we passionately affirm or deny it we are delivered over to it in the worst
possible way when we regard it as something neutral; for this conception of it makes us
utterly blind to the essence of technology[31].
In contrast to instrumental theories,
substantive theories argue that technology constitutes a new type or cultural system that
restructures the entire social world as an object of control; it has a substantive impact. Unlike the instrumental view, technology seen in
the substantive mode is part of life that subjugates humanity to itself. Heideggers work The Question Concerning Technology explains the
dehumanisation of modern society that he called the 'darkening of the world' where
technology enters into the inmost reaches of human existence, transforming the way we
know, live and will. As the development in
electronic technology continues it will become a mode of human existence. It has even been said that technology has reduced
us to the 'sex organs of the machine world'.[32] If this construction of existence is a regular
effect across cultures the cultural variety in the reception and appropriation of
technology will not matter. Accordingly,
technology will continue to affect more and more of social life, and less and less will
remain free to constitute a cultural difference. Heidegger's
substantive analysis shows modern technology with a determinate existence of its own -- a
notion of a 'will to will'[33]
beyond what Friedrich Nietzsche called the 'will to power'[34]. In Heidegger's theory of modern technology human
agency is irrelevant, and the new technological developments can be seen as providing
merely an illusion of freedom under a neoliberal rhetoric of utopian global economics that
promises a new technological mode of being. Although
we cannot live without technology (and nor would we want to), we are vulnerable when it
becomes our primary means of communication and, in the absence of agency, transforms us.
How can AMAT address these challenges?
In response to these issues AMAT will
restructure its capacity in significant ways, including:
·
the
establishment, funding and promotion of the AMAT
Research Institute to formulate, promote, and carry out and disseminate research
findings (of which the issues raised in this paper are part), and promote the educational
role of AMAT;
·
the
development of an Adoption Resource Centre
including the appointment of a paid Social Worker for counselling referrals and
information
·
research
(including feasibility studies) to address the burgeoning discourse in adoption, including
the Adoption (Inter-country) Act 1997 and New
Zealands signing of the Hague Convention
·
the
provision of a governance and shareholding structure for the clinical operation for
abortion, contraception education, and other aspects of womens health under the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act 1977,
through its limited liability charitable company, AMAC Ltd[35];
·
the
development and maintenance electronically mediated communication and information
technology to disseminate education and information, including its website: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~amat/amat.htm
·
the
appointment and education of Trustees with capacities that enable them to address the
issues that derive from the technological and other changes in national and international
regimes such as the electronic technological imperatives, neoliberalism, globalisation and
the 'informational' economy within which AMAT is implicated;
·
increased
AMAT administration capacity including the appointment of an executive officer;
·
increased
emphasis by AMAT on policy and research, especially into national and globalised
developments; and
·
the
development and maintenance of functional relationships with national and international
organisations.
References

[1]
AMAT's objects are:
 | "to establish and maintain a
comprehensive health and welfare service related to the human reproductive process and its
control (whether by means of contraception, sterilization, abortion or otherwise) and to
that end to establish, provide and maintain hospitals and clinics and surgical, medical,
pharmaceutical, counselling and welfare services
|
 | to arrange and conduct lectures
meetings and classes and to publish and disseminate literature and to do all other things
to educate the public in the facts of human reproduction and the human reproductive
process and of all matters concerning reproductive health and well-being physical and
social" (AMAT Trust Deed).
|
[2]
Hansmann, H. (1980). The role of nonprofit enterprise, in Oster, Sharon, (Ed.)
(1994) Management of Non-Profit Organisations,
Sydney: Dartmouth, 59. Le Grand, J. & L.
Robinson. (1984). Privatisation and the Welfare
State. London: Allen & Unwin, p.6. Smith
S., & Lipsky, M. (1993) Non Profits for Hire:
The Welfare State in the Age of Contracting, Harvard University Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, p. 37.
[3]
Peters M. & Roberts, P. (1998). 'Introduction' in M. Peters and P. Roberts (Eds.). Virtual Technologies and Tertiary Education.
Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, p. 29.
[4]
For a sample of this discourse, see: A Prospectus for the Western Virtual University
(1996). http://www.westgov.org/ smart/vu/wvuprorp.htm. Bell, D. (1976). The Coming of the Post -Industrial Society: A Venture
in Social Forecasting. Basic Books. (1973 original edition). Block, F. (1990). Post Industrial Possibilities: A
Critique of Economic Discourse. Los Angeles:
University of California Press. Borgman, A. (1984). Technology
and the Character of Contemporary Life: A
Philosophical Inquiry. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Borgman, A. (1993). Crossing the Postmodern Divide, Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press. Castells, M. (1989). The
Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring and the Urban- Regional
Process. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Fitzsimons,
P. (1998). Electronic networks and education in the postmodern condition, in Peters, M.,
and Roberts, P. (Eds.) Virtual Technologies in
Tertiary Education. Palmerston North: The Dunmore Press, pp. 196-211. Gee, J and Lankshear, C. (1994). The New Work
Order: Critical Language Awareness and Fast Capitalist Texts. In: Discourse: Studies in the cultural Politics of
Education, 16 1: 5-20. Ministry of Education. (1994b). Education for the 21st Century. Wellington: New
Zealand. Information Infrastructure Advisory Council.
