科学技术扼杀了神话么?要说从19世纪末开始一种机器神话在欧洲、在其他地方以及在美洲已经产生了,这是可以的。但是,是从何种意义上这样说的?我们还可以说,一切文化所固有的两重性在这一新的机器神话中表现出来。工业社会,不管怎么说,并非局限于它那生产及消费的所谓纯功利目的。面对作为其能量、权力工具和生产品总体的机器,工业社会同时显示出它的暴力、它的焦虑,以及它把享受寄托在它那些恐怖之物的意愿。这丝毫也不奇怪。换句话说,这里丝毫没有同任何文化秩序相违背的地方。在工业社会力图为自己制造纯属于它的某种神话(因为它必须在想象中控制其种种矛盾)这一事实中,完全没有什么可奇怪的;在任 Does science and technology kill myths? It is possible to say that a machine myth has been produced in Europe, elsewhere and in the Americas since the late 19th century. However, in what sense does this mean? We can also say that the inherent duality of all cultures manifests itself in this new myth of machines. The industrial society, after all, is not limited to the so-called purely utilitarian purposes of its production and consumption. In the face of the machinery as a whole of its energy, power tools and products, the industrial society simultaneously shows its violence, its anxiety, and its willingness to entrust its enjoyment with its horrors. This is not surprising at all. In other words, there is absolutely nothing that runs counter to any cultural order. In the fact that the industrial society seeks to create for itself some sort of myth that is purely in its own right because it must control its various contradictions in its imagination,