David F. Noble
Encyclopedia
David Franklin Noble was a critical historian
of technology, science and education, best known for his seminal work on the social history of automation
. In his final years he taught in the Division of Social Science, and the department of Social and Political Thought. at York University
in Toronto, Canada
. Noble held positions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Smithsonian Institution and Drexel University, as well as many visiting professorships. In his final years he taught in the Division of Social Science, and the department of Social and Political Thought. at York University
in Toronto, Canada
.
Noble died suddenly in a Toronto hospital after contracting a virulent strain of pneumonia that caused septic shock and renal failure. He is survived by his wife Sarah Dopp of Toronto; daughters Clare O'Connor of Toronto, Helen O'Connor of Toulon, France, and Alice O'Connor of Vancouver, B.C.; sister Jane Pafford of Arcadia, Florida; brothers Doug Noble (his twin) of Rochester, New York, and Henry Noble of Seattle, Washington.
Noble was an anti-Zionist Jew, and an atheist. He was born in New York City.
. He worked as a biochemist at various institutions before becoming an assistant professor at MIT. Dismissed after being denied tenure in 1984, he landed at York University
. In 1997 he served as the inaugural Hixon-Riggs Visiting Professor of science, technology, and society at Harvey Mudd College
. Noble taught at York University until his death.
, was published to unusually prominent reviews. Robert Heilbroner
hailed it as a work that "makes us see technology as a force that shapes management in an industrial capitalist society," while the New York Times called the book a "significant contribution" owing to its uncommon leftist perspective on American technology. Many academic reviewers praised the book's bold argument about the corporate control of science and technology, although some including Alfred Chandler expressed reservations about its forthright Marxist thesis.
.
Forces of Production argues that management wanted to take the programming of machine tools, which as "machines for making machines" are a critical industrial product, out of the hands of union members and transfer their control, by means of primitive programming, to non-union, college-educated white-collar employees working physically separate from the shop floor.
Noble's research argues that, in practical terms, the separation was a failure. The practice angered and alienated union machinists, who felt that their practical and night-school knowledge of applied science was being disregarded. In response, they sat back while watching the programmed machines produce what Noble described as "scrap at high speed."
Noble then went on to argue that management compromised with the unions, in a minor violation of the USA's 1948 Taft-Hartley Act
(which reserved all issues except pay and benefits to management discretion), to allow the union men to "patch" and even write the CNC programs.
Although Noble focuses strictly, in Forces of Production, on the narrow and specialist area of machine tools, his work may be generalized to issues in MIS software where the end users are restive when told to accept the product of analysts ignorant of the real needs of the business or the employee.
issues. These included the notion of the increasing corporatization of the Canadian public university, and defending the idea of academic freedom
and the role of the tenure
d academic as public servant. Noble's most recent book, Beyond the Promised Land, is a sweeping historiography of what he described as the myth of the promised land, connecting the disappointments of the Christian religious story of redemption and salvation with the rise of global capitalism and the response to these disappointments by recent social justice movements.
Noble's leftist politics and supposedly aggressive tactics have given him a rocky career. He was denied tenure at MIT, forced to leave his appointment at the Smithsonian Institution, and was blocked from giving the commencement address at Harvey Mudd College because the administration argued he was "anti-technology." His appointment to the J.S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities at Simon Fraser University was suspended following what Noble and others saw as irregularities in the hiring process.
In 1998, he was awarded the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, which "recognizes individuals who take a public stance to advance truth and justice, at some personal risk." The award honored Noble's decades as "a singular voice in seeking to fight the commercialization of higher education and to protect one of society's most precious assets, an independent intellectual capacity to engage the serious issues of our day." ) originally born in New York City, USA held positions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Smithsonian Institution and Drexel University, as well as many visiting professorships
's strategic role in Western institutions on a broad basis.
In late November 2004, at York University, Noble garnered controversy for handing out flyers entitled "The York University Foundation: The Tail That Wags the Dog (Suggestions for Further Research)" at a campus event. The information sheets alleged that the Foundation, York University's principal fund-raising body, was biased by the presence and influence of pro-Israel lobbyists, activists and persons involved in Jewish agencies, whom he identified as the "tail", and that this bias affected the political conduct of York's administration in important ways, through their power to "wag the dog". In particular, Noble (who is of Jewish descent himself) claimed that there was a connection between alleged "Pro-Israeli influence" on the York Foundation and the university administration's treatment of vocal pro-Palestinian campaigners on campus and to a later-scuttled project to build a Toronto Argonauts
football stadium on the campus.
He later launched a $25 million libel suit at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice
against a series of individuals and of York University, Jewish, and Israeli organizations for defamation and conspiracy, accusing them of having improperly criticized his "Tail That Wags the Dog" campaign as antisemitic.
, alleging that cancellation of classes during certain Jewish holidays constituted discrimination against non-Jewish students. When York independently changed its policy the discrimination matter was withdrawn.
In his complaint, Noble also alleged that York engaged in a campaign of reprisal against him. The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario found no reprisal and dismissed Noble's complaint in its entirety.
