White's Law and the Technoscape - A Neo-evolutionist Look at Appadurai's Globalization

While reading Appadurai’s article, Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy, I began to think about Leslie White and his evolutionist theory of negative entropy. More specifically I noticed what Appadurai stated in regards to the technoscape. Appadurai defined the technoscape as the ever-fluid stream of technology and how it now moves at high speeds across various kinds of previously impervious boundaries. How would Leslie White and neo-evolutionists explain Appadurai’s technoscape and its contribution to globalization?

White considered culture to be its own system. The second law of thermodynamics (which states that the universe is running down structurally and dynamically and this results in increased entropy or disorder) particularly fascinated him. White related this law of physics to the biological and cultural evolution of our species and stated that it worked in the opposite direction to form “negative entropy” or order. So White’s law states that culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency or economy of the means of controlling energy is increased, or both.

Therefore if we are to believe in this evolutionist theory we must believe that cultural systems operate only by harnessing energy in one form or another. Then the system must transform the energy into the production of human need-serving goods and services. These goods and services are not limited to those produced in any specific matter. Hunters can catch fish, hunt game, and construct hunting tools that can improve their production. Others can sculpt pottery, cut hair, weave cloth, or gather materials needed for establishing a camp. All of these actions and other cultural processes are examples of the control of energy by instrumental means to serve humanity. By controlling the energy and advancing it with technology, culture was allowed to evolve.

            So White explains humankind’s evolution in regards to its ability to harness energy and how we have used that energy to produce goods, or for argument’s sake tools. What about the flow of technology across nations? I believe that White would argue that the flow of this technology is the next step in his evolutionary scheme. He would also argue that the fact that technological information is flowing from more “modern” areas to “primitive areas” proves the evolutionary scheme he argued earlier. So in terms of globalization I believe that White would argue that it is humankind’s next step in cultural evolution. This is because the free flow of information is allowing cultural systems to expand by developing higher forms or organization and greater concentrations of energy.