2.1. Introduction

In the early 1980s, Jocelyn De Noblet published a manifesto for the Development of a Technical Culture emphasizing that technology was “doomed to break into” culture [DEN 81, p. 14].

This intrusion probably refers to the thinking of Gilbert Simondon who argued for the “possibility of making the technical being part of culture” since the late 1950s [SIM 12, p. 18]:

Culture is unbalanced because while it recognizes certain objects, like the aesthetic object, granting them the right of citizenship in the world of meanings, it banishes other objects, and in particular technical objects, into a structureless world of things that have no meanings, but only a function, a practical function [SIM 12, p. 10].

This absence of technology in the world of meanings poses numerous problems:

First, it is difficult to see how our technical objects reveal human values and thus shape our cultures. If we hide this, then it becomes difficult to understand how technical objects are also about structure and choice. It also prevents us from seeing how charged with meaning they are.

Secondly, we confine our relationship to technology into a relationship of alienation emanating from the technical object, whereas, according to Gilbert Simondon, the latter resides not in the object itself but in:

this misunderstanding of the machine, which is not an alienation caused by the machine but by a failure to come to an understanding of its nature and essence […] [SIM 12, p. 10].

This observation has also been made by Philippe Roqueplo since 1983 when he affirmed that:

Technical culture comprises the possession of the knowledge and know-how likely to establish a minimum of personal mastery on our environment and control on the activity of those whose competence proves indispensable. The general absence of this culture is a cause of widespread alienation. Its development is therefore necessary to eliminate, as far as possible, this alienation [ROQ 83, pp. 37–38].

A sociologist specializing in usage, Jacques Perriault [PER 98], goes in this direction when he highlights this tendency, where intellectuals have to consider technology only under the viewpoint of subservience. Finally, the creator of the manifesto, mentioned above, asserts that it is technical culture that would enable humankind to master their environment [DEN 81] and not the object per se.

Unfortunately, the panorama drawn up almost 40 years ago by Jocelyn De Noblet [DEN 81] is still relevant today as the current upheavals in society invite us to reinvest in the concept of technical culture, to think about the meaning of the objects we conceive and, through them, the world in which we live.

The question is why, when the artificialization of our world has never been so important, technical culture is still struggling to develop? How and why have we moved from a period when “technology was the subject of extremely fundamental social debates […] by the conception of man it presupposes and the type of humanity it builds” [HER 97, p. 20] to a period when technology is no longer questioned as much, nor thought of? Roger Lesgards makes the same diagnosis:

Have not technological evolutions undertaken to upset our notion of time […] our appreciation of nearby as well as distant space, our system of representing of the world, our relationship to life, to thought, to the body, to illness, to disability, to work, to leisure? In the face of these radical changes, thinking is lagging behind, or even worse, is at odds with it [LES 94, p. 10].

Is it the concept of technical culture that seems too dated, outdated or too ideologically connoted?

The hypothesis we formulate is that, in a society where innovation is considered vital by 84% of leaders to benefit from global economic recovery [BCG 10], we think more about innovative developments than the meaning we could give to technology and our relationship to it. In this context, the advent of what some call the “innovation culture” thus relegates technical culture to the background.

Yet, can we innovate in the absence of a technical culture, if we do not see that the world has changed, that we no longer have the same lifestyles, aspirations, dreams and knowledge? Are we not condemned to produce “incremental” innovations that are even dangerous for humans and their environment in the absence of a technical culture or, to put it another way, if we leave the question of the meaning of innovation in the shadows?

It is precisely these questions that this chapter seeks to provide some answers to. To do this, we will first define what the concept of technical culture covers. We will then ask ourselves what the possible reasons are for the “segregation” of technical culture. Finally, we will focus on innovation culture by showing how it hides technical culture development.

2.2. Culture and technical culture

2.3. Technical culture as we understand it

The above definitions have highlighted the possibility of thinking of this technical culture from a multi-level approach, and also of thinking of it in its reflective and active dimension. For our part, these points of view are not contradictory and must be brought together. We also believe it is important to include an “actor” component in the definition of technical culture, from the perspective proposed by Yves Deforge. Let us clarify our point of view.

