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 18
... immense importance for the later processes of industrializa- tion performed by the new exploration . The organic sciences , zoology , botany , paleontology , with their exhaustive inventories of forms and species have been given a lower ...
... immense importance for the later processes of industrializa- tion performed by the new exploration . The organic sciences , zoology , botany , paleontology , with their exhaustive inventories of forms and species have been given a lower ...
Page 34
... immense authority that the astronomical and mechanical world picture exerted - and still exerts - over many of the most able minds . Unfortunately , just as behind the terrestrial exploration stalked de- monic and criminal impulses that ...
... immense authority that the astronomical and mechanical world picture exerted - and still exerts - over many of the most able minds . Unfortunately , just as behind the terrestrial exploration stalked de- monic and criminal impulses that ...
Page 228
... immense , still impending total human sacrifice cannot be ap- praised in the rational or scientific terms that those who have created this system favor : it is , I stress again , an essentially religious phenomenon . As such it offers a ...
... immense , still impending total human sacrifice cannot be ap- praised in the rational or scientific terms that those who have created this system favor : it is , I stress again , an essentially religious phenomenon . As such it offers a ...
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