Theses on the 'arms race' of rationalism

1. The ‘arms race’ that proceeds apace in all aspects of modern life, arises from the entrenchment of rationalism as the objective touch-stone of society, and characterises the motives of present-day social and economic life.

2. All other objective forms of valuation – religion, art, culture, race – have fallen by the wayside, either through design or the passing of the years.

3. We have arrived at the reductio ad absurdum of rationality. We cannot avoid it; we’re placed so firmly on the lines of rationalism that no other paradigm (religious, cultural, social, or political) can compete. All paradigms previously ascendent in the history of mankind are truncations of this one.

4. The arms race arises from Western thought and mechanics. Materially speaking, it is determined by the division of labour as the maximisation of output. Perhaps it has always been man’s goal to exploit to the fullest the resources both natural and human that are to hand. But it is our modern age that has perfected this goal. In perfecting this goal we have overcome the problem of scarcity that has hung over man’s head since the dawn of his time.

5. One can observe the gradual entrenchment of rationalism reaching back to the use of tools in the hunt. But let us take an example from our time: Shareholding and profit. On a microeconomics level, profit is the objective indicator of an end in itself for a business. Shareholders do not get into the business of owning shares for any other reason than that they wish to improve the health of the stocks they own. If one gets into business for ‘sentimental’ reasons, then he is destined for hard times. In the business world, all principles, morals and values are ancillary to the production of surplus value, determined as the rational end to which the energies of a business are employed. In business, profit is the objective indicator of an end in itself for a business. The macroeconomic goal of a business is to provide value and output to the general economy, which makes all modern life possible.

6. The arms race described here is an offshoot of the development of a self-conscious normativity, which was the first revaluation of values for modern Europe. We are living with this normativity problem today. It comes originally from the development of Reason nurtured by the increasing self-confidence of the bourgeois class, and latterly from the incredible proliferation of rationality and the subsequent diffuseness that this proliferation of Reason has given rise to. The ‘Dialectic of Enlightenment’ is nothing more than an account of this latter diffuseness of perspectives and material progress that Reason enables.

7. The arms race – as the unification of the management of resources, populations (as labourers) and discourses – cannot be stopped. This is not in itself a negative judgment, but an outline of the likelihood of success for those who oppose it.