Mini Seminar: Technology and the Prophetic Voice

Christian and secular writers appear to make a similar argument: they claim that contemporary culture has gone awry because we idolize technology, and in doing so, have lost sight of crucial fundamental values.

Lee Vinsel, Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech, argues that there is good reason to listen to such thinkers, including Jacques Ellul,  Theodore Adorno, and Max Horkheimer, but also that such views bump into limits. Vinsel also points to more fruitful lines of criticism and hopeful visioning, drawing on examples from Virginia Tech’s Innovation Campus to Christian social activist Catherine Coleman Flowers’ battle to ensure the rural poor have access to functioning septic tanks and sewage systems.

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Lee Vinsel is Assosciate Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech. He studies human life with technology, with a particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change.