Abstract
Nicolas Berdyaev ranks among the most astute and original thinkers of the twentieth century. He was a prophetic figure, who proclaimed certain spiritual truths about modern humanity at a time when doing so was often unpopular. He also anticipated the demise of Western civilization. One area in which he was particularly insightful, but has gone largely unnoticed and unappreciated, is his critique of technics and the modern mechanization of life. Berdyaev diagnosed the arrival of technics as a form of spiritual malaise so that it is both intriguing and enlightening. I found that Berdyaev's critique of technics is especially applicable to an analysis of Holocaust phenomena and other forms of totalitarian evil in the twentieth century; that the Holocaust can confirm that his insights into the preconditions, which made totalitarian evils possible, are valuable and illuminating.