The technical culture can indeed be thought from a multi-level approach. On a first level, it is a question of knowledge relating to the structure of the object, such as the relations between the various units which compose it. More specifically, the functional approach makes it possible to:

• – describe in schematic form the functioning of the technical object (structured breakdown of the purpose into service functions, function into technical function);
• – associate with each functional block the components performing a function;
• – establish a sketch of the energy supply circuit and information circuit.

This first level, which corresponds to a functional approach to technology, allows us to understand what a technical object is made of and how it works². On the other hand, it does not make it possible to understand why a certain technical object appears at a given time and in a given place.

At a second level, it is a question of knowledge and know-how developed and mobilized to use the technical objects that surround us. For example, when we use computer objects such as smartphones or computers, we implicitly use acquired knowledge relating to the use of the considered object. Indeed, we know how to save documents, download applications, use Wi-Fi or 4G, etc. This operational knowledge refers to projects, intentions that make sense for users insofar as they correspond to their way of life, their values, their needs, and are also part of strategic, autonomy or integration logic [PRO 12]. Therefore, if younger people master, for example, technological innovations in information and communication technology (ICT) such as new applications and social networks, this responds to a desire for autonomy, an ideological conception of communication articulated to a strong need for sociability [DAU 12]. The older generations, for their part, sometimes seem to prefer to master a single tool but in a more in-depth way, not having the same sensitivity to novelty [GUE 13] nor the same ease with new technologies. This knowledge and related knowledge that “makes use of” depends on the social, cultural, economic and political environment in which the user acts. It is at this second level that we can observe this “social depth of use” [JOU 03]. It is also at this level that we are interested in what technical objects do to users (usability aspect in the wake of Madeleine Akrich’s work), and also “what users do with technical objects”, which thus leads us to recognize the activity of the latter in the “trajectories” [PER 98] of technical objects. Michel de Certeau’s [DEC 90] work on misappropriation is fundamental in this regard. In France, the history of the development of Minitel since the late 1970s is also very interesting. It shows both how the public authorities wanted future users to participate (choice of keyboard, test phases) during the design and how users finally liked certain uses whose scope had not been anticipated (user-friendly messaging was indeed an unplanned resounding success) [SCH 12].

The last level is made up of a set of knowledge on the modes of existence of technical objects that make it possible to think and design technical objects and the meaning they carry within the society in which they are deployed. It is at this level, more general and macroscopic than that of users, that it is possible to consider that techniques in general are part of and modify power relations and the feeling of belonging [BON 13], and that in this sense, they are not outside the societies that they shape and that see them develop. For example, it is interested in recent political and sociological developments around the amateur [FLI 10], a certain form of empowerment made possible by the Internet and innovations linked to digital technology.

At these three levels, we can associate “points of view”: at the first level, that of the “technologist and engineer”; at the second level, that of the user; and at the last level, that of the citizen. For example, when the engineer “borrows” the role of the technologist, he or she will be essentially concerned with the functional qualities of the product he or she studies or designs and the search for the most satisfying solution because the experienced designer knows that the ideal solution does not exist. When borrowing the habits of the user, the engineer will mobilize the values, norms and habits of the person who will use the object or service on which he is working. He will put the use of the object in context by taking into account the “social depth” that the use has. It will consider that there may be several types of use or even users for the same object (up to their non-use) or that use changes over time or from one geographical area to another. This second point of view leads the engineer to describe and understand what individuals do, by accessing their particular situation from within, which allows him to approach and understand universes that may be foreign to him, to get rid of his prejudices, and also to appreciate the relevance of his concept with regard to the identified real needs [CHO 18]. When the engineer finally positions himself or herself as a citizen, then his or her view is more global. It is at this third level that he can question the meaning, considered both as direction and meaning, of the development of this or that innovation. For example, what do we contribute to society when we offer the possibility to play or chat online? What effect does the virtualization of our world have on the functioning of our societies? For example, we may wonder about the meaning of public service at a time when these services are entirely digital. It is at this level that the engineer questions himself or herself, projects himself or herself on what impact technology has on society and the world as we understand it, to the power distribution, participation modes and decision-making, etc. This is precisely what Google’s former “product philosopher” Tristan Harris said about our relationship with our smartphone, deploring that Silicon Valley companies are pushing us to spend as much time as possible on their interfaces, so “millions of hours are just stolen from people’s lives and there isn’t a single public debate about it” [MAR 16].

