ARC181H1 Lecture 4:
19 Feb 2019
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ARC181 READINGS
Week 4 Reading
Lewis Mumford- Technics and Civilization
- Machine is a big part of human’s history, it help human in many different ways.
- Machines have developed out of a complex of non-organic agents r converting energy, for
performing work.
- In general, the machine emphasizes specialization of function, and the tool indicates flexibility.
Which means technically civilized life begins with the clock, to Mumford the most important
basis for the development of capitalism because time thereby becomes fungible (thus
transferable). The clock is the most important prototype for all other machines.
The reckless, get-rich-quick, devil-take-the-hindmost attitude of the mining rushes spread
everywhere: the bonanza farms of the Middle West in the United States were exploited as if
they were minds, and the forests were gutted out and mined in the same fashion as the
minerals that lay their hills. Mankind behaved like a drunken heir on a spree” which means The
first mark of paleotechnic industry was the pollution of the air.
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