TheMarketForIdeas

Modern technology invests political and other organizations with the means to increasingly organize all variables which impinge upon their operation. The need to economize an organization’s activities, due to a condition of insufficient means and material, motivates an effort to secure greater control over those variables on behalf of the organization’s presumed interests. This article – the first of two parts [Part II] – is drawn from the first part of a paper written in 1971, which was used as the second chapter of my 1974 M.A. thesis, The Methodical Conquest: Perceptions of the Impact of Modern Technology on Society. It focuses on ideas put forward by British and some continental writers from 1914-1950.

The roots of the critique of technology reach back to the eighteenth century,[1] when the English countryside and traditional patterns of life were beginning to be transformed by an industrial revolution. In the nineteenth century, social critics such as Matthew Arnold, John Ruskin and William Morris consolidated the basic cultural and aesthetic themes which have contributed to the overall critique. The political changes and future prospects catalyzed by industrialism gained increasing attention; these issues have since come to nearly dominate the controversy. While the existence of the technological society has generally come to be accepted, some of the basic complaints remain the same. This essay will be concerned with one historical segment of the literature of criticism.

Much of the early criticism was backward looking. William Cobbett lamented the gradual disappearance of the yeoman farmer and reacted sharply against the pauperization of labor in the industrial cities. He is sometimes regarded as an early conservative, sometimes as a proto socialist; originally, English conservatism and socialism shared many common motives and assumptions. Cobbett and Morris especially have influenced the development of English political thought. Guild socialism appealed to their example. Cobbett advocated worker planned education and social welfare programs. He warned against the charity schemes of what he called “the comforting system.” Morris, a convinced socialist, understood that the “machinery of socialism” could be turned to anti-democratic uses.

Some of the practices which met with censure from nineteenth century critics have persisted in variant forms which still provoke criticism. A continuity of themes suggests a continuity of problems despite all the conspicuous but often merely superficial societal changes. Robert Southey complained that workers were being reduced to automatons, and their employers along with them. John Ruskin contrasted “organic” with “mechanical” civilization. He studied the medieval guild system. Samuel Taylor Coleridge wished to revive the so called “medieval synthesis.” Social welfare was a concern of conservative and socialist critics alike. Most trained their critical sights on class conflict and social injustice.

The following essay examines ideas put forward by several English writers during the well-defined period between the world wars. The first war brought many issues involving modern technology to public attention and the second war confirmed many of the worst fears expressed in the interim period. Occasional references are made to earlier writers and non-English critics for comparison and contrast. The focus of this essay, however, is on the recovery and evaluation of some influential ideas, not on the authors themselves or events of the time. These ideas often cast a revealing light on such events, past and present. For that reason they merit a second glance.

Social consequences of technological change

“Men sometimes speak as though the progress of science must necessarily be a boon to mankind, but that, I fear, is one of the comfortable nineteenth‑century delusions which our more disillusioned age must discard. Science enables the holders of power to realize their purposes more fully than they could otherwise do. If their purposes are good, this is a gain; if they are evil, it is a loss. Science is no substitute for virtue; the heart is as necessary for a good life as the head.”[2]

The writings of Bertrand Russell from the interwar period[3] witness a considerable intellectual tension. On the one hand, he was convinced by the idea of progress and felt that a scientifically‑ordered society was inevitable. . . assuming that civilization would survive the growing wave of crises which alarmed him so greatly.[4] But, on the other hand, he believed that the result of this ordering would be a great diminution of individual liberty and warned that such a prospect must be examined carefully, whatever the possible welfares which might accrue.[5]

A basic inquiry of modern social criticism is concerned with how to reconcile the conflicting requirements of society and the individual: for example, what is the proper balance between liberty and authority, progress and order. These active dilemmas do not conform with the simplifications of political ideology. They resist precise formulation. As in Henri Bergson’s “twofold frenzy” their poles have reality and power only in relation to each other: waxing and waning in a converse pattern. Dogmas are forced into inconsistency by their own reductive bias and false rigor. But mere skepticism fails to understand such dilemmas in their intrinsic seriousness, thus remaining only at the surface. Bertrand Russell’s words reflect a fatalistic kind of disinterestedness, a lack of real commitment to analysis. He draws a static dichotomy between fact and value which is more characteristic of nineteenth century positivism.

Russel’s judgment was that science, considered as an intellectual force, tends toward a skepticism that may be destructive of social unity while, considered as a technical force, it tends to promote social cohesion.[6] This ambiguity appears to be reenforced by the obvious success of science. The consequent objectification of the world is incompatible with faith such as he understood. It has given us power over man and nature independent of any question of value.