(1995) Common Ground: Fundamental Principles for the National Information Infrastructures.
First Report (Http://stargate.con-ed.howard.e
chives/commonground.htm#access).
Peters, M. (Ed). (1995). Education and the
Postmodern Condition. Westport, Connecticut: Bergin and Harvey. (Forword by J-F
Lyotard.). Poster, M. (1994). A Second Media Age? Hinkson, J, G Sharp and D
White (eds). ARENA Journal North Carlton,
Australia: Arena Printing and Publishing, 3: 49-92. Lanham, R. (1993). The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology and the Arts.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Masuda, Y. (1981). The Information Society as Post-Industrial Society.
Washington: World Future Society. Poster, M. (1990).
The Mode of Information: Poststructuralism and Social Context. Cambridge, U.K: Polity
Press. Postman, N. (1993). Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology.
New York: Vintage Books. Reich, Robert.
(1992). The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for
21st Century Capitalism. New York: Vintage Books.
Rosenau, P-M. (1992). Post-Modernism And The
Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads, And Intrusions. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press. Touraine, A. (1995). Critique of Modernity. Trans. D. Macey. Oxford:
Blackwell. Vattimo, G. (1992). The Transparent Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.
(Trans. David Webb). Weedon, C. (1987). Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory.
London: Blackwell. Zuboff, S. (1989). In The Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work
and Power. USA: Basic Books. Harvey, D. (1989) The
Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change, Cambridge:
Blackwell.
[5]
See the literature on cybernetic organisms e.g., Gray, C. (1995). (Ed.). The Cyborg Handbook. New York: Routledge. See also Wilkie, T. (1993). Perilous Knowledge: The Human Genome Project and its
Implications. London: Faber and Faber.
[6]
Poster (1993) argues that these matters and the restraints or enhancements upon them
can govern with striking force the shape that societies take. For him technicist approaches do not approach the
heart of the matter, "the configuration of information exchange", or as he calls it "the wrapping of
language". He argues that the
configuration of language is an analytically autonomous realm of experience especially
with the rapidly changing modes of electronic communication that not only alter but
restructure networks of social relations and constitute subjects in very different ways to
the personally autonomous agent of the second stage and any representational view of
language. Changes in the wrapping of language
then alter the way meanings are derived, restructure social relations, constitute the
subject in different ways, and alter the relations between subject and the world.
[Peters, M.A., Marshall, J. and Fitzsimons, P. (1999) 'Postmodernism and the New Theology
of the Curriculum'. In: Lankshear,
C., Peters, M.A., Alba, A., and Gonzales, E. Curriculum
in the Postmodern Condition, New York, Peter Lang].
[7]
Neoliberalism is a form of power relations. It
constructs the notion of the minimalist state through the legal, institutional and
cultural conditions that will enable the artificial competitive game of entrepreneurial
conduct to be played to best effect. Entrepreneurial
conduct requires neoliberalism to promote enterprise culture where there is a
"generalisation of an enterprise form to all forms of conduct and the promotion of
enterprise culture through invented forms" [Burchell, G. (1993). Liberal
Government and Techniques of Self. Economy
and Society. Special Issue: Liberalism, Neo -liberalism and Governmentality, 22, 3: p.
276].
[8]
Peters M. & Roberts, P. (1998). ibid, p. 24.
[9]
These practices are alive and well in New Zealand. See e.g., Murphy, L. (1996). Zoo
likely to go to trust, not private. Wellington: The Dominion. Murphy reports the Wellington City Council is
considering a charitable trust to oversee its zoo. The
Council could then distance itself from it, but still retain some control. See also Wolch, J. (1990) The Shadow State: Government and the Voluntary Sector
in Transition, New York: The Foundation Center.
[10]
Bolger, J. (1995a) Investing In Our Future: Towards
2010: Companion document to the 1995 Budget Policy Statement, Wellington: New Zealand
Government. Bolger,
J. (1995b). Strategic Result Areas for the Public
Sector 1994-1997, Parliament Buildings, Wellington: New Zealand Government.
[11]
Bolger 1995b, Ibid p.3.
[12]
Yet it is also the place where our sense of ourselves, our subjectivity, is
constructed. The assumption that subjectivity
is constructed implies that it is not innate, not genetically determined, but socially
produced. Subjectivity is produced in a whole
range of discursive practices - economic, social, and political - the meanings of which
are a constant site of struggle over power. Language
is not the expression of unique individuality: it constructs the individuals
subjectivity in ways which are socially specific... subjectivity is neither unified nor
fixed. Unlike humanism, which implies a
conscious knowing, unified, rational subject, postmodernism theories ouf subjectivity as a
site of disunity and conflict, are central to the process of political change and to
preserving the status quo [Weedon, Chris. (1987). Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory.
London: Blackwell. P. 21)]
[13]
Interpretation is the philosophical method employed to make sense of a text
(i.e., in the broadest sense, what we read, e.g., printed materials, film, art, computers,
practices etc). Technically, the method is
called hermeneutics and has been documented as far back as the Bible.
[14]
Foucault, M. (1977). Power/Knowledge: Selected
Interviews And Other Writings 1972-1977. (Trans. C. Gordon, L. Marshall, J. Mepham, K.
