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ULG Frieden ULG Frieden

Mag. Dr. Wolfgang Sützl, MA Mag. Dr. Wolfgang Sützl, MA

956304

Swords and Ploughshares - Technology in War and Peace

SE 6

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Following a strong interest in technology during the disarmament debates of the eighties and nineties, issues of technology now seem to occupy a marginal position within peace studies. Theories of peace often disregard the question of technology, considering it as merely instrumental and as a "technicality". But the fallacy of the common understanding of technology as "morally neutral" still becomes strikingly apparent in military technology. We will examine different perspectives on the "nature" of technology at the beginning of the course, and develop a non-technical understanding of technology that facilitates a critique of the instrumentalism, of which the philosopher and peace activist Günther Anders said that it leads to a "moral blindness" capable of technically nullifying efforts for peace. In the second part of the course we will look at the history of the relationships between technology, war, and peace. Starting in pre-modern and leading on to modern and post-modern settings, we will investigate how technologies have acted as history-in-the-making, decisively influencing not only warfare, but also the possibilities of criticizing war and building peace. Finally, we will examine the meaning of the biblical exhortation of "beating swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning-hooks" in the globalized present, where "war and peace" are increasingly substituted by the dual concept of "security and terror". In doing so, we will look at some of the most decisive technological developments in the area of information and communication technologies and biotechnology.

aktive Mitarbeit und schriftliche Arbeit

lt. Course-Reader

Beginn: 01.08.2005

01.08.-13.08.; 10.00 - 13.00, 14:00-17:00, Tiroler Bildungsinstitut Grillhof