In “The Myth of the Machine: The Pentagon of Power”, Lewis Mumford describes the transformative period starting in the late 15th century, known as The Age of Exploration. This era was marked by significant advancements in both physical and intellectual exploration. Western civilization experienced a newfound sense of accessibility to the entire planet, fostering opportunities for adventure, economic engagement, and self-enlightenment. This period saw two main types of exploration: one focused on the heavens and scientific understanding, and the other on traversing seas and lands for tangible, often materialistic gains.
The first exploration type concentrated on understanding the cosmos, planetary motions, and establishing universal laws and mathematical measurements. The second type was driven by curiosity, conquest, and the desire to discover new lands, resources, and wealth. Both forms of exploration shared a sense of defiant pride and ambition.
This era led to the breach of geographic barriers, resulting in a significant movement of people across continents. European leaders believed this period marked a significant cyclical change in human history. Figures like Poliziano and Campanella anticipated transformative impacts on society, both culturally and technologically. The period’s achievements eventually surpassed even the most imaginative predictions, profoundly influencing Western thought and heralding a new era of human achievement.
Mumford then discusses the transformative impact of the Age of Exploration, likening it to opening windows in a long-sealed ancient house. It highlights the desire for renewal and change, as people sought to escape the limitations of their old world. This period was marked by a blend of scientific inquiry, adventurous exploration, and the pursuit of new beginnings, both in the physical world and in the realm of ideas.
Etienne de la Boetie’s correspondence with Michel de Montaigne reflects this sentiment, viewing the discovery of the New World as a divine opportunity for a fresh start, away from Europe’s turmoil. However, the explorers brought with them the very afflictions they sought to escape, leading to the decimation of native populations.
Mumford also touches on the transition from exploration to industrialization, noting that the exploitation of natural resources and the development of mechanical power were closely linked and rooted in medieval advancements. It challenges the eighteenth-century Enlightenment view, which dismissed the Middle Ages as a period of ignorance. Instead, it argues that significant technological and cultural advancements during the Middle Ages laid the foundation for the Age of Exploration. This period saw the introduction of innovations like the magnetic compass and gunpowder, which were crucial for exploration and subsequent developments. The text suggests a reevaluation of the Middle Ages, recognizing its contributions to the progress that followed.
Pioneer settlements and new cities in the New World were not a complete departure from the past; settlers brought medieval institutions and processes with them. The American log cabin, for instance, originated in Sweden. The Norsemen’s conquests, the Crusades, and Portuguese exploration, all characterized by violence and exploitation, were precursors to later Western imperialism. These ventures often involved slavery, reviving an institution that was fading in Europe.
European technological superiority in weaponry played a crucial role in these conquests, enabling Europeans to dominate indigenous populations. This success reinforced a growing power complex in Europe. However, the colonization of North America did not fully realize the dream of a new beginning, as settlers brought old world customs and equipment.
The space age, likened to these historical explorations, is seen as a continuation of these archaic fantasies, with an unrealistic glamour attached to it. The sale of indulgences in the Roman Catholic Church exemplified the belief that everything, including spiritual salvation, could be bought with money, a notion echoed by Columbus’s views on gold.
There was a fundamental contradiction in the Western approach to the New World: the desire to spread Christianity and royal influence clashed with dissatisfaction with these institutions at home and the hope for a fresh start. Missionaries sought to convert natives, often forcefully, while some settlers sought to escape European traditions and hierarchies, embracing a simpler, more primitive lifestyle.
In North America, these contradictions were stark. Colonists who fought for freedom and equality perpetuated slavery and oppressed Native Americans. The dream of a new beginning was further tarnished by the destruction of high cultures in Mexico, Central America, and the Andes, where Europeans imposed their own systems, often brutally.
Western explorers, focused mainly on extracting resources like gold, silver, and diamonds, overlooked the cultural and artistic value of the civilizations they encountered. Albrecht Dürer, for instance, recognized the aesthetic value of artifacts from the New World, unlike many who melted them down for gold. This exploitation extended to the land itself, with forests, prairies, and wildlife being destroyed in the name of progress. This approach often treated the earth as contemptuously as the native inhabitants.
