8 Introduction 



their minds. When a tough technician tells us that he does not care 

 for history, that it is all "bunk" — there is really nothing that we can 

 answer him. It is as if a deaf man told us that he had no concern with 

 music. Why should he concern himself with it? And why should the 

 technician bother about history if his mind and heart are closed to it? 



The technician may be so deeply immersed in his problems that the 

 rest of the world loses reality in his eyes and that his human interests 

 may wither and die. There may then develop in him a new kind of 

 radicalism, quiet and cold, but frightening. Plato wished that the 

 world were guided by philosophers, we often wish that it were guided 

 by wise men of science, but God save us from technocrats! ^ If un- 

 checked and unbalanced by humanities, technical radicalism would un- 

 dermine civilization — whatever there was left of it — and turn it against 

 itself. In order to show that I am not exaggerating I invite you to con- 

 template for a moment the terrifying example (and warning) which 

 some German technicians have given us during the war. 



Many of us have asked ourselves with anxiety, "How is it that the 

 spirit of science, so highly honored in Germany, did not protect that 

 country from the Nazi aberration and its inhuman consequences?" You 

 might even say to me, "You spoke so warmly of the love of truth and 

 the new world which it opens, a world of higher morality and brother- 

 hood. That spirit of truth-seeking and truth-loving was abroad in Ger- 

 many and stronger there perhaps than anywhere else. And yet what did 

 it lead to?" How did Germany succumb to Nazism, how did its proud 

 scientists and professors abandon so readily their own lofty ideals to 

 accept those of an ignorant mahdi? It is certain that the latter could 

 have done nothing without the explicit or implicit confidence and com- 

 plicity of the German elite. How could he secure that complicity? 

 Its reality has been established beyond the possibility of doubt and 

 its mechanism carefully analyzed by Dr. Weinreich, who concluded: 

 "Many fields of learning, different ones at different times according to 

 the shrewdly appraised needs of Nazi policies, were drawn into the work 

 for more than a decade; physical anthropology and biology, all branches 

 of the social sciences and the humanities — until the engineers moved in 

 to build the gas chambers and crematories." ^ 



* "Technocracy" is a movement which achieved a flare of popularity in the United 

 States some fifteen years ago. It is defined as "government or management of the 

 whole of society by technical experts, or in accordance with principles established 

 by technicians" (Webster Dictionary). The main apostle of it was the physical 

 metallurgist, Howard Scott; see his Introduction to technocracy which began to 

 appear in 1933. (Fourth printing, 53 p.. New York 1940). I do not know 

 whether that movement caused as many ripples on the surface of English opinion 

 as it did on that of American opinion. At any rate, it did not last very long, even 

 in the United States, but the commotion left mental scars. The "technocrats" were 

 obviously right on many technical matters, but the happiness of individuals and 

 societies depends very largely on matters which are not amenable to technical 

 treatment. The very best of life cannot be "processed" in that way. Mr. Scott is 

 still alive and full of propaganda (The New Yorker, June 14, 1947, p. 18). 



^ Max Weinreich: Hitler's professors (291 p., New York, Yivo, 1946, p. 7; Isis 

 37, 240). 



