"What is euphemistically called production is really consumption. The gigantic technical apparatus, that masterpiece of human ingenuity, could not reach perfection if technological thought were to be contained within an economic scheme, if the destructive power of technical progress were to be arrested. But this progress becomes all the more impetuous, the larger the resources at its disposal, and the more energetically it devours them. This is shown by the concentration of men and machines in the great mining centers where the mechanization of work and the organization of man are most advanced. The rationality of technology, so impressively displayed here, becomes intelligible only when one has understood the conditions on which it depends. Its concomitant is waste and contempt for all rationality in the exploitation of the resources on whose existence technology depends, as the lungs depend on air."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
ConservativesPoets from GermanyEssayists from GermanyNovelists from GermanyPhilosophers from Germany
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ch. V
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Friedrich_Georg_J%C3%BCnger
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Friedrich Georg Jünger
25 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Friedrich Georg Jünger →
Related Quotes
"The tale becomes utopian only when the writer leaves the sphere of technical organization – when, for instance, he tr…"
"Leisure and free activity are not accessible to everybody, and they are conditions in no way connected with the machi…"
"Leisure is the prerequisite of every free thought, every free activity. And this is why only the few are capable of i…"
"The impression we gain as we observe technical processes of any sort is not at all one of abundance. The sight of abu…"
"And the rational mind which stands behind the machine and keeps watch over its automatic, mechanical motion–it too is…"
"Technology can be expected to solve all problems which can be mastered by technical means, but we must expect nothing…"
"In every healthy economy the substance with which it works is preserved and used sparingly, so that consumption and d…"
"Why is it that the very thought of organizing pedestrians (really not a far-fetched thought), is somehow ludicrous? B…"
"The machine invades the landscape with destruction and transformation; it grows factories and whole manufacturing cit…"
"From prophecies and visions we expect infallibility; that they come true with absolute certainty. But of a utopian ta…"