totality in which atomic energy, the calculating plans of man, and automation are conjoined. Why does such a directive concerning the world of technology, even if it were the most circumstantial description, never let us catch sight of the constellation of Being and man? Because every analysis of the situation falls in its think· ing short of the mark, in that the above-mentioned totality of the world of technology is interpreted in advance in terms of man, as being of man's making. Technology, conceived in the broadest sense and in its manifold manifestations, is taken for the plan which man projects, the plan which finally compels man to decide whether he will become the servant of his plan or will remain its master.
By this conception of the totality of the technological world, we reduce everything down to man, and at best come to the point of calling for an ethics of the technological world. Caught up in this conception, we confirm our own opinion that technology is of man's making alone. We fail to hear the claim of Being which speaks in the essence of technology.
Let us at long last stop conceiving technology as something purely technical, that is, in terms of man and his machines. Let us listen to the claim placed in our age not only upon man, but also upon all beings, nature and history, with regard to their Being.
What claim do we have in mind? Our whole human existence everywhere sees itself challenged-now playfully and now urgently,
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