Machines and People

In these six lectures Mr Mumford has attempted to deal with some of the most crucial problems of our age. It is a measure of his intellectual balance that while he exposes the disastrous sub-humanity of modern technological society, he does not become a Luddite caught in a blind antagonism to the machine. Apart from its breadth and variety, a striking feature of Mr Mumford’s argument is his avoidance of the repulsive gobbledegook which is a constant temptation to writers in the field of speculative aesthetics. He says no more and no less than he means.

Perhaps the fatal course all civilisations have so far followed has been due, not to natural miscarriages, the disastrous effects of famines and floods and diseases, but to accumulated perversions of the symbolic functions. Obsession with money and neglect of productivity. Obsession with the symbols of centralised political power and sovereignty, and neglect of the processes of mutual aid in the small face-to-face community. Obsession with the symbols of religion to the neglect of the ideal ends or the daily practices of love and friendship through which these symbols would be given an effective life.

These four sentences lay bare the core of his argument. He does not, however, develop this intuition as if it were a skeleton key to open all doors. Meticulously, clearly, emphatically, he explores like a surgeon the wounds of our civilisation – and without false optimism predicts a possible cure. If our statesmen had had the wisdom of Mr Mumford we would not today be awaiting the whirlwinds and waterspouts of atomic warfare. For he understands the basic duality of human conduct and knowledge, and howpage 137 easily a frustrated creativity becomes demonism. This book should be part of the mental furniture of any man who calls himself educated.

1953 (76)