The Myth of the Machine, Volume 1An 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 78
... language became better able to fulfill its own special function , that of summarizing experience in concepts and ideal structures of increasing complexity . By means of language , each group progressively organized its immediate ...
... language became better able to fulfill its own special function , that of summarizing experience in concepts and ideal structures of increasing complexity . By means of language , each group progressively organized its immediate ...
Page 81
... language of the concrete ' and words of command might often suffice for present purposes , only a comprehensive language structure can recall the past , anticipate the future , or embrace the invisible and the distant . A general ...
... language of the concrete ' and words of command might often suffice for present purposes , only a comprehensive language structure can recall the past , anticipate the future , or embrace the invisible and the distant . A general ...
Page 84
... language , in establishing a fully human self , is lost in any reduction of speech to a mere communication system . Languages , for all their wealth of abstract terms , still show the marks of their primeval office : the disciplining of ...
... language , in establishing a fully human self , is lost in any reduction of speech to a mere communication system . Languages , for all their wealth of abstract terms , still show the marks of their primeval office : the disciplining of ...
Contents
PROLOGUE | 3 |
THE MINDFULNESS OF MAN | 14 |
IN THE DREAMTIME LONG AGO | 48 |
Copyright | |
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abstract achieved activities agriculture ancestors ancient animal Aurignacian became beginning Benedictine Bertrand Gille brain Bushmen Çatal Hüyük cave cave paintings century cities civilization command complex consciousness cosmic creature cultivation divine domestication dream earliest economy economy of abundance effective effort Egypt Egyptian environment established esthetic evidence existence fact functions gods Homo sapiens human culture hunter hunting images institution interpretation Iron Age king kingship labor language later Leonardo London machine Magdalenian magic means megamachine ment merely mesolithic Mesopotamia military mind mode modern myth nature needed neolithic Oakes Ames observation once organization original paintings paleolithic paleolithic art pattern performed physical plants play possible practice primitive production rational religion ritual royal sacred sacrifice sexual significant social society species speech stone Sumer Sumerian survival symbolic technical thousand tion tool-making traits village watermill weapons whole words York