Friday, September 18, 1970 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Purge Five 4 Frid~iy, S~pt~mber 1 8, 1 970 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Five Shape of the Herbert A. Simon, THE S H A P E OF AUTOMATION, Harper & Row, $1.45. By ROBERT GRAY Mr. Simon calls himself a technical radical and an econo- mic conservative - that is, he believes that computers will be able to do, anything a man can do and that it will just be a con- tinuation of the industrial revo- lution with our economic struc- ture continuing to look as it is. This is a remarkable juxta- position. Marxists deal with the phenomenon of the institutional change which follows the im- pact of technological invention on the economic process under the heading of Historical Ma- terialism. Capitalist social scien- tists squirm over this heading since it is not official ideology, but do speak of the influence of invention on the economic process and the subsequent change of institutions, econo- mic and social, and individual philosophies. They call the time span involved the "cultural lag." For reasons of his own, Mr. ,Simon chooses to ignore his academic colleagues on both ideological sides of this pheno- menon. On the technical side, I am least able to evaluate Mr. Sim- on's ideas. He says flatly that within a span of less than twen- ty-five years technology will be able to substitute machines for any and all human functions in organization. In much less than twenty-five years, we will be technically able to have the almost completely automatic factory which can, within limits, repair and maintain itself. Cleri- cal operations, more easily auto- mated, will resemble the auto- matic factory. Non-programmed as well as programmed decision- making will become mechanized, and Mr. Simon is explicit about this. How professional managers dance ,in this schizoid world of organizational loyalty and pro- fessional suicide should be in- teresting to watch. I Simon shows no concern with his statement that in less than twenty-five years, ". . . we shall have acquired an extensive and empirically tested theory of human cognitive processes and their interaction with human emotions, attitudes and values." As a manager, an organization man, his tendency to let the so- cial side of the change shift for itself as much as safety will allow is understandable. But his strangely inept and superficial handling of the ominous side of the picture weakens the credi- bility of the book, while he dis- plays deplorable personal ethics as well. He puts off the problem in one instance 'by saying simply that automation creates new jobs and therefore there can be only a temporary technological Sdisplacement. This in spite of the fact that he foresees totally automated factory and clerical complexes. Mr. Simon obviously didn't talk with the Appalachian remnants of the coal mines. Then, perhaps seeing the need # for something at little more con- vincing, helays claim to scienti- fie proof that mechanization does not produce unemployment. He escalates quickly into mathe- matical formulas meaningless to the lay reader inviting those who don't wish to follow to skip *page 'Y' and finally, to be safe, in a great show of brotherhood and moral cleanliness. Mr. Si- mon preaches, "The simplist moral reasoning leads to a gen- eral rule for the introduction of change: The general society which stands to benefit from the change . . . should compen- sate generously those who would otherwise be harmed by it." Mr. Simon is playing games with us. During one of his unguarded moments, he claims that at the 1965 level of increase in produc- tivity (3 per cent), 200,000 work- ers could be dispensed with each year "without reducing living standards." This annual 200,000 man exodus, therefore, becomes a group of non-persons with no living standards as such. They have disappeared permanently into the slums with the other displaced persons. At another point, Mr. Simon notes the parallel drawn by a capitalist expert between man an'd the horse. When the horse, through mechanization, was no longer a factor in production, the horse population dropped from 21 million in 1915 to 2 mil- lion by 1960. "It couldno longer produce enough to pay its keep." The human worker, facing auto- mation. can learn from the fate of the horse. The human worker, motivated of course by profit- taking, has no such thing as "human rights." He is a factor in production. In Simon's words, "a man is a pair of eyes and ears, a brain, a pair of hands, a pair of legs, and some muscles for applying force. In other words, he is a collection of me- chanical sub-systems operating as a production tool. When ma- chinery does the job better, this view leaves nothing behind as "human" to have rights. When managers, appearing at their humane best, speak of the work- ers' dignity and happiness, it is invariably followed with, "They work better." Both 'the managers (Estab- lishment) and the worker-tools have a period of "cultural lag" in which to maneuver. While