Westdale Secondary School - Le Raconteur Yearbook (Hamilton, Ontario Canada)

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THE RISE OF THE TECHNOCRACY It is not a moral political philosophy; it is governmental control by technology. It is not dictatorship; it is control. It is not a drug; it is a cure. The technocracy is a non-profit society, whose technique is an engineering or technological one. It is opposed to the political, economic, or social methods of the politician, businessman, or humanitarian. The technocracy has no history, for it does not exist. There are, in our intellectual society today, two polar groups between which there is a rift of total incomprehension. Literary intellectuals inhabit the one pole, scientists the other. This great gulf between the men of science and the rest of us — especially those who are called literary or intellectual — this lack of com- munication between the two groups, could be fatal to the Western world. C. P. Snow has said of it, This is one of the situations where the worst crime is innocence . . . We have very little time ... So little that I dare not guess at it. The scientific revolution will change the world vastly, more than the industrial revolution did. The non-scientist dismisses his opposite coun- terpart as an ignorant specialist, yet his own ignorance and specialization is amazing. To be asked for a description of the Second Law of Thermodynamics would be the scientific equiva- lent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare ' s? What do you mean by mass or acceleration? . . . would be the same as: Can you read? Apparently, ignorance is bliss, while pride of ignorance, abundant. Industrialized countries are becoming richer; non-industrialized countries are at best standing still. The gap is widening permanently. The nations of northwestern Europe, the U.S.A., Can- ada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and re- cently the U.S.S.R., constitute the developed , the rich . They comprise less than a third of the human population, but produce and con- sume more than two-thirds of the world ' s goods. The remaining nations are underdeveloped ; they are poor . The world cannot survive half rich and half poor; we cannot resign ourselves to indifference. History is merciless to failure. Books? I prefer to use my books as tools. ( What sort of tool would a book make? Perhaps a hammer? A primitive digging instrument?). The latest figures of graduates trained per year (scientists and engineers combined) for the U.K., U.S.A., and U.S.S.R. are 13,000: 65,000 and 130,000, respectively. One-third of Russian en- gineers are women. The fact that we do not in reality regard women as suitable for scientific careers, neatly divides our pool of potential tal- ent by two. The progress of a nation depends first and foremost on the progress of its people. Capital investments can be made not only in industry but also in people. Education for development. In the light of our present knowledge a school system must be called a failure if it cannot in- duce students to learn except by threatening them for not learning. That this has always been the standard pattern simply emphasizes the importance of modern techniques. No American or English novelist has ever been able to assume that his audience has even a nodding acquaintance with industry, tech- nology, or science. Contemporary Soviet novel- ists, however, can assume in their audiences — as we cannot — at least a rudimentary acquaint- ance with what industry is all about. An en- gineer in a Soviet novel is as acceptable, as a psychiatrist is in an American one. Science ultimately explains behaviour in terms of causes or conditions which lie beyond the individual himself. As more and more casual relations are demonstrated, a practical corollary becomes evident: it should be possible to produce behaviour according to plan simply by arranging the proper conditions. Among the specifications for such a technology: let men be happy, in- formed, skillful, well-behaved, and productive. It was the recognition that nature could be tamed and the environment controlled that moulded the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. Anyone who undertakes to improve cultural practices by applying a scientific analysis of human behaviour is likely to be told that im- provement involves judgment, a kind of wisdom which is mysteriously denied to him. Thus he is accused of proposing to meddle in human affairs and infringe on human freedoms. That we have no way of knowing what changes to make even though we have the necessary techniques, is an objection worth consideration. The non-scientist expresses ideas about nature

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Principal ' s Message In every age the security of our society has been threat- ened by the presence of vicious influences. Think of the violence, irrationality and hatred which have permeated our civilization. They are vices malignant to the health of our society and as responsible individuals and citizens it is our duty to guard against them and their influence in our way of life. Let us refuse to be panic-stricken or stirred up by evidence of hatred and ill will and let us discipline ourselves to the end that we will be able to keep our heads in spite of propaganda and uncertainty publicized through our mass media of com- munication. The production of a school magazine requires much effort by many people. I offer my thanks and congratulations to all teachers and students who have had a part in producing the 1964 issue of Le Raconteur.

