Some questions for thought:
Carr mentions that Taylorism is based on six assumptions:
1) That the primary, if not the only, goal of human labor and thought is efficiency.
2) That technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgment.
3) That human judgment cannot be trusted, because it is plagued by laxity, ambiguity, and unnecessary complexity.
4) That subjectivity is an obstacle to clear thinking.
5) That what cannot be measured either does not exist or is of no value.
6) That the affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts.
Do you feel that these six aspects of Taylorism are correct, or are they missing/overlooking something? Also, do you believe that these aspects of Taylorism can be found in internet companies like Google, as Carr does? Lastly, Carr says that Google is doing for the mind what Taylor did for the hand. Do you feel that this is true? Have we, through using Google, become “automatons” following identical online procedures and habits? If we have, is this a good change or a bad change (or maybe even a little of each)?
Carr also discusses the issues surrounding Google Book Search, namely that he feels the search “dismembers” books, ruining the cohesion and linearity of the text, all while placing other links, tabs, and ads nearby to distract “the reader’s fragmented attention.” Does Carr have a point, or is he overly concerned without a need to be?
I personally think that Google Book Search is a fantastic concept. I really think that the benefits to having all of the worlds books accessible online for free outweighs the negatives. By having all of the worlds books online for free, anyone who has access to the internet would have an incredible amount of literature, history and information available to them at their fingertips. Carrs concerns about the fact that the cohesion and linearity of the text would be disrupted by the hyperlinks and advertisements seems rather trivial to me. I think the way in which Google Book Search would be extending such a vast amount of information to people who potentially would never have access to it any other way is quite remarkable. Google Book Search to me is a perfect example of how the nature of the internet could affect the world positively. It offers such a rich and enormous spread of information around the world with no limitations and cost to those who wish to utilize it. I feel that Carr is definitely overly concerned and bringing up an issue that in my opinion need not even be discussed.
ReplyDeleteIn response to your first question:
ReplyDeleteI think that Taylor's six points were correct for the most part. Human thought is generally plagued by ambiguity and that people work better when they know exactly what their job is and how to do it well. However, he extrapolated too far from his own points by trying to make it a universal system. His boundless optimism in saying that his system would usher in a utopia seems extremely naive. I fail to see how decreasing individual agency could ever lead to a utopia. Taylor makes the mistake of assuming that increased efficiency is a totally good thing. However, as the industrial revolution showed us, efficiency at all costs makes for disgruntled workers, decreasing labor value, inhumane working conditions, and other facets of the dark side of capitalism.
In regard to efficiency, Taylor's six points are correct; our humanity gets in the way of coming to quick and accurate conclusions. As Greg said, "efficiency at all costs makes for disgruntled workers, decreasing labor value, inhumane working conditions, and other facets of the dark side of capitalism." Therefore, emotion, sympathy, empathy and personal judgement are all important to how we understand our lives and how we relate to other people. My point is that we aren't automatons and can't be because of the subjectivity of our thoughts. In order to function in society, we cannot be emotionless, doing everything for the sake of efficiency because our actions affect others, who can and will have subjective responses. I also believe that emotions and gut-feelings have value. Essentially, I feel Taylor left out a major part of human nature that we can try to suppress, but will always get in the way of efficiency.
ReplyDeleteWith that being said, I do not fully believe that Google is turning us into automatons, mostly because of the distractions it proves. To me, Google cannot be fully efficient because it offers the users so many links to click. Carr has been discussing this whole book how we are easily distracted on the internet. Google is efficient in that is offer users a lot of information in one place; yet, with everything being linked, people can follow their subjective whims to a dozen other sites that have nothing to do with the original search term. Google is simply the efficient portal for a world of distractions that are really not efficient at all.
The problem with the principles of Taylorism is that they take away from the biological element of humanity. We as human beings have the limitless potential that the machines Taylorism wants us to become. While I do like some of the goals that Taylorism has because it would enable us to improve as a society if we focused on them more than we do now, I believe that applying theory like this to living, breathing animals is wrong. We are not machines, and we cannot be though of as such. That being said, these principles are found all over the internet, especially in places like Google. The 5th point alone is entirely what Google is based off of. If something does not have a value, that is it does not exist somewhere in the cyperspace that is Google's search computer, it will not show up in your search results. Google is meant to act as the guide that Taylorism says that we as the stupid biologicals that we are need in order to be effiecent and smart. It may take us a long time to find the research information we are looking for, but with a guide like Google we can find the "right" information much faster and rely far less on our "flawed" human judgement. I think that following this model we have to some degree become the automatons that Taylorism wants us to become. Today instead of going to the library anytime we need to know something, all we do is pull up Google and type it in the search box. As a civilization we probally do this exact procedure millions if not billions of times a day for anything from car research to cliffnotes on Carr's book. Google has succeeded in making us the peons that it wanted us to be: heavily if not solely relying on it to find what it is relevant to what we are looking for. I think this is to some degree a good thing, however. While I don't like the amount of power and influence that Google has aquired through this, I think that it personally saves us a lot of time and work for the same results and information that would otherwise take hours of library searching and reading. I like the fact that through Google we have access to the information we are looking for quickly and easily, and the more relevant data is put at the top of the list without us even having to read it. I don't find any of the ads or links that Google has clogging up the page distracting or anything like that. I think that Carr is overly concerned about this and that he fails to see their value. I have personally used many of the ads Google puts at the very top of the results page in order to determine what product I want to purchase and these ads are not distracting because they are always relevant to what you were looking for in the first place.
ReplyDelete