THIS MACHINE AGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23830, 9 June 1939, Page 7

THIS MACHINE AGE

ART DIVORCED FROM INDUSTRY Art, in so far as it means the per? sonal element in doing and making, has, to a lamentable extent, been divorced from industry, says a writer in the Scotsman. Civilisation has become mechanised life. The ordinary worker, indeed the ordinary individual, whatever his position in life, has been

deprived in this machine age to a large extent of his human status. The machine has enriched human beings in their material possessions and is starving the soul. The work Is and must be mainly the life. The human mind used to be satisfied, and the individual developed himself through the work of his hands; but now, unfortunately for a considerable proportion of the people of this world, the Individual is subordinated to the process, and man becomes a helpless factor in the larger scheme of production. Work, it has been stated, is an essential to happiness. It is not always

or generally recognised; but nevertheless, it is absolutely true. The great body of workers probably regard leisure as more essential to happiness than work; but leisure, when there is too much of it, or when there is nothing but leisure, produces anything but a pondition of contentment and happiness. The sad thing about modern work, however, is that it is work in the higher sense for only a few. Happy is the individual whose work really engrosses bis interest, and when he finds in it a method of exercising his mental and physical capabilities. In

such work he finds his deepest enjoy* ment. Fortunately, the factory has not completely destroyed this .higher enjoyment of work. The carpenter and others in the building industry, the agriculturist who sees the direct result of his labours and can watch the growth of the soil, the skilled engineer, and many other types of craftsmen still can enjoy doing their work. It is a serious side of matters where wealth accumulates and men decay. Life, we have been taught for 2000 years, is more than the meat and the body than raiment One avenue of

escape lies in a greatly restricted neriod of occupation with the machine, thg‘ narrowing of the ordinary working day, leaving longer time and possibly a considerable period of weeks each ye§r. not merely for leisure, and certainly not for idleness, but for the. kind of work which is necessary for the health of the human soul

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