AMERICAN NOTEBOOK: SCIENCE-FROM THE "BOMB" TO ...?
Ray, Arthur
- AMERICAN S o m e B r i e f C o m m e n t s NOTEBOOK On t h e D o m e s t i c S c e n e Science: From the “Bomb” to Arthur Ray In Alamogordo, New none of the philosophical detachment...
...The 20th century vemion of the inevi- scientist cannot find salvation outside tability and necessity of scientific pro- the society of which inevitably he is gress...
...Our problem is not the “adever-increasing totalitarian tendencies...
...evitable for man himself to “become subject to the application of the same methods he applies to the conquest Los Alamos: on a gigantic natural of nature...
...attempts to subTrying to win absolute mastery over stitute automation for human labor nature, America strives toward “be- and to utilize atomic energy could have 69 Winter 1955 DISSENT the most profoundly desirable impli- does not belong...
...it is important to resurrect ment control and interference...
...His task remains, as it given the prevailing drift back into does for others, participation in the religiosity, mysticism and totalitarianism...
...He if necessary, razed by decree...
...Once a certain necessitate strict controls over its level of technological development citizens...
...Freedom and humancombine all seven fundamental move- ity fall by the wayside...
...These places are segregated geographically and more important, politically...
...Their con- guage: rockets record their performclusions are recorded in “psycho- ance data on sensitized paper, sound graphs, productometers, motive pro- strips, film, emulsions and graphic files, sociograms and communication scales which necessitate “re-translat...
...This change Thus a book which catalogues howradioactive materials now copy and coming God...
...ever sketchily some of the greatest THE TREND TOWARD CONFORMISM: The technological advances of man, ends requirements of standardization-in on a note of gloomy religiosity...
...They sit in ovens or in ice chambers...
...In the aviation medicine areas or even rooms open only to spe- laboratories, the test objects are concific personnel...
...they let themselves be hurled in cages that fall freely through the depths of the Carlsbad Caverns...
...The fate the dispassionate telegram...
...A pa- of the non-conforming genius is evitient Representative in Washington dent in the tragedy of Wallace Hume showed great sympathy at a subse- Carothers, the inventor of Nylon...
...The neighboring Pueblo Indians take it for granted that every people has its forbidden holy places which only the chosen few may approach...
...tate social planning...
...finest scientists labor in isolation and “Shaken, beaten, kneaded, scalded, silence, enmeshed in security regula- frozen, suffocated, crushed: this tions . . . for today the state has be- happens daily to dozens of young come the sole owner of certain impor- Americans...
...He, too, is scientifically tested for his capacity, made use of pedestal whose nearly perpendicular walls slope off into deep small can- most efficiently and discarded as soon yons...
...Here the tual resistance...
...Sales personnel are tested by “‘plants” disguised as customers...
...Do they have sex problems...
...A radio does not ”invent” by himself...
...and existing population centers are, He does not own his laboratory...
...The best comment on cisely the type of inhuman totalitarian Jungk’s approach is that the very and retrogressive consequences out- same Vorr Neumann has just been lined in Jungk’s book...
...Winter 1955 66 DISSENT 3 . evolves along orderly lines, nor does it carry the exaggerations of Simone de Beauvoir’s narcissistic portrait of the US...
...In performance, it reveals unexpected sensibilities and “moods...
...Far from being an cations in a society organized along impediment to his happiness, man’s restless ambition is the motor force THE ROLE: OF THE SCIENTIST: Jungk painful, patient process of social intervention and change, the search for the sources of power in contemporary society, the attempt to organize soJungk‘s fear of becoming “God-like” is the healthy defense mechanism of a humanist appalled by the horrors of 1954...
...in ability...
...This would be razed within a stated period creates a new prototype of “ideal” to make room for a new atomic fac- pioneer, says Jungk: the tractable, tory site...
...This is the more impressive a member...
...far outlasts Nylon...
...THE ROLE OF SCIENCE: visability” of this conquest, as Jungk would have it, but its social utilization...
...premises of scientific endeavor...
...The result is a disturbing revelation of hidden yet important realities...
...In Richland, Wash., site of the Hanford Plutonium Works, fear of radio-activity is so acute that parents warn their children not to pick up anything lying in the street, “or the White Man with the black rubber mask will come, take away your toys, tables, beds, everything you touched, scrape the paint from the walls, tear up the floors...
...This is for military and destructive purposes harmful to the pure message of science, has led many to question the very which cares for nothing but truth...
