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Technology as Magic
What gives the mass media, particularly advertising and television, their extraordinary power over our lives, so that even the most jaded and sophisticated among us are troubled and fascinated by their allure? The secret, according to Richard Stivers, in this brilliant new book, lies in the curious relationship between technology and magic. Stivers argues the two are now related to one another in such a way that each has taken on important characteristics of the other. His contention is that our expectations for technology have become magical to the point that they have generated a multitude of imitation technologies that function as magical practices. These imitation technologies flourish in the fields of psychology, management administration, and the mass media, and their paramount purpose in human adjustment and control. Advertising and television programs, in particular, contain the key magical rituals of our civilization.In a fascinating analysis of television programming, Stivers shows how various genres--news, sports, game shows, soap operas, sitcoms, etc.--have their distinct mythological symbols. Through dramatized information, they symbolically connect consumer goods and services to desired outcomes--the utopian goals of success, happiness, and health--thus enveloping technology, both real and imitation, in a magical cocoon.
- GenresNonfictionTechnology
250 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1999
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134 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 6, 2025
A book worthy of a long dinner-table conversation but I only have about 5 minutes. It's an important critique of the technological milieu, how its magical techniques of irrationality blind us to our capacity for moral judgment, and how 1) mass media 2) therapy culture and 3) management techniques work to keep us hypnotized.
One of the most intriguing aspects is it was written by a 1999 left-leaning humanist sociologist professor. Because of this we are able to see the dramatic & upsetting reversal of nearly (a very key exception!) principle of what it mean(t) to be left-wing. See this from the conclusion: "To become a radical today one must contest the power of the state, total administration, science in the service of technology, the mass media, and all forms of psychological technique. The global economy must be opposed, but behind it is the technological system."
That is one of the best summaries I have ever read of what it seemingly meant to be left-wing in the 90s/early 00s. However! It clearly cannot have been the core of what it is to be left-wing, because the nominal left has reversed every single position stated there with fanatical tyranny and rage. So why? Why does he see himself as a leftist then, why did I, and why do people like myself retain the above critique but now find themselves labeled the enemy?
The key to this is probably found in a too-brief comment in the same conclusion: "If moralism is destructive of freedom-the freedom of others-moral judgment is the highest expression of freedom."
This is a wonderfully telling sentence and all readers who are tempted to just nod and continue, I earnestly plead with you to read Augusto Del Noce. For my part: this sentence is true, but it is incomplete. It is wonderful in that it recognizes the importance of moral judgment to being human: and it is incomplete in its failure to recognize that "the left" were/are actually mere libertines who increasingly (and confusingly as they became more & more tribalistic and fundamentalist) weaponized the exercise of moral judgment & responsibility throughout the 2000s & 2010s.
This is because what is really at the core of leftism, something the author clearly was less concerned with or else he wouldn't have had the capacity to focus in on the technological milieu, is the destruction of limits centering on the bodily limits of sexuality and the limits created by philosophical realism (particularly in its Christian embodiment).
If my thesis is doubted I could provide heaps of unhappy evidence, but the schizophrenic abandonment of 2000s anti-war beliefs for the 2020s brainwashed egging-on of WWIII should be enough. It is not mere blind, stupid partisanship. The partisanship is because the libertine-left has correctly identified the party which has as its real core the rejection of Stiver's thoughts on technology, and they will switch anything & everything to serve their false god. The party's central ideology is the growth of power through the destruction of all limits: the passionate emotional rejection of shame in service to the rejection of reality. If Stivers was a true leftist utopian he could not have written this book. He favors reality as "sensuous, symbolic, and utterly ambiguous." Rene Guenon would agree, as would all traditionalists and most Christians. That is, tragically, something the utopian left can never accept because of a deep-seated emotional rejection of symbols and objective truths which may provoke shame or guilt. If reality means limits, if meaning entails responsibility, then limits & meaning must go. They want their techno-utopia even if it turns out to be hell - as CS Lewis clearly foresaw.
Despite passing over this critical point, Stivers is still correct in his analysis and helpful in identifying the forms & methods of technological-transhumanist tyranny. Recommended with enthusiasm.
One of the most intriguing aspects is it was written by a 1999 left-leaning humanist sociologist professor. Because of this we are able to see the dramatic & upsetting reversal of nearly (a very key exception!) principle of what it mean(t) to be left-wing. See this from the conclusion: "To become a radical today one must contest the power of the state, total administration, science in the service of technology, the mass media, and all forms of psychological technique. The global economy must be opposed, but behind it is the technological system."
That is one of the best summaries I have ever read of what it seemingly meant to be left-wing in the 90s/early 00s. However! It clearly cannot have been the core of what it is to be left-wing, because the nominal left has reversed every single position stated there with fanatical tyranny and rage. So why? Why does he see himself as a leftist then, why did I, and why do people like myself retain the above critique but now find themselves labeled the enemy?
The key to this is probably found in a too-brief comment in the same conclusion: "If moralism is destructive of freedom-the freedom of others-moral judgment is the highest expression of freedom."
This is a wonderfully telling sentence and all readers who are tempted to just nod and continue, I earnestly plead with you to read Augusto Del Noce. For my part: this sentence is true, but it is incomplete. It is wonderful in that it recognizes the importance of moral judgment to being human: and it is incomplete in its failure to recognize that "the left" were/are actually mere libertines who increasingly (and confusingly as they became more & more tribalistic and fundamentalist) weaponized the exercise of moral judgment & responsibility throughout the 2000s & 2010s.
This is because what is really at the core of leftism, something the author clearly was less concerned with or else he wouldn't have had the capacity to focus in on the technological milieu, is the destruction of limits centering on the bodily limits of sexuality and the limits created by philosophical realism (particularly in its Christian embodiment).
