Did you know that boredom was invented in 1760? Neither did I. Lars Svendsen, a 28-year old writer and philosopher, was driven by boredom to find out more about boredom, and he wrote a book about it. Apparently the appearance of the word 'boredom' coincides roughly with the advent of the industrial revolution. So does the word 'interesting'.
I have not read Svendsen's book, but a review of it. The review says that the spinning jenny and the steam engine "tore the peasant from his creative self-sufficiency and substituted machine-work for handiwork." As we know, these inventions led to mass manufacturing of literally everything we use, from machines to food to entertainment.
We look back and say that we gave up something during the industrial revolution. We were "torn" from creative self-sufficiency. I wonder if the peasant thought of it this way.
What new revolution(s) are we experiencing today, in which we willingly participate, yet on which future generations will look back and say a part of ourselves was lost?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment