Günter Dinhobl (Hrsg.): Sonderband 7. Eisenbahn/Kultur – Railway/Culture (2004)
IV. Die Eisenbahn-Technik / Railway-technics - Manfred E. A. Schmutzer: Iron Rules Rule Iron Rails. Cultures and Their Technologies
Manfred E. A. Schmutzer As Chandler argues, the railways formed the hotbed of hierarchical civil management.27 One might say, that a technology reproduced its adequate culture. This argument gains additional support from Chandler stressing the autonomy of the accompanying, aforementioned social innovations. As a first conclusion, we can state that these technologies, as do many others too, take command of social structures. The advent of the car lured the upper classes away from the railway by offering a means of transport more in keeping with their individualistic desires of independence and self-determination. This seems to show that superficial adaptations, such as introducing luxury cars and second class carriages in the US, are unable to neutralize intrinsic qualities of technologies. Intrinsic qualities become manifest in space and time structures, which corresponds to - or counteracts - the peculiarities of lifestyles of a culture. If these structures run counter to a certain culture, the representatives of this culture opt for technologies more in accordance with and conducive to their lifestyles as soon as more appropriate options become available. The introduction of techniques of massproduction of firearms28 demonstrates how an organization, in this case the army, develops with considerable efforts a standardized technology adequate to its own hierarchical structure. But this is another story which would require another essay. Alluding to it helps, however, to answer a pertinent question: Who takes command? Technology over culture or culture over technology? Actor-network-theory tells us that social organizations are myths, if artifacts are not taken as equally important partners in the web. What is required is conformity of both elements - people and machines - to the guiding principles of such multi-actor fabrics. Technologies impregnate, penetrate and coin lifestyles and social structure, social organizations select, shape, and adapt technologies to accord to their lifestyles. 27 Chandler stresses repeatedly that this constitutes an independent social invention and is no copy of military structures; see C h a n d 1 e r : Scale and Scope. 28 S m i t h : Army Ordnance. 318
