Is technology our savior — or our slayer?: Ruha Benjamin’s new TED Talk

CoT Announcements

1. Next Monthly Tech Talk Tuesday, 12/05/23. Join our monthly tech talks to discuss current events, articles, books, podcast, or whatever we choose related to technology and education. There is no agenda or schedule. Our next Tech Talk will be Tuesday, December 5th, 2023 at 8-9pm EST/7-8pm CST/6-7pm MST/5-6pm PST. Learn more on our Events page and register to participate.

2. Next Book Club on Tuesday, 12/19/23: We are discussing Blood in the Machine The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech by Brian Merchant led by Dan Krutka. Register for this book club event if you’d like to participate.

3. Critical Tech Study Participation: If you self-identify as critical of technology, please consider participating in our study. We are seeking participants who self-identify as holding critical views toward technology to share their stories by answering the following questions: To you, what does it mean to take a critical perspective toward technology? How have you come to take on that critical perspective? Please consider participating in our study via OUR SURVEY. You are welcome to share with others. Thank you!

By Marie K. Heath and Dan Krutka

This week in our monthly Civics of Tech Tech Talk we decided to watch Ruha Benjamin’s new TED Talk together and discuss it. Her work has had a large influence on our Civics of Tech community. If you missed her 2022 conference keynote for our conference, Dr. Benjamin uses powerful language to craft narratives that push us to think deeper about how technology can extend or amplify inequities in our society. The very title of her TED talk poses a powerful question: Is technology our savior — or our slayer? It’s an excellent question we could ask students. We were therefore excited to see what she had to say in her newest talk.

Here are some of the ideas and wonderings that Dr. Benjamin’s TED Talk provoked for at this month’s Civics of Technology Tech Talk.

We appreciated the articulation of the binary thinking of technology as either the evil monster or the brilliant savior, both stories told to us by the few billionaires who control technologies and entertainment industries. Some of our participants observed a corollary in education. For instance, teachers are often perceived and portrayed as either saviors and saints or indifferent incompetents. There is little room in the narrative for professionals who labor daily in community, humans who live full and complicated lives and also work for good within a complex system of injustice.

This led to an observation about Dr. Benjamin’s talk, in particular the thread that weaves through her 2023 book, Viral Justice, inviting us to communally grow the world we want. She turns to Margret Atwood’s term, UStopia to challenge narratives of eu- and dis-topias, re-inserting the human into the story of technology. In particular, this narrative of UStopia imagines a ground-up approach to change, inviting locally grown actions, tending seeds sown in the soil of community. She offers examples of this change in different regions of the world. 

Finally, we were again struck by the power of Dr. Benjamin’s imagination to envision a world of liberation. She closes the talk inviting us to dream without borders, and imagine what is too often dismissed as impossible. “Schools that foster the genius of every child?” In our dreams!

You can watch her full talk HERE.