“It is characteristic of the technocracy to render itself invisible. Its assumptions about reality and its values become as unobtrusively pervasive as the air we breathe…. the technocracy increases and consolidates its power… following the dictates of industrial efficiency, rationality, and necessity…. the technocracy assumes a position similar to that of the purely neutral umpire in an athletic contest…. we tend to ignore the man… Yet… he alone sets the limits and goals of the competition and judges the contenders.”

— Theodore Roszak

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Theodore Roszak 43

American social historian, social critic, writer 1933–2011

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“It is characteristic of the technocracy to render itself invisible.”

Theodore Roszak (1933–2011) American social historian, social critic, writer

Its assumptions about reality and its values become as unobtrusively pervasive as the air we breathe. ...the technocracy increases and consolidates its power... following the dictates of industrial efficiency, rationality, and necessity. ...the technocracy assumes a position similar to that of the purely neutral umpire in an athletic contest. ...we tend to ignore the man ...Yet ...he alone sets the limits and goals of the competition and judges the contenders.

“Ideology is not absent in the technocracy… it is simply invisible, having blended into the supposedly indisputable truth of the scientific world view. …The most effective ideologies are always those that are congruent with the limits of consciousness, for then they work subliminally.”

Theodore Roszak (1933–2011) American social historian, social critic, writer

The Making of the Counter Culture (1969)

“Every increase of knowledge may possibly render depravity more depraved, as well as it may increase the strength of virtue. It is in itself only power; and its value depends on its application.”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

Quote reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 364

“Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse.”

W. H. Auden September 1, 1939

Source: September 1, 1939 (1939), Lines 34–39

“Language has become the universal evil. And we can certainly see why. What characterizes any word is its difference from the thing – the fact that, taken in itself, in its own reality, language contains nothing of the reality of the thing, none of its properties. This difference from the thing explains its indifference to the thing. Since a word has nothing in itself that is identical or similar to what is in the thing, it could as well be united with any other thing whatever. One could use the same name for two different things or else attribute several names to the same thing. But because, in and of itself, the word contains nothing that is real and ignores everything about that reality, it could just as well bring reality back to itself, identify with it, define it, in such a way that everything the word says becomes reality, and pretends to stand for it. Emerging from its own powerlessness, the power of language suddenly becomes frightening, shaking up reality, twisting it up in its frenzy.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Books on Religion and Christianity, I am the Truth. Toward a philosophy of Christianity (1996)
Source: Michel Henry, I am the Truth. Toward a Philosophy of Christianity, translated by Susan Emanuel, Stanford University Press, 2003, p. 9

“Reality is being itself. — It is being itself, in becoming itself. Reality in its isness, the "isness" of a thing. Thus isness is the meaning — having freedom in its primary sense — not limited by attachments, confinements, partialization, complexities.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 19

“Its not about the goal. Its about growing to become the person that can accomplish that goal.”

Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker

“Naked power has its limitations, since power is a generator of corruption and corruption in its turn tends to dilute the effectiveness of power.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne (1911–1983) British lecturer, novelist, historian, poet and biographer

The Corruptions of Our Time, p. 248
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

“When… we have a series of values of a quantity which continually diminish, and in such a way, that name any quantity we may, however small, all the values, after a certain value, are severally less than that quantity, then the symbol by which the values are denoted is said to diminish without limit. And if the series of values increase in succession, so that name any quantity we may, however great, all after a certain point will be greater, then the series is said to increase without limit. It is also frequently said, when a quantity diminishes without limit, that it has nothing, zero or 0, for its limit: and that when it increases without limit it has infinity or ∞ or 1⁄0 for its limit.”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

Introductory Chapter, pp.9-10
The Differential and Integral Calculus (1836)

“Every great poem is in itself limited by necessity, — but in its suggestions unlimited and infinite.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Table-Talk (1857)

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Theodore Roszak 43

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