automation gradually takes over production, there is still an ever- decreasing need for the worker- tool. During this time psycho- logical problems will increase as well as the problems of physical survival. Simon suggests the magnitude of the problem.' It is only one step . . . to what psychilogists now refer to as the 'identity crises.' .. The developing capacity of computers to simulate man ... will change man's concep- tion of his own identity as a species. The definition of man's uniqueness has always formed the kernel of his cos- mological and ethical systems. With Copernicus and Galileo, he ceased to be the species lo- cated at the center of the uni- verse, attended by sun and stars. With Darwin, he ceased to be the species created and specially endowed by God with soul and reason. With Freud, he ceased to be the species whose behavior was potential- ly governable by rational mind. As we begin to produce mechanisms that think and learn, he has ceased to be the species uniquely capable of complex, intelligent manipula- tion of his environment . I am confident that man will, as he has in the past, find a new way of discerning his place in the universe-a way that will satisfy his needs for dignity and for purpose. But it will be as different from the present one as was the Copernican from the Ptole- maic. While this last rhetoric was intended to be the swan song for the human-tool, it contains the totally unintended promise of the future. What he was say- ing is that the man who has been a worker has no' future in this system - a fact, I am sure, that will slowly enter the worker's mind. With his loss as a production unit, he is worth- less., To add to this painful aware- ness, his uniqueness as an idio- syncratic individual must be re- moved. Automation demands a standardized environment. So as the need for man's flexibility is erased by standardization, so is his individuality. To control the human-work- er population while his t i m e runs out, a psychological as well as a physical containment is necessary. While such repres- sive needs and measures are not mentioned by Simon, he says this. "We shall have Eby 19853 a pretty good understanding of how the human mind, works.. . it has obvious and fundamental consequences for both peda- gogy and psychiatry [both of which will be largely automated, Today's Writers--- Robert Gray is a graduate student in library science who describes himself as a "revolu- tionary-at-large." Steven War- ren, a freshman, has unbounded interests in philosophy, liter- ature, and the arts. Ira Stein- berg is associate professor of education at Oberlin College. future he says, along with the physic- ian and the corporate vice-pres- ident. We may expect very rapid advances in the effective- ness and efficiency of our tech- niques of teaching and our techniques for dealing with hu- man maladjustment." At some point the admin- istrators are going to b faced with a decision on what the ."final solution" to the "human problem" is to be. The N a z i solution was crude and ineffi- cient. It caused negative feed- back, and it was hard to dis- pose of the bodies on a mass- production scale. The ultimate American solu- tion will be simple. The idea is already being used in a related context. Jobs are being elimi- nated quietly by not filling them again as they are vacated for any reason. It is known. of course, as "attrition." The final solution? Promise the jobless and hungry ex-workers a mini- mum of food, lodging and enter- tainment while they remain alive in exchange for "volun- tary" sterilization. The worth- less human being really has no choice, and the human-worker problem is solved. Bad Adrian Dupuis, ed., NATURE, AIMS, AND POLICY READ- INGS IN THE PHILOSOIY OF EDUCATION, Jniversity'of Ilinois Press, paperback, $345. By IRA S, STEINBERG As I first thumbed through this collage, it seemed to me to be the result of a dragging operation. And, so it is. We are informed in the General Series Preface that it is based on a se-- lection from the listings in Philosophy of Education: An Organization of Topics and Se- lected Sources, (University of Illinois Press, 1967). This is the report of a bibliographical s' r- vey of the field of philosophy of education. Philosophers and philosophers of education xere asked to send in recommenda- tions of readings of use in cour - ses in philosophy of education. These were screened by a team of philosophers of education (in consultation with others outside the team) and the final sele- tion was organized and compiled as the report. Needless to say, the biblography offers consider- able breadth and variety, the major concern being, in my judgment, to representtthe di- versity of the field, to offer something for everyone. The present volume also tries to offer something for everyone: but it does not offer very much for anyone. As Mr. Dupuis in- forms us in his preface "there were sixty pages of biblograph- ical items on 'Nature, Aims and Policies' in the original Project Report." He