Critique of technology
Critique of technology is an analysis of the negative impacts of technologies. It is argued that, in all advanced industrial societies , technology becomes a means of domination, control and exploitation, or more generally something which threatens the survival of humanity.Prominent authors...
of technology, science and education, best known for his seminal work on the social history of automation
Automation
Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization...
. In his final years he taught in the Division of Social Science, and the department of Social and Political Thought. at York University
York University
York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....
in Toronto, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Noble held positions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Smithsonian Institution and Drexel University, as well as many visiting professorships. In his final years he taught in the Division of Social Science, and the department of Social and Political Thought. at York University
York University
York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....
in Toronto, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
Noble died suddenly in a Toronto hospital after contracting a virulent strain of pneumonia that caused septic shock and renal failure. He is survived by his wife Sarah Dopp of Toronto; daughters Clare O'Connor of Toronto, Helen O'Connor of Toulon, France, and Alice O'Connor of Vancouver, B.C.; sister Jane Pafford of Arcadia, Florida; brothers Doug Noble (his twin) of Rochester, New York, and Henry Noble of Seattle, Washington.
Noble was an anti-Zionist Jew, and an atheist. He was born in New York City.
Career
Noble obtained an undergraduate degree in history and chemistry from the University of FloridaUniversity of Florida
The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...
. He worked as a biochemist at various institutions before becoming an assistant professor at MIT. Dismissed after being denied tenure in 1984, he landed at York University
York University
York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....
. In 1997 he served as the inaugural Hixon-Riggs Visiting Professor of science, technology, and society at Harvey Mudd College
Harvey Mudd College
Harvey Mudd College is a private residential liberal arts college of science, engineering, and mathematics, located in Claremont, California. It is one of the institutions of the contiguous Claremont Colleges, which share adjoining campus grounds....
. Noble taught at York University until his death.
America by Design
Noble’s first book, America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (1977), a revision of his University of Rochester dissertation under Christopher LaschChristopher Lasch
Christopher Lasch was a well-known American historian, moralist, and social critic....
, was published to unusually prominent reviews. Robert Heilbroner
Robert Heilbroner
Robert L. Heilbroner was an American economist and historian of economic thought. The author of some twenty books, Heilbroner was best known for The Worldly Philosophers , a survey of the lives and contributions of famous economists, notably Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard...
hailed it as a work that "makes us see technology as a force that shapes management in an industrial capitalist society," while the New York Times called the book a "significant contribution" owing to its uncommon leftist perspective on American technology. Many academic reviewers praised the book's bold argument about the corporate control of science and technology, although some including Alfred Chandler expressed reservations about its forthright Marxist thesis.
Forces of Production
In Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation (1984) Noble recounts the history of machine tool automation in the United States. He argues that CNC (computerized numerical control) machines were introduced both to increase efficiency and to discipline unions which were stronger in the USA in the period immediately following World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Forces of Production argues that management wanted to take the programming of machine tools, which as "machines for making machines" are a critical industrial product, out of the hands of union members and transfer their control, by means of primitive programming, to non-union, college-educated white-collar employees working physically separate from the shop floor.
Noble's research argues that, in practical terms, the separation was a failure. The practice angered and alienated union machinists, who felt that their practical and night-school knowledge of applied science was being disregarded. In response, they sat back while watching the programmed machines produce what Noble described as "scrap at high speed."
Noble then went on to argue that management compromised with the unions, in a minor violation of the USA's 1948 Taft-Hartley Act
Taft-Hartley Act
The Labor–Management Relations Act is a United States federal law that monitors the activities and power of labor unions. The act, still effective, was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr. and became law by overriding U.S. President Harry S...
(which reserved all issues except pay and benefits to management discretion), to allow the union men to "patch" and even write the CNC programs.
Although Noble focuses strictly, in Forces of Production, on the narrow and specialist area of machine tools, his work may be generalized to issues in MIS software where the end users are restive when told to accept the product of analysts ignorant of the real needs of the business or the employee.
Last writing
Pursuing his critique of the role of the university, since 2004 Noble was active in bringing attention to what he identified as social justiceSocial justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...
issues. These included the notion of the increasing corporatization of the Canadian public university, and defending the idea of academic freedom
Academic freedom
Academic freedom is the belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts without being targeted for repression, job loss, or imprisonment.Academic freedom is a...
and the role of the tenure
Tenure
Tenure commonly refers to life tenure in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause.-19th century:...
d academic as public servant. Noble's most recent book, Beyond the Promised Land, is a sweeping historiography of what he described as the myth of the promised land, connecting the disappointments of the Christian religious story of redemption and salvation with the rise of global capitalism and the response to these disappointments by recent social justice movements.
Political activism
In 1983 David Noble co-founded the National Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest with Ralph Nader and Leonard Minsky to try "to bring extra-academic pressure to bear upon university administrations who were selling out their colleagues and the public in the pursuit of corporate partnerships."Noble's leftist politics and supposedly aggressive tactics have given him a rocky career. He was denied tenure at MIT, forced to leave his appointment at the Smithsonian Institution, and was blocked from giving the commencement address at Harvey Mudd College because the administration argued he was "anti-technology." His appointment to the J.S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities at Simon Fraser University was suspended following what Noble and others saw as irregularities in the hiring process.