“Thus it is only in so far as we renounce the world as its lovers that we can conquer it as its technicians. But this division of the soul is fatal to what is best in man. As soon as the failure of science considered as metaphysics is realized, the power conferred by science as a technique is only obtainable by something analogous to the worship of Satan, that is to say, by the renunciation of love. This is the fundamental reason why the prospect of a scientific society must be viewed with apprehension.”[7]

The danger lies neither in the knowledge nor the power of science, but in power exercised for its own sake. The lust for power in men and nations cannot be satisfied, since it is basically a lust for means rather than ends, and thus in its lack of fulfillment becomes a full‑time obsession. It is one of many alienated passions that especially characterize periods of upheaval, and Russell felt little use for any of them. He saw the dual operation of science at work even with regard to these passions. “It has given communities more power to indulge their collective passions, but, by making society more organic, it has diminished the part played by private passions.”[8]

Russell’s dichotomies are rigid and misleading. Historically, the development of modern science did coincide with secularization and the rise of nationalism. But science itself was less a factor in national unification than was the industrial revolution. Its application does not make society more organic or cohesive – not in the sense of hierarchical or pyramidical order – although it does supply means for the expansion of the state. Science – considered as a technical force – divides and realigns institutions, necessitates new laws and helps complicate the web of legal interrelationships. Collectivization, which also fits this pattern, is also not the same as unification.[9] A “unity” of forces is merely assumed.

The German industrialist and politician Walther Rathenau drew essentially the same picture before and during World War I. Society is becoming concentrated and collectivized by abstract technical methods. “Mechanization,” as he called it, is morally neutral and tends toward universality. It is an external, coercive organization which forsakes the needs of the individual. Its freedom is illusory as it deprives individuals of personal responsibility. The result is a new “organism.”[10] Both Rathenau and Russell toyed with a totalitarian vision of the future, although neither desired the evils they knew it entailed. Both of them saw it as a stage to be surpassed. But it is a stage which nevertheless would hold the present hostage to the future.

Russell concluded that, in light of conflicting tendencies which often correspond to economic and national rivalries, a world government offered the only plausible solution.[11] While he acknowledged that such a government could only be established by tyrannical means, he was nevertheless hopeful that personal liberties would be gradually restored.[12] Like Aldous Huxley, he warned that the powers of science could only be entrusted to those men who had acquired a reverence for human emotions.[13] This is not the fatalistic statement of one who despaired of the future, but it is hardly realistic.

Aldous Huxley recognized that science‑‑as a means to other ends‑‑is the concern of every man, not just scientists. He ascribed modern social troubles to the inadequate and inconsistent application of science to human affairs, and observed that our mechanical and agricultural science had developed more rapidly than our economic science. This disparity could only be remedied by “a lot of science, well applied.”[14]

Huxley’s view was typical of the attitudes which prevailed during the 1930’s. Although W. G. Ogburn coined the term “cultural lag,” the concept itself was expressed earlier in a variety of forms. This lag or inertia has been seen in relation to economic and political institutions, morality, knowledge, class conflict, and rational control of technology. Population growth and the complex needs created by it tend to aggravate social discontinuities. Many critics believe that this could be adequately compensated for by expanding the functions and prerogatives of the government. State planning became a popular subject for debate in intellectual forums during the world economic crisis.

While a few writers still dreamed of a return to the England of agriculture and small manufacture, most recognized that a non‑industrial order was out of the question; the existing population would perish without it. Many critics, including Rathenau and Russell, believed that it would be possible to increase prosperity indefinitely by keeping the population at a stable and fairly low level. But there is no evidence to support this wish, which seeks to compromise with the dynamics of the mechanization process. Who wills a part, wills the whole.

Regulation of population occurs through symbolic means. This is equally true of the various forces – such as technology, morality and political power – which contend with each other and, by so contending, help create the circumstances in which we live. It means that the Malthusian principle is incorrect, as is any form of fatalism. Population is not a function of economic prosperity and absolute resource limitations; nor is the reverse true.

Man interacts with his environment through symbolic means; this is his strength and his weakness. He can press the limits of possibility but cannot escape them. Population and prosperity, for example, are mediated by technological possibilities and social conventions, which in turn are influenced by available resources. The notion that we can stimulate indefinite economic progress not only assumes that technologies will continue to improve but also that such limiting factors are resource scarcity, capacity for control and optimum population size will prove to be irrelevant. These factors may be fluid but they nevertheless remain operational. A common superstition of our century appears to be that scientific knowledge is the universal solvent for which technology will provide a suitable container.