adopted three cr- teria for further selectivity: ex- plicit reference to aims of edu- cation in title or content, level of difficulty, and representative- ness. These were not applied in a simple, mechanical fashion, though. "Explicit mention of aims . . . is not always present (or even necessary); the essay might simply suggest a general philosophic base for solving all educational problems including aims." Now there is a mind- boggler of a criterion, if there ever was one. The selection by Dewey that is offered as an ex- b 0 0 k s marks ample of the application of this criterion is in its own right no less a mind boggler. The criterion of level of dif- ficulty seems aimed at the lowest common denominator. The idea was to select those readings which could be understood by students without background in, philosophy or philosophy of ed- ucation. There is even an apolo- gy for including some more dif- ficult selections when easier ver- sions could not be found. In fact, there were very few dif- ficult selections at all, unless obscurity is the sort of difficulty the editor had in mind. The cri- terion of representativeness w,}s intended to apply "mainly ;'hen strongly divergent points of view on an issue were evident." Taken together the three criteria have provided a hodgepodge of di- verse issues and pseudo-issues as exemplified in more, rather than less, simplistic treatment. And this is representative of Philosophy of Education? Perhaps it is a good sampler of the field. Perhaps it is useful as a device for introducing novices to its mysteries. It is even hand- ed. It includes several -ssays on reading off aims from differ- ent metaphysical positions as well as a few essays on why one should not do so. It is devoted to the elaboration of aims in terms of educational theories but includes an essay which points out that what pass for educational theories are slogans and* systems of slogans. Lest one be misled, I hasten to point out that there is in fact very little in the way of con- frontation directly on issues of philosophic disagreement in this volume. The editor promised strong divergence in views over the relationship of religion and values. Divergent positions are presented. But one man's argu- ments do not bear very heavily upon another's; each ,mphasizes a different point. And then, the last three essays present a Luth- eran position, a Jewish posicio.,, and the Vatican's position on education. There is something for everyone, but not much of anything for anyone David McReynolds, WE HAVE BEEN INVADED BY THE 21st CENTURY, Praeger, S7.95. By STEVEN WARREN These days there seems to exist a general re-awakening to a problem that has con- cerned a few very aware people for a long time; that is the inability of the masses to handle rapid technological de- velopments effectively and, more important, morally. Koestler de- fines and explains the problem very handily in Darkness At Noon, circa 194.1, and Alvin Tof- fler offers some solutions in Future Shock, published this year. This is also the theme which tenuously ties together the essays in McReynold's book. However, the material in the book as a whole would suggest a much different title than We Have teen Invaded By The 21st Century; it should be per- haps something on the order of A Portrait of the Radical as a Human Being. The reader finds himself involved much more than he would expect from a quick glance, principally be- cause McReynolds involves him- self so totally in what he does. His radicalism, one finds, is literally his entire life, and his humanistic ethic pervades all his politics; these things are what the book demonstrates. The work itself is a series of essays all written between 1959 and the present, arranged in a loosely catagorical rather than chronological order, and pre- faced with a critical introduc- tion by Paul Goodman. McRey- nolds deals with quite a variety of subjects, some humorously, some sarcastically, some darkly, some angrily, some sadly, but all with a personal intensity which, taken out of context, might even-seem a bit over-emo- tional. He begins by describing his early impressions of the history that was happening around him. "The pace of change in our society has been so swift that it tells more about me to say that I am from 1929 than to say I am from Los Angeles. McCarthy (Joseph, not Eug- ene) and Wallace (Henry, not George) are not merely his- tory to me, nor is World War II. Those are eras of time that I visited." He continues with a capsule description of recent history, te chnologicaldevelopments and radicalisms that should prob- ably be required reading today for anyone seriously interested in effecting social change. He then becomes a trifle muddled in his reminiscenes of school days and politics at UCLA, con- cluding that "Only others of the Old Left will know how poignant was our defeat, will understand how joyous and sad we were, as we discovered our values could survive without us, prov- ing their worth even as it proved us expendable and forced