Organic vs. Mechanic. Notes on the History of an Antithesis

The contrast between organic and mechanic arose as part of the reactions against theFrench Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. It ran throughout the 19th, it fuelled“Romantic” reactions to Newtonian science and the antithesis between Kultur andZivilisation. This contrast is still evident, to a greater or lesser extent, in many of thepresent criticisms of industrial society and technology. There is an interesting continuitybetween the arguments used by the early critics of what Carlyle would call the «age ofmachines» and some of the arguments and ways of thinking that are current today. Thepaper is devoted to stress this continuity by considering some representative authors,including Burke, Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Carlyle, Ruskin, Sombart, Spengler,Scheler, T. Mann. Their interactions with political and social thought are also discussed.