Society’s rationality turns irrational once it could actually deliver peace
Evidence
The most advanced areas of industrial society exhibit throughout these two features: a trend toward consummation of technological rationality, and intensive efforts to contain this trend within the established institutions. Here is the internal contradiction of this civilization: the irrational element in its rationality. It is the token of its achievements. The industrial society which makes technology and science its own is organized for the ever-more-effective domination of man and nature, for the ever-more-effective utilization of its resources. It becomes irrational when the success of these efforts opens new dimensions of human realization. Organization for peace is different from organization for war; the institutions which served the struggle for existence cannot serve the pacification of existence. Life as an end is qualitatively different from life as a means. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 145
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines the ‘irrational element in its rationality’ and the war/peace institution distinction.
- XREF: connects to: Society’s growth-propelling rationality is itself irrational despite apparent efficiency — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 92; Technical rationality makes irrational social control appear reasonable and rational — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 124; Rationality becomes irrational once its success opens new possibilities (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Rationality becomes irrational once its success opens new possibilities
#corroborates(0.90) - Technical rationality makes irrational social control appear reasonable and rational
#expands(0.82) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 124 - Modern rational society enabled systematic genocide and discredited impulsive mass violence
#exemplifies(0.78) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 261 - Scientific rationalism becomes an instrument of social domination
#expands(0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 141