The Downfall of Civilization: Mechanical Industrialism and the Progressive Enslavement of Men's Souls
Technology was destroying humankind's spirit and production of true art, poet and future Pulitzer Prize winner John Gould Fletcher wrote in 1924 for New York Times Magazine, but could hopefully be resurrected again "in some future century."
The most immediate and pressing need, then, of our time is for some force to control the machine, to check money power, and to give humanity a breathing space. In other words, we must start again from the beginning.
...
That is only possible... if some great spiritual reawakening takes place. Of such an awakening, the signs are but sporadic and disconnected. Civilization there is practically none today. And if, in some future century, the human spirit sufficiently recovers from its degradation and humiliation to again take up the burden of shaping some new high culture, it must resolutely accept the fact that at the end of this new venture there must come a fresh collapse and disintegration and a new beginning somewhere else.
Well, that "future century" Fletcher wrote of has now arrived... and it's produced such high art films as The Angry Birds Movie 2 and such high art television shows as The Floor is Lava.
The Downfall of Civilization: Mechanical Industrialism and the Progressive Enslavement of Men's Souls
Published: Sunday, January 13, 1924