Chapter 9: An Iron Cage?

• Which of the three initial "malaises" of modernity is the focus of this chapter?

• How do the knockers and boosters differ on the question of technology?

• How is it that the boosters of self-fulfillment become the knockers of technology and vice versa?

• How does this contradiction play out with respect to, say, abortion and environmentalism?

• Why is the dominance of instrumental reason not just a matter of the force of a certain moral outlook?

• What is the "iron cage"?

• Why does Taylor believe that the view of technological society as an "iron cage" cannot be sustained?

• Taylor believes that we are not "locked in." Why?

• What are the three important moral contexts from which the stress on instrumental reason has arisen?

• Explain Taylor's ethic of practical benevolence.

• Why did classical Marxism and Leninism collapse?

• Why can there never be, according to Taylor, a definitive solution to the problems posed by market efficiency within the modern welfare state?

• What does Taylor mean by "fragmentation"? Why does it pose more of a danger for our society than does soft depotism?

• According to Taylor, why and how does fragmentation come about?

• In this new fragmented situation, which two facets of political life take on greater and greater saliency?

• How does one fight fragmentation?

• According to Taylor, how has Canada been more fortunate than the United States with respect the question of fragmentation?