Soper). Great Britain: The Harvester Press.
[15]
Sassons, S. (1996). Losing Control?: Sovereignty in the age of
Globalization. New York: Columbia University Press.
[18]
The Adoption (Intercountry) Act 1997
[19]
Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. The Information Age: Economy, Society
and Culture, Vol. 1, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers).
[20]
Bowen, R. (1999) Visionaries flourish in knowledge revolution, New Zealand Herald, February 12, C2.
[21]
Thurow, L. (1996). The Future of Capitalism: How Todays Economic Forces Will Shape
Tomorrows World. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, p.68.
[22]
Sassons, ibid, p. 17
[23]
The new ways are complex, hybrid, non-linear, reflexive, and heterogeneous. It is a new mode of production of information as
opposed to commodities. It crosses
disciplinary boundaries in that it contributes theoretical structures, research methods,
and modes of practice that are not located on current disciplinary or interdisciplinary
frameworks. One of its effects is to replace
or reform established institutions, practices, and policies.
Problem contexts are transient and problem solvers mobile. Emerging out of wider societal and cognitive
pressures, knowledge is dynamic. There is
continuous mutual stimulation between various nodes in a dense worldwide communication
network. As a result new configurations are
continuously generated.
[24]
Lyotard, J-F. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A
Report on Knowledge. (Theory and History of Literature, 10). Minnesota: University of
Minnesota Press.
[25]
Lyotard, ibid p. xxiii. See also Foray, D. & Lundvall, B. (1996)
The knowledge-based economy: From the economics of knowledge to the learning economy, in: Employment and Growth in the Knowledge-based Economy
OECD Documents Paris: Oecd. Peters, M. (1995). Education and the
Postmodern Condition: Revisiting J-F Lyotard. Journal
of Philosophy of Education. The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of
Great Britiain, 29,3: 387-400. Peters, M.
(Ed). (1995). Education and the Postmodern Condition.
(Forword by J-F Lyotard). Westport, Connecticut: Bergin and Harvey.
[30]
Feenberg, A. (1991). Critical Theory of Technology
, New York: Oxford University Press. See also Ellul, J. (1984). The Technological Society. (Trans. J. Wilkinson),
New York; Vintage Books.
[31]
Heidegger, M. (1977). The Question Concerning
Technology and Other Essays. (Trans. with Intro. W. Lovitt). New York: Harper &
Row, p. 4.
[32]
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media. New
York: McGraw Hill, p.46.
[33]
For an account of an electronic system that wills its own development independent of human
agency -- i.e., its will to will -- see Fitzsimons, P. (1998). Electronic networks and
education in the postmodern condition, in Peters, M. and P. Roberts (Eds.) Virtual Technologies in Tertiary Education. Palmerston
North: The Dunmore Press, pp. 196-211.
[34]
Nietzsche, F. (1968) The Will to Power. (Trans. W. Kaufmann and
R. J. Hollingdale) Ed. W. Kaufmann. Random House: New York.
[35]
This has been in place since 1993.
Top of page
|
The Auckland
Medical Aid Trust (AMAT)[1]
was incorporated under the New Zealand Charitable
Trusts Act in 1974. Although AMAT is
charitable, it is public rather than private, and is located in the 'not-for-profit'
discourse[2]. As a public institution it must make itself
accountable. This report is one of its means
of accountability.
AMATs objects can be summarised as
empowering it to address issues concerning: the support of human reproduction; and the
provision of education -- including the research, publication and dissemination of
literature -- about human reproduction. But
ideas such as 'research', 'education', 'human', and 'reproduction' are problematic in that
they depend, in part, on how they are interpreted under modern technologically mediated
conditions. As an example, to the extent that technological change is
proceeding beyond the capacity of many of society's institutions to interpret and adjust,
it is an inadequate move to attempt to explain knowledge
concerning human reproduction under one domain (e.g., within a medical discourse). There is therefore, considerable importance to be
attached to placing discussion of technologies on an agenda for critical debate especially
about how they will, and ought to, impact on education -- on learning, teaching, and
evaluation -- and also on the very process of policy formation[3]
-- and therefore, their impact on the objects of AMAT.
This paper contextualises AMAT's objects
within a space circumscribed by the discourses of technology, economics and culture[4].[5].
This emphasis concerns AMAT because
economic, cultural, and technological developments change the ways in which we know
ourselves[6],
what it means to be human, and therefore, reproduction of the human. This is relevant in terms of the objects of AMAT
because in an international context there is an educational focus to the relations between
neoliberalism[7],
globalisation and electronically mediated communications technologies[8]. Interpretation of its objects is therefore
important to AMAT.
AMAT as a 'Not-For Profit' institution
The philosophical basis underlying recent
societal and economic changes in New Zealand and several other Western countries has been
explained as neoliberal. Neoliberalism
represents a major shift in thinking about the role of government and its institutions
such as AMAT. Prior to 1984 New Zealand had a
tradition of organic solidarity which found expression in the welfare state where the
ethics of ordinary life shaped the economy. On
the back of international movements, the policy direction since 1991 has been to devolve
responsibility for welfare to local communities, especially the Not-for-Profit
organisations, sometimes referred to as the third sector, or the shadow
state[9]. A previous New Zealand Prime Minister[10]
argued that Not-For-Profits in the community are essentially part of the
governments targeted funding policy environment.
