The vast material displacements the machine has made in our physical environment are perhaps in the long run less important than its spiritual contributions to our culture. Lewis Mumford More Quotes by Lewis Mumford More Quotes From Lewis Mumford In the name of economy a thousand wasteful devices would be invented; and in the name of efficiency new forms of mechanical time-wasting would be devised: both processes gained speed through the nineteenth century and have come close to the limit of extravagant futility in our own time. But labor-saving devices could only achieve their end-that of freeing mankind for higher functions-if the standard of living remained stable. The dogma of increasing wants nullified every real economy and set the community in a collective squirrel-cage. Lewis Mumford squirrels real names Nothing is unthinkable, nothing impossible to the balanced person, provided it comes out of the needs of life and is dedicated to life's further development. Lewis Mumford development impossible needs He who touches the soil of Manhattan and the pavement of New York, touches, whenever he knows or not, Walt Whitman. Lewis Mumford manhattan pavement new-york Unfortunately, once an economy is geared to expansion, the means rapidly turn into an end and "the going becomes the goal." Even more unfortunately, the industries that are favored by such expansion must, to maintain their output, be devoted to goods that are readily consumable either by their nature, or because they are so shoddily fabricated that they must soon be replaced. By fashion and built-in obsolescence the economies of machine production, instead of producing leisure and durable wealth, are duly cancelled out by the mandatory consumption on an even larger scale. Lewis Mumford fashion goal mean The great city is the best organ of memory man has yet created. Lewis Mumford cities men memories The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity. Lewis Mumford creativity cities art Western society has accepted as unquestionable a technological imperative that is quite as arbitrary as the most primitive taboo: not merely the duty to foster invention and constantly to create technological novelties, but equally the duty to surrender to these novelties unconditionally, just because they are offered, without respect to their human consequences. Lewis Mumford novelty arbitrary technology Mechanical instruments, potentially a vehicle of rational human purposes, are scarcely a blessing when they enable the gossip of the village idiot and the deeds of the thug to be broadcast to a million people each day. Lewis Mumford thug blessing people The philosophers of industrialism, from Bacon to Bentham, from Smith to Marx, insisted that the improvement of man's condition was the highest requirement of morality. But in what did the improvement consist? The answer seemed so obvious to them that they did not bother to justify it: the expansion and fulfillment of the material wants of man, and the spread of these benefits, from the few who had once preempted them, to the many who had so long lived on the scraps Dives had thrown into the gutter. Lewis Mumford expansion men long Everyone aimed at security: no one accepted responsibility. What was plainly lacking, long before the barbarian invasions had done their work, long before economic dislocations became serious, was inner go. Rome’s life was now an imitation of life: a mere holding on. Security was the watchword – as if life knew any other stability than through constant change, or any form of security except through a constant willingness to take risks Lewis Mumford rome responsibility long However far modern science and techniques have fallen short of their inherent possibilities, they have taught mankind at least one lesson; nothing is impossible. Lewis Mumford technology positive science Geneva has the sleepy tidiness of a man who combs his hair while yet in his pyjamas. Lewis Mumford switzerland hair men A society that gives to one class all the opportunities for leisure, and to another all the burdens of work, dooms both classes to spiritual sterility. Lewis Mumford spiritual class opportunity Nothing about his life is more strange to [man] or more unaccountable in purely mundane terms than the stirrings he finds in himself, usually fitful but sometimes overwhelming, to look beyond his animal existence and not be fully satisfied with its immediate substance. He lacks the complacency of the other animals: he is obsessed by pride and guilt, pride at being something more than a mere animal, built at falling short of the high aims he sets for himself. Lewis Mumford pride men fall A multitude of uniform, unidentifiable houses, lined up inflexibly, at uniform distances, on uniform roads, in a treeless communal waste, inhabited by people of the same class, the same income, the same age group, witnessing the same television performances, eating the same tasteless prefabricated foods, from the same freezers, conforming in every outward and inward respect to the common mold. Lewis Mumford distance class people For most Americans, progress means accepting what is new because it is new, and discarding what is old because it is old. Lewis Mumford accepting-what-is progress mean A picture was once a rare sort of symbol, rare enough to call for attentive concentration. Now it is the actual experience that is rare, and the picture has become ubiquitous. Lewis Mumford symbols concentration enough One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence. Lewis Mumford irony ironic intelligence Today, the degradation of the inner life is symbolized by the fact that the only place sacred from interruption is the private toilet. Lewis Mumford sacred aggravation life The Fujiyama of Architecture?at once a lofty mountain and a national shrine. Lewis Mumford shrines mountain architecture