Huxley asserted the moral neutrality of science, indicating that it would become good or evil only as it was applied: that is, when considered as a means.[15] Hugh Fausset went a step further, however, claiming that science is also spiritually blind. The objective knowledge of science has given man power over the forces of nature, but it sees the unique only as an instance of a universal: it tends to depersonalize man. “All qualitative values disappear beneath a ruthless classification and all living form perishes in abstract formulas.”[16] With this “objective knowledge,” he contrasted “real knowledge,” which must be personally identified with. He called this identification “integrity of being,” alluding to the nineteenth century tradition which stressed the organic unity of culture. Although “objectivity” has been predominant in modern ways of thinking, he forecast a restoration of balance. Fausset apparently considered these developments to be necessary phases of progress and referred to them in the language of the dialectic:[17]

“It was as inevitable a process as that which occurs in every individual who, in passing from childhood to youth, is inwardly divided. Out of this division a richer and deeper unity may be ultimately achieved. But meanwhile, because the individual is at conflict within himself, he is at cross-purposes with life. He is either stricken with indecision or he asserts his personal will against life, denying it as a whole in the interests of one of its parts. Consequently his soul loses all contact with its depths and he becomes mentally expert but superficial.”[18]

Fausset dealt with many of the same themes – for example, integrity of being and objective versus subjective knowledge – which appear in the European existentialist literature of that period, the 1930’s. But he emphasized the social rather than the personal facets of “objectivity.” The drive for private gain is a central social force. This is reflected by modern civilization as a whole, which is “full of discord and aimlessness.”[19] R. H. Tawney called it “the acquisitive society.” Again, it is regarded as a confusion of means with ends, with the result that immense wealth and power is accumulated but without a consistent purpose to guide their use.

G. K. Chesterton, with typical irony, spoke up for the idea of “science for science’s sake.” Behind this sally lay his recognition that science, when applied to social matters, undergoes a qualitative change. Pure science is flexible; it can correct its mistakes and weaknesses. But when it is applied it is made concrete, and a single moment from an ongoing process of scientific development is preserved and made into a social reality.[20] Only a part of the theoretical whole is preserved and, when held out of context, may be flatly contradicted by the ultimate conclusion – if it is ever reached – although considered in sequence, it forms part of one logically unfolding fabric.[21] All of this may happen unintentionally, but a scientific argument may also be turned against itself and be used to support any absurd or wicked notion that a disputant may wish to espouse.[22]

These ideas, which Chesterton expressed in a 1929 magazine article, are most important to the primary critique of technology. They reflect the “lag” theme in one of its fundamental aspects. Technological products may be characterized as residues which have been deposited along the historical passage of a flowing development of techniques. These residues include the many institutions upon which personal and social life are built and made concrete.

If we were to speak of the process as if it were a flow of words or ideas, we might say that “reification” fixes the process at some fortuitous point that is relative to many other such points and to the process itself. This causes discontinuities between the residues, which represent different stages or types that coexist in time: this is what is called “cultural lag.” Hegel, Marx and Bergson followed essentially the same drift when they described their ideas of the dialectic of history or the vital impetus.

Hannah Arendt wrote of a crisis within the sciences which is due to a discontinuity between the powers of deduction and perception:

“. . .it could be that we, who are earthbound creatures and have begun to act as though we were dwellers of the universe, will forever be unable to understand, that is, to think and speak about the things which nevertheless we are able to do.”[23]

Percy Shelley remarked in “A Defence of Poetry” that “our calculations have outrun conception; we have eaten more than we can digest.”[24] Politics is a matter of conception.

The subsidiary effects of discontinuities in technique and knowledge‑‑not simply the “unknowns” of a particular situation‑‑have long been noted by social critics: examples include Thorstein Veblen’s “selective adaptation” and the Marxian “false consciousness” which was adopted by Karl Mannheim. One by‑product of the modern fascination with science is the growth of pseudo‑scientific ideology and “scientism,” which compound the errors that Chesterton noted with a “fallacy of misplaced concreteness.” Again, it appears that myths are drawn upon to fill the void of a discontinuity: in this case, the insufficiency of our perception of reality.

W. G. De Burgh associated the lure of what he considered to be modern science’s materialist metaphysic with the question that Socrates raised in Plato’s The Republic: “How can the State handle philosophy without a proper moral education, intellectual training would only produce cleverness, not sagacity or virtue. Consequently, rather than maturing together, man’s intellectual strides have far outstripped his moral development.”[25] De Burgh found traditional morality to be in a severely battered condition, particularly by the new developments in physics which placed motion at the center of reality. This contributed, he said, to hyperactivity in daily life and entertainment, to moral relativism and the philosophies of flux. “A thorough‑going ethical relativism as Plato saw clearly, can find no place for morality; it knows only interests.”[26]

Moralities and interests are not always different in kind, although they may reflect different premises. Differences in guiding purposes are not necessarily reflected in the concrete effects of one’s actions, which are still subject to flaw‑threshing natural laws. Similarly, history is a product of the disparity between perception, purpose and practice. Even the best motives and rules are found wanting. Hence the basic ambivalence of our knowledge and praxis, including pure and applied science.

