Prophetic …

… ‘Global Days’ | The Russell Kirk Center. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

 Besides uttering these more targeted complaints about imperialism, Jones deemed it a manifestation of a technocratic ethic. He held that the industrial era was governed by “the utile,” which valorized functional efficiency at the expense of what he judged the defining human traits of “gratuitous” craftsmanship and sacrament, and devalued speculative wisdom. He cast imperial rulers as such Spenglerian fact-men, “concerned not with metaphysical conceptions but with the ordering of a protectorate,” who seek this goal through a single-minded pursuit of efficiency.