institutions and practices that have been reified [...] so that they seem to be constants of human existence, beyond the reach of reform through intentional human action
[...] technical reason and its imperatives are "encoded" in technological artefacts. [...] Rather than coming at a technology and trying to work out how to use it, the human subject is in a sense constituted by the object; produced as a user as an effect of its power. Using technology still involve…
A person described as "mad" is constructed through interpellation by psychiatric discourse and clinical practice.
The idea of hegemonic technological rationality is intended to encompass what the Frankfurt School called instrumental reason and what Weber analyzed as societal rationalization as these apply to technology design as a social practice. Feenberg introduces it in terms that clearly echo the Frankfurt…
[...] technology can embody valid knowledge and constitute a set of reliable, seemingly neutral tools or points of leverage over nature and at the same time constitute an instance of prevailing, hegemonic social rationality and so be implicated in social power. [...]
