Facta #2

UPCYCLING
The TECHnological cycle
by Nícia Mafra
"Trash is simply matter without meaning”.
Rafael Cardoso
The difficulties faced in this new millennium are easily
noticeable, some had been predicted in the early twentieth
century. New and serious problems coexist with old, such
as the persistence of poverty and unmet basic needs -
health and nutrition - increasingly serious threats to the
environment, the sustainability of economics and human
live, especially after the advent of globalization.
To fight these problems, one must consider individual
freedom as a social commitment (Sen: 2010). The notion of
freedom, which includes economic opportunities, political
freedom, social facilities, guarantees of transparency and
protective security, as well as access to comfort in the form
established by desire (so manipulated by marketing tools),
brings up a culture of disconnection from the whole.
With the process of globalization, the question of
democracy, as a model of freedom, is closely related
to a cultural problem worthy of attention. It is the
overwhelming power of culture and Western lifestyle to
undermine ways of living and traditional customs. An
inescapable threat, it is difficult to resist the forces of
economic exchange and division of labor in a competitive
world driven by the technological revolution.
Anthony Giddens, a leading British sociologist, has made
significant contributions to social theory, exploring the
interactions between social structures and human activity.
The productive society after the industrial revolution and
influenced by Marx, should have become more stable and
orderly. However, today it seems to be a runaway world.
Some situations, considered at risk, resulting from global
climate change and from intervention in the environment,
are not all just natural phenomena. New risks and
uncertainties affect us wherever we live, no matter how
privileged or poor we are, and are inextricably linked to
globalization, an era of transformation. To understand and
minimize these risks, we need an integrated, or integrating
vision of the dynamic relationship among the parts and
the whole, where what affects is also affected in almost all
ways, or: "what goes around comes around."
In the functioning of the social world, individuals assign
certain meaning to their environment, act according to
this meaning and the individual interpretations are based
on a set of assumptions provided by history and tradition.
The linguistic roots of the word "tradition" are old. The
English word comes from the Latin term tradere, which
means transmitting, or entrusting something to another.
Tradere was originally used in the context of Roman law,
where it referred to the laws of inheritance. Presumably, a
property that passed from one generation to another was
given in trust - the heir had an obligation to protect it and
promote it (Giddens, 2011:49).
Some lost traditions may be greatly missed, as the
extinction of ancient ways of life that may cause anxiety
and a sense of loss. A certain nostalgia for specialized
objects may prevail, such as an elegant, old steam engine
or an antique clock, but in general obsolete machines and
discarded things are not particularly desired.
For a while we have been living with objects produced to
meet a need or function. According to Giddens, the idea
that tradition is impervious to change is a myth. Traditions
can be invented and reinvented. However, some, such as
those associated with the great religions, last hundreds of
years. Thus, two basic changes are occurring today under
the impact of globalization; not only public institutions
but also everyday life is liberating itself from tradition.
This society is experiencing the end of tradition and may
experience the end of nature, or, indoubtably, undergo a
major transformation. Traditions succumb to modernity,
they are emptied of their contents, and, commercialized,
they become objects of inheritance or kitsch.
This new network economy has profoundly transformed
the social relations between capital and labor, as Manuel
Castells analyzes. The capital is global, while the labor
is local. Large enterprise networks diffuse power in a
hierarchical manner, where the exercise of power is a
controlled and linear process. In networks and ecological
interrelationships, the process is nonlinear an involves
multiple feedback cycles, being the results often impossible
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