The Myth of the Machine: The pentagon of powerHarcourt, Brace & World, 1970 - Technology and civilization An in-depth look at the forces that have shaped modern technology since prehistoric times. Mumford criticizes the modern trend of technology, which emphasizes constant, unrestricted expansion, production, and replacement. He contends that these goals work against technical perfection, durability, social efficiency, and overall human satisfaction. Modern technology fails to produce lasting, quality products by using devices such as consumer credit, installment buying, non-functioning and defective designs, built-in fragility, and frequent superficial "fashion" changes. "Without constant enticement by advertising," he writes, "production would slow down and level off to normal replacement demand. Otherwise many products could reach a plateau of efficient design which would call for only minimal changes from year to year." |
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Page 135
... effort to overcome physical obstacles that raised this constructive technics to the highest pitch of effort . To express their deepest subjective feelings , the builders of these monuments posed for themselves the most difficult techni ...
... effort to overcome physical obstacles that raised this constructive technics to the highest pitch of effort . To express their deepest subjective feelings , the builders of these monuments posed for themselves the most difficult techni ...
Page 206
... effort . Still less was the technical milieu involved , until the Benedictine discipline turned work itself into a form of piety . This divorce and isolation of the self from the economic system and the material culture that helped to ...
... effort . Still less was the technical milieu involved , until the Benedictine discipline turned work itself into a form of piety . This divorce and isolation of the self from the economic system and the material culture that helped to ...
Page 328
... effort , but to multiply the number of needs , factitious or fictitious , and accommodate them to the maximum mechanical capacity to produce profits . These are the sacred principles of the power complex . The avant - garde artists like ...
... effort , but to multiply the number of needs , factitious or fictitious , and accommodate them to the maximum mechanical capacity to produce profits . These are the sacred principles of the power complex . The avant - garde artists like ...
Contents
NEW EXPLORATIONS NEW WORLDS | 3 |
RETURN OF THE SUN GOD | 28 |
THE MECHANIZED WORLD PICTURE | 51 |
Copyright | |
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absolute abstract achieved activities actually already ancient atom automatic automation Bacon become biological Christian civilization Comenius communication contemporary cosmic culture Descartes destruction dream economy economy of abundance effect electronic energy environment established evolution existence experience exploration extermination fact fantasies final forces Francis Bacon functions further future Galileo habitat Henry Adams idea ideology immense increase industrial institutions intelligence invention Kepler knowledge labor limited machine man's mass production mechanical world picture megamachine megatechnics ment merely method military mind mode modern moral myth nature nineteenth century noƶsphere Norbert Wiener nuclear observed once original Patrick Geddes physical planet plenitude political absolutism population possible potentialities power complex power system practical present progress purpose Pyramid Age quantity reality result scientific scientists social society space subjective symbolic technical Technics and Civilization technocratic tion totalitarian transformation turn ultimate utopia whole York