THE IR CURSE

The industrial revolution in the 1800's and pushing into the 1900's .was, at one and the same time, the biggest enhancer, and the biggest destroyer, of the quality of human life.

Industrialization triggered the invention and production of an avalanche of new products in virtually every aspect of man's life.  The products brought increased safety, capabilities, variety, and pleasure to man's life.  There can be no denying this.  It is the reason why IR is considered by many to be man's signature achievement.

But it also brought with it unseen and unimagined forces and influences that have`remained to the present, and, in my view, have seriously and significantly desecrated the beauty and glory of human life.

IR promoted a seemingly insatiable desire for more and more concrete goods and, for many, attaining them falsely replaced relationships and thoughtful, pleasurable activities as the popular keys to happiness.  In addition to their cost, the goods brought a host of ancillary expenditures, including fees for warranties,  delivery charges, premiums for property insurance, and more.  And costliest of all, came the  perception that a bigger government was necessary to regulate the new expanded economy (which soon  meant: to regulate us)...a burgeoning bureaucracy to be paid for via a host of new and increased sales, income and other taxes, charges and fees.

A worshiping of the almighty dollar needed to meet all these costs, quickly followed.  That led  to man's working longer hours, often at jobs that did not interest him...and leaving him less time to spend with the people and the hobbies and activities he loved, or by himself in quiet reflection.  It led, too, to unspoken and constant competition for the accumulation of wealth.  Friends and neighbors became competitors.  A person's standing in the community was to some`extent gauged on that standard:  How much wealth have you accumulated?  Those not faring well by that standard, for one reason or another, often felt and feel inferior, unsuccessful, and unworthy, and suffer the psychological problems that those feelings can engender.

IR brought a repetitious lifestyle because mindless repetition was found to equate with the efficiency of factory assembly lines.  It also brought overcrowding and a congestion of people.  Crowded cities with towering apartment buildings housing workers and their families sprung up close to the huge industrial factories needed to produce the new goods.  Traffic became stifling and slow.  Public schools became crowded, and personal attention and education declined.  Man couldn't breathe.

Do you need`all these IR goods?  Absolutely not.  Man lived for tens of thousands of years  without them.  Perhaps ideally it would be good to have them, or some of them, if they didn't bring with them the negatives I have mentioned`above.  But so far, man...most men...have not been able to achieve that. 

What man needs is the time and the opportunity to relate to the natural world of which he is a part.   What he needs is for his spirit to soar to far away imaginations.   (Ever wonder why virtually all of the greatest thinkers, artists, musicians, composers and sculptors lived before IR?)

What he needs is the space`and the freedom to "live with his arms driving upwards".  And if  you are not quite sure what that means,  then you, too, are a victim of IR.