THE MYTH OF THE MACHINE: The Pentagon of Power

by Lewis Mumford ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 11, 1970

This second volume of Mumford's heroically scaled study begins in the sixteenth century when ""the modern world picture was first conceived as the expression of a new religion and the basis of a new power system."" This was the Copernican revolution which, far from diminishing man by removing him from the center of the universe, in Mumford's view afforded him a spectacular religious alternative: devotion to the quantifiable and orderly, with promise of transcendence by scientific means mad the sun as ultimate model of power. But a fatal paradox grounded this unacknowledged 'worship.' Its passion for objective knowledge was a function of creative, speculative mind; yet it entailed a ""dogmatic discrimination against living phenomena,"" mind and senses included. Galileo, et al., set the anti-human direction of modern development by ignoring science's dependence on subjective awareness; Descartes furthered it by failing to recognize that the machine, his world model, is contingent upon and thus exceeded by human purpose. But the method and the model had unquestionable practical utility, spurring technological advances and giving the conduct of life and business a caste of ""scientific"" objectivity--meaning concentration on the mechanical virtues of performance over the ultimate life value of accomplishments. With the diversification of the sciences (ending any further service to philosophic comprehension), their marriage to technology, and the consolidation of both into a comprehensive system involving the military, education, and government, ""Megamachine"" comes into existence. This is at once epitome and parody of the mechanistic vision, exalting power strictly as the means to more power. Equating progress with power, human possibility with technical possibility, it institutionalizes the sixteenth-century exclusion of metaphysics and enforces that exclusion with god-like authority. Mumford's solution hangs on the reaffirmation of organic identifications and capacities which is already beginning, and may eventually topple the monolith with the force of a ""formative idea."" More reassuring, however, is the historical perspective which makes prevailing conditions seem less inevitable. Most of the broad formulations are familiar from earlier works, as are the magnificent vigor and range. Familiar too are the parallel shortcomings of overstatement and speculation, but leaps and lapses both reflect the motion of an extraordinary mind.

Pub Date: Nov. 11, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1970

Categories: NONFICTION