Powerful cultural forces are indeed pushing us towards unity, a barbarian unity built on the loss, the forgetting of tradition. One such force is the barbarity of totalitarianism of the Soviet type, which attempts, with a considerable … measure of success, to harness all spiritual forces to the service of the State, to nationalize everything, including the human individual, historical memory, moral consciousness, intellectual curiosity, science and art. It also manipulates tradition, deforming it, carelessly mutilating and falsifying it according to the needs of the State. Another such force, of European provenance, is the spirit of technology. Born of the extraordinary successes of science – including its struggle against misery, sickness, and suffering – and rightly proud of its spectacular achievements, it has led us to doubt the value and validity of any traditions that do not contribute to the progress of science and technology. (Modernity on Endless Trial)
