Man and Technics

Spengler, Oswald. Man and Technics: A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life. London: Alfred A. Knoff, 1932. Translation by Charles Francis Atkinson of Der Mensch und die Technik. Munich: C. H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1931.

In his discussion of atomic weapons in fiction, 1913-1930s, I. F. Clarke notes in Voices Prophesying War that Spengler

in his Man and Technics of 1931 [...] found philosophic reasons to support the thesis [Karel] Čapek had put forward in the play of R.U.R. A machine civilization was the contradiction of the natural and spontaneous; and the catastrophe of mechanization must inevitably lead to the collapse of Western society [...].

Where Spengler talked of machine-technics, Wells and Nicholson had science in mind, especially the rational and measured use of the applied science. For both of them, the greatest danger for the future, and the worst abuse of science, would be the manufacture of the ultimate weapon, the atomic bomb. (Clarke, ch. 5, p. 157)

NOTE: "Spengler especially pointed to the tendency of Western technology to spread to hostile 'Colored races' which would then use the weapons against the West."[1] So there may be some racist implications.

RDE, finishing, 21Dec20