Despite these negative aspects, the exploration of the New World wasn’t without positive outcomes. It captured the imagination of its new inhabitants, offering a promise of abundance and the potential to alleviate poverty and slavery. The natural resources of the New World, like fish, clams, and game, suggested a utopian possibility. This vision inspired many, from Jesuits in Paraguay to Pilgrims in Massachusetts.
The intellectual leaders of this exploration era, through figures like Captain Cook, Darwin, and others, uncovered the marvels of marine zoology, indigenous cultures, ancient cities, and forgotten monuments. They revealed the immense cultural variety of mankind, countering the trend towards mechanical uniformity. This exploration, though initially superficial, brought to light the rich diversity of human history and culture, paralleling the original abundance of nature.
The exploration of space paralleled a historic exploration in time during the Renaissance. This period wasn’t just about rediscovering Greek and Roman antiquity, but a broader survey of the human past. It freed the human mind to traverse both past and future, moving beyond the constraints of the immediate present. This exploration revealed aspects of human nature overlooked by quantitative scientific investigation. However, seventeenth-century science soon limited this freedom by denying the realities of biological transformation and historic creativity.
The Renaissance’s key contribution was linking history’s cumulative results to the diversity of cultural achievements over generations. By rediscovering statues, monuments, and ancient texts, explorers of time realized new potentialities in their own existence, creating a metaphorical time machine that surpassed H.G. Wells’ fictional invention. This period saw historic time influencing daily choices and the future being seen as more attractive than the past, with novelty and experimentation valued over tradition.
The concept of a ‘New World’ was an attempt to escape the cumulative effects of time by seeking unoccupied space. This took various forms: religious (breaking from established churches), utopian (founding new communities), adventurous (conquering new lands), mechanical (replacing organisms with machines), and revolutionary (transforming societal habits and goals). This desire for a new beginning was based on the recognition that something had gone wrong in human development. Western man sought to start afresh, not by escaping the past but by confronting and integrating it. This task, begun in the Renaissance, was left incomplete and remains a challenge for contemporary society.
There’s a disparity between ideals and actual achievements, evident in the gap between the New World dream and its realization. The contradictions in this process are numerous, with explorers bringing Old World traits that proved detrimental. The idea of starting anew in the New World was an illusion, as survival depended on salvaging resources from the Old World. This reliance on technology only grew with new inventions like the steamship and railroad, which brought the Old and New Worlds closer.
In the United States, this contradiction was seen in the westward expansion, where pioneers sought independence but relied on government support and technology, often at the expense of indigenous populations. Despite Enlightenment philosophers’ belief in the inherent goodness of man, the New World exploration often demonstrated the opposite.
However, the cultural and economic gains from this exploration were significant. It led to a greater understanding of the planet’s diversity and richness. Explorers like von Humboldt and Audubon contributed to this knowledge, and the collection of plants, animals, and minerals became a widespread pursuit. These collections, evolving into museums and botanical gardens, played a crucial role in expanding knowledge.
The focus on physical sciences overshadowed the importance of organic sciences like zoology, botany, and paleontology in industrialization. Both empirical and abstract sciences are necessary for a complete understanding of reality. The exploration of the earth contributed to a comprehensive view of it as a seat of organic evolution and a diverse home of life.
The cultural gains from this exploration are more significant than the immediate material gains. The economic wealth from exploiting natural resources continued a trend started in the Middle Ages. In the long run, cultural exchanges, despite Western man’s reluctance for cooperative interaction, were crucial. This exploration helped in understanding humanity’s past and opened up future possibilities, enhancing the sense of human dignity and destiny.
Western man’s exploration of the planet was crucial for technological development, but his approach, often marked by a lack of willingness to learn from conquered cultures and a calculated ferocity, diminished many potential benefits. The New World’s contributions, like maize, potatoes, and yams, shifted workers from farming to manufacturing and created markets for mass-produced goods.
Significant contributions from primitive societies, such as the Amazon Indians’ use of rubber and the discovery of quinine from Peruvian bark, were vital. These discoveries enabled Western expansion into malaria-ridden areas and were essential for modern transport and medicine.