The role of recent New Zealand welfare reforms in supporting the overall
economic restructuring emphasises the role of community, with strategic result areas that
help to operationalise Government strategies[11]. In the Not-For-Profit language of the new welfare
economics, individuals are to become more 'self reliant while at the same time being
dependent on the community. This
situation is more than just a paradox; it disguises the ways in which charities are
increasingly being expected to supplement government funding.
Interpreting AMATs objects
An analysis of the language employed in
interpreting the objects of AMAT is important, as it is the place where actual and
possible forms of social organisation, and their likely social and political consequences,
are defined and contested[12]. As explanations for economic, cultural, educational
and technological developments change, so to do the ways in which organisations affected
by those changes (such as AMAT) can interpret or read its objects. By 'read' we mean to extend the category of what normally
falls under this verb. Certainly, to read out
aloud parts of a text (remember sitting on the schoolroom mat?) could be claimed as the
'reading' here. But that response relies on a
rather limited notion of reading. These types
of surface readings rely on a belief that there is a one to one correspondence between
language and the world which, of course, there is not.
Reading,
however, is rather more than this; it is to develop and test out interpretations. These interpretations produce new
readings which requires research, analytical and critical approaches, the
examination of arguments, and communication with others in community. In other words, since
interpretation[13]
suggests there is no essential meaning in the language itself, the reader (who interprets)
actually creates the meaning in a particular social context.
The value of that interpretation is, of course, itself a matter of
interpretation. Reading then, is another way of expressing the
idea of interpretation. As is already
apparent, this method (way of proceeding) stands against the inoculation
theory of reading where having read something once, you never have to read it
again. It is to suggest there are many
different types of reading, and that different kinds of texts require different kinds of
reading. The
AMATs objects then, have no meaning without a reader. And as the ways in which we read the discourses
change, so too do the possibilities for action and vice versa. Even legislation is interpreted in judgements in
Courts of Law and Acts of Parliament where interpretations are based on discursive change.
Suffice to
say that the AMAT objects require continual interpretation to produce
readings. However there is no
final reading as through (re)search and discourse developments many perspectives will be discovered. This
approach emphasises that knowledge is always politically interested (and thus partial) and
although different interests may increase the knowledge, it does not imply that knowledge
lacks neither objectivity nor truth. Neither
must this approach be understood as meaning that any logically possible interpretation
will do, but rather, that each meaning or change of meaning is an expression of particular
interests i.e., an exercise of power. Michel
Foucault, the French philosopher, calls this power/knowledge.[14] This continual exercise of power relations over
what counts as knowledge necessitates continual research on human reproduction
in order to facilitate the production of information for the 'public good' of New Zealand.
Interpreting the idea of reproduction
A basic assumption of this paper is that as
technology and knowledge interact, changes in one affect the other. It is important therefore to note their
developments and the relationships between them rather than searching for definitive
'causes'. In this sense, scientists and social
commentators need each other to interpret human reproduction and technological
developments in the light of each other.
The very idea of reproduction conjures up
images on the one hand of copying something already in existence and producing it again;
and on the other hand producing something new. Medieval
copyists regarded this as a pedagogical (teaching) relationship. (Re)production in the sense of copying something
already in existence could be regarded pejoratively as mere mimicry or cloning. Reproduction in this sense is merely repeated
production and that collapses the notions of production and (re)production i.e., there is
no difference.
A more adequate interpretation of
(re)production -- and one that AMAT subscribes to -- defines knowledge as evolutionary. That allows for the creation and integration of
responses to the world including our conceptual heritage, recent technological
developments, changes in the nation state and regional and global policy regimes.
Globalisation
Globalisation is an emergent feature in
explanations about our social life today. It
relates to the increasing interdependence and internationalisation of both formal
institutions (businesses, nation-states, media, the Internet) and dimensions of personal
identity (such as ethnic affiliation). At
first glance the rhetoric of globalisation seems to suggest that nation states are in the
process of powerful, irreversible social changes. Yet
there are also indications to the contrary: the resurgence of cultural, national and
ethnic forces; poststructuralist literature that problematises such notions; the
interactive relationships between nation states, global cities, and the regional and
global organisations supported by those same nation states[15]. The emergence of representations of the world as a
single place brought about by global homogenisation tends to imply either an ahistorical
account of the present or one that regards the history of globalisation in social
evolutionary terms. This is problematic insofar as contemporary globalisation is seen as
emerging out of earlier developments as the only possible present and the only conceivable
future[16]. In some sense, of course, the world has been
'global' for 500 years or more; and in an ecological, sense the world has always been
global. Yet contemporary trends seem to
indicate that something qualitatively different is occurring today.
Sassons[17]
interrogates the relationship between the nation state and the global economy under three
components of what she terms a new geography of power. The first component concerns the territorial
exclusivity of sovereign states and their importance in the international system. The second component concerns the ascendancy of a
new legal regime for governing cross-border transactions.