us to begin again, learning from the children we had thought to teach." As elsewhere, his mes- sage is sound but given as it is, in a highly personal sense, it takes on a melodramatic tinge. One of McReynolds' main pre- occupations, which also ties all the essays with the title, is the inhumanism in today's world caused by technology. This again emphasizes his concern for people. He exhibits that par- ticular capacity to participate in the ideas and feelings of others which is truely empathy and not sympathy, when he tells us of Hart Island Prison and the ...a personal bodies of the Bowery, the fear A tri and anger of the people and one sec students of Prague in '68 and ing wit] the "inscrutability" of the (as oppo Japanese who. seem to have into ac between Westernization with a the eff soljd heritage. He is not only Negro's amazingly empathetic in regard past an to the Negro, but is most ac- tion de curate in his perceptions of the persona racial situation today, and quite the act able to clearly express those Freedom perceptions., He notes that tions w ". ..the present movement (to- PFP c ward resolution) is not the re- while E sult of Northern agitation, and, Presiden response o of essays appears in ction of the book deal- L. true racial integration rsed to making the Negro darker white man) and ects of progress on the situation in America, d present. Another sec- eals with McReynolds' 1 involvement regarding ions of the Peace and m Party in the '68 elec- hen McReynolds was a andidate for congress ldridge Cleaver ran for nt. He concludes this while often dependent on finan- cial help from Northern liberals, it was not launched from the. North. The Negroes and whites involved in the movement are products of the South, of that 'other side of Dixie' the North has chosen not to see."'At an- other point, he contends "Bald- win has argued that this nation needs the Negro-needs him on the bottom of the social pile, as a permanent proletariat . . . but it needs to be carried a step further. The North needs the South as proof of Northern virtue." section with his personal feel- ings of responsibility in the racial tension in an open letter directed toward white liberals and radicals. Politically, as in everything else, McReynolds is a humanist; he is a dedicated pacifist and therefore against all violence, Establishment or radical; he holds that patriotism to one's country may constitute treason toward the state. "Everything," he says, "revolves around Viet- nam." He contends that the war is ilegal by way of violating the UN charter provisions and is im- moral because human beings are being murdered. He emphasizes the fact that the state is acting without official sanction only to further its own ends. Toward the end of the book, McReynolds makes the point: that the Technological Revolu- tion, as such; has already taken place and calls on the New Left "to organize the revolution which is." In that sense, he com- pares the New Left's present po- sition to that of the Marxists immediately after the Industrial Revolution. He supports this position well; technology has alienated a number of groups effectively as a change in the production and distribution of goods. Finally, having first firmly established himself as a human- ist in the reader's high esteem, he remarks, almost in passing, that he is a homosexual. The statement only serves to deepen the reader's image of the au- thor. The candor of this section is genuine and enlightening (and probably frightening to a few). McReynolds is powerful and accurate when he condemns the war, the state and other insti- tutions, and keen in his observa- tions of the racial struggle, but the moving force behind the whole book is the author's own depth of personal involvement. One of the things that impress- es me most about McReynolds, and what makes the book pos- sible, is his wealth of experi- ences which implies an enorm- ous effort on his part toward commitment and involvement. In this new Technological Age, when supposedly most people have involved themselves in the various social problems, McRey- nolds, by example, has proven that one can still see a majority of guilty blushes (including mine) when he asks the ques- tion: "Where were you when 9', , fI _ _ __ _- SINCE REGISTRATION? REPORT CHANGE OF ADDRESS at WINDOW A, LS&A BLDG. by Sept. 18, 1970 for THE '70-'71 STUDENT DIRECTORY _._< r ! '''; i , f iii ' 1 I i,' ', : _! ,I Y r .{. X ~. ..l....a. .r .f.::{; ,Rt.!f".?~ ' ix i:a:<"x COME AS YOU ARE 4 7" "'4,'r : K>01- r" .. ~" .'. " i.. acid WEAR WRAT YOU WANT for your f"'~ OurNOwswriters are Newsmakers THE DETROIT PRESS CLUB FOUNDATION 1970 statewide college journalism competition 1st PRIZE for news reporting GRAND PRIZE for overall excellence JUDY SARASOHN, The Michigan. Daily THE HARPER'S MAGAZINE 1910 nationwide college criticism competition,.. 1st PRIZE for Political Criticism RON LANDSMAN, The Michigan Daily HONORABLE MENTION for Art Criticism R. A. 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