The last four centuries of exploration have been as important as the development of power machines or electric communication. The search for and discovery of various metals and rare earths, scattered across the planet, were prerequisites for technological advancement. Despite synthetic chemistry’s achievements, there’s renewed interest in prospecting the seas for new resources.
Some discoveries had negative impacts, like the spread of opium poppy and hemp, and the commercial exploitation of tobacco. The abundance of grain and potatoes, lowering the cost of alcohol production, led to increased alcoholism among the poor.
Overall, the advantages of territorial exploration and interchange were immense, providing essential resources for industrial development. This exploration also significantly impacted the exact sciences. Long-distance sea voyages demanded navigational skills and precise scientific methods, leading to advancements in astronomy and quantitative observation. This scientific rigor developed among seafaring peoples laid the groundwork for modern scientific methods.
The need to respond to and forecast weather changes led to constant observation of clouds, winds, and water, influencing scientific practices. The meticulous recording of data in ship logs set a pattern for laboratory notebooks, and cartographic corrections prefigured experimental science methodologies. Modern science owes as much to navigation as it does to capitalist accountancy, forming the foundation for the seventeenth-century abstract structure of cosmic reality.
Both terrestrial and technological explorations shared a common source and interplay. They were characterized by hostility towards the past, glorifying discontinuity and destruction. This attitude was embodied by Rousseau, who valued primitivism and simplicity, and Diderot, who leaned towards intelligence and mechanical invention.
These attitudes stemmed from a belief that formal civilization had gone wrong, with its institutions hindering rather than furthering human development. The state, religion, bureaucracy, and the army, while capable of great environmental transformations, exacted a heavy human price, including class structures, economic inequalities, and the savagery of slavery and war.
Rousseau’s critique of civilization’s demoralizing effects on arts and sciences reflected a broader sentiment that civilization’s ways were often injurious. This led to a yearning for a simpler life, as seen in various religious and philosophical traditions. Acknowledging civilization’s traumatic effects, people sought to start anew, defying tradition and exploring new environments.
This desire for improvement through movement linked the frontiersmen of the New World with mechanical pioneers, both driven by the belief that faster movement equated to greater improvement. This belief implied that moving farther in space also meant moving away from the past. Rousseau and his followers influenced this environment, advocating for a return to simpler, more elemental living.
In medieval Europe, scientific knowledge was limited and largely disseminated through medical schools like Salerno. The pursuit of natural knowledge often manifested as random questions about the natural world, reflecting a nascent curiosity but a lack of systematic scientific method. These questions, covering a range of topics from natural phenomena to mythical creatures, show a mind awakening to nature but still heavily reliant on Greek and Roman traditions.
Medieval thinkers were adept at dealing with abstractions, as noted by A. N. Whitehead. Scholastic theology, with its belief in a rational, orderly universe, laid a foundation for rational science. However, the real world for the medieval mind was an invisible, spiritual one, with earthly life seen as mere preparation.
The medieval focus on abstractions lacked a corresponding ability to understand concrete realities. In contrast, esthetic naturalism, especially in the work of craftsmen and artists, brought a closer connection to nature. These artisans, through their guilds, were required to observe and replicate nature, leading to a rich portrayal of daily life and natural scenes in their work. This approach was more aligned with nature and science than the scholarly focus on ancient texts.
The Renaissance marked a shift from this medieval naturalism to a more human-centered approach. Artists began to focus more on human forms and natural landscapes, moving away from religious subjects. This shift was part of a broader process of ‘naturalization’ and ‘humanization’ in art and craft, which preceded the natural philosophers or scientists by centuries.
Technological advancements like the clock and printing press influenced the scientific mind. The development of glass lenses, leading to the invention of the telescope and microscope, was pivotal. These tools expanded human understanding of the macrocosm and microcosm, moving concepts like infinity and eternity from religious abstraction to tangible reality. This shift marked a radical transformation in human life, altering perceptions of the universe and paving the way for a new, albeit unrecognized, form of religion centered around science and technology.