The third component is the problem of electronic space overriding all
existing territorial jurisdictions -- which may contribute to a crisis of control that
transcends the governing capacities of both the state and institutional apparatus of the
economy. An illustrative case is the attempt
to address these sorts of issues is the legislation[18]
enacted by the New Zealand Government as a result of its recent signing of the Hague Convention which is an international
agreement to regulate inter-country adoption according to rules negotiated under a variety
of discourses.
An almost instantaneous flow and exchange
of information, and capital and cultural communication now characterise the global economy[19]. These flows organise and shape both consumption and
production, including education. The networks
within which the flows occur reflect and constitute distinctive cultures. Both they and the information they distribute are
largely outside regulation by the nation state. The
growth of a global economy in conjunction with the new telecommunications and computer
networks that span the world has also profoundly reconfigured institutions fundamental to
processes of governance and accountability in the modern state. State sovereignty, nationbased citizenship,
the institutional apparatus in charge of regulating the economy, such as central banks and
monetary policies all of these institutions are being destabilised and even
transformed as a result of globalisation and the new technologies. As the idea of national borders becomes
problematic, so too does knowledge based on them.
Knowledge -- its economics and productivity
-- has become important as the basis for national competition within the international
marketplace. In a report on a recent
conference held in New Zealand, Bowen[20]
writes that "globalisation is allowing successful business models to enter new
geographies (and that) the explosion of information available from the Internet and
electronic commerce will reshape the way businesses function". Thurow[21]
suggests that a technological shift to an era dominated by man-made brainpower industries
is one of five economic tectonic plates which constitute a new game with new rules: today
knowledge and skills stand alone as the only source of comparative advantage. They have become the key ingredients in late
twentieth century economic activity. The
redefinition of knowledge as an informational commodity is underpinned by a rationality
that is different from traditional liberal definitions of knowledge. A glance at any modern western university calendar
shows that a study of knowledge in the liberal tradition includes such topics as:
scepticism; foundational, coherence and externalist theories of knowledge; apriori and
empirical knowledge; idealism and realism; truth; and relativism. These topics clearly do not figure in the discourse
of globalisation where information, by contrast, merely finds its utility in the market. With information then, there is something very
different from what has traditionally been understood as knowledge.
The new global economy is not just the
universalisation of capitalism after the collapse of communism; it also involves the rise
of finance capitalism, supported by the emergence of new information and communications
technologies, and a series of agreements concerning the liberalisation of world trade. The neoliberal paradigm for economic restructuring
has dominated the policy agendas of most western countries during the decade of the 1980s
with the abolition of subsidies and tariffs, floating of the exchange rate, privatisation
of state assets, encouragement of foreign direct investment, and downsizing and
commercialisation of public sectors. The
dominant philosophy of neoliberalism has contributed to the formation of
transnational legal regimes that are centred in Western economic concepts[22]
that themselves embody the micro-move towards contractualism. The deregulation of domestic financial markets, the
liberalization of international capital flows, computer networks and telecommunications
have all contributed to the growth of financial markets.
It has been estimated that by the year 2000 the value of capital in
financial markets will have risen to 83 trillion dollars, three times the aggregate GDP of
the OECD (the 27 most wealthy countries). Financial
markets, rather than investments in production, now drive economies. This effect of international finance is not new but
there are three major differences from the past: the instantaneous transmission and
interconnectivity of the information technologies; the concentration of market power in
institutions; and financial innovations that increase the supply of financial instruments
for trading. The rise of electronic cash
reduces the central banks control over the money supply because electronic money moves
through computer networks, bypassing the information-gathering systems. This leads to a disciplining function on national
governments and pressures them to become accountable to the logic of the market. Not-for-profit entities like AMAT are no exception.
The move from knowledge to information
Recently, there has been a fundamental
change in the ways that scientific, social, and cultural knowledge is being produced[23]. One of these configurations is the new
informational economy that has emerged in the last two decades on a worldwide scale. The emergence of a new technological paradigm
organised around new, powerful and flexible information technologies makes it possible for
information itself to become the product of the production process. In other words, knowledge about human reproduction is being produced through technology.
In this new mode of information, research
and transmission, the two principal functions of knowledge, have also been transformed by
technical and scientific developments. These
developments are themselves based significantly on language as a game within computerised
societies as they enter into what is known as the post-industrial age and cultures enter
the Postmodern Condition[24]. Scientific knowledge now defines the object of
study, but in seeking the truth it is obliged to legitimate the rules of its own game[25]. For the last forty years the 'leading' sciences and
technologies have had to do with language. The
developments have had to do with: phonology and theories of linguistics, problems of
communication and cybernetics, modern theories of algebra and informatics, computers and
their languages, problems of translation and the search for areas of compatibility among
computer languages, problems of information storage and data banks, perfection of
intelligent terminals, paradoxology. This list
is not exhaustive.[26] Science has played a leading role in technological
developments that are constituted by, and are affected by, knowledge.