If my thesis is doubted I could provide heaps of unhappy evidence, but the schizophrenic abandonment of 2000s anti-war beliefs for the 2020s brainwashed egging-on of WWIII should be enough. It is not mere blind, stupid partisanship. The partisanship is because the libertine-left has correctly identified the party which has as its real core the rejection of Stiver's thoughts on technology, and they will switch anything & everything to serve their false god. The party's central ideology is the growth of power through the destruction of all limits: the passionate emotional rejection of shame in service to the rejection of reality. If Stivers was a true leftist utopian he could not have written this book. He favors reality as "sensuous, symbolic, and utterly ambiguous." Rene Guenon would agree, as would all traditionalists and most Christians. That is, tragically, something the utopian left can never accept because of a deep-seated emotional rejection of symbols and objective truths which may provoke shame or guilt. If reality means limits, if meaning entails responsibility, then limits & meaning must go. They want their techno-utopia even if it turns out to be hell - as CS Lewis clearly foresaw.
Despite passing over this critical point, Stivers is still correct in his analysis and helpful in identifying the forms & methods of technological-transhumanist tyranny. Recommended with enthusiasm.
October 20, 2020
Dated and often contradictory arguments coupled with a definition of magic that no one familiar with the term should accept obscure the few salient points that Stivers makes.
August 31, 2009
This book begins with this quote: "Our expectations for technology have become magical and our use of it increasingly irrational. Magic in turn has acquired a rational facade and is used like technology for purposes of efficiency." By technology Stivers means more than the newest gadget, but the "totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency ... in every field of human activity." For him, and here he follows French sociologist, historian and theologian Jacques Ellul, in our technological civilization, "everything becomes an imitation of technology or a compensation for the impact of technology." He claims our expectations for technology are magical and "have generated a multitude of imitation technologies that function as magical practices." And Stivers is more interested in the imitation technologies that have arisen amid our technological utopianism (his examples include mass media, therapy and self-help, and business management, all of which he defines as magical, "a set of words and practices that are believed to influence or effect a desired outcome") than in technology itself.
"Technology employs scientific information in the service of a material technique that acts upon the physical world, but magic uses information that is symbolic to influence nature or human beings. Magic establishes an indirect or symbolic relationship between a set of practices and a desired outcome so that the magical practices become, as it were, operational indicators of the outcome."
In the media the image has overcome language, eliminating old symbols and replacing them with shallow media symbols of success and happiness, survival and health, all of which are tied directly to consumption. I love his connection of TV advertising (and later business management techniques) with the role of magic in certain tribal groups - "As with all mythologized rituals, advertising can withstand the negative test of reality for there is always a next time: the possibility of perfection and the total fulfillment in the newest commodity." For Stivers, "a consumption-oriented lifestyle is a major part of adjustment to the technological system. It is our compensation for the diminution of moral responsibility and individual freedom." And this is Stiver's great fear, the diminution of discourse, of morality, freedom, creativity, and the individual before the all-encompassing technological reasoning and the irrationality that comes in its wake (In part the result of the connection of sex and violence with consumption - "as our instincts are given free reign, the more technological objects we will consume.").
This is a serious and thought provoking work that I have not begun to do justice to here. Stivers is cranky at times (like when describing the death of the humanities and the rise of magic in the modern university: "The modern university is almost completly technical and magical in orientation, in its administration, teaching, research, and student services.... students get the distinct impression that all knowledge can either be quantified or reduced to a logic.") It is not an easy read and not always as clear as it might be (particularly the second and third chapters which I had to read slowly and without interruptions, later chapters were easier), but one that I will be thinking with for a good while. He is not full of hope about our ability to remove ourselves from the technological utopianism of our society, but the book is also not fatalistic because true hope is found in more than the next consumer purchase.
"Technology employs scientific information in the service of a material technique that acts upon the physical world, but magic uses information that is symbolic to influence nature or human beings. Magic establishes an indirect or symbolic relationship between a set of practices and a desired outcome so that the magical practices become, as it were, operational indicators of the outcome."
In the media the image has overcome language, eliminating old symbols and replacing them with shallow media symbols of success and happiness, survival and health, all of which are tied directly to consumption. I love his connection of TV advertising (and later business management techniques) with the role of magic in certain tribal groups - "As with all mythologized rituals, advertising can withstand the negative test of reality for there is always a next time: the possibility of perfection and the total fulfillment in the newest commodity." For Stivers, "a consumption-oriented lifestyle is a major part of adjustment to the technological system. It is our compensation for the diminution of moral responsibility and individual freedom." And this is Stiver's great fear, the diminution of discourse, of morality, freedom, creativity, and the individual before the all-encompassing technological reasoning and the irrationality that comes in its wake (In part the result of the connection of sex and violence with consumption - "as our instincts are given free reign, the more technological objects we will consume.").
This is a serious and thought provoking work that I have not begun to do justice to here. Stivers is cranky at times (like when describing the death of the humanities and the rise of magic in the modern university: "The modern university is almost completly technical and magical in orientation, in its administration, teaching, research, and student services.... students get the distinct impression that all knowledge can either be quantified or reduced to a logic.") It is not an easy read and not always as clear as it might be (particularly the second and third chapters which I had to read slowly and without interruptions, later chapters were easier), but one that I will be thinking with for a good while. He is not full of hope about our ability to remove ourselves from the technological utopianism of our society, but the book is also not fatalistic because true hope is found in more than the next consumer purchase.
December 2, 2009
I read this book for my Society and Technology class at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was very impressed. Since it was based on the work of Jaques Ellul it contains many eye opening truths that are further updated for our technological society. I strongly recommend reading this book, however be warned, it will make you start to analyze the extent of our lack of knowledge of how living in a technological society is not an advancement of humanity but really a repression.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews