On the other hand, no less misleading than an emphasis on revolutions is a dogmatic insistence that 'the more things change, the more they remain the same' which can simply reflect the extent to which the interpreter has become accustomed to change. Ethnocentricity or cultural chauvinism is involved in the definition of change in terms of 'progress' towards the state of technology in the theorist's own culture. What counts as progress is culturally defined, but this is seldom recognized by such theorists. Such stances tend to justify the status quo of the society we now live in. Evolutionary accounts typically involve the implicit Western notion of rationality and often also the notion of the autonomous individual which derives from Western liberalism.
Technology is seen as autonomously following a single, fixed evolutionary track.
During the eighteenth century the idea that history involves virtually continuous progress became popular among the educated classes. Social progress rapidly came to be equated with technical progress, often expressed as the conquest of mind over matter or as the head saving the hands. However, the very visible nature of change led to technology being generally accorded a high status in the nineteenth century, and it was then that an associated belief in perpetual economic growth arose. The high status accorded to technology and the widespread belief in the desirability of change in the Western world may help to account for interpretive stances in which technology plays such a key part. Such writers often note our increasing dependence on mechanical devices and machine-like features of current human behaviour as evidence of an increasing symbiosis of human beings and machines.