Such technological transformations can be
expected to have an impact on knowledge. Cybernetics,
for example, aids research by giving genetics its theoretical paradigm. In terms of transmission of knowledge,
miniaturisation and commercialisation of machines is already changing the way in which
learning is acquired, classified, made available and exploited. Knowledge can fit into the new channels, and become
operational, only if learning is translated into quantities of information. Along with the hegemony of computers comes a
certain logic, and therefore certain sets of prescriptions determining which statements
are accepted as knowledge statements.[27] This knowledge is exteriorised with respect to the
knower and becomes a commodity: it is produced in order to be sold -- it has
exchange value. Knowledge now as an
informational commodity ceases to be an end in itself, it loses its use value. In this respect it has become the principal force
of production and has affected the composition of the work force. The mercantilisation of knowledge affects the
privilege that nation states enjoy with respect to the production and distribution of
learning. Since there are those who have
knowledge and those who do not, it is conceivable that knowledge will become
the major stake in world competition for power.
Multinational corporations already have
cross-national access to storage and control of channels of data and what counts as
knowledge. The State must therefore reconsider
its relationship to civil society as well as to the large corporations. The idea that the State can control or even guide
investments for example, needs re-examining, which has implications for the restructuring
of the State in New Zealand. Lyotard[28]
can visualise learning circulating along the same lines as money, where the pertinent
distinction would no longer be made between knowledge and ignorance, but rather, as is the
case with money, between payment knowledge and investment
knowledge. If this were the case,
communicational transparency would be similar to liberalism.
Liberalism does not preclude an organisation of the flow of money in which some
channels are used in decision making while others are only good for the repayment of
debts. One could similarly imagine flows of
knowledge travelling along identical channels of identical nature, some of which would be
reserved for the decision makers, while the others could be used to repay each
persons perpetual debt with respect to the social bond. Lyotard refers to this position as his working
hypothesis that defines the field within which he considers the question of the status of
knowledge[29]. It is also a working hypothesis that suggests a way
for AMAT to interpret its objects.
Technology and human reproduction
Andrew Feenberg[30]
argues that explanations about technology fall into one of two major categories;
instrumental and substantive. Instrumental
theories are the most widely accepted view of technology based on the idea that
technologies are tools for human purposes, neutral in value, universally applicable, with
their only problem being the use to which it they are put.
In this view, the only price for resistance to technology on environmental,
religious or cultural grounds, is reduced efficiency.
The instrumental definition makes the problem of technology seem only a
problem of mastering it. A focus limited to
the instrumental difference makes technology seem neutral, suggesting that there is
neither good nor bad technology, only ends. According
to Heidegger this view of technology is a sinister phenomenon of modern life because
whether we passionately affirm or deny it we are delivered over to it in the worst
possible way when we regard it as something neutral; for this conception of it makes us
utterly blind to the essence of technology[31].
In contrast to instrumental theories,
substantive theories argue that technology constitutes a new type or cultural system that
restructures the entire social world as an object of control; it has a substantive impact. Unlike the instrumental view, technology seen in
the substantive mode is part of life that subjugates humanity to itself. Heideggers work The Question Concerning Technology explains the
dehumanisation of modern society that he called the 'darkening of the world' where
technology enters into the inmost reaches of human existence, transforming the way we
know, live and will. As the development in
electronic technology continues it will become a mode of human existence. It has even been said that technology has reduced
us to the 'sex organs of the machine world'.[32] If this construction of existence is a regular
effect across cultures the cultural variety in the reception and appropriation of
technology will not matter. Accordingly,
technology will continue to affect more and more of social life, and less and less will
remain free to constitute a cultural difference. Heidegger's
substantive analysis shows modern technology with a determinate existence of its own -- a
notion of a 'will to will'[33]
beyond what Friedrich Nietzsche called the 'will to power'[34]. In Heidegger's theory of modern technology human
agency is irrelevant, and the new technological developments can be seen as providing
merely an illusion of freedom under a neoliberal rhetoric of utopian global economics that
promises a new technological mode of being. Although
we cannot live without technology (and nor would we want to), we are vulnerable when it
becomes our primary means of communication and, in the absence of agency, transforms us.
How can AMAT address these challenges?
In response to these issues AMAT will
restructure its capacity in significant ways, including:
·
the
establishment, funding and promotion of the AMAT
Research Institute to formulate, promote, and carry out and disseminate research
findings (of which the issues raised in this paper are part), and promote the educational
role of AMAT;
·
the
development of an Adoption Resource Centre
including the appointment of a paid Social Worker for counselling referrals and
information
·
research
(including feasibility studies) to address the burgeoning discourse in adoption, including
the Adoption (Inter-country) Act 1997 and New
Zealands signing of the Hague Convention
·
the
provision of a governance and shareholding structure for the clinical operation for
abortion, contraception education, and other aspects of womens health under the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act 1977,
through its limited liability charitable company, AMAC Ltd[35];
·
the
development and maintenance electronically mediated communication and information
technology to disseminate education and information, including its website: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~amat/amat.htm
·
the
appointment and education of Trustees with capacities that enable them to address the
issues that derive from the technological and other changes in national and international
regimes such as the electronic technological imperatives, neoliberalism, globalisation and
the 'informational' economy within which AMAT is implicated;
·
increased
AMAT administration capacity including the appointment of an executive officer;
·
increased
emphasis by AMAT on policy and research, especially into national and globalised
developments; and
·
the
development and maintenance of functional relationships with national and international
organisations.
