"This new type of man. . . turns his interest away from life, persons, nature , ideas- in short from everything that is alive; he transforms all life into things, including himself and the manifestations of human faculties of reasoning, seeing, hearing, tasting, loving. Sexuality becomes a technical skill . . . feelings are flattened and sometimes substituted for by sentimentality; joy, the expression of intense aliveness, is replaced by 'fun' or excitement; and whatever love and tenderness man has directed towards machines and gadgets. The world becomes a sum of lifeless artefacts; from synthetic food to synthetic organs, the whole man becomes part of the total machinery that he controls and is simultaneously controlled by. He has no plan, no goal for life , except doing what the logic of technique determines him to do. He aspires to make robots as one of the greatest acievements of his technical mind, and some specialists assure us that the robot will hardly be distinguished from living men. This achievement will not seem so astonishing when man himself is hardly distinguishable from a robot.
The world of life has become a world of 'no-life'; persons have become 'nonpersons', a world of death."
Reprinted from
' The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness'
Jonathan Cape , 1974.
Incidentally this blog is 3 years old today, so thanks to all who have dropped by, left a comment, shown encouragement and to all the other blogers who have given me inspiration, you know who you are.
Am beginning to run out of steam, but will plough on for a bit. Time to lose control.
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