VOL.16 NO.1 Apr 28, 2004

Demonizing Science and Industry There are those who attack science and industry as destroyers of what is human. One common idea is that leaders of science and industry are purposely seeking power through stalking horses, respectively, of seeking the Truth and of satisfying mass economic want and/or need. A less common idea is that science and industry ineluctably even if unwittingly set down confining constraints on what is assumed to be acceptable behavior, thought, feeling, and motive. A supporting belief to this less common idea is the seeming converse of continuously marching to one’s own drummer and of always following where one’s heart and soul leads. But this supporting belief is itself but a confining constraint that already has been posited as Truth by science and employed as marketing and as masquerade of economic need by industry. And so with other phenomena accused of being intrinsically evil and/or inducing it. Perhaps, each wave of social revolution is no more than variations of a common theme—taking reality straight or with a chaser. (Monk, R. (1990). Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. Free Press. 489; Sapochnik, C. (2004). Thoughts on 'The Empire of Fear'. Psychodynamic Practice: Individuals, Groups and Organizations, 10, 118-121; Roskies, A. (2003). Are ethical judgments intrinsically motivational? Lessons from "acquired sociopathy." Philosophical Psychology, 16, 51-66; Waskan, J.A. (2003). Intrinsic cognitive models. Cognitive Science, 27, 259-283.)

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