Technological Optimism in 1970s and 1980s Popular Culture: Innovation, Creativity, Prosperity, and Freedom

About

While technology is one of the most important factors shaping contemporary society, it is hard to say whether our current era regards it more with hope or with dread. Debates surrounding the role of technology in our lives are highly polarised. Its critics highlight the many dangers and crises that technological advance has brought in its wake: climate change, pervasive surveillance, ever-deadlier weapons, behavioural manipulation, and an alleged dehumanisation in work and private life. At the same time, the last decade has seen an emerging chorus of voices argue for the transformative and liberating potential of technological innovation, whether as a solution to environmental crisis, a way to extend human possibility, a vehicle for individual expression, a means to bring the world closer together, or simply as an engine of progress more generally. Technological optimism and pessimism – the claims that, put simply, technology tends to improve human life or, alternatively, degrades it in various ways – have coexisted in all periods of the modern era, the first in which rapid, systematic and pervasive technological change has become a consistent part of the experience of an ever-growing proportion of the human population. However, it may be possible to see one or the other perspective as predominant at particular times, even if one has to attend to the complex and specific conditions prevailing in any period.

This conference seeks to explore the cultural and intellectual roots of technological optimism in the 1970s and 1980s. These decades – while marked by significant technological advancements, many of which had their roots in the more optimistic 1960s – were marked by pervasive undercurrents of technological pessimism. Concerns about the environmental degradation caused by industrial growth were brought to the forefront by works like The Limits to Growth (1972) and increasing awareness of the energy crises. Fears of nuclear proliferation and the catastrophic potential of nuclear energy accidents, highlighted by incidents like the Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) disasters, underscored the darker side of technological power. The automation of labour sparked debates about job displacement and the erosion of traditional industries; at the same time, intellectual critics like Jacques Ellul and Alvin Toffler warned of technology’s dehumanising effects and the destabilising pace of change. Moreover, dystopian literature and films, such as Neuromancer (1984) and Blade Runner (1982), reflected anxieties about artificial intelligence, corporate overreach, and the loss of individual autonomy in increasingly mechanised and surveilled societies. Together, these elements revealed a deep ambivalence about technology’s role in shaping the future.

At the same time, although more grim visions predominated, it was during this period that transformative visions of progress gained traction, paving the way for the techno-utopianism of the 1990s. We aim to examine how popular culture, innovation, and creative expression of the era captured and amplified beliefs in technology’s power to foster prosperity, individual freedom, and global connection. Key developments include the rise of personal computing, early ventures into genetic engineering, the Space Shuttle program, and breakthroughs in media and telecommunications. These decades also witnessed the emergence of bold speculative visions in literature, film, and art, which reflected and reinforced technological enthusiasm. Technological optimism in the 1970s and 1980s was a countercurrent to broader societal anxieties, including Cold War tensions, economic turbulence, and environmental crises. This optimism found a voice in personal computing, biotechnology, space exploration, and media, and these trends later formed the bedrock of the celebrated technological breakthroughs of the 1990s.
Patterns in technological optimism varied strongly, of course, in different geopolitical contexts. In the Eastern Block, technological optimism was both ideological and centralised, it was an inherent part of Communist visions of social improvement and served as a symbol of socialist modernity and superiority over Western capitalism. In this period, cybernetics and computing were officially envisioned as tools for socialist advancement. Technological optimism in the “Third World” was often aspirational and oriented on external actors —infused with hopes of catching up, asserting sovereignty, or resisting neocolonial dependency. Technology was viewed as a path towards a greater independence from colonial legacies, even if many of the technologies involved themselves came from more developed countries and their related institutional contexts (UN, USSR, US, World Bank or NGOs). We aim to take such contexts into account in our conference.