Social change and scientific progress / William Claire Menninger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Menninger, William Claire, 1899-1966, author.

Series:

Arthur Dehon Little memorial lecture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Psychiatry.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (42 pages).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Massachussetts Institute of technology, [1951]

Summary:

"As we meet tonight, our civilization is in imminent danger. The world is precariously teetering on the edge of disaster. One relatively minor "incident" could initiate a holocaust that would destroy all of us. The disconcerting fact is that it is a world of our own making. The atomic age, symbolized by the power of the atom, is equally symbolic of the near-transparent hostile aggressiveness of man towards man. On all sides we are made aware, even in our daily lives, of man's feelings of insecurity, suspicion, resentment, prejudice, hate. Two taxi drivers at a metropolitan intersection, two Congressmen of opposing political parties, or two world ideologies that are in complete conflict with each other, give abundant evidence of our inability to get along with our fellowmen. If, as many of us believe, we are at an extremely critical point in our world history, it is imperative that we consider and reconsider the relationship of social change to scientific progress. My remarks will deal more specifically with how some aspects of technological advance have seemed to affect the mental health of society. In considering how science and the industrial revolution have affected the mental health of society, one is faced with the need to look for answers to some all-important basic questions. Are people today any more or any less happy than they were in more rigorous and primitive cultures or in other civilizations? Has our progress in the field of pragmatic materialism blighted or minimized our aesthetic and spiritual values? Have scientific, technical, and industrial developments which have so greatly increased our material comforts robbed many people of deep-seated satisfactions without offering suitable substitutions? Have those great technological advances that make it possible for us to defend ourselves against an enemy stimulated man's instinctive, hostile aggressiveness beyond his capacity to handle it? Is the resistance to change in human nature so great that anxiety has been aroused by the speed of our technological advance? Many other similar questions could be asked. In the absence of "scientifically validated" evidence, any answers could be fairly classified as merely an impression or an opinion. Such questions as these are raised because they are in the minds of all of us but as yet no group of scientists has come up with an adequate answer. It is presumed that the answers will most likely come from the group of social sciences--cultural anthropology, sociology, economics, social psychology, and political science. They may be expected to rely heavily on contributions from philosophy, ethics, religion, and statistics. As yet, however, because of the youth of these sciences, they have had little time to develop and apply scientific methods of study comparable to the progress made in the natural sciences. Furthermore, we have no right to expect the social sciences to have made much greater gain than they have with the meager financial support that they have received"-- (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved).

Notes:

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