Machines

“Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful, and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous, and loathed because they impose slavery.”[27]

“In this manner, Bertrand Russell summed up the modern attitude toward machines. The singular ‘attitude’ is stressed here because seemingly contrary views are commonly held with only vague differentiation. Machines fascinate and they repel. De Burgh found mechanization menacing, saying that it contributed to monotony and standardization, atrophy of limbs and human personalities.”[28]

“In each succeeding decade there is less scope in men’s lives for originality, independence, freedom. We all desire workers in a mine or mill to have shorter hours and higher wages, that they may enjoy leisure for their soul’s good; but what a confession of failure lies behind the desire! We are at best tinkering‑‑tinkering, if you will, generously and nobly‑‑with the evil; like the doctor whose high calling would have no occasion for exercise were there no diseased bodies to be healed. In our modern industrial system the work is perforce so monotonous that the worker can find no joy in it. . . . Ideally work should be a delight; yet it is becoming every year more of a drudgery. True, we educate the workers; but the very immensity of the task forces us to mechanise the education.”[29]

De Burgh saw no way of avoiding this, although he stressed that we should at least “discern the evil, and be on our guard against its consequences.”[30] George Orwell attributed this tinkering to a hypertrophied sense of order, especially among establishment socialists.[31]

The explicit condemnation of machines, which was characteristic of nineteenth century romanticism, is rare in the twentieth century critique of technology. Industry and modern transportation systems are indispensable to our present life and society. This is generally recognized, even by romantic agrarians and medievalists, who nevertheless lament what they see as the loss of certain standards of craftsmanship and types of communal cooperation. But the “organic society” theme of such conservatism is a myth; it is unrealistic as a vision of either past or future. Machines have no real place in their idyllic picture of organic society; indeed, the very existence of machines threatens some cherished beliefs and values. So the romantic conservatives of the interwar period argued that the privacy, independence, power and mobility offered by machines – like the automobile – are tainted at the source. They feared that social bonds were being fragmented and that the old hierarchical relations were losing hold. Many regarded ancient crafts and occupations as natural outgrowths of a mature community life which was built up slowly in time.

This particular myth would not bear examination even if there were no machines or related contrivances. It confuses two orders of reality: divine and natural. It sanctions human customs and institutions by attributing divine origins to them. The pretense can be maintained only a dimly recalled pre‑history; in the case of industrial machinery the truth of the matter is too obvious. Human institutions are human constructions, whatever else they may happen to be. They are superimposed on a realm of natural necessity although they seem, in time, to blend with a natural scheme of things. It is certainly true that natural substances are reconstituted and natural forces are redirected by human effort, but within the very creative freedom which man exercises, the natural rules are reasserted and confirmed. Constructions never make a radical break with existing reality, whether they are synthetic chemicals or political institutions. The impact of machines on modern life is consistent with a natural order and necessity which ancient craftsmen also knew, especially concerning the implications of such constraints for the life of the spirit.

The romantic rejection of the machine is less of an issue today; Emmanuel Mounier effectively disposed of this aspect of the “case against the machine.”

“In technics man objectivises both his activity and himself, as he does in law, in the State, in scientific knowledge and in language. Such mediations are necessary to a spirit living in a world. Wherever there is mediation, there is danger of estrangement. Danger for the Christian in his Church, and the intellectual in his documents, as much for the worker in the factory or the consumer of luxury goods. Some societies may be petrified by their techniques as others have been stultified by law, theology or power. But to guard against the trend to estrangement does not imply refusing all mediation. . . . When a decadent individualism was, in fact, driving man towards this inner dissolution, the world of technics brought us two important elements of culture.”

The first benefit was “to drive man out of himself: this man, lost in his own subtleties . . . drowned in a sea of sentiments inherited from an age of vague romanticism and narrow egoism.” The second was to “put a regulatory system between desire and satisfaction and thus prevent desire from getting out of hand.” Although Mounier acknowledged the problem of a “technocratic imperialism,” he observed:

“Just as each machine tends at first toward inflation and giantism before it finds its economically discreet form, we shall continue for an indefinite period to suffer from a swollen form of machinism until the law of economy begins to operate. Our generation has the hardest task: that of hoping and willing against the stream, without any immediate expectations. But we must de-mystify the problems and exorcise the follies created by our fears.”[32]

A subtler form of “anti‑machinism” still persists, however. Robert Pirsig gave an account of it in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974).[33] It represents a survival of an old elitist belief that manual work is demeaning or that it is somehow less important when considered on a scale of useful pursuits. Some critics, who otherwise accept the growing use of machines, believe that machines should at least be made unobtrusive. G. K. Chesterton observed that, while a few men who build or operate machines actually enjoy them, most people are bored with them. This is as it should be, he thought. Efficiency demands non‑attachment.[34]

Cultural change and the idea of rational progress

The utilitarian myth of progress had largely receded to the background before the opening of the period under consideration. It did not play a prominent role in these critiques, either to justify certain persuasions or to be made the goat of others. As an ethical philosophy, it had been incorporated by pragmatism and instrumentalism. As a social doctrine, it had been superseded by Spencerian and Marxian varieties of naturalism.

