Technology empowers society, yet denies the individual the full extent of that power. How can we explain this, and is it possible to engineer technology to be otherwise. In "Technology and the Canadian mind" Kroker examines three strands of Canadian prospectives about technology.

Kroker contrasts the ideological polarities of McLuhan and Grant, and identifies a third prospective. He contrasts McLuhan's technological humanism marking its attempt to "renew technique from within by releasing the creative possibilities inherent in the technological experience" with that of George Grant. Kroker states the Grant prospective as: ""technique is ourselves", and that, consequently, our permanent condition as technical beings is to endure "intimations of deprival": the loss even of a sense of loss of the human good which has been expunged by technological society." Then, Kroker points to Innis and his prospective of push-pull tendency toward technology.

As Innis would suggest, the paradox of technology to empower and deny is inherent. I share the prospective that technology cannot be held back, but it can be directed. And the direction of technology will be a "political struggle" mainly between those who finance and engineer technology, and all affected by it. As individuals, we must be active in the political struggle, and seek to direct technology as we see fit.