Whatever the level considered, technical culture has an active scope. At the first level, it guarantees the robustness of the solution developed. At the user level, it allows him or her to understand the use and utilization of the artifact and also to shape it according to his or her desires. At the last level, it enables technical culture to make “political” decisions, by which we mean thinking in terms of society that we conceive through elaborate technologies.

Technical culture, as we define it, is not only a means to take individuals out of their alienation and status as mere consumers of technical devices. It is also indispensable if we all, as citizens, want to be able to participate in the reflection on the major challenges that arise and that involve making decisions that concern not only our future but also that of future generations.

It seems to us that it is at this last level that the disruptive solutions required by the great contemporary challenges can be thought of, challenges marked by a modern humanism centered on the improvement of human living conditions (population ageing, respect for privacy, Internet privacy rights, disappearance and oblivion), our relationship to nature (taking into account the precepts of sustainable development) and not as the sole result of an unthinking injunction, a race for fame, an unbridled consumption, or even a fad. It is precisely because technical culture, unlike the innovation culture as we will see in what follows, considers the question of meaning that it is, according to us, able to produce the radical innovations induced by today’s challenges. To think of the meaning of objects and, through them, that of our humanity leads to highlight the reflexive dimension of technical culture, a dimension that allows us to liberate ourselves from the rhetoric of innovation [DEL 14], heir to the dogma of the notion of progress and a conception of evolution in terms of an inevitable creative destruction [CHA 14]. To put it another way, innovation must therefore be linked to a political vision.

2.4. Why is technical culture still struggling to develop?

In this context, we have identified three reasons that could explain the lack of recognition of technical culture.

The first is the status of the technology itself. We have already had the opportunity to emphasize how late the advent of a technology has been, as technology was not being considered as an object of knowledge [FOR 12]. It may be assumed, moreover, that the definition of technology that has been given, and which has left the question of meaning in the shadows, has led to a feeling of mistrust with regard to a “technology” that was then thought of as encompassing, that is, one that deployed in the same way despite the diversity of cultures. It could even be considered as “totalitarian” because it was accused, by the provision of a single solution, of destroying the initial culture of a community or geographical area. It can also be hypothesized that technology, thought of as a body of knowledge aimed at organizing work and production, has led to associating technology with a utilitarian, alienating and non-reflexive approach.

The second explanation, closely linked to the previous one, lies in the very status of Culture, with a capital “C”. This contains a body of knowledge considered legitimate, linked to cultural practices such as theater, literature and art museum visits. However, as Maurice Magnien stressed, we must “brave the Latin sins which means that beyond literature there is no culture” [DEN 94]. Here, we find the observations made, a few years earlier, by Jocelyn De Noblet:

Perhaps more serious contradictions, many teachers, writers and information disseminators have left the stereotypes of legitimate culture behind: technology, business and work are far from their values and concerns, as new technological tools remain outside their professional practice, as the status of technical education remains minor, and in the eyes of many, sub-cultural [DEN 94, p. 39].

This observation was later revisited by Jack Lang, the then Minister of Culture in France and leader of cultural democracy, at the opening of a symposium devoted to design and industrial creation in 1983 (quoted in here [GIM 00]):

And very curiously, this distinction between the real world and the world of reflection covers another distinction, which is no less perverse, and which is not unrelated to the first: This is a distinction between the noble arts, those that the rhetoricians of the 19th century erected in the form of arts worthy of the humanities, universities, reflection and the civilized world, and on the other hand, the common arts, or the minor arts, those which are most often linked to the world of industry. Noble arts, symphonic music, high literature, philosophy, rhetoric, history, human sciences, everything that allows us to contemplate and observe the world. But as soon as we get closer to real life, as soon as it comes to getting our hands dirty, then there is a certain repugnance to consider that the action of inventing can be elevated to the level of a noble and major activity [GIM 00].

A few years later, Jacques Perriault went so far as to speak of the very French contempt for work and industry: “only contempt or ignorance among intellectuals for crafts, technical education, vocational education” [PER 98, p. 200], a contempt that goes back, according to Theodore Zelding, to the gap established between general and human culture and the scientific, technical and industrial spheres [DEN 94]. If we do not question the importance of such a culture, nor prioritize the different forms of knowledge, it seems to us essential to affirm that technical objects and know-how also enter, as works of art, into the world of meanings.