But this characteristic English variety of optimistic philosophy espoused a myth of progress which still sustains a stubborn popular faith. The more extreme criticisms of twentieth century events may be understood best in light of this optimistic faith, for periods of disillusionment and cynical irreverence normally follow upon intrusions by harsher realities. At such times it seems as if immorality is increasing and that the human species is regressing, either physiologically or ethically. Such proposed solutions as eugenics and behavioral control were popular subjects for discussion during World War I and the years that followed. They remain so today.

When Bertrand Russell challenged the utilitarian view, it was not on ethical or religious grounds – which had dominated the debate in the nineteenth century – but “from the point of view of psychology and observation of life.”

“The assumption is, that the possession of material commodities is what makes men happy. It is thought that a man who has two rooms and two beds and two loaves must be twice as happy as a man who has one room and one bed and one loaf. In a word, it is thought that happiness is proportional to income. If happiness is proportional to income, the case for machinery is unanswerable; if not, the whole question remains to be examined. Men have physical needs, and they have emotions. While physical needs are unsatisfied, they take first place; but when they are satisfied, emotions unconnected with them become important in deciding whether a man is to be happy or unhappy.”[35]

The utilitarians did not anticipate that people might become bored with a surfeit of goods. Still, prosperity continued to have a status value: admiration “is the chief reason why people wish .”[36] Russell considered that our desire for material possessions would diminish if they became community property. The spirit of competition would merely turn to some other field of endeavor to exalt differences or would dry up altogether. The real value of prosperity is to prevent destitution and not else.

The growth of modern medicine, which might be mentioned as a good example of genuine progress, has not been on all levels an unqualified success. It has wrought many social changes which are certainly subject to scrutiny.[37] J. B. S. Haldane claimed that healthier social conditions have affected the religious outlook and, for example, made the English land system, as well as government based on seniority, obsolete.[38] These problems are related to cultural lag. Haldane proposed a biologically‑oriented government as a solution to modern social imbalances – just as F. S. C. Schiller similarly proposed eugenics – but with this difference: he only wished to change society, not the nature of man.

“The founder of genetics in this country, William Bateson, left a motto for his successors, of whom I am one. It was ‘Treasure your exceptions.’ That represents the biological point of view, whereas the engineer’s point of view is ‘Scrap your exceptions.’”[39]

Sir Arthur Salter, an economist, took a very straightforward approach to the question of progress during the depression years. He designated three factors which determine the material basis of modern life, the structure of society and government, and the character of human opportunities and problems: physical power, mechanical appliances, and the communications media. Ordered progress depends on our ability to “make” and to “regulate”; the last is a problem of government. Industry has greatly surpassed the capacity to regulate, however, resulting in an economic and social lag in adapting to the changing environment.[40]

J. A. Hobson noted the rapidity of change, which by then was beginning to disturb the non‑western, traditional societies, and saw in the growth of communications a potential equalizing force.[41] “Equalization” is a prominent theme in the critique of technology. Many conservative critics complained of an inherent “leveling” tendency, particularly as a result of new techniques or tools which require fewer skills to operate and which are accessible to people with limited financial means, education or training. The nature of political and social power has changed as a result; the contribution of lower economic classes and minorities can no longer be ignored as they become powers to be recognized.

A similar complaint is voiced with even more passion about equalization among nations with regard to political, economic, legal and military power. Although modern technological means reach across national boundaries and contribute to a growing interdependence among the nations, there is little evidence that the drift is toward political unification. Sophisticated means are often used to fuel militantly nationalistic programs. Long‑established political powers tend to see weapon proliferation and multilateral economic competition as threats to stability and peace.

Many critics warned that Europe’s position as the leading economic and political region of the world was being undermined. Paul Valéry thought that the inequalities of regions were gradually disappearing. Size rather than quality once again would be the primary source of power. “We have foolishly made force proportional to mass!”[42] Ernst Juenger depicted the mystique of technology as “the messiah of oppressed peoples,” through which the power of imperialism would be broken. Oswald Spengler believed that Europe was taking its technology and affluence for granted; by so doing it would surrender its power to Eastern peoples for whom technology is only a weapon in their fight against what he called “Faustian civilization.”[43] For other critics the potential for equalization is a milestone for justice. It would right the old abuses of capitalism and colonialism.

