| Chapter 1: | Converting Consumers: The Conceptual Dependence of Controversial Artifacts |
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Basalla’s theory of technological evolution is characterized by four major concepts: novelty, continuity, diversity, and selection. He defines novelty as variations on old things. Basalla argues that the modern world spins out new artifacts as a matter of routine and compulsion. New artifacts constantly emerge from the old; thus a definitive link exists between new and existing artifacts. Old artifacts never completely disappear, even when new artifacts emerge to replace them. Consequently, technological diversity increases over time. However, certain selection decisions are made about which artifacts are to be fully developed and reproduced.3
Basalla argues that there is no universal criterion for functionality. Each society decides on the usefulness of a particular artifact. Local needs determine which things to keep, use, and replicate. This decision is not driven by some universal biological need, such as the human body’s need for water. On the contrary, an artifact may be useful to one society but not to another. According to Basalla, “Often it is difficult to determine precisely what is to be done with a new device.”4 For Basalla, things themselves do not force a certain use, despite their possessing an inherent momentum to diversify.
Basalla uses the example of the automobile to illustrate the social construction of technological necessity. The automobile began as a plaything for the rich during its first decade of existence, around 1895–1905.5 Basalla observes that the development of the automobile was not due to some grave international horse crisis or horse shortage.6 The motor truck was not a response to some scarcity in horse supply or steam-powered machinery. Rather, “the invention of vehicles powered by internal combustion engines gave birth to the necessity of motor transportation.”7 In other words, for Basalla things came first, followed by the need for them.
Basalla gives another, more basic example: the wheel. In Mesoamerica from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries, people created miniature wheeled figurines for religious purposes but never put the wheel itself to practical use, even though by this time its mechanical principles were thoroughly understood.8 Mesoamericans did not find wheels useful for their type of terrain and thus used them mainly for ritual and ceremonial purposes.9 Similarly, the automobile was initially seen as a nonessential in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. In both cases, the current local culture determined the efficacy of the artifact, although not necessarily all its features.
Basalla suggests that some aspects of a new technology mimic those of its predecessors despite having no contemporary applications. For example, the traditional cord handles of Congo pottery continue to be replicated in the design of contemporary pottery handles made from clay.10 He refers to anthropology to describe this phenomenon: