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 The Machine, Crude
and Deformed Idol of a Materialistic World
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
This article was originally published
in in the magazine Catolicismo in August 1953
We begin with a well-known truth. Since God
is the author of nature, all laws governing the universe are
an image of His wisdom and goodness. Among these laws are
those of physics, among which are those of mechanics. Thus,
one who dedicates himself to the study of the mechanical arts
and obtains new benefits for man by developing ever more perfected
mechanisms deserves only praise.
Let us see another well-known truth. It is
not enough just to love that which is good. Good things are
hierarchically arranged both among themselves and in relation
to God. Thus, while appreciating everything that God has made,
we must further attribute to each thing the exact value God
willed to give it.
It is reasonable, for example, to like plants.
However, it would be absurd to prefer plants to men. It is
right to cultivate the arts. It would be gravely wrong to
hold that the arts should be esteemed as much as theology.
The laws of mechanics apply to the inanimate
world, that is, the least elevated beings in the order of
creation since they have no degree of life. There could not
be a greater or graver disorder than for someone to hold up
the mechanical arts as the highest and noblest object of the
human intelligence. Likewise it would be wrong to claim that
everyone, all human society or any of its myriad lesser societies
and groups, must be and act “more mechanico,”
that is, like a machine.
One can rightly like the mechanical arts
immensely. However, this does not dispense one from recognizing
the natural superiority of other kinds of knowledge, over
that to which one has dedicated oneself. A veterinarian who
tries to organize the world like an immense horse farm would
err less than a mechanical engineer who conceives it
as an immense machine.
This is precisely the error of so many people
today. They are delighted, thrilled and enthused by everything
related to the machine. Men delight in knowing, analyzing
and improving gears, rivets, springs, axles, belts and pulleys.
They look upon literature, art, philosophy, history and theology
with relative indifference. However, when in the presence
of a machine, like, for example, the motor of a car or motorcycle,
he will exclaim: "O marvel of marvels!" There is not a nut or
screw that will not entirely absorb his contemplation.
Where does this attitude come from? It
would take too long to answer this question here. Let us
merely remember in passing that the mechanical arts deal
exclusively with matter. Thus, the profoundly materialistic
man of our century naturally has a special
propensity for mechanics.
Obviously this causes grave problems. The
idolatry of the machine has led to the mechanization of life.
Twice, the Holy Father Pius XII warned the faithful against
this new error. The first time was in an allocution to Catholic
Action on May 3, 1951. He commented on how the members of
Catholic Action must not see their organization as if it were
an immense machine moved by electricity from a central command
switch. Rather, he said it must be seen as a living organization
of living beings and not a set of inert parts however cleverly
fit together. Finally, he reiterated this thought in his 1952
Christmas radio message, one of his most brilliant and profound
discourses and certainly comparable to the most beautiful
encyclicals of Leo XIII. He commented upon how the rhythm
of human work and progress is not impersonal, blind and inexorable,
like that of a machine, but living, wise and immensely variable
like God’s paternal government. The tendency to organize
mechanically huge enterprises like human society, or important
projects like Catholic Action, shows all too well to what
extremes the idolatry of the machine may reach.
In the first picture on this page we have
a curious mechanical idol. It is a machine to do nothing.
This complicated apparatus that “functions” perfectly
was the brainchild of Mr. Lawrence Wahlstrom of Los Angeles,
California. It has no practical purpose. Its purpose is to
delight those who love machinery, by the immense complexity
of its useless working parts. How many there are, perhaps
among our readers, who would delight in analyzing this machine
yet would find boring the reading of a few verses of epic
poetry or, even worse, a page of Saint Bernard about Our Lady!
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The other illustration shows the majestic
and elegant ruins of Coventry Cathedral, destroyed during
the Second World War. Next to the ruins is the projected new
cathedral, that resembles very much a huge factory with its
massive, heavy design built without the least esthetic consideration.
It does not call to mind a temple of God, destined to incite
the faithful by the nobility of its design, to lift up their
souls to the thrice Holy God, who is the infinite and substantial
source of all beauty.
Why were the design and form of this building,
that would be better suited for an electric power plant, adopted
for a temple for which it is entirely inadequate?
The answer: it is the idolatry of
the machine, the idolatry of matter…
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