In America we have created a new race, with healthy physiques, sometimes beautiful bodies, but empty minds-people who have accepted life as an alternation of meaningless routine with insignificant sensation.
The products of industry Mumford disparaged as an 'opulence of carefully packaged emptiness': chewing gum, coffee containers, vitamins, all trivial. Novels and newspapers... build up a mental world that is free from any values except those of physical sensation and material wealth.
If industrial civilization can achieve material comfort and convenience only at the cost of our psychological, emotional, moral, and spiritual values, then it is a fool's bargain. There is no purpose in prolonging life, or giving people back more hours in the day, if those hours and that life are devoid of meaning.
Techno-humanism embraces the need for meaning, but rejects the accusation that meaning is eroded by material progress. In fact, I submit that material progress makes meaningful values more accessible to more people.
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