Another facet of the critique of technology is a concern with time and its transformation, its possible speeds and rhythms. The changes produced by science and industrialism have been rapidly accelerating, and must be considered revolutionary. This was the conclusion of Julian Huxley, writing early during the Second World War. Viewed from his perspective, the manifestations of this revolution in war, prosperity, and economic imbalances should be understood as related aspects of one underlying force: modernization. The revolution itself is inevitable. But the quality of the revolution will be determined by our conscious choice. This fact alone would be revolutionary, for earlier revolutions showed no susceptibility to planned direction.[44]

The myth of revolution is a way of understanding time. Nicolas Berdyaev recognized that it is an offshoot of Christian heresy which fancies that an eschatological purpose quickens its secularized version of history.[45] Its advocates usually expect too much of historical necessity or its benevolence. Revolutions often simply consolidate more slowly developing social changes, never failing to accomplish what amounts to a variation on past examples and practice. In Russia the break between the old and new regimes was superficial in comparison to the continuity of their mutual ideas about the nature of man and society.

One fallacy of the myth of revolution and the myth of totalitarian society is that these forces can be controlled and given a planned direction. Novel possibilities may be favored by change but things then settle down into a restrictive pattern once again. Advocates of continual revolution ignore those human traits which tend to thrive under conditions of greater political stability. Planning is an attempt to ensure the stability of a particular political order, but it is inherently limited and tends to lapse into a lack of creativity, thereby internalizing the very chaos it wishes to shut outside the system.

Julian Huxley contrasted two alternative approaches – totalitarian and democratic – which would decide the actual character of the revolution. He found these at the root of the Second World War. The totalitarian method stresses power. “It demands disciplined uniformity and regimentation.” He wrongly believed that it is capable of extreme efficiency, but admitted that the method is essentially self‑defeating in the long run.

“It is self defeating just because it holds its power by sheer force and can maintain itself only by constantly extending that power. But the more it extends its power the more resistance it generates both from the inside and from the outside.”[46]

Once again, the theme was one of apprehension tempered by hope. Aldous Huxley was more restrained. He recognized that there are also qualitative alternatives that can make even totalitarian government benevolent in appearance and more attractive to the alienated – as well as the unwary – citizen.[47] Repressive force is inefficient. Nor is it only totalitarian regimes that must maintain their power by constantly extending it. The complexity of powerful social, economic, technological and political forces places all modern systems of government into the position of having to adapt to these technological changes and somehow to better consolidate them in order to keep from being overwhelmed by them. For Berdyaev politics was the highest expression of the realm of necessity. It seeks totality of compass but fails in its quest for totality of control. Aldous Huxley, like Dostoevsky, Soloviev, and Berdyaev, recognized that the benevolent façade of the totalitarian myth is more dangerous to freedom than its hideous consequences in practice. It denies all forms of freedom by attempting to thwart the inner life of man.

Going beyond Salter’s cautious assessment W. G. De Burgh stressed that “the advance of modern science had outstripped man’s competence to make right use of it.”[48] C. E. M. Joad could not find any historical improvement upon our knowledge of life, the greatest truths of which were venerable even in the days of the ancient Greeks.[49] While Aldous Huxley expressed his point of view rather cynically:

“Technological advance is rapid. But without progress in charity, technological advance is useless. Indeed, it is worse than useless. Technological progress has merely provided us with a more efficient means for going backwards.”[50]

Disillusionment is a natural result of promethean optimism. These are the words of a man whose grandfather was known as “Darwin’s bulldog.” The evolutionary myth in those days was essentially an optimistic creed before its adherents branched off, separating those who emphasized cooperation from those who emphasized competition. Following the horrors of two world wars it is hardly surprising to discover extremely pessimistic conceptions of evolution, such as Roderick Seidenberg’s.[51] The idea of historical regression logically follows from the failure of the optimistic view of progress.

Social convention, disruption, and acquired needs

The discrepancy between the promise of industrialism and its contemporary reality was considered shortly after the First World War by the economic historian and Fabian Socialist, R. H. Tawney. He contrasted the ideal of a “functional society,” in which the acquisition of property is “contingent upon the discharge of social obligations,” with the “acquisitive society,” which detaches material gain from service and promotes the accumulation of wealth as an end in itself. The result of this “acquisitive society” is social malaise, as it raises an unproductive capitalist class to a commanding position and degrades the contribution of the worker. In such a situation, nobody is happy because esteem is absent.[52] Contentiousness is the rule and all economic groups are subordinated to the roles prescribed by economic determinists.

On these points Tawney’s argument parallels one previously framed by the American economist, Thorstein Veblen. The latter studied the unproductive “leisure class” whose power derives from its virtual absentee ownership of the “common stock of technological knowledge,” which rightfully belongs to the working community. Like Spengler, Veblen characterized the power of these vested interests as being of a predatory nature; through their control of the symbols of economic power they were able to attain wealth by what amounts to unearned income.

