Awatmath.1622
net.space
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!watmath!Rick
Sun Jan 31 06:00:51 1982
Tech vs Humanist
	Frankly, I really didn't mean to start all of this...
	My apologies to all on net.space, and my absolute last word on the
subject.
	First, it should be pointed out that no one ever claimed that ignorance
of the humanities was bliss, or at least not harmful.  It was claimed that
no major moral or social problems have ever been solved by that rather 
unfortunate group that describe themselves as `social engineers'.  I'm 
still waiting for a counter example.
	The point that was made was that typically, merchants and technologists
solved the problems because *they saw a social need*.  The typical action of
the humanist to the problem was either to ignore it, or to justify it (read
Aristotle on the subject of slavery, for instance).
	There are some prominent thinkers in the humanities whose works
deserve attention.  Friedman is an excellent example.  So is Easton.
Toynbee and Hobbes are first-rate reading, and a must for anyone who
wishes to understand history.
	However ( again with the notable exception of Milton Friedman ) the
current rather sad collection of scholars that dominate the thinking of the
humanities can provide us with no solutions to our current problems.  Rather
than attempting to increase human freedom, the current intellectual fashion
is to curtail it.  Rather than attempting to expand and increase human wealth,
the current fashion is the age of limits.  And rather than attempting to
master the basics of the technologies that have taken us from an impoverished,
rural culture to the mightiest, wealthiest and most knowledgeable society this
planet has ever seen, there is a popular intellectual fashion to argue that
technological solutions to technological problems should not be pursued,
because *that would create a privileged class on whom the ignorant would
be independent*.  There are few sentiments that are more ominous than this
war cry of the new barbarians.
	Sorry I can't be cheerier about these characters, but most of us
have seen far too much of the Naders, the Ehrlichs, the Fondas and the
Trudeaus to have many illusions about humanists in the 1980s.
				Rick.

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