In 1998, he was awarded the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, which "recognizes individuals who take a public stance to advance truth and justice, at some personal risk." The award honored Noble's decades as "a singular voice in seeking to fight the commercialization of higher education and to protect one of society's most precious assets, an independent intellectual capacity to engage the serious issues of our day." ) originally born in New York City, USA held positions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Smithsonian Institution and Drexel University, as well as many visiting professorships
Corporatization & commercialization
Since the mid-1990s, Noble criticized the way in which "second-tier" universities accessible to the majority have been forced, owing to budget pressures absent at well-endowed "first-tier" universities, to adopt overly corporate-friendly policies. According to Noble, these policies subordinate the educational mission to a more careerist vision in which students are taught "practical" subjects, but in such narrow ways that they are, in effect, less broadly employable. In his 1998 paper Digital Diploma Mills, Noble writes: "universities are not only undergoing a technological transformation. Beneath that change, and camouflaged by it, lies another: the commercialization of higher education". Noble has argued that high technology, at these universities, is often used not to improve teaching and research, but to over-control and overwork junior faculty and graduate students, expropriate the intellectual property of leading faculty, and, through various mechanisms such as the recorded lecture, replace the visions and voices of less-prestigious faculty with the second-hand and reified product of academic "superstars".Tail that Wags the Dog
In his broad-based critique of what he views as an academic-industrial system, Noble has questioned IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
's strategic role in Western institutions on a broad basis.
In late November 2004, at York University, Noble garnered controversy for handing out flyers entitled "The York University Foundation: The Tail That Wags the Dog (Suggestions for Further Research)" at a campus event. The information sheets alleged that the Foundation, York University's principal fund-raising body, was biased by the presence and influence of pro-Israel lobbyists, activists and persons involved in Jewish agencies, whom he identified as the "tail", and that this bias affected the political conduct of York's administration in important ways, through their power to "wag the dog". In particular, Noble (who is of Jewish descent himself) claimed that there was a connection between alleged "Pro-Israeli influence" on the York Foundation and the university administration's treatment of vocal pro-Palestinian campaigners on campus and to a later-scuttled project to build a Toronto Argonauts
Toronto Argonauts
The Toronto Argonauts are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League. The Toronto, Ontario based team was founded in 1873 and is one of the oldest existing professional sports teams in North America, after the Chicago Cubs and the Atlanta...
football stadium on the campus.
He later launched a $25 million libel suit at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice
Ontario Superior Court of Justice
The Superior Court of Justice is the superior court of general jurisdiction for the Province of Ontario, Canada. It is the successor to the former Ontario Court of Justice , and was created on April 19, 1999...
against a series of individuals and of York University, Jewish, and Israeli organizations for defamation and conspiracy, accusing them of having improperly criticized his "Tail That Wags the Dog" campaign as antisemitic.
Jewish holidays
Noble and York University also appeared in the news in October 2005 with regard to his vocal opposition to and York senate appeal of the university's policy, adopted in 1974, of cancelling classes during the three days marking the Jewish High Holidays. Noble originally stated he would defy the policy and hold classes nonetheless, however, in the end he pledged instead to cancel his classes on all religious holidays observed by any student in his classes, including for example, all Muslim holidays. In April 2006 Noble lodged a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights CommissionOntario Human Rights Commission
The Ontario Human Rights Commission was established in the Canadian province of Ontario on March 29, 1961 to administer the Ontario Human Rights Code...
, alleging that cancellation of classes during certain Jewish holidays constituted discrimination against non-Jewish students. When York independently changed its policy the discrimination matter was withdrawn.
In his complaint, Noble also alleged that York engaged in a campaign of reprisal against him. The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario found no reprisal and dismissed Noble's complaint in its entirety.
York Public Access
In his final years at York, Noble was involved in creating an organization called York Public Access as an alternative to what he identified as an increased corporate slant in the approach taken by York University's official media relations department.Books
, , , , , , , ,External links
- http://academicfreedom.ca/david-noble-york.html
- http://www.yorku.ca/hr/documents/Salary_Disclosure_Report_2005.pdf
- http://www.forward.com/articles/university-under-fire-for-holiday-policy/
- Digital Diploma Mills excerpt
- Coverage of David Noble at Trent University newspaper
- Dr. Noble, The New Israel Lobby in Action, Canadian DimensionCanadian DimensionCanadian Dimension is a Canadian leftist magazine founded in 1963 by Cy Gonick, and published out of Winnipeg, Manitoba 6 times a year, with a circulation of 3,000 copies....
, November/December 2005. - Dr. Noble on how the pro-Israel Lobby works on Canadian campuses, Alert Radio, November 17, 2005.
- Professor defies Jewish holiday closing, Toronto StarToronto StarThe Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
, October 2, 2008. - Peer Review as Censorship, CounterPunchCounterpunchCounterpunch can refer to:* Counterpunch , a punch in boxing* CounterPunch, a bi-weekly political newsletter* Counterpunch , a type of punch used in traditional typography* Punch-Counterpunch, a Transformers character...
, 26 Feb 2010 - interview