The third explanation lies in a restrictive concept of technical culture. This concept is generally found in technical training in middle and high school and, more particularly, in engineering schools, where producers of technical objects are trained. In the latter, technical culture is not defined by its ability to “inform” and understand our societies. It is first defined as a body of knowledge of all the elements of a technical object or system and their functional relationships. The technical culture thus conceived, centered on function and purpose, brings satisfaction, an alibi, to a “lazy thought” [BAC 38] because it does not imply questioning the meaning and the relationship of the said object to the society of which it is part. The engineer, to put it another way, would not be concerned with what this object “does” to society or what he/she says about it, but only with the functional robustness of the object he/she designs.

2.5. An innovation culture that acts as a barrier

If the three reasons mentioned above play a certain role in the fact that technical culture still does not have the place it deserves, we make the hypothesis that it is since the advent of what some call “the innovation culture” a few years ago, [ATT 11] which conceals it and acts as the main obstacle to the diffusion of technical culture.

Thought of as the driver of Western societies, innovation enjoys a real cult devotion. The latter is first and foremost part of political, economic and media discourse, which today is very significant. Xavier de la Porte, a French journalist and essayist even speaks of an injunction to innovate: “In the injunction to innovate, there is the idea that what will get us out of the crisis is to move forward, to go towards novelty, to produce” [DEL 14]. Thus conceived, innovation is thought only in terms of solution and rarely from the relationships that we maintain with technical objects. Innovation sometimes appears as a means of responding to obligations (new standards and regulations), sometimes as a means of coping with the crisis or competition (especially in countries with low wage costs), or even as a means of distributing profits.

It should be stressed, however, that while innovation has an obvious political and strategic meaning for the company, it leaves the question of meaning in the shadows. Indeed, we are witnessing a shift from a reflection on the meaning of the object to a reflection on the meaning of innovation for the company, which is significantly different. This is in line with what Thierry Ménissier said when he said that “innovation does not tie technological inventions and the rationalization of the organization to a social and moral design, as it did in the theme of progress” [MEN 11, p. 17]. It is in the same spirit that the philosopher Eric Sadin’s remarks are heard when he accuses the French President of the Republic, in a dialogue about his book La vie algorithmithmique [KYR 16], of “bowing down” in front of the CEO of Withings, a company at the cutting edge of connected objects. The author criticizes that the economic imperative takes precedence over the meaning of Internet-connected things. For example, he believes that the use of Internet-connected bracelets or scales, as well as “Big Data”, generates behaviors that merit analysis of what they say about our relationship to the body (quantified self-movement), or to our free will.

In addition, for several years, the annual studies of the strategy consulting firm Booz & Co. Global Innovation 1000, which analyzes the R&D spending of the world’s top 1,000 companies, underline that excellence in research is not the only factor impacting innovation performance. Thus, the 2011 and 2012 studies show the low correlation between the level of R&D investment and the performance of companies in terms of turnover or capitalization. The 2011 survey of 600 innovation leaders from around the world, of different sizes and from different industry sectors, also reveals that 47% of them consider the innovation culture as a key factor [BOO 11].

The problem is that the correlation made between “innovation capacity” and “the innovation culture” has resulted in an abundant literature that lists a set of recommendations expressed in the form of: “7 tips for developing an innovation culture in companies” [LET 11] or “25 measures or means for developing an innovation culture” [FOR 14], which intend to foster this innovation culture. However, when we look carefully at these recommendations, we will quickly realize that the innovation culture is:

• – sometimes reduced to a set of organizational recipes: “Giving employees the necessary autonomy and freedom of action”, “involving employees in innovation processes”, “Granting the right to make mistakes and encouraging risk-taking”, etc. This set of measures is comparable to what can be read in the factsheet entitled “Establishing a culture and a taste for innovation” resulting from Engineering Techniques, a kind of “bible” for engineers, which aims to “change the state of mind and deploy a range of devices at all hierarchical levels of the company” [ATT 11];
• – sometimes reduced to the presence of actors and environments conducive to innovation.

Whether we reduce the innovation culture to a set of organizational recipes or to the presence of favorable actors and environments, in reality, it means stripping innovation of its relationship to society.

