The Place of Science in Modern Civilisation, and Other EssaysVeblen, Thorstein
Philosophy
The Place of Science in Modern Civilisation, and Other Essays
Veblen, Thorstein
Economics; Science
exempt the operative employees from taking thought of pecuniary matters.
Now, as to the bearing of all this upon cultural changes that are in
progress or in the outlook. Leaving the "backward," relatively
unspecialised, industries on one side, as being of an equivocal
character for the point in hand and as not differing characteristically
from the corresponding industries in the past so far as regards their
disciplinary value; modern occupations may, for the sake of the
argument, be broadly distinguished, as economic employments have been
distinguished above, into business and industrial. The modern industrial
and the modern business occupations are fairly comparable as regards the
degree of intelligence required in both, if it be borne in mind that the
former occupations comprise the highly trained technological experts and
engineers as well as the highly skilled mechanics. The two classes of
occupations differ in that the men in the pecuniary occupations work
within the lines and under the guidance of the great institution of
ownership, with its ramifications of custom, prerogative, and legal
right; whereas those in the industrial occupations are, in their work,
relatively free from the constraint of this conventional norm of truth
and validity. It is, of course, not true that the work of the latter
class lies outside the reach of the institution of ownership; but it is
true that, in the heat and strain of the work, when the agent's powers
and attention are fully taken up with the work which he has in hand,
that of which he has perforce to take cognisance is not conventional
law, but the conditions impersonally imposed by the nature of material
things. This is the meaning of the current commonplace that the required
close and continuous application of the operative in mechanical industry
bars him out of all chance for an all-around development of the cultural
graces and amenities. It is the periods of close attention and hard work
that seem to count for most in the formation of habits of thought.
An _a priori_ argument as to what cultural effects should naturally
follow from such a difference in discipline between occupations, past
and present, would probably not be convincing, as _a priori_ arguments
from half-authenticated premises commonly are not. And the experiments
along this line which later economic developments have so far exhibited
have been neither neat enough, comprehensive enough, nor long continued
enough to give definite results. Still, there is something to be said
under this latter head, even if this something may turn out to be
somewhat familiar.
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