Man Soc Age Reconstructn V 2 by Karl Mannheim

Author:Karl Mannheim [Mannheim, Karl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415436748
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2007-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

PART V

Planning for Freedom

I

THE CONCEPT OF SOCIAL TECHNIQUE

1. Our Ambivalent Attitude Toward Planning

In the last section we saw that thought adapts itself to the needs of the social process and to the new and difficult problems which planning involves. It is hard for the spectator not to watch this transformation in our thinking with very mixed feelings. On the one hand he is filled with legitimate pride that human intelligence is ready to accept the new challenge and look farther and farther ahead. On the other he is haunted by a sense of oppression, wondering whether the whole undertaking is not a mere intellectual adventure, a reckless project of the modern spirit, which is determined to direct practically the entire course of social history by its own unaided skill. We all have this ambivalent attitude to planning to a greater or less degree, however good a face we may put on it, for we are all children of an age of transition, in which two kinds of motives are combined : the liberal distaste for meddling in human affairs, and the passion for experiment marking a social age, which wants to explore the new possibilities of human nature.

In many ways we are like Goethe’s apprentice in the magic arts, who when his master left the house, conjured up the spirits of the underworld with his secret formula, and when they appeared cried out in terror : “The phantoms I have summoned will not go!” We should all really prefer to leave the great decisions of our time to fate. At bottom we are afraid to take the responsibility. But in periods when the change goes very deep we have no power to decide whether we wish to accept responsibility or not, to plan or not to plan. In the light of sociological analysis the decision how to act or think does not rest entirely with the individual, neither does his attitude to destiny. How far he is conscious of himself and of his relation to history seems largely to depend on the problems which confront his age. In a society in which there are few technical means of controlling the forces of nature or averting catastrophe, the prevailing philosophy of life will regard almost every event as the work of a blind fate. It is possible that the lack of objective security may be compensated at this stage by two conflicting attitudes. Either society can teach the individual to face risk and danger by heroic principles and training, or it can foster his passive inclination to submit to a higher and inscrutable will. These reactions to objective insecurity will be replaced by others as soon as an improved social technique makes it possible to regulate certain spheres of life. In a relatively short time the sense of personal responsibility will increase, especially in departments that are now under control. Thus it is quite probable that the citizens of some well-planned future age will regard our anxiety over the problem of

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