问答题
One of the strangest aspects of the mechanical
approach to life is the widespread lack of concern about the danger of total
destruction by nuclear weapons; a possibility people are consciously aware
of. The explanation, I believe, is that they are more proud of than
frightened by the gadgets of mass destruction. (46){{U}} Also they are so
frightened of their personal failure and humiliation that their anxiety about
personal matters prevents them from feeling anxiety about the possibility that
everybody and everything maybe destroyed. {{/U}}Perhaps total destruction is even
more attractive than total insecurity and never ending personal
anxiety. Am I suggesting that modern man is doomed and that we
should return to the pre industrial mode of production or to nineteenth century
"free enterprise" capitalism? Certainly not. Problems are never solved by
returning to a stage which one has already outgrown. (47) {{U}}I suggest
transforming our Social system from a bureaucratically managed industrialism in
which maximal production and consumption are ends in themselves into a humanist
industrialism in which man and the full development of his potentialities--those
of love and of reason--are the aims of all social arrangements. {{/U}}Production
and consumption should serve only as means to this end, and should be prevented
from ruling man. To attain this goal we need to create a
Renaissance of Enlightenment and of Humanism. It must be an Enlightenment,
however, more radically realistic and critical than that of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. It must be a Humanism that aims at the full
development of the total man, not the gadget man, not the consumer
man, not the organization man. The aim of a humanist society is the man
who loves life, who has faith in life, who is productive and independent.
(48){{U}} Such a transformation is possible if we recognize that our present way
of life makes us sterile and eventually destroys the vitality necessary for
survival{{/U}}. (49) {{U}}Whether such transformation is likely is
another matter. But we will not be able to succeed unless we see the
alternatives clearly and realize that the choice is still 'ours{{/U}}.
Dissatisfaction with our way of life is the first step toward changing it. As to
these changes, one thing is certain: They must take place in all spheres
simultaneously--in the economic,, the social, the political and the spiritual.
(50) {{U}}Change in only one sphere will lead into blind alleys, as did the purely
political French Revolution and the purely economic Russian
Revolution{{/U}}.