A ROOM OF OUR OWN
Follette, Isabel Bacon La
A Room of Our Own Driving the Machine An Engineers'' World No Desire to Fight By ISABEL BACON LA FOLLETTE ''ARE we g°ing to drive the machine, or is it go-ing to drive us?" This question is being...
...the book of the great French aviator, Saint Exupery...
...The world today does not permit the luxury of each having his pet scheme...
...Of old, every autocracy ended In revolution...
...Sir Daniel said he realized that interference with government processes was alien to their temperament and that they (scientists) preferred to remain in their laboratories to make discoveries and not concern themselves with the application of these same discoveries to achieve social ends...
...the race Itself is more important than the object...
...Sand and Stars...
...But we who still live in a democracy, where the rulers can not yet maintain their power with machine-guns, mast appreciate our individual responsibility of helping to decide how the machine is to be used...
...In his same talk in 1936 he took the position that the natural effect of "humanity's hyphens" is to foster friendliness and dissolve differences, and rumbled, "Left undisturbed by the politician, scaremonger, and patriot, the engineer would demolish the Tower of Babel and render war impossible...
...we shall drive that machine so that its bene-:".< hall enrich the lives of ail of us...
...Shall it continue to make fortunes for the few, starving the many, or shall it serve the common good...
...He also defends the machine, which he calls a "tool," for much the same reasons as Sir William Cramp...
...Three-fourths of the work of the engineer...
...Some of you may wonder why I selected an English group back in 1936...
...A reporter recently back from the Maglnot line tells the story of the French officer who said the present situation Is a civil war...
...physician to the royal house-bold In England, talked to a convention of British scientists on the subject of the strain of modern civilization...
...The Czechs...
...Experience has shown Sir Daniel to be right...
...Once having gained control of the machinery, they can wipe out any further exercise of the popular will...
...He was concerned with the above question, as were most of the attending scientists, and commented that "We seem to live by accident, rather than die of It...
...He points out that the machine is new in terms of the history of man and that we have not adjusted to the radical change it has made in our ideas of distance, time, and habits...
...It is given no consideration to whom that power should be entrusted, and to what end it should be used...
...Let us examine their platforms and speeches to find their program for running this new world of the machine...
...Build a channel tunnel, then Calais and Dover become neighbors and Anglo-French understanding ensues in all senses...
...Industrial workers have already suffered...
...He makes the telling comment: "We take no heed to ask ourselves why we race...
...Sir William is doubtless on solid engineering ground, but like to many scientists completely ignores the social question...
...He protested against the manufacture of instruments of war for most European nations, saying "Verily, for the promotion of peace and understanding engineering easily outclasses every religion, and for battle, murder and sudden death has no equal...
...all of us can see the Importance of planning...
...He pointed to the monotony and drabness inherent in long hours of physical and mental effort, to poor housing, lack of exercise and sleep, the exciting nature of our amusements, and to "needless, stupid, provocative, ill-mannered, and selfish noise...
...The very first thing the government does on going to war Is to seize and control every means of communication and every engineering device that must otherwise serve to unite the combatants...
...In 1936 Lord Horder...
...We are in an election year when candidates are asking us for support...
...farmers are finding that the machine is likewise invading their •ecurity...
...But," he said, "to blame science for the strain of civilization is mere pusilanimity...
...We will have to unite on a common plan...
...the machine is a tool, anihilating time and space...
...To this end...
...To continue in this frame of mind is to accept slavery, he declared...
...It was simply that the issues raised put our problem so clearly...
...French, Oerman fighting for...
...unemployment and war...
...The appeal of the leaders in each of these countries U based on Exupery's point that the world of these peoples must be made "habitable...
...I went back through my files to refresh my mind on these sentiments after reading "Wind...
...The accumulation of productive means has led to overproduction and unemployment...
...Place transmitters in the trenches with receivers and televisors at home, and war becomes unthinkable...
...Today the average man in the so-called "civilized" world knows about scientific progress and senses that an exciting nery world of material comfort and high adventure is to be had if only he can get hold of it...
...We Progressives intend that rather than continuing to let, the machine run us...
...Exupery assumes that the central struggle of man has been to understand each other, to join forces for the common good...
...The engineers go even further than Lord Horder...
...that the people of France and Germany want, peace and opportunity to live normal lives, but they are the victims of rival governing groups who insist upon their own right to power...
...There is no doubt in the mind of any informed people but that the peoples of Europe have no desire to fight the war they are caught in...
...William Cramp, held that engineering is the greatest instrument of civilization the world has ever »een, in the sense that it continually tends to promote closer contact, greater intimacy, and therefore profounding understanding between individuals and nations...
...Science is power...
...What chance has an uprising today against machine guns and gas bombs...
...He appreciates that nothing can be gained for him by war, that somehow nations must pool their common desires and settle down from piracy to a life of "colonists" :n this new world of the machine...
...Fortunately the 1936 convention was at least exposed to this question, however, when Sir A. Daniel Hall, scientific advisor to the ministry of agriculture, declared...
...powers of destruction into the hands of governments, and the greatest of all dangers lies in the temptation now offered to those who wield this scientific power...
...Poles and Finns fought for their lives and homes, but what are the English...
...He calls us "young barbarians" because we are still marveling at our new toys.—racing our planes, giving prizes to those who fly highest and fastest...
...I was especially caught by Exupery's view that we •re in the stage of mechanical conquerors, as opposed to mechanical "colonists:" that we must now become colonists, "must make this house habitable which is •till without character...
...We know only too well that, as Sir Daniel Hall puts it "New developments of war methods put appalling...
...said he...
...Whether in England, Germany, France, America, the average man and woman are confronted with the same question...
...is devoted to the development of communications,"—roads, canals, bridges, railroads, harbors, ships, automobiles, airplanes, telephone, telegraph, television — what Sir William calls "humanity's hyphens...
...At the same ronvetion, an eminent engineer...
...Not too much, but too little science, has got us Into trouble...
...Exupery avoids the human ways and means of bringing about this "colonisation," but Sir William Cramp runs head on into us human engineers who are accepting the responsibility of trying to do something about the problem...
...This question is being asked more and more as mankind views scientific "progress" accompanying (or perhaps causing...
Vol. 10 • April 1940 • No. 14
