FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84  
85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   >>   >|  
century before, had, with its various collateral developments, financial, educational, journalistic, etc., become not only the greatest force in society, but as well a thing operating on the largest scale that man had ever essayed: beside it the Roman Empire was parochial. The result of this institution, conceived on such imperial lines, was, in the field we are now considering, the total destruction of the sense of the holiness of labour and of joy in work. It extended far beyond the limits of pure industrialism; it moulded and controlled society in all its forms, destroying ideals old as history, reversing values, confusing issues and wrecking man's powers of judgment. Until the war it seemed irresistible, now its weakness and the fallacy of its assumptions are revealed, but it has become so absolutely a part of our life, indeed of our nature, that we are unable to estimate it by any sound standards of judgment, and even when we approximate this we cannot think in other terms when we try to devise our schemes of redemption. Even the socialist and the Bolshevik think in imperial terms when they try to compass the ending of imperialism. Under this supreme system, as I see it, the two essential things I have spoken of cannot be restored, nor could they maintain themselves if, by some miracle, they were once re-established. The indictment cannot be closed here. The actual condition that has developed from industrialism presents certain factors that are not consonant with sane, wholesome and Christian living. Not only has the unit of human scale in human society been done away with, not only have the sense of the nobility of work and joy in the doing been exterminated, but, as well, certain absolutely false principles and methods have been adopted which are not susceptible of reform but only of abolition. Of some of these I have spoken already; the alarming drift towards cities, until now in the United States more than one-half the population is urban; the segregation of industries in certain cities and regions; the minute division of labour and intensive specialization; the abnormal growth of a true proletariat or non-land-holding class; the flooding of the country by cheap labour drawn from the most backward communities and from peoples of low race-value. Out of this has arisen a bitter class conflict and the ominous beginnings of a perilous class consciousness, with actual warfare joined in several countries, and th
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84  
85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
labour
 
society
 
absolutely
 
cities
 

judgment

 

industrialism

 

imperial

 

spoken

 

actual

 

methods


adopted

 

wholesome

 

principles

 

exterminated

 

indictment

 

living

 

reform

 
abolition
 
miracle
 

susceptible


closed

 

developed

 
presents
 

factors

 

established

 

nobility

 
Christian
 

condition

 

consonant

 
regions

peoples

 
communities
 

backward

 

flooding

 
holding
 

country

 

arisen

 

joined

 

warfare

 

countries


consciousness

 
perilous
 
bitter
 

conflict

 

ominous

 

beginnings

 

population

 

States

 

United

 
alarming