Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Social Science As A utonomous Activity 255
Progress in the technique of organization is nothing but the application
of technical conceptions to the forms of co-operation. A human
being, regarded as part of the social machine, is to a certain extent
stabilized in his reactions by training and education, and all his
recently acquired activities are co-ordinated according to a definite
principle of efficiency within an organized framework.2G
In accordance with this new regard for human beings, man must
be appropriately energized and directed. Being a pliable creature,
he must be sufficiently softened and compressed to fit into those
compartments. which might be readily supervised. Within them,
he can be guided to lead a secure and satisfying life. This is best
done by quieting his prejudices, straightening out his complications,and
exposing the irrationality of his diversions. The expeditors
of history must· trim and· neutralize him, eliminating
those of his motives which may set him to doing the impractical,
frivolous, perilous, or unexpected. They must allow him to experience
the positive harm of having his fling, telling his joke,
or sitting the next one out. His environment must be so arranged
as to make him comfortable. He must be fitted so that he will
become the self-renouncing creature he·naturally is. Pains must
be taken to relieve him of the agony of choice between alternatives,
relieve him of that perplexing inner conflict which jeopardizes
every civil order.
Those whose calling it is to assume total responsibility for the
whole of man-the elite whose historical function it is to terminate
history-must purposefully intervene, varying one factor
here, another one there, moving man by affecting his behavior,
driving him by harnessing his drives, watching always whether
his motions and emotions. tend more and more to conform to the
plotted ideal, whether the myths calculated to galvanize him will
induce him to behave as expected, to make his industry correspond
to his true interest.
Fortunately, it is never necessary to tamper with man's true
will-only with the will's objectively pathological aberrations,
with those human urgings which prompt the individual to conceive
of himself as selfishly subjective. Only the deviant, not the