This is a perennial issue. Optimists take some comfort in anthropological studies which suggest the possibility of peaceful and cooperative communities. But if these communities thrive or even exist, they do so at the leave of their more competitive neighbors. Western culture is shot through with competitiveness, of which acquisitiveness is only one form. It is only realistic to expect that power vacuums created by social innovations and other changes will be quickly filled by opportunists.

Tawney and Veblen thought that the answer was to bestow the symbols of power on workers or engineers. But the outcome of such transferences of power has led ultimately to the creation of a new class or power elite. Even before the turn of the century, William Morris conceded that the machinery of socialism could be used to thwart egalitarian purposes and maintain a society of inequality. Nicolas Berdyaev believed that this must necessarily be the case, with the exception of genuine religious community: what is called “Sobornost.”[53]

For Tawney the problem is, at bottom, a loss of purpose; society lacks “a principle superior to the mechanical play of economic forces. . . .”[54] This is what Tawney meant by word “industrialism,” holding that it creates many absurdities, such as what he called the “production of futilities.” Ideally, industrialization should promote efficiency. Instead, the ruling economic order often sidetracks labor to the production of vanities and supports economic parasitism.[55]

This last complaint well describes the “consumptive waste” which Veblen believed to approximate the net margin of product over cost.[56] In order to prevent a glut on the market – a market which is now large‑scale – needs and desires must be created according to market specifications. Psychological manipulation of consumer symbols enters the picture at this point. The entire pecuniary order orients itself toward sales; its values tend to align the social order according to economic considerations. But “created” or acquired needs – or dependencies – are not simply phenomena of a particular economic system. They come to serve as a basis for human interaction and are equivalent to adaptive activity. That they serve a symbolic or valuative function does not make them any less real or powerful.

Acquired needs hold a prominent position in the critique of technology, taking a variety of forms. John Ruskin cited the creation of novelties and gauderies, and the encouragement of public extravagance. Veblen wrote about conspicuous consumption. Others criticized such practices for contriving perpetual discontent. But acquired needs are not merely economic or pecuniary. Henri Bergson’s description of the tool, including instruments of the intellect, makes clear the nature of the need:

“Above all, it reacts on the nature of the being that constructs it; for in calling on him to exercise a new function, it confers on him, so to speak, a richer organization, being an artificial organ by which the natural organism is extended. For every need it satisfies, it creates a new need; . . . it lays open to activity an unlimited field into which it is driven further and further, and made more and more free.”[57]

What is most important to recognize is that these words apply to all symbolic activity, which includes language, politics, science and so forth. Life and adaptation are best described as processes; all solutions, ends or arrivals are transient and relative to the process since they are symbols, also. Conversely, we are compelled to speak of these needs as subsidiary effects of symbolic activities because their relation to active causes is only incompletely conjectured. They certainly are not consciously comprehended in relation to a unitary process.

But many critics fail to recognize the necessity which seems to uphold particular conventions that actually have adaptive value. A. J. Penty, a guild socialist, directly attributed economic instability to the misapplication of machinery, and termed the superfluities “rubbish.” He was equally definite about the effects of occupational uncertainty and transience:

“A nation to be stable must be so at its base. The workers must neither be insecure nor suffer from a sense of insecurity. . . .This, I contend, is the only basis of a stable society; and if such conditions do not obtain, and uncertainty comes to prevail in people’s lives, then it will tend gradually to undermine all the cardinal virtues upon which national stability finally rests. The workers will lose their courage and independence, and will become demoralized, having, indeed, no higher aim than that of keeping going from day to day.”[58]

This insecurity, in Penty’s mind, could lead society down the road of collectivism to servile labor.[59] But the unpredictability of action and the disposition of symbolic activity to unconsciously create new needs and new bonds makes most ideas of security and control illusory.

Photo source: [1]PxHere.com; [2]PxHere.com.

Notes:

[1]See Raymond Williams, Culture and Society, 1780-1950 (New York: Harper, 1958) for background.

[2]Bertrand Russell, Icarus: or, The Future of Science (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1924). This is one of a series of short books which also includes Garet Garrett’s Ouroboros: or, The Mechanical Extension of Mankind (1926).

[3]The four works by Lord Russell covered here are copyrighted between 1924 and 1938.

[4]Bertrand Russell, The Scientific Outlook (New York: W. W. Norton, 1962 [1931] 203-05. He regarded the destruction of civilization a definite threat and mentioned “the next war” is several passages. See Ibid. 237-38.

[5]Russell, Icarus, 39-41. See also Bertrand Russell, “How Science Has Changed Society,” The Listener (January 27, 1932) 40.

[6]Russell, Outlook, 207-08

[7]Ibid. 264.

[8]Ibid. 265.

[9]It begins with atomization, the breakdown of other social units like the family and community.

[10]Walther Rathenau, In Days to Come (London: A. A. Knopf, 1921) 29, 34. “Organism” may be meant ironically. Rathenau, who was indispensable to the war effort, was assassinated in 1922.

