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PARTISAN REVIEW
T here were no higher cu ltura l o r hi sto rica l standards to whi ch an
appea l could be made.
In our own time, the intell ectual wo rker-whether in the govern–
ment, the corpo ra te world or th e milita ry-has been debased into
constructing "as if" worlds and using th em as prescripti ons fo r co lo–
ni zin g instituti ons. In the "as if " world the work of th e intell ectua l
worker, Dani el Bell 's
luft mensch,
is reduced to contingency pl anning
for tacti cal nucl ear wars in Europe, to o ffering eight alterna tive world
vi sions o r to fo recasting the number o f cars GM can sell in the year
2000. In the "as if " wo rld there is no human hi story; there is no
exi stenti a l or cultu ral meaning to the pas t. There is a radical elimina–
tion of hi sto ry and the substitution of a hi story o f the future.
"As if" burea ucracies have a tas k beyond self-preserva tion and
sta tus acqui sition : they must predi ct and contro l the future, and must
a lso find a way to routinize the Fuas ti an spirit. Whil e living comfor–
ta ble but a li ena ted li ves. T he Faustian bureaucra ts and futuro logists
have come to view life as a seri es o f confli cts whi ch they can o vercome
with slide rul es, milita ry fo rce and admonitions about the proper rate
o f grow th . They come to beli eve tha t their pl ans- anti septi c but
ra ti onal in a calcul a tive sense- can be accompli sh ed thro ugh the
hi erarchy of ex isting power. T hey beli eve, like good Weberi an
bu rea ucra ts, tha t they will no t have to get in vo lved in po liti cs -in
any sys tem o f exchanges - or have to take any of th e ex i tenti a l risks
whi ch confront po liti cal peopl e. For th em th ere is no sense of
personal despair.
The Fausti an "as if " world is supposedl y mo re predi cta bl e than
the rea l one. Peop le's ways o f behaving are class ifi ed in ways whi ch
are quantita tively measurable. Such measurements a re invariabl y o ne–
dimensional proj ections of frozen facts. They are arrived a t by ca lcul a–
tion o r through fantasies (scena rios). However, neither the fantasy
scena rios no r the facts adduced from social ch anneliza tion rela te to or
describe the underl ying rea lity o f human behavior. Thus, "as if "
forecas ting is ho bbled because it is based on observed behavio ral
phenomena which revea l no thing about the inner lives o f peopl e. It
onl y describes behavior to which peopl e a re reduced-o r which they
man-as individua l and as part of a group.
It
should be no ted that thi s po il1l o f view,
which begins with an inverted assumption , has enormous and beneficial consequ ences.
Accepted by natu ral rights thinkers and structuralists ali ke, this position assumes that
there are inherel1l boundaries and limits, and that to breach them is to destroy the
li m itations p laced on actions aga inst nature and the human oth er. In the absence of such
li m it s nature and man might be so changed that nature wou ld take on the aspect of hell
,lIld
man " insti tu tions wou ld become forms of beastliness.
