The Magic Mountain / The Master Switch

"Answer me this, answer me in the presence of these two young listeners: Do you believe in truth, in objective, scientific truth, to strive after the attainment of which is the highest law of all morality, and whose triumphs over authority form the most glorious page in the history of the human spirit?”

 Hans Castorp and Joachim—the first faster than the second—turned their heads from Settembrini to Naphta.

Naphta replied: “There can be no such triumphs as those you speak of; for the authority is man himself—his interests, his worth, his salvation—and thus between it and truth no conflict is possible. They coincide.”

“Then truth, according to you—”

 “Whatever profits man, that is the truth. In him all nature is comprehended, in all nature only he is created, and all nature only for him. He is the measure of all things, and his welfare is the sole and single criterion of truth. Any theoretic science which is without practical application to man’s salvation is as such without significance, we are commanded to reject it. Throughout the Christian centuries it was accepted fact that the natural sciences afforded man no edification. Lactantius, who was chosen by Constantine the Great as tutor to his son, put the position very clearly when he asked in so many words what heavenly bliss he could attain by knowing the sources of the Nile, or the twaddle of the physicists anent the heavenly bodies. Answer him if you can! Why have we given the Platonic philosophy the preference over every other, if not because it has to do with knowledge of God, and not knowledge of nature? Let me assure you that mankind is about to find its way back to this point of view. Mankind will soon perceive that it is not the task of true science to run after godless understanding; but to reject utterly all that is harmful, yes, even all that ideally speaking is without significance, in favour of instinct, measure, choice. It is childish to accuse the Church of having defended darkness rather than light. She did well, and thrice well, to chastise as unlawful all unconditioned striving after the ‘pure’ knowledge of things—such striving, that is, as is without reference to the spiritual, without bearing on man’s salvation; for it is this unconditioned, this a-philosophical natural science that always has led and ever will lead men into darkness.”

 “Your pragmatism,” Settembrini responded, “needs only to be translated into terms of politics for it to display its pernicious character in full force. The good, the true, and the just, is that which advantages the State: its safety, its honour, its power form the sole criterion of morality. Well and good. But mark that herewith you fling open the door for every sort of crime to enter; while as for human truth, individual justice, democracy, you can see what will become of them—”

-- Thomas Mann


"The jiujitsu of [Theodore] Vail's anti-trust strategy of the 1910s remains an apt lesson to any aspiring monopolist. The key was earnest profession of a good no one could dispute: making America the best-connected nation on earth by bringing the wonder of the telephone into every American home. Appropriating the most appealing rhetoric of the Independents, and arguing persuasively that the Bell system could get the job done more effectively, Vail turned his monopoly into a patriotic cause.

There is a long-running debate in the field of antitrust theory as to what should matter when judging the conduct of a monopolist. Robert Bork, the onetime federal judge and notoriously rejected Supreme Court candidate, is famous for arguing that the corporation's intent , whether malign or beneficent, should be irrelevant. Yet as Bork himself knew, for most of the history of antitrust, attitude is everything, even if market efficiencies are supposed to matter most.

This was something Vail seemed to understand intuitively: that anti-trust, perhaps all law, is ultimately pliable by perceptions of right and wrong, good and evil. He understood that the public and government would rise up against unfairness and greed, though not necessarily against size in and of itself."

-- Tim Wu