Automated Beings

Long the targets of novelists, sociologists and other worriers, the organization man and "groupthink" came under heavy fire last week from the U.S. hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. Meeting at Washington's Catholic University for the annual bishops' conference, 227 prelates urged a rededication to the principle and practice of personal responsibility, in order to halt "the seemingly inexorable march toward the automation of human beings and the steady loss of that freedom which is man's distinctive attribute."

Too many pressures, the bishops said, are growing for "a constantly greater reliance on the collectivity rather than on the individual . . . Uniformity of thought and supine loyalty to the organization are too often encouraged and rewarded. The organizational man, cloaked in a sort of anonymity, rather than the responsible individual, is favored and advanced. The preparation for this condition is found even in the field of education, where emphasis is placed on adapting oneself to the thinking of the group."

Although critics of "conformity" often include churches in their indictment the Catholic bishops blame the trend on the "marked decline in the force of religious convictions" in the U.S., combined with the rise of materialism and "situational ethics." Explained the bishops: "Through a faulty concept of morality, Modern Man has come to imagine that sudden and drastic changes in situations change principles; that principles no longer control situations, but rather that situations shape principles."

Withering Fruit. The decline of the sense of responsibility within "our general economic life" has led to a "lack of truly responsible leadership, both on the part of management and of labor." Internationally, a similar decline is shown by the feeling that "adherence to the United Nations absolves us from further responsibility in the international order and that decisions made by the United Nations, regardless of their objective value, are always to be regarded as morally right." There is no need to wait for a mass movement to cure the "mental lethargy" of collectivism, said the bishops. "The heroes of our history have not been blind forces but stouthearted persons; our worthy national goals have been achieved not as a result of environment but by men who made their environment ... If our future is to be worthy of our past, if the fruit of America's promise is not to wither before it has reached full maturity, our present pre-eminent need is to reaffirm the sense of individual obligation . . ."

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