The proponents wish to create new solutions as a free act of imagination, then somehow expect them to be implemented because they are technically superior, not for more complex reasons. These proponents do not wish to have their motivations questioned and reexamined. The critics also seek to ascribe features to 'GIS' as a whole, lumping the technology into some mechanical unity. It is odd that these two groups both place the technology in isolation from its social context. Yes, the critics will talk archly about social context, but the technology itself is still demonized as if an inhuman construction, foisted on hapless society.
Nothing is further from the case.
In some sense, society gets exactly the technology it deserves, because the society is responsible for what it creates. Multiple social structures interact in this process. GIS technology cannot be reduced to some mechanicistically determined parts, the people act as agents. Research must of course focus its attention to be effective, but any project that identifies just one direction of influence blinds itself to the whole process that produces and reproduces GIS in its web of social interactions. Similarly, social theories must focus on specific components in this large web, but they risk losing sight of the whole context.