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Harvey C. Mansfield, William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Government, studies and teaches political philosophy. He has written on Edmund Burke and the nature of political parties, on Machiavelli and[…]

Technology is an ambiguous good for a freedom-loving people, Harvey Mansfield says.

Question: What are the risks of technological innovation?

Harvey Mansfield: Technology is definitely an ambiguous good for a freedom-loving people. Technology wants to take care of you. It wants to buckle you up and even give you an air bag so that you don’t have to do the minimal task of … of fastening your seat belt. It wants to take care of you so that you have nothing left to do for yourself. And that, I think, is a great danger to freedom in technology.

Recorded on: 6/13/07


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