...Instead of directing his author, is far more than a political wrath against the social order which issue expressing the prevailing aim of utilizes science for war and destrucfitting the individual into a homo- tion, he misdirects it against the neugeneous, easily serviced mass of “aver- tral workings of science itself...
...This, says the sequences...
...In carefully staged test sitsimulated altitudes of 60,000 feet, in which the blood begins to boil...
...National interests result is a moral preachment instead when faced with an H-bomb threat of a political analysis...
...The subversion of science by them for their own ends...
...America’s Every one of the technological reaching for omnipotence, says the “threats” enumerated by the author author, undermines the national (and threats they are, given the presethos: “instead of belief and con- ent situation) can be a blessing in a science, the sole criteria now are pur- rationally organized society: the elecpose and results...
...orientation...
...Their location is determined by THE NEW SCIENTIST: The new pioneer bureaucratic fiat from Washington can no longer strike out on his own...
...Why do they permit this torment...
...Simon and Schuster...
...Hiroshima notwithstanding, man, the growing bureaucratization of the conquest of the atom remains one government, the secrecy surrounding of the greatest scientific conquests of scientific projects-all these lead to man...
...in the Mojave Desert its scientific conclusion, this demands they are whirled by a powered sleigh the “inclusion of the complete perat meteoric speed on a horizontal sonality of the employee in the evalurail...
...charts, with each worker appearing ing” from the language of instrumenw as a fraction number-a decimal part back to the language of humans...
...Free Will” becomes an unstable element and must (“as though the country without castles and moats was making up for its lack of the Middle Ages...
...Princeton, N. J. they lose their equili- Are they aggressive...
...AMERICAN S o m e B r i e f C o m m e n t s NOTEBOOK On t h e D o m e s t i c S c e n e Science: From the “Bomb” to Arthur Ray In Alamogordo, New none of the philosophical detachment Mexico there is a crater covered with of a de loqueville surveying an exa glassy-green scurf of death and sur- panding democratic society as it rounded by high-tension wires and alarm systems-the site of the first atomic explosion...
...THE NEW RESERVATIONS: A new type of reservation has sprung up, reports Jungk: the laboratory town, the testing ground, the military reservation...
...Yet, Hence: scientists should retreat into amidst the ruins of 19th century ra- isolation and solitude, free of governtioiidism...
...total war signifies total sub- has been reached further scientific ordination of the individual to the development is inevitable and irreever-stronger state...
...his political and moral driven by means of special sound- outlook is, considered as much a part recording instruments into complete of his qualifications as his technical confusion of speech and sense...
...What is ments of the human hand...
...struction...
...Because they are told that they are “the pioneers on the frontiers of hu- uations, groups of candidates are man endurance” who will enable watched through transparent, onescientists to learn how to exceed these rate, private interviews with their prospective employer, candidates are asked to evaluate each other...
...a l e s virginal and hence more mature This “solution” is illusory...
...carried to propulsion...
...3.50...
...I n quent town meeting, but the decision 1937, he develops a superfiber which itself was no longer subject to change...
...a cating the maximum pressure under nightmare brought upto-date by the which lungs will burst: the point at exigencies of a purely military ap- which fear overcomes moral and spiriproach to world politics...
...In America, the growth of huge enterprises, the mobility of the population, the impossibility of knowing the backgrounds of the applicants, and in San Antonio, they are herme- has made these testing procedures tically sealed in pressure chambers practically inevitable, until today they and the air gradually exhausted to are used by all leading corporations and more and more by medium-sized enterprises as well...
...But this resurrection is possible only if we realize that every step forward in science, taken in a society of stagnation and decline, leads to pre- ciety for man...
...The slogan is: “the the atomic furnaces, robots handling 68 Winter 1955 DISSENT tual change, which would have to express itself in the recognition once again of human limits and the rediscovery of moderation...
...I n poli- needed, says Jungk, is “a great spiritical, military and economic planning, the electronic brain is utilized by the National Bureau of Standards, the Department of Statistics and the General Staff to calculate exceedingly com- will come from bitter experience: plex questions involving the respec- “only when the convulsive grasp at tive distribution of raw materials to omnipotence finally relaxes, will various branches of industry, newest America be recovered by Him Whom statistics on armies, new weapons and it has discarded, by God.“ armament industries...
...The drive toward “predictability” of performance, when applied to man, tends to reduce him to the level of the machine...