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which range from highly probable facts to sheer guesses. Future events are less likely to be correctly described than past. The descrip- tion of past events is less hazardous than the prediction of future occurrences. When a scien- tist speaks about nature and projected experi- ments he must often resort to statements having only a moderate likelihood of being correct hypotheses. Guesswork takes up where science leaves off. When we can design whole cultures with the confidence we bring to physical technology, the question of guesswork will not be raised. Should the designing of the new culture be left to the gueswork of the non-scientist, or to the caution of the scientist? Are we to be controlled by tyrants, by acci- dent, or by ourselves, in effective cultural design? We admire Lincoln for rising above a deficient school system. His educational environment was certainly unplanned, but he was a rare man and so were the circumstances of his childhood. We do not give the same credit to Franklin Delano Roosevelt for becoming an educated man with the help of Groton and Harvard, or similar credit to the late John Fitzgerald Kennedy, educated at Harvard. The founding of Groton and Har- vard somewhat reduced the possibility that for- tuitous combinations of circumstances would erupt to produce other Lincolns. Yet the found- ers of Harvard or Groton can hardly be con- demned for attacking an admirable human quality. TRIUNE PRESIDENT ' S MESSAGE The publication of another edition of Le Rac- onteur signifies that another school year is draw- ing to a close. To many of us it means not only the end of another year, but the end of a definite phase of our lives. This year the Triune was off to one of its earliest starts, a true indication of the success that was to follow. The Triune this year has accomplished much. The member committees have co-operated closely to provide the students with a well rounded program of activities rang- ing from the addition of a stag dance to the annual Prom, from the always popular variety shows to the reintroduction after the lapse of a year, of an annual school play. This year ' s operetta Patience can only be termed a tre- mendous success. At this time, on behalf of the members of the student government, I would like to convey our sincere appreciation to our principal Mr. Bell, the senior advisor, Mr. Noad and innumerable teachers who co-operated so willingly to make this a very enjoyable and memorable year. Out of sheer ingratitude, wrote Dostoevsky, man may play you a dirty trick just to prove that men are still men and not the keys of a piano. Ingratitude, however, would be un- thought-of if the specifications previously men- tioned were attained: let men be happy, in- formed, skillful, well-behaved, and productive. That such perversity is a fundamental reaction of the human organism to controlling conditions is sheer nonsense. An immediate application of such a society is reflected in the teaching machine. It can be adapted to special kinds of communication — as, for example. Braille — and, above all, it has infinite patience. B. F. Skinner, eminent American psychologist, has written, In achieving control of the world of which he is a part, he may learn at last to control himself. A. J. Toynbee, British historian, has said, Man has been able to control nature ... it is now his ambition to be able to control himself. Historically, people were fond of the pattern; today, we are fond of ours. They never found the will to break it. We must. Ivan Rival. [It is undoubtedly true that conventional language is a basis for ambiguity. Rather than to distort the content of the idea by this inherent ambiguity of language, it is more productive to utilize those commentaries which have proven, by experience, to successfully convey the idea. It is on this assumption that I have chosen to base the following largely on C P. Snow ' s controversial Rede Lecture, The Two Cul- tures and The Scientific Revolution , which has had a tre- mendous impact on both the scientific and the literary com- munities (though considerably less on the latter), and on B. F. Skinner ' s Cumulative Record , a masterpiece (in the scientific sense), which has proven to be a momentous con- tribution to the scientific world and to those aspects of society and government which are flexible to progress (again in the scientific sense).] In closing a reminder to all, that although we are eagerly trying to fore-tell what the future holds for us, no one who participates in extra- curricular activities, will ever need to be remind- ed of a prosperous and educational stay at West- dale, a school respected for its students as well as its competitive teams. Ron Wilson. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank Miss Smith and the commercial training office for the patient assist- ance they have given us throughout the year. Thanks are extended to the experienced help of Mr. McCord, to the teacher advisers, and to the students of Westdale who have made this school project possible. — Raconteur Staff