What were these dangers? Progress of science, man's increasing technical mastery? No, the real danger threatening man lay in those gigantic social and political organisations, being ends in themselves instead of means, using the instruments of education and propaganda to suppress individual judgement by creating instinctive mass reaction. These organisations hinder man's spiritual development, reduce the capacity for moral judgement to a low level, and hand over society to the insensate lust for power of a few individuals. ...There lies man's road to extinction.  ~Henno Martin  

"The Sheltering Desert" is a deep worthy read.