Administrative Crisis: The Neglect of Metaphysical Speculation

Some of the magnificence and the malaise in America is captured by the headnote quotation from Norman Mailer. Americans are fascinated by the successful solution of elaborate technological puzzles, yet many sense at the same time that technology may also be a malefactor as well as a benefactor in their lives. Deeper still beneath this ambiguity lies the uneasiness that technology is detaching the nation from the traditional values which gave it strength and purpose in earlier decades. These concerns, of course, are not exclusively American. They are articulated by the French philosopher, Jacques Ellul, who fears technology not because of its assault upon man's person nor his environment. Rather, he argues that technology's greatest menace lies in its potential to warp the human spirit.2 As technologically based affluence increases in advanced societies, for some mysterious reason the sense of goallessness, drift, and insecurity also increases. Recent social criticism has reflected this particular malaise, sounding themes of crisis and urgency. This literature is dominated by fears of nuclear and ecological catastrophy, born from a dehumanized and ungoverned technology. However, the symbolism of a willful technology trapping man and shaping him to its own design is dangerously misleading. Technology is the creation of men and is managed by them. Technology and administration are inseparable both in practice and in theory. Therefore the deleterious effects of technology are the responsibility of those who control and administer the complex organizations within which it is embedded. For this reason we