Dalgetty wonders:
"...why he had jumped into such a lecture." (pp. 113-114)
So that the readers would be informed, of course.
He claims that:
the Psychotechnic Institute has not yet got anything like a complete science of man;
but, even if it did, it would be in the same position as an engineer who knows how to plant dynamite and to build a concrete wall in order to prevent an avalanche but who has no time to apply that knowledge when an avalanche is falling on him;
it takes months or years to change one man's convictions, let alone hundreds of millions of men;
only slight and gradual control is possible in the case of large social currents;
the most valuable results so far show what cannot be done.
But there have been achievements both with Valti's equations and with Dalgetty's sensitivity.
Perhaps reflecting the period in which "The Sensitive Man" was written, Anderson emphasizes semantics. Dalgetty reflects that the Institute's enemies:
"...know their applied semantics." (p. 114)
- and says that:
"'...a state of semantic equilibrium on a worldwide scale...has never existed...'" (p. 116)
- but nevertheless can be represented by an equation.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
A complete science of man? A "...state of semantic equilibrium on a worldwide scale.."(whatever the heck that means)? Which can be represented by an EQUATION? I see one implausibility piled on top of another when thought over! No wonder came to be so dissatisfied with the Psychotechnic stories and abandoned it. But then they were begun and mostly written during his early phase as a writer, when he was trying out ideas and themes. Some of which he had abandoned by 1960.
Ad astra! Sean
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