LSAT 143 | Section 2 | Reading Comprehension: Q7

RC Question 7 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: In using the phrase “technological determinism”…

DISCUSSION: You may not be familiar with the term “technological determinism”. But you know “technological” and “determine”.

It’s not a huge stretch to realize that technological determinism is that view that technology will determine how society evolves. Lines 36-37 support this: Ginsburg says that technological determinism is the view that the use of video will make a culture unwittingly Western.

___________

1. This is almost right. But technological determinism isn’t the view that technology is exchanged between cultures in a predetermined way. It’s instead the view that technology will be used in a predetermined way.
2. Nonsense. This doesn’t match lines 35-37 at all. In those lines the author is talking about how technology affects societies, not anthropologists. And the passage isn’t even talking about how anthropologists observe cultures.
3. This is a different view. Lines 35-37 are talking about how technology will affect a culture by its use. That could take many forms – nowhere does the passage say that we’ll become more and more tech dependent.
4. The passage doesn’t even mention ethics. This is a nonsense answer.
5. CORRECT. Lines 35-37 support this. Ginsburg describes Weiner’s view that video will inevitably Westernize indigenous cultures as “technological determinism”.
   That is the view that technology inevitably determines the evolution of society.