The Myth of the Machine

Mumford, Lewis. The Myth of the Machine. Vol. l, Technics and Human Development, 1966, 1967. Vol. 2, The Pentagon of Power, 1964, 1970. New York: Harcourt, 1970.

With the application of mathematics and the physical sciences to technology, we have entered a new relationship to technics. "With this new 'megatechnics' the dominant minority will create a uniform, all-enveloping, super-planetary structure, designed for automatic operation. Instead of functioning actively as an autonomous personality, man will become a passive, purposeless, machine-conditioned animal whose proper functions, as technicians now interpret man's role, will either be fed into the machine or strictly limited and controlled for the benefit of de-personalized, collective organizations" (Vol. 1, ch. 1, 3). Cf. J. Ellul, The Technological Society, cited this Category.

RDE, Title, 10Aug19