...every tenth inhabitant stantly exposed to experiments india member of the security division...
...specific be ruled out...
...In of a total Sum...
...Carried on by highly trained specialists called “Human Relations Experts” by management, or “Soul Bunglers” by workers, they utilize standard psychological tests, lie de- morning...
...themselves be tied to a small sled and 61 Winter 1955 DISSENT rhot vertically into the air by rocket best person for the job...
...In the Santa Susanc tant means of production of scientific Mountains of California they let knowledge...
...in Ann Arbor, Mich., they are ation”-Le...
...These tests have already re- teracting” upon each other...
...socialist lines...
...Jungk turn imposed by the need for greater has throughout his work displayed a rationality iri production, large-scale profoundly mixed feeling toward markets, planning by machines-lead science, simultaneously extolling its in America today to a strong drive achievement and deploring its contoward conformism...
...What is their political sonic waves...
...The teamwork versible: from here on in, man has aspect of modern science, the organ- to live with atomic energy, or not live ized endeavor to “mold” a more perfect at all...
...ing American physicists, chemists, mathematicians and technicians...
...as merely the most advanced expression of what is happening in all of contemporary society...
...The test of utility tronic computer could greatly facilisupersedes the test of conscience...
...Instead of the angel with self-controlled, non-neurotic, “predicthe flaming sword, nowadays we receive table” member of the unit...
...appointed to the Atomic Energy Commission by President Eisenhowerthus presumably advancing to archbishopry instead of changing back into Winter 19% 70 DISSENT...
...In sepavealed that man in his present form is not “suitable” to the most advanced machines-that he is rapidly becoming “a drag on progress”-“a faulty con- tim becomes the executioner...
...In California, a naked boy, in a test laboratory, his forehead grotesquely pulled back, cheeks flattened by tremendous pressure, is fastened with nylon belts to an upholstered seat revolving at an ever wilder rpeed, until his entire body is compressed with gigantic force by centrifugal power...
...vances of the past few decades have cist John Von Neumann: “We scholrevealed themselves to cany a series ars were apostles and have become of terrifying social implications far bishops...
...Provocative, episodic, angry, it has TOMORROW IS ALREADY HERE...
...His announcer informed the South Caro- very existence is conceived only in lina townships of Ellenton, Dunbar- terms of his relationship to the hierton, Jackson and Meyers Hill that they archy of the joint enterprise...
...The age consumers...
...The machines are vate detective firms, or microphones developing their own complex lanconcealed in washrooms...
...man’s inevitable mastery of nature, was an expression of an expanding society...
...a town of 10,000 inhabitants be- as he ceases to fulfill the required purhind a wall protected by electric eyes pose...
...To preserve secrecy and to increase administrative efficiency, to avoid disputes or time-consuming strikes, democratic rights are largely suspended and their administration assumes the form of ;at best enlightened absolut- ism...
...In fact, the author states at the outset that he views present trends in the U.S...
...We made pacts with the surpassing their narrowly scientific sig mighty and let ourselves be harnessed nificance...
...This testing also proceeds apace THE MACHINE AS MAN: As man beunder the guise of “personnel man- comes machine-like, the machine seems agement...
...They exhibit electronic tectors, information gained from local nervousness when confronted with too credit offices, childhood teachers, pri- difficult problems...
...The victo be evolving toward man...
...technological advance, it becomes inered wagon parties in search of new homesteads, we now find modern man fraternizing with the enemies of life...
...Du Pont, for obIn other instances, desert areas have vious reasons, scuttles the invention become the new centers of 20th Cen and Carothers, at the height of his tury science, housing many of the lead- brilliant career, commits suicide...
...Yet it puts the blame where it an apostle...
...Today the technological ad- quotes approvingly the leading physi...
...Instead of the usual tour of American democratic institutions, he takes us to the secret atomic laboratories, the rocket installations, the aviation medicine testing grounds, the automatic brain factories, the cities struggling with radio-active refuse...
...even its own inhabitants unaware of how many secret laboratories it contains...
...Do they remembrium through contact with super- ber namcs...
...The electronic brains arc: ‘“slow” at starting in the way glass in observation domes, “inlimits...
...The facile rationalism of the 19th which ultimately might assure his century, optimistically predicting mastery over nature...
...Thus opens a book about America in the Fifties, written by a Swiss journalist, Robert Jungk...
...In MAN AS MACHINE: In the interest of the wastelands once rejected by cov...
Vol. 2 • January 1955 • No. 1
