This is http://www.essayz.com/a8902201.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %IMPOSSIBLE TECHNOCRATIC REFLEXIVE GOAL CHANGE 890220 Jack is at heart a technocrat quite apart from his level of technical competence. Jack is preoccupied with techniques for the achievement of preconceived goals. Jack does not meditate upon what goals are worthy of effort. Jack does not pray for personal and communal integrity. It is enough to Jack that he is on the way to getting things done with sophisticated techniques. Jack's life is a celebration of the past and future achievements of technically competent people. Nothing seems impossible to Jack. To him it is wonderful that everything seems possible, and he is preoccupied with fulfilling all that is possible. Jack does not pray for the wisdom to know what is possible and what is impossible. Jack does not pray for the wisdom to know what possible goals are most worthy of attention. Jack does not reflect wisely upon the criteria by which to make wise choices. His decisions are all made to celebrate technocracy. Jack is not aware of the difference between what he can change, and what he can not change. Jack with his technocratic friends are playing a game of mutual self deception regarding change. Technocrats like Jack are preoccupied with the fulfillment of preconceived goals. They cannot conceive of goals which involve the unforeseen consequences of reflexive changes; i.e., changes within themselves and their technocratic paradigm. It is the nature of the technocratic paradigm that it blinds its incarnations regarding possibilities which cannot be fulfilled through techniques designed to fulfill preconceived goals. Technology can fulfill only some preconceived goals. The personal changes which would be entailed in transcending the technocratic paradigm cannot be conceived in advance, and so cannot be achieved through technical means. Technocrats are participants in a collusive game of mutual self deception. They are addicts who are addicted to technology. They see technology as the solution to all their problems. They drink deeply and compulsively of the bottle of technology. When they are distressed technology is their fix. They use technology to hide from that which distresses them. They seek to fix that which cannot be fixed with technology. They are always seeking a fix to some thing or another thing. They treat every body as a thing. Things are to be used, controlled, manipulated. Things may be abused without conscious distress. People are treated as things. It is contrary to the rules of technocrats' collusive game of mutual self deception to reflect upon the inadequacies of their paradigm. It is ultimately important to them to be objective, and to justify all thought on the basis of objective evidence. The criteria of objectivity protects them against the threatening possibilities of reflexive meditation, prayer, intimate relationships, conversations, and conversions of their being through open and honest conversations. Technocrats are into changing every thing but their own being. Self change is off bounds to technocrats because self change cannot be fully preconceived. The consequences of a course of self change cannot be fully conceived of ahead of time. There can be no preconceived technique for completing a program of reflexive change. The goal of reflexive change cannot be seen ahead of time, and so cannot be defined in a way to make its achievement a purely technical achievement. It is not possible to know when a program of reflexive change is complete. To pray for personal and communal integrity entails prayers for the transformation of technocrats. Technocrats need to discover the joys of personal and communal integrity. Technocrats do not know what they need to discover. The knowledge which they need is taboo to them. They cannot seek the knowledge they need. They can not strive for it as a preconceived goal worthy of achievement. Not being able to see the goal, they cannot set out to seek personal and communal integrity. They are imprisoned by their exclusive paradigm. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================