[11]Russell, Outlook, 237-29.

[12]Russell, Icarus, 40-42.

[13]Russell, Outlook, 268. See Aldous Huxley, “Science – the Double-Edged Tool,” The Listener (January 20, 1932) 77-79, 112.

[14]Huxley, “Science,” 77-78.

[15]Ibid. 112.

[16]Hugh l’A. Fausset, “The Insufficiency of Science,” The Listener (January 27, 1932) 129.

[17]The dialectic is the simplest dynamical formula or model of progress.

[18]Fausset, “Insufficiency,” 129.

[19]Ibid. 129.

[20]G. K. Chesterton, “The Inefficiency of Science,” The North American Review (November 1929) 588-89. Chesterton’s objection is comparable to Socrates’s distrust of the written word. See also Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (New York: Avon Books, 1967.

[21]Ibid. 588-89.

[22]Ibid. 591-92.

[23]Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959) 3.

[24]Percy Bysshe Shelley, “A Defence of Poetry,” in Charles W. Eliot, ed., The Harvard Classics, 27: English Essays: From Sir Philip Sidney to Macauley (New York: P. F. Collier, 1910), 370.

[25]W. G. DeBurgh, “Sources of Present World Trouble: The Abuse of Knowledge,” The Hibbert Journal (January 1940) 196-87, 199, 202-04.

[26]Ibid. 204.

[27]Bertrand Russell, “Machines and the Emotions,” Sceptical Essays (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1928) 87.

[28]DeBurgh, “World-Trouble,” 201.

[29]Ibid. 201-02.

[30]Ibid. 202

[31]George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (New York: Berkley, 1961 [1937]) 151.

[32]Ibid. 63-64.

[33]Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (New York: William Morrow, 1974). Excerpted in True (July 1974), 20-21, 44-58.

[34]G. K. Chesterton, The Outline of Sanity (London: Methuen, 1926), 153,159-60.

[35]Russell, “Machines,” 82.

[36]Ibid. 83-85.

[37]See, for example, criticisms by Karl Jaspers, who was trained as a physician. Karl Jaspers, Man in the Modern Age (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1957 [1931]) 66; Karl Jaspers, Philosophy and the World: Selected Essays and Lectures. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1963. pp. 168-91.

[38]J. B. S. Haldane, Daedalus: or Science and the Future (New York, E. P. Dutton, 1924), 54-56; see also J. B. S. Haldane, “Health before Wealth,” The Listener (February 10, 1932),190.

[39]Haldane, “Health,” Listener, 191-192.

[40]Arthur Salter, Modern Mechanization and its Effect on the Structure of Society (Oxford: Oxford University, 1933), 7-9.

[41]J. A. Hobson, “Modern Civilisation on Trial,” The Contemporary Review (September, 1931). p. 299.

[42]Paul Valéry, “The Crisis of the Mind,” in The Complete Works of Paul Valery, Bollingen Series 45, Volume 10: History and Politics, trans. Denise Folliot and Jackson Matthews (New York: Pantheon Books, 1962), 35.

[43]Oswald Spengler, Man and Technics: A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1932), 98-104.

[44]Julian Huxley, On Living in a Revolution (New York: Harper and Row, 1944), ix-xi, 6, 12. The theme of “systemic revolution” figures in Robert Strausz-Hupe, et al., Protracted Conflict (New York: Harper and Row, 1963).

[45] See Nicolas Berdyaev, The Origin of Russian Communism (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1960), chapter 7.

[46]Huxley, Revolution, 13.

[47]See Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited (New York: Harper and Row, 1958).

[48]DeBurgh, “World-Trouble,” 197.

[49] C. E. M. Joad, “Is Man Improving?” Scribner’s Magazine (August, 1935), 111. Others have made similar observations: “At present science has gone ahead, civilization has lagged behind." Sir Oliver Lodge, "The Spirit of Science,” The Listener (February 17, 1932), 223.

[50]Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means (New York: Harper and Row, 1937), 9.

[51]See Roderick Seidenberg, Post-historic Man: An Inquiry (Boston, Beacon Press, 1957).

[52]R. H. Tawney, The Acquisitive Society (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1920), 28-29, 33-36.

[53]See Nicolas Berdyaev, The Destiny of Man (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), 169.

[54]Tawney, Acquisitive, 39-40.

[55]Ibid., p. 39. See A. J. Penty, Old Worlds for New: A Study of the Post-Industrial State (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1917), 91; Haldane, Daedalus, 22-23.

[56]Thorstein Veblen, The Vested Interests and the Common Man: The Modern Point of View and the New Order (New York: Capricorn Books, 1969), 50.

[57]Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution (New York: Random House, 1944), 155-56.

[58]Penty, Worlds, 89-90.

[59]Ibid., 175-76.