The meaning of innovation: an old question
1.2.1.1. A positive view of innovation
The question of meaning is not new. Starting in the late 16th Century, Bacon and Descartes associated the progress of knowledge with that of technology, and the progress of technology with the progressive improvement of the living conditions of people. Indeed, Descartes considers technological progress as the vector of the creation of a new “Garden of Eden” in which poverty, illness and even death can be excluded thanks to human genius:
As soon as I had acquired some general notions of physics, and as soon as I began to experience them in various specific difficult situations, I noticed how far they could lead, and how they differed from the principles hitherto used, I believed that I could not keep them hidden without sinning greatly against the law which obliges us to procure, as far as it is in us, the general good of all men. For they have shown me that it is possible to attain knowledge that is very useful for life… [DES 37, p. 168].
Specifically, Descartes advocates knowledge for action, with innovations being considered from the point of view of their contribution to the improvement of the living conditions of humanity:
This is not only to be desired for the invention of an infinity of artifices, which would make it possible to enjoy, without any difficulty, the fruits of the earth and the conveniences found in it, but mostly for the preservation of health [DES 37, p. 168].
According to Descartes, technological change is thus associated with the idea of progress through and for collective action. This vision of Progress, with a capital “P”, one might say, culminated in the Age of Enlightenment, a century which claimed to be the time when Progress overcame backward-looking obscurantism. It was a century in which humans no longer experienced history passively but became the subject of this history, substituting God’s place in the order of creation and participating in the design of the world in which they lived. It was a century in which faith in the capacity of humans to act, through reason, to make moral and social ideals concrete in the real world. The French Revolution of 1789 seemed to embody the revolution of Progress taking place. This led Claude-Henri de Rouvroy, Count of Saint-Simon, to affirm that the golden age of humanity was before them and not behind them.
History seems to agree with such a point of view, because the Belle Époque, a century later in France, ushered in a period of prosperity supported by the greatest wave of discoveries (vaccination, X-rays) and innovations (the construction of Gustave’s Eiffel Tower, the birth of aviation with Clément Ader and the Orville and Wilbur Wright brothers, the birth of the film industry thanks to the invention of the cinematograph by the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière, of the automobile industry following the invention and improvement of the combustion engine, the introduction of household electricity, etc.) in history. It was also a period marked by the advent of a new religion that Felix Le Dantec would describe as scientism1 and the advent of the figure of the inventor as a modern-day hero, a figure that would be magnified by popular literature following the example of Jules Verne’s writings in the 19th Century and truly global exhibitions such as the World’s Fair.
Figure 1.1. Poster from the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair whose motto was “Science finds, industry applies, man complies”.
Source: Wikipedia.org. For a color version of this figure, see www.iste.co.uk/chouteau/innovation.zip
1.2.1.2. A contested relationship to progress
However, as early as the 18th Century, the question of limits was raised, of a progress beyond which we had as much to lose as to gain:
Is it necessary to wrest from nature all that can be obtained from it […]? Is not everything else by chance the extravagance of the species […], that is to say, a sure means of living miserably, taking too much care to be happy? […] When nature has been defeated, the rest is just a display of triumph that costs us more than it gives back. [DID 29, p. 313]
In short, Diderot raises the question of the meaning of human action, of reasoned progress in the face of individuals, whether scientists or innovators, who do not necessarily master the powers that their minds give them.
While in the 19th Century there was growing suspicion of the relationship between technological progress, moral progress and the capacity of the latter to contribute to human happiness, World Wars I and II dealt a fatal blow to the very idea of progress when the most developed nations of the world clashed in a conflict in which technology played a key role and became its most deadly in the history of mankind2.
By the middle of the 20th Century, the break with the idea of progress seemed to be complete. Many intellectuals questioned the lack of knowledge of the transformational power offered by innovations [WIE 59] and denounced the autonomous nature of technology which inevitably had unintended consequences [ELL 54].
Let us take a concrete example to illustrate the point of view of the philosopher Jacques Ellul. The first urban drainage systems spread to cities in the Middle Ages. The most widely used technique was that of “everything out in the street”3, leading to ill health, epidemics and pestilences. It was not until 1854 that engineer Eugène Belgrand, under the orders of Baron Haussmann, set up a sewer system to convey effluents to the Seine downstream. A remarkable advance for Paris, this solution actually only displaced pollution in the northwestern part of Paris and paved the way for water treatment techniques before returning it to the natural environment. These stations in turn led to new innovations aimed at reducing water pollution (linked to the presence of drug residues that were responsible for the appearance of sequentially hermaphroditic fish) or reducing electricity consumption.
The history of wastewater treatment thus reveals that technology creates as many problems as it solves and leads to a process of self-generation of technology in which people are now obliged to repair the damage caused by technology by means of new technical innovations which themselves create new problems [JON 90]4. There is in fact an empowerment of the technology creation process. However, this process can obscure the question of initial intentions and, in so doing, confuse the issue of the overall direction of modern society at a time when the long-term effect of technologies is increasingly unpredictable5.
1.2.2. The illusion of meaning
While the first half of the 20th Century sounded the death knell for the relationship established between innovation and progress, the second half of the 20th Century marked the advent of the relationship between innovation and economic progress and, more specifically, growth. However, as we will see, the advent of the era of the consumer society ushered in a period characterized by the illusion of meaning, or even the absence of it.
1.2.2.1. From the meaning of innovation for society to the meaning of innovation for business
During the period of the Trente glorieuses6 [FOU