References

[1]
AMAT's objects are:
 | "to establish and maintain a
comprehensive health and welfare service related to the human reproductive process and its
control (whether by means of contraception, sterilization, abortion or otherwise) and to
that end to establish, provide and maintain hospitals and clinics and surgical, medical,
pharmaceutical, counselling and welfare services
|
 | to arrange and conduct lectures
meetings and classes and to publish and disseminate literature and to do all other things
to educate the public in the facts of human reproduction and the human reproductive
process and of all matters concerning reproductive health and well-being physical and
social" (AMAT Trust Deed).
|
[2]
Hansmann, H. (1980). The role of nonprofit enterprise, in Oster, Sharon, (Ed.)
(1994) Management of Non-Profit Organisations,
Sydney: Dartmouth, 59. Le Grand, J. & L.
Robinson. (1984). Privatisation and the Welfare
State. London: Allen & Unwin, p.6. Smith
S., & Lipsky, M. (1993) Non Profits for Hire:
The Welfare State in the Age of Contracting, Harvard University Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, p. 37.
[3]
Peters M. & Roberts, P. (1998). 'Introduction' in M. Peters and P. Roberts (Eds.). Virtual Technologies and Tertiary Education.
Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, p. 29.
[4]
For a sample of this discourse, see: A Prospectus for the Western Virtual University
(1996). http://www.westgov.org/ smart/vu/wvuprorp.htm. Bell, D. (1976). The Coming of the Post -Industrial Society: A Venture
in Social Forecasting. Basic Books. (1973 original edition). Block, F. (1990). Post Industrial Possibilities: A
Critique of Economic Discourse. Los Angeles:
University of California Press. Borgman, A. (1984). Technology
and the Character of Contemporary Life: A
Philosophical Inquiry. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Borgman, A. (1993). Crossing the Postmodern Divide, Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press. Castells, M. (1989). The
Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring and the Urban- Regional
Process. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Fitzsimons,
P. (1998). Electronic networks and education in the postmodern condition, in Peters, M.,
and Roberts, P. (Eds.) Virtual Technologies in
Tertiary Education. Palmerston North: The Dunmore Press, pp. 196-211. Gee, J and Lankshear, C. (1994). The New Work
Order: Critical Language Awareness and Fast Capitalist Texts. In: Discourse: Studies in the cultural Politics of
Education, 16 1: 5-20. Ministry of Education. (1994b). Education for the 21st Century. Wellington: New
Zealand. Information Infrastructure Advisory Council.
(1995) Common Ground: Fundamental Principles for the National Information Infrastructures.
First Report (Http://stargate.con-ed.howard.e
chives/commonground.htm#access).
Peters, M. (Ed). (1995). Education and the
Postmodern Condition. Westport, Connecticut: Bergin and Harvey. (Forword by J-F
Lyotard.). Poster, M. (1994). A Second Media Age? Hinkson, J, G Sharp and D
White (eds). ARENA Journal North Carlton,
Australia: Arena Printing and Publishing, 3: 49-92. Lanham, R. (1993). The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology and the Arts.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Masuda, Y. (1981). The Information Society as Post-Industrial Society.
Washington: World Future Society. Poster, M. (1990).
The Mode of Information: Poststructuralism and Social Context. Cambridge, U.K: Polity
Press. Postman, N. (1993). Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology.
New York: Vintage Books. Reich, Robert.
(1992). The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for
21st Century Capitalism. New York: Vintage Books.
Rosenau, P-M. (1992). Post-Modernism And The
Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads, And Intrusions. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press. Touraine, A. (1995). Critique of Modernity. Trans. D. Macey. Oxford:
Blackwell. Vattimo, G. (1992). The Transparent Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.
(Trans. David Webb). Weedon, C. (1987). Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory.
London: Blackwell. Zuboff, S. (1989). In The Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work
and Power. USA: Basic Books. Harvey, D. (1989) The
Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change, Cambridge:
Blackwell.
[5]
See the literature on cybernetic organisms e.g., Gray, C. (1995). (Ed.). The Cyborg Handbook. New York: Routledge. See also Wilkie, T. (1993). Perilous Knowledge: The Human Genome Project and its
Implications. London: Faber and Faber.
[6]
Poster (1993) argues that these matters and the restraints or enhancements upon them
can govern with striking force the shape that societies take. For him technicist approaches do not approach the
heart of the matter, "the configuration of information exchange", or as he calls it "the wrapping of
language". He argues that the
configuration of language is an analytically autonomous realm of experience especially
with the rapidly changing modes of electronic communication that not only alter but
restructure networks of social relations and constitute subjects in very different ways to
the personally autonomous agent of the second stage and any representational view of
language. Changes in the wrapping of language
then alter the way meanings are derived, restructure social relations, constitute the
subject in different ways, and alter the relations between subject and the world.
[Peters, M.A., Marshall, J. and Fitzsimons, P. (1999) 'Postmodernism and the New Theology
of the Curriculum'. In: Lankshear,
C., Peters, M.A., Alba, A., and Gonzales, E. Curriculum
in the Postmodern Condition, New York, Peter Lang].
[7]
Neoliberalism is a form of power relations. It
constructs the notion of the minimalist state through the legal, institutional and
cultural conditions that will enable the artificial competitive game of entrepreneurial
conduct to be played to best effect. Entrepreneurial
conduct requires neoliberalism to promote enterprise culture where there is a
"generalisation of an enterprise form to all forms of conduct and the promotion of
enterprise culture through invented forms" [Burchell, G. (1993). Liberal
Government and Techniques of Self. Economy
and Society. Special Issue: Liberalism, Neo -liberalism and Governmentality, 22, 3: p.
