Dressing Up
by Steve Baer
by Steve Baer
 |
 |
 |
There is something irritating about the talk of “soft
technology” and something irritating about the
people you hear using the term. At a recent
conference I remember a man who gave a talk about
appropriate technology. I don’t remember what he
said, but I remember what he looked liked. He had
on blue jeans, a heavy work shirt and a kind of
billed cap that I’ve seen people in machine shops or
the fellow who delivers our steel wear. He was
clean, his hands looked soft and he didn’t smell (he
sat in front of me after his talk). He also had a
peculiar and quite greasy looking vest on and a pair
of heavy work boots. He spoke about poor people
and working people. He was an assistant professor
at a University thousands of miles away and had a
grant for something to do with “appropriate
technology.” Why would he dress up like this? It
was hot and his get-up didn’t look comfortable. He
evidently envied something about the appearance of
people who work in shops and factories. He is able
to purchase similar clothes and does.
He probably also has done some of this kind of
work himself – so that in one way you couldn’t say
the clothes don’t belong on him. But, do they? Why
would he wear this get-up to the meeting? Did he
wear it on the plane also? He is ready to burden his
body with an uncomfortable costume in hot weather
to set himself apart from, I’d guess, the speaker who
would merely wear a sport shirt and low shoes. In
fact, lots of the speakers at this conference looked
just like him. I think he is typical of the people who
talk about “appropriate technology.” His specialty
is dressing up. He dresses himself up for this
ordinary event in a bizarre costume and he dresses
up his subject – reducing house heating bills – with
a lot of unnecessary terms and slogans – appropriate
technology, soft technology, retro-fit.
I think the key to his presence is the
government grant. It has got him on the plane and to
the conference, but it also explains the combination
of work clothes and soft hands and no strong body
odor; he can afford to live one way and dress
another. I think back wistfully on other meetings
with the “back to the land” hippies. There the guy
with the work clothes on probably also would smell
bad, but the topic he discussed, although perhaps
ridiculous, would be something he had tried himself
rather than a program he had developed to apply to
other people.
The soft technologist wants to take ides, old
inventions and dress them up in new terms – water
wheels, alcohol, windmills, woodstoves – these are
all familiar to us; now they are soft technologies.
Amory Lovins is well known as a soft
technology expert. I think he promotes double-talk.
He uses the terms soft technology and soft energy
paths repeatedly. In his book Soft Energy Paths, on
page 38, he has a graph “An Alternate Illustrative
Future for US Gross Primary Energy Use.” It shows
coal and oil and gas as the only energies presently in
use. Stating in the late ‘70s the soft technologies
begin and they provide more and more primary
energy use until by the year 2005 they exceed either
coal or oil. Lovins says with his graph that no one
burns wood, uses the wind, the sun or water power
in 1975. Maybe he just means that the 1975 uses
were not properly soft. I think what he really is
doing is confusing his phrases and speeches with
actual useful goods and services. If goods and
services that satisfy his definitions exist in huge
quantities before his arrival he fins it more flattering
to himself if he ignores their existence until he
comes along with a new name. I think this
inaccuracy comes from the dilemma of the people
who fancy that they are breaking new ground, but in
fact are doing nothing of the sort. The person
providing equipment and services has the objects
and their customers to occupy himself; he isn’t
constantly distracted by the need to pretend that he
has done something when in fact he has done nothing
at all.
These graphs of Amory Lovins dress up the
actual sources of heat, light and mechanical energy
in a way that confuses the reader just as the speaker
I listened to dressed up to confuse us into thinking
that he was the source of some useful work.
Steve Baer
technology” and something irritating about the
people you hear using the term. At a recent
conference I remember a man who gave a talk about
appropriate technology. I don’t remember what he
said, but I remember what he looked liked. He had
on blue jeans, a heavy work shirt and a kind of
billed cap that I’ve seen people in machine shops or
the fellow who delivers our steel wear. He was
clean, his hands looked soft and he didn’t smell (he
sat in front of me after his talk). He also had a
peculiar and quite greasy looking vest on and a pair
of heavy work boots. He spoke about poor people
and working people. He was an assistant professor
at a University thousands of miles away and had a
grant for something to do with “appropriate
technology.” Why would he dress up like this? It
was hot and his get-up didn’t look comfortable. He
evidently envied something about the appearance of
people who work in shops and factories. He is able
to purchase similar clothes and does.
He probably also has done some of this kind of
work himself – so that in one way you couldn’t say
the clothes don’t belong on him. But, do they? Why
would he wear this get-up to the meeting? Did he
wear it on the plane also? He is ready to burden his
body with an uncomfortable costume in hot weather
to set himself apart from, I’d guess, the speaker who
would merely wear a sport shirt and low shoes. In
fact, lots of the speakers at this conference looked
just like him. I think he is typical of the people who
talk about “appropriate technology.” His specialty
is dressing up. He dresses himself up for this
ordinary event in a bizarre costume and he dresses
up his subject – reducing house heating bills – with
a lot of unnecessary terms and slogans – appropriate
technology, soft technology, retro-fit.
I think the key to his presence is the
government grant. It has got him on the plane and to
the conference, but it also explains the combination
of work clothes and soft hands and no strong body
odor; he can afford to live one way and dress
another. I think back wistfully on other meetings
with the “back to the land” hippies. There the guy
with the work clothes on probably also would smell
bad, but the topic he discussed, although perhaps
ridiculous, would be something he had tried himself
rather than a program he had developed to apply to
other people.
The soft technologist wants to take ides, old
inventions and dress them up in new terms – water
wheels, alcohol, windmills, woodstoves – these are
all familiar to us; now they are soft technologies.
Amory Lovins is well known as a soft
technology expert. I think he promotes double-talk.
He uses the terms soft technology and soft energy
paths repeatedly. In his book Soft Energy Paths, on
page 38, he has a graph “An Alternate Illustrative
Future for US Gross Primary Energy Use.” It shows
coal and oil and gas as the only energies presently in
use. Stating in the late ‘70s the soft technologies
begin and they provide more and more primary
energy use until by the year 2005 they exceed either
coal or oil. Lovins says with his graph that no one
burns wood, uses the wind, the sun or water power
in 1975. Maybe he just means that the 1975 uses
were not properly soft. I think what he really is
doing is confusing his phrases and speeches with
actual useful goods and services. If goods and
services that satisfy his definitions exist in huge
quantities before his arrival he fins it more flattering
to himself if he ignores their existence until he
comes along with a new name. I think this
inaccuracy comes from the dilemma of the people
who fancy that they are breaking new ground, but in
fact are doing nothing of the sort. The person
providing equipment and services has the objects
and their customers to occupy himself; he isn’t
constantly distracted by the need to pretend that he
has done something when in fact he has done nothing
at all.
These graphs of Amory Lovins dress up the
actual sources of heat, light and mechanical energy
in a way that confuses the reader just as the speaker
I listened to dressed up to confuse us into thinking
that he was the source of some useful work.
Steve Baer