file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/me/Desktop/Book%20shelf/Quigley,%20Carroll%20-%20Tragedy%20and%20Hope.txt
divine powers and it has become increasingly clear that he can no longer regard himself as an animal but must regard himself as at least a man if not obligated to act like an angel or even a god. Page 832 The whole trend of the 19th century had been to emphasize man's animal nature and seek to increase his supply of material necessities. Page 833 The great achievements of the 19th century and the great crisis of the 20th century are both related to the Puritan tradition of the 17th century which regarded the body and the material as sinful and dangerous and something which must be sternly controlled. Page 837 These methods appeared in a number of ways, notably in an emphasis on self-discipline for future benefits, on restricted consumption and on saving in a devotion to work, and in a postponement of enjoyment to a future which never arrived. A typical example might be John D. Rockefeller: great saver, great worker, and great postponer of any self-centered action, even death. To such people, the most adverse comments which could be made about a failure to distinguish from a "successful" man were that he was a "saltrel," a "loafer," a "sensualist," and "self-indulgent." These terms reflected the value that the middle classes placed on work, saving, self-denial and social conformity. Page 838 The nineteenth century's emphasis on acquisitive behavior, on achievement, and on infinitely expansible demand is equally associated with the middle-class outlook. These basic features are inevitably lacking in backward, tribal, underdeveloped peasant societies and groups, not only in Africa and Asia but also in much of the Mediterranean, Latin America, central France, in the Mennonite communities of Pennsylvania and elsewhere. The lack of future preference and expansible material demands in other areas are essential features of the 20th century crisis. George Sorel (Reflections on Violence, 1908) sought a solution to this crisis in irrationalism, in action for its own sake. The other tendency sought a solution in rationalization, science, universality, cosmopolitanism and the continued pursuit of truth. The war became a struggle between the forces of irrationality represented by Fascism and the forces of Western science and rationalization represented by the Allied nations. RATIONALIZATION AND SCIENCE Page 838 Rationalization gradually spread into the more dominant problem of business. From maximizing production, it shifted to maximizing profits. The introduction of rationalization into war was attributed to the efforts of Professor P.M.S. Blackett (Nobel Prize 1948) to apply radar to antiaircraft guns. From there, Blackett took the technique into antisubmarine defence whence it spread under the name "Operational Research" (OP). Operational research, unlike science, made its greatest contribution in regard to the use of existing equipment rather than the effort to invent new equipment. It often game specific recommendations, reached through techniques of mathematical probability, which directly contradicted the established military procedures. A simple case concerned the problem of air attack on enemy submarines: For what depth should the bomb fuse be set? In 1940, RAF set its fuses at 100 feet. based on three factors: 1) the time interval between the moments when the submarine sighted the plane and the plane sighted the submarine; 2) the speed of approach of the plane; and file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/me/Desk...ley,%20Carroll%20-%20Tragedy%20and%20Hope.txt (81 of 129) [14/06/2005 11:42:40]