276].
[8]
Peters M. & Roberts, P. (1998). ibid, p. 24.
[9]
These practices are alive and well in New Zealand. See e.g., Murphy, L. (1996). Zoo
likely to go to trust, not private. Wellington: The Dominion. Murphy reports the Wellington City Council is
considering a charitable trust to oversee its zoo. The
Council could then distance itself from it, but still retain some control. See also Wolch, J. (1990) The Shadow State: Government and the Voluntary Sector
in Transition, New York: The Foundation Center.
[10]
Bolger, J. (1995a) Investing In Our Future: Towards
2010: Companion document to the 1995 Budget Policy Statement, Wellington: New Zealand
Government. Bolger,
J. (1995b). Strategic Result Areas for the Public
Sector 1994-1997, Parliament Buildings, Wellington: New Zealand Government.
[11]
Bolger 1995b, Ibid p.3.
[12]
Yet it is also the place where our sense of ourselves, our subjectivity, is
constructed. The assumption that subjectivity
is constructed implies that it is not innate, not genetically determined, but socially
produced. Subjectivity is produced in a whole
range of discursive practices - economic, social, and political - the meanings of which
are a constant site of struggle over power. Language
is not the expression of unique individuality: it constructs the individuals
subjectivity in ways which are socially specific... subjectivity is neither unified nor
fixed. Unlike humanism, which implies a
conscious knowing, unified, rational subject, postmodernism theories ouf subjectivity as a
site of disunity and conflict, are central to the process of political change and to
preserving the status quo [Weedon, Chris. (1987). Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory.
London: Blackwell. P. 21)]
[13]
Interpretation is the philosophical method employed to make sense of a text
(i.e., in the broadest sense, what we read, e.g., printed materials, film, art, computers,
practices etc). Technically, the method is
called hermeneutics and has been documented as far back as the Bible.
[14]
Foucault, M. (1977). Power/Knowledge: Selected
Interviews And Other Writings 1972-1977. (Trans. C. Gordon, L. Marshall, J. Mepham, K.
Soper). Great Britain: The Harvester Press.
[15]
Sassons, S. (1996). Losing Control?: Sovereignty in the age of
Globalization. New York: Columbia University Press.
[18]
The Adoption (Intercountry) Act 1997
[19]
Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. The Information Age: Economy, Society
and Culture, Vol. 1, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers).
[20]
Bowen, R. (1999) Visionaries flourish in knowledge revolution, New Zealand Herald, February 12, C2.
[21]
Thurow, L. (1996). The Future of Capitalism: How Todays Economic Forces Will Shape
Tomorrows World. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, p.68.
[22]
Sassons, ibid, p. 17
[23]
The new ways are complex, hybrid, non-linear, reflexive, and heterogeneous. It is a new mode of production of information as
opposed to commodities. It crosses
disciplinary boundaries in that it contributes theoretical structures, research methods,
and modes of practice that are not located on current disciplinary or interdisciplinary
frameworks. One of its effects is to replace
or reform established institutions, practices, and policies.
Problem contexts are transient and problem solvers mobile. Emerging out of wider societal and cognitive
pressures, knowledge is dynamic. There is
continuous mutual stimulation between various nodes in a dense worldwide communication
network. As a result new configurations are
continuously generated.
[24]
Lyotard, J-F. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A
Report on Knowledge. (Theory and History of Literature, 10). Minnesota: University of
Minnesota Press.
[25]
Lyotard, ibid p. xxiii. See also Foray, D. & Lundvall, B. (1996)
The knowledge-based economy: From the economics of knowledge to the learning economy, in: Employment and Growth in the Knowledge-based Economy
OECD Documents Paris: Oecd. Peters, M. (1995). Education and the
Postmodern Condition: Revisiting J-F Lyotard. Journal
of Philosophy of Education. The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of
Great Britiain, 29,3: 387-400. Peters, M.
(Ed). (1995). Education and the Postmodern Condition.
(Forword by J-F Lyotard). Westport, Connecticut: Bergin and Harvey.
[30]
Feenberg, A. (1991). Critical Theory of Technology
, New York: Oxford University Press. See also Ellul, J. (1984). The Technological Society. (Trans. J. Wilkinson),
New York; Vintage Books.
[31]
Heidegger, M. (1977). The Question Concerning
Technology and Other Essays. (Trans. with Intro. W. Lovitt). New York: Harper &
Row, p. 4.
[32]
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media. New
York: McGraw Hill, p.46.
[33]
For an account of an electronic system that wills its own development independent of human
agency -- i.e., its will to will -- see Fitzsimons, P. (1998). Electronic networks and
education in the postmodern condition, in Peters, M. and P. Roberts (Eds.) Virtual Technologies in Tertiary Education. Palmerston
North: The Dunmore Press, pp. 196-211.
[34]
Nietzsche, F. (1968) The Will to Power. (Trans. W. Kaufmann and
R. J. Hollingdale) Ed. W. Kaufmann. Random House: New York.
[35]
This has been in place since 1993.
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