Saint-Simon looks at technology

 Of the six thinkers that Isaiah Berlin considered in his discussion of the enemies of democracy, Joseph de Maistre is the one I dislike most.

When you attack reason itself, when you no longer believe in giving reasons — and truthful reasons — for actions that affect others, you’re committed to resolving disputes by violence.

That’s the political divide in this country today: those who believe in persuasion and those who are ready to use force.

In discussing Berlin’s book, I didn’t say which of the thinkers I liked most. It’s Comte Henri de Saint-Simon. Mostly, it’s his personality, which oscillated between the sublime and the barmy.

Saint-Simon fought with Washington at Yorktown, somehow survived the purge of nobles when the French Revolution disintegrated into terror, went to Panama to advocate for a canal before it was feasible, and taught his servant to wake him up by saying: “Rise, M. le Comte — you have great things to achieve.”

Some of his ideas were daffy. His followers formed a sect, which had a distinctive costume.

Above all, I like one sentence that Saint-Simon wrote:

I write because I have new ideas.

He had at least one idea that I’m still thinking about. I grew up hearing that human needs are basically fixed — food, clothing, shelter. Saint-Simon thought that human needs change constantly because technology changes. You could make the case that access to the Internet is now a need.

Saint-Simon used a metaphor that strikes me as having been unfortunately influential in our thinking about technology. He talked tools as weapons. The plow is a tool to force the earth to give us what we want. The progression from military tools — swords, muskets, missiles — was to force others to do what we wish.

The idea is wrong and dangerous — and more imbedded in our thinking than we’d want to admit. I hope that seeing that idea clearly in his thinking might help me see it more clearly in mine.

• Source: Isaiah Berlin, Freedom and Its Betrayal; Princeton University Press, 2002. Earlier notes on Berlin’s book appear Sept. 30 through Oct. 2, and Oct. 24.