Dennis Paull wrote:
>
[snip]
> Most experts I know of work on whatever will pay them a living. Those
> who pay those experts bear the heavier responsibilities since the
> results might be the same even if many experts declined to participate.
[snip]
You are, alas, probably right "in general" on this socially
portentious issue. (On the other hand, there have been
persons on this list who warned of potential disaster if
my recommendation that technicians become socially responsible
was folowed -- maybe it would be as if Hitler's hands had not
obeyed his brain???)
But there *are* exceptions, and I think they deserve to be
honored, remunerated, and set up as models for emulation. Go to:
http://www.cwru.edu/affil/wwwethics/
Click: "Moral Leaders", and read the sad story of:
Roger Boisjoly on the Challenger Disaster
and the remarkably heartening story of
William LeMessurier and the 59-Story Crisis
(The moral the comparison between the two stories may
be the dis-heartening conclusion that CitiCorp is more
enlightened than the United States Goverment.)
I also think Arnold Gehlen's observations in
_Man in the Age of Technology_ are highly relevant here
e.g., that
> [n] matter how indispensable the expert may
> become in a rationalized society, his own [narrowly
> functionalist] perspective (which originated within
> the world of crafts and agriculture, and then moved
> on to prosper in that of industry) is of no ultimate
> significance. (1957/1980, p. 161)
Gehlen goes on to say that modern technological
society is actually "run" by persons with a
"broader perspective" (I have my doubts about this...).
In any case, however, if our society was run by experts,
it *might* look like the noble vision of H.G. Wells'
film "The Shape of Things to Come", but it might
also be an autistic idiotocracy (using "idiot" in the
classical Greek sense, not of having a low IQ, but
of being unable to participate meaningfully in the
life of the polity / "polis").
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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