The amount of violence at the disposal of any given country may soon not be a reliable indication of the country's strength or a reliable guarantee against destruction by a substantially smaller and weaker power.Not every graph has an asymptote, but we seem to be nearing an asymptote in technological growth. If Arendt is speaking of nuclear war in the first part of her sentence (progress of science vs progress of mankind), could the Internet be the meaning of the second part of her sentence (progress of scholarship ending the value of scholarship)? Probably not since the book was published in 1970. Still, I wonder if it isn't true.
Not only has the progress of science ceased to coincide with the progress of mankind (whatever that may mean), but it could even spell mankind's end, just as the further progress of scholarship may well end with the destruction of everything that made scholarship worth our while. Progress, in other words, can no longer serve as the standard by which to evaluate the disastrously rapid change-processes we have let loose.
These are bits and pieces of the mystery, not given that we should understand and thereby dissolve it, but that with each new speck its depth might be expanded and we humbled.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
On Violence
Hannah Arendt
P -
ReplyDeleteI thought her sentence was about the internet too (even before I ready your comment) - so if published in the 70s, could she have had foresight even then about the rapidity of our change? Anyway, that begins the discussion of what makes scholarship worth our while? The sharpening or improvement of a soul? Chaucer talks about how scholarship for it's own sake is a sin... so we have to be careful of why/how we pursue it... I'd love to discuss with you sometime :)
yours,
m