A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology

Conclusion

The case of China shows clearly that “Westernization” at most equals “modernization” but always within the context of nationalism. Science and its technology are perceived to be detachable from the rest of the package of Western values/culture, including mass democracy and its associated practices. From this perspective, it would be naïve to imagine that China would simply unfold in the way that Marx has ordained, namely, that the superstructure would change in accordance with changes in the economic base. However, this should not be interpreted to mean that China would not necessarily, in the longer term, evolve to accommodate certain selected political/cultural features from the West; the direction and pace of such evolution would not be at the behest of the West (unless the West were, unwisely, to choose to impose them directly on China) but only in a way in which foreign values can be comfortably domesticated or “sinicized.” China has a long history of such domestication and sinicization – witness, the absorption of Buddhist values into Chinese – Confucian and Daoist – culture and civilization. The long-standing intellectual debate involving the contest between ti (referring to the political and economic systems in this instance) and yong (referring to any useful knowledge, especially high-tech) continues apace today within a context whose spirit may be summed up by the outlook: Chinese learning as essence, Western learning as utility.⁵ In this respect, India differs ...