Secret_History

588 The Secret History of the World
give conscious work so that the first task of the people who begin such a work is to
create conscious assistants.” 400
So, learning, networking with others who are further along on the cycle of
progression, and doing this without prejudice can make a difference, it seems.
What is the specific purpose of the Cassiopaean work? Let’s stop and consider
that: At the beginning of World War I, Ouspensky’s speculated to Gurdjieff that
the war was a consequence of life in the industrial age, wherein humans were
becoming more “mechanized” and had stopped thinking for themselves because
they had things too easy. Gurdjieff replied:
“There is another kind of mechanization which is much more dangerous: being a
machine oneself. Have you ever thought about the fact that all people themselves
are machines? ...Look, all those people you see are simply machines - nothing more.
...You think there is something that chooses its own path, something that can stand
against mechanization; you think that not everything is equally mechanical.”
At this point, Ouspensky raised what would seem to be a most logical objection:
“Why of course not! ...Art, poetry, thought, are phenomena of quite a different
order.”
Gurdjieff replied: “Of exactly the same order. These activities are just as
mechanical as everything else. Men are machines and nothing but mechanical
actions can be expected of machines.” He then continued:
“[Western civilization] armed with ‘exact knowledge’ and all the latest methods of
investigation, has no chance whatever and is moving in a circle from which there is
no escape.”
“That is because people believe in progress and culture. There is no progress
whatever. Everything is just the same as it was thousands, and tens of thousands, of
years ago. The outward form changes. The essence does not change. Man remains
just the same. ‘Civilized’ and ‘cultured’ people live with exactly the same interests
as the most ignorant savages. Modern civilization is based on violence and slavery
and fine words.”
“...What do you expect? People are machines. Machines have to be blind and
unconscious, they cannot be otherwise, and all their actions have to correspond to
their nature. Everything happens. No one does anything. ‘Progress’ and
‘civilization’, in the real meaning of these words, can appear only as the result of
conscious efforts. They cannot appear as the result of unconscious mechanical
actions. And what conscious effort can there be in machines? And if one machine is
unconscious, then a hundred machines are unconscious, and so are a thousand
machines, or a hundred thousand, or a million. And the unconscious activity of a
million machines must necessarily result in destruction and extermination.”
400 Ouspensky, op. cit.