EDITORIALS:
O'Gara, James
CORRESPONDENCE Greece and Turkey Ann Arbor, Mich. To the Editors: Professor Finkenthal's article, 'The Imminent War: Greece and Turkey," in the April 25 issue provides an excellent insight in the...
...That date is hardly "before the Somme" though it is before such experience of the Somme as Owen was to have...
...We are already on the threshold of a Technological Tower of Babel, wherein even highly trained technical people find it increasingly difficult to maintain their skills and communicate among themselves...
...MARK TAYLOR...
...He suggests that labor, talent, and human activity appear redundant only because we have not yet learned to appropriate the new technology in full...
...And since the Soviet Union has claims on Turkish territory, Turkey just cannot place herself in such a precarious position...
...Automation, Communication and Design might engage our faculties at a higher, more intense level than ever before, if only we could reorganize social life to appropriate these new "productive forces...
...Since it is already difficult for professional scientists and engineers to keep up with technological growth, it will be almost impossible to train many workers so that we can be...
...Unfortunately his ego, bigger than his sense of duty to his country, does not allow him to admit that he made a mess in Cyprus and accept gracefuly the help Congress wisely offered him by suspending military aid to Turkey...
...DR...
...We are not simply going through another familiar business cycle...
...With a renewed emphasis on simplification rather than sophistication, a useful technical skill and productive job will be within the reach of more people, and average people will again feel that they have some control over their lives...
...So he built the "Turkey will go to the Soviets" myth to frighten Congress into resuming aid to Turkey...
...This is why economic productivity is insufficient when measured against our developmental needs...
...The only political and diplomatic experts seeing it that way must be Kissinger and those in the State Department who do not wish to openly disagree with him...
...indeed, the English had launched their last attack on 13 November 1916...
...The machine was changing the life of the masses for the first time since the agricultural revolution...
...We are writing working papers on the life cycle, the job structure, the new sensibility, the global economy and the service-communications sector...
...But, at that time the new political-economists could not see that human superfluity and economic development were interconnected parts of a contradictory and too often brutal process of change...
...Advanced Technology does not call for a nation of machine tenders and clerks, but a nation of professionals and technicians...
...While I agree with Mr...
...Kramer that we cannot abandon the need for technological change, I feel that we must be wary of technology that creates an ever more complex way of life...
...This economic crisis, follows on the heels of a long period of underemployment throughout the job structure...
...But we can accept the loss of our present (increasingly stagnant) way of life, if we have a clear vision of our roles and functions in an expanded and developmental post-industrial society...
...Change and loss are intertwined...
...Every great breakthrough in technology required a massive redistribution of the working population and of national resources...
...We must develop policies and plans for this second Great Transformation...
...LARRY HIRSCHHORN (REV...
...They saw that the new industrial cities were growing rapidly...
...Indeed, Mr...
...THOMAS LEATHERWOOD Graduate Theological Union 2465 Le Conge Detroit, Mich...
...Yet they also witnessed the growth of an army of paupers and unemployables in the countryside...
...He has brought its fundamental dimension into sharp relief...
...But the productivity of machine civilization opened up vistas of freedom, choice, and personal engagement, that only elites could experience before...
...Men lost much in that "great transformation...
...The first is an increased likelihood that one small part of a major system will fail, causing major social and economic disruption...
...JOHN J. JACHMAN Quote & Mis-quotes New York, N.Y...
...Kramer makes an even bolder proposition...
...25] is the hope that new technology will be one of the important factors in changing our economic system...
...Meyers also misquotes Owen's famous Preface, where Owen wrote, not "The Poetry is the pity," but "The Poetry is in the pity," a small but vital difference...
...25] (Continued on page 254) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 227) is the most perceptive analysis of the current economic crisis that we have read...
...a nation of professionals and technicians...
...Kramer argues differently...
...Consequently, many people now believe that human talent and labor are simply superfluous...
...To the Editors: In his review of the Stallworthy biography of Wilfred Owen [May 23], Jeffrey Meyers writes, "In October 1916, before the Somme, Owen wrote two poems," etc...
...Permit me, however, to comment on the statement made at the beginning of the article, saying that "as the political and diplomatic experts see it, the United States withdrawal of military aid to Turkey, . . . will probably mean that Turkey will turn to the Soviet Union or China for support...
...Talent, labor and personal creativity will become the most scarce "commodities...
...We also stand between two epochs...
...We welcome all correspondence...
...In this context, Mr...
...Kramer's analogy to the earlier industrial revolution reveals much...
...Secretary Kissinger certainly understands this point very well too...
...Kramer wisely tells us that today we must reorganize work, social life, and our political-economy so that social status and economic life are protected for all...
...Economic development created superfluous humans just as it created new kinds of work...
...To the Editors: Professor Finkenthal's article, 'The Imminent War: Greece and Turkey," in the April 25 issue provides an excellent insight in the true motives of Turkey in the present as well as the past Cyprus crises...
...Instead, it indicates that the basic categories of social-economic life-the job, the family, the city landscape, the social service institutions -no longer form a coherent social whole...
...Rather, we are entering a "developmental crisis...
...Kramer put it well...
...Fortunately Congress can see through it all...
...Mr...
...What is needed today is a technology of simplification, a broad review and utilization of existing ideas and hardware, directed toward a simpler, but technologically based way of life...
...The paupers in the countryside were to become the industrial working class of England...
...The Post-Industrial Study Group of Berkeley has launched a long term study of the problems of post-industrial development...
...We are developing a series of long-term plans and proposals that address the many-sided features of the present crisis and possible transformation...
...Stagnation no longer reflects a temporary drop in profits or the periodic decline in corporate investment...
...DEMETRIOS T. POLITIS Post-Industrial Age Berkeley, Cal...
...To the rest of the experts it is perfectly clear that it is extremely unlikely that Turkey will accept military aid from the Soviet Union and switch to Soviet-made equipment for her armed forces, for the very simple reason that henceforward she would be at the mercy of the Soviet Union for spare parts...
...The second hazard is that complex technology, by its nature, is controlled by fewer people, leading toward a technocratic totalitarianism...
...They feel that the "New Technology" can only displace them...
...To the Editors: Implied in Steven Philip Kramer's excellent article, "Beyond Stagnation," [Apr...
...There may have been enough residual horrors to satisfy Owen's maturing poetic vision when he reached the Somme in early January 1917, but the worst fighting was well over...
...Kramer suggests that if we place our own productive potentials at the service of the world's developmental needs, then we will discover our own productive powers...
...The ever-increasing complexity of technology brings with it two major hazards for society...
...To the Editors: Steven P. Kramer's article "Beyond Stagnation" [Apr...
...The battle of the Somme began on the first day of July 1916, and it was on that day that the English suffered 60,000 casualties, including 20,000 killed...
...The economic and social brutality of the earlier transformation would be intolerable today...
...But Mr...
...At the turn of the century, the new political-economists confronted the "paradox" of "poverty amidst plenty...
Vol. 102 • July 1975 • No. 8