The situation is essentially the same at the level of public innovation policies. Indeed, the implementation of the Système Français de Recherche et d’Innovation (SFRI) [French Research and Innovation System] coincided with France’s economic development in the post-war period. If its structure corresponded well to a dynamic of “technological catch-up” during the period of the Glorious Thirties, it very quickly showed its limits when it was a question of France innovating by itself and facing the great contemporary societal challenges in key fields such as health, agriculture, transport and energy. It was in the wake of this awareness that the competitiveness cluster policy was created in 2004 followed by the national research and innovation strategy in 2009. More recently, in 2012, the Government launched an innovation policy as part of the Pacte pour la compétitivité, la croissance et l’emploi [Pact for competitiveness, growth and employment], which is a global policy to transform society in order to build the new French model. It is, in this context, that the Une nouvelle donne pour l’innovation [A new deal for innovation] plan emerged, which sets for itself a global ambition; that of making France a land of innovation and bases this “new deal” on 40 transverse measures grouped under four priorities. Within the framework of this plan, the innovation culture appears as a key factor of innovation, as can be seen in the very name of priority 2: development of the culture of entrepreneurship and innovation. This relationship also seems to correspond to a widely shared vision since, according to the report “Coping with the crisis, the European way” [ERN 13], the development of an innovation culture appears to be the second key factor to be implemented in Europe in 2013.

When reading the “A new deal for innovation” plan, one thing appears quickly. Innovation culture is associated with that of entrepreneurship and not that of technical culture. Indeed, there are 11 occurrences of the term “innovation culture and entrepreneurship” or “culture of entrepreneurship and innovation” versus a single occurrence of the term “scientific and technical culture” (the term technical culture is not even present alone) even though the latter is identified “as an element that participates in the development of the innovation culture” [MIN 13, p. 24]³. Here again, technical culture is eclipsed in the name of an innovation culture that is not defined in the 87 pages of the plan. This is unfortunate because technical culture is a key factor to innovate with consciousness. Indeed, technical culture as we understand it appears to be the breeding ground for the emergence of a culture of renewed innovation⁴ which, taking note that design is the backbone of the innovation process, integrates the question of creating value and meaning for both the user and society. Thus conceived, the innovation culture invites us to consider the social and political significance of novelty: does this innovation aim at and/or lead to a more digital society? Redistributed power? A fairer world? In this context, technical culture contributes to nurturing a technical democracy in which the engineer is often missing [CHO 15], as if what he produced was outside society.

The insufficient place given to the development of technical culture is regrettable because, in doing so, we hardly give ourselves the means to go beyond the permanent obligation to innovate and to give ourselves the means to develop the radical innovations that our society needs to meet the great contemporary challenges.

2.6. Conclusion

In this chapter, we have proposed to update the concept of technical culture with regard to current issues, thanks in particular to the authors who worked for its development 20 years ago or more. Our definition consists of thinking of technical culture according to three levels (of functions, of usage and of meaning) and to advocate that these levels are associated with points of view, which it is appropriate to think of as a group: points of view of the technician, the user and the citizen. We then set out to understand why this technical culture was difficult to develop. We have indicated that the main reason lies in the fact that innovation culture, which is mainly considered on the register of organizational recipes and obligations, leaves in the shadows the question of the meaning attributed to technology and, by the same token, hinders the advent of technical culture as we have been able to define it.

We are firmly convinced that our society’s evolution and its constant artificialization require that technical culture return to the forefront and acquire this reflexive and active status so that each of us understands the meaning and significance of technology. Similarly, it seems central to us to reaffirm that radical innovation does not only require an innovation culture but also a technical culture capable of giving us the possibility of designing and proposing technical objects designed in and for society.

Developing and disseminating technical culture also makes sense in the training of engineers who will be at the heart of technical design and production. As we can see, in recent years, innovation training has been increasing in engineering schools. It concerns not only technical education but also humanities and social sciences. However, it has to be said that while innovation now seems to be accepted as an integral part of the training of all engineering students, there is no consensus on what innovation training actually means. Too often still, this training remains reduced to a functional or instrumental approach sometimes close to the cult of innovation. We nevertheless wager that to solve emerging challenges, we must have a political reflection on the meaning of society that we conceive of for the future that advocates for the development of technical culture in the training of engineers.