ABSTRACT
One of the great unquestioned myths about the new technology is that the area is free of ideological presuppositions. Indeed, for some, it is a pure escape from the dirty world of politics; while for others, it is the higher learning itself, offering the ultimate critique of ideological politics. In this sense, the ideology of the new technology differs little from the old engineering ideology. 1 The difficulty with such suppositions is that they are simply untrue. It is more nearly the case that the politics of the new technologists are extraordinarily naive, even primitive, precisely because political and ideological concerns remain so deeply buried under the surface of platitudes which presume the hygienic status of data. This platitudinous style rivals in form the utopianism of earlier rationalist models: they come packaged with a faith in progress rivaling any nineteenth century romantic notions of evolution, or eighteenth century concepts of revolution.
