On a Drift to Low Performance

"Thus though man has never before been so complacent about what he has, or as confident of his ability to do whatever he sets his mind upon, it is at the same time true that he never before accepted so low an estimate of what he is. The same scientific method which enabled him to create his wealth and to unleash the power he wields has, he believes, enabled biology and psychology to explain him away--or at least to explain away whatever used to seem unique or even in any way mysterious...Truly he is, for all his wealth and power, poor in spirit."

--Joseph Krutch (1959), cited in D.H. Meadows's, Thinking in Systems: A Primer, pp.185.