Power and wisdom
On the axis: Relation to technology · technological civilization
Technical means accumulate: each generation inherits the machines and knowledge of all those before it; the wisdom to use them, however, cannot be stockpiled and must be won anew by each of us. Is this gap between power and discernment a lag that education could close, or does it widen by its very nature?
Justification
Crowned in 1750 for defending the paradox that the revival of the sciences and arts has corrupted morals, Rousseau strikes at the Enlightenment's cardinal hope: the progress of knowledge and the arts does not bring moral progress, it erodes it. Luxury and the arts polish appearances while softening souls and masking vices beneath civil exteriors. This is no praise of ignorance, but a refusal of the century's central equation between civilization and the improvement of man.
Our souls have grown corrupt in proportion as our sciences and arts have advanced toward perfection.Discourse on the Sciences and Arts (1750)
Rousseau, Discourse on the Sciences and Arts
Anchors: Rousseau · Günther Anders
leads to: The meaning of history