Category: History

Stupid Is As Stupid Was

quotesIt’s generally agreed that we’re living in an age of extraordinary stupidity.  Our role models are celebrities whose careers consist of wardrobe malfunctions, the highest ambitions of our children don’t reach higher than the stars of Reality TV, and our vision of the future is Season 8 of The Walking Dead.  Let’s face it, folks: Einstein, Newton, Archimedes and Copernicus are all spinning in their graves — even though most of us don’t know who the hell those people are!  However, here’s a thought: I don’t actually believe the human race is any stupider now, than it’s ever been. It’s just that, these days, our technology makes us aware of it.  Here are a few quotes from the past which illustrate my point.  First of all:

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”  Charles H Duell, Commissioner of US Office of Patents — 1899

Telephone

“It is impossible to transmit speech electrically. The ‘telephone’ is as mythical as the unicorn.”  Johan Poggendorrf, German physicist — 1860

“This telephone has too any shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.”  Western Union internal memo — 1876

Film

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”  H.W. Warner (Warner Brothers Studio) — 1927

“I have determined that there is no market for talking pictures.”  Thomas Edison — 1926

Television

“Theoretically, television may be feasible, but I consider it an impossibility — a development which we should waste little time dreaming about.” Lee de Forest, inventor of the cathode ray — 1926

“Television won’t last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” Darryl Zanuck, movie producer — 1946

“Television won’t last. It’s a flash in the pan.”
Mary Somerville, radio personality — 1948

Computers

“There’s no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.”  Ken Olson, Digital Equipment Corporation — 1977

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”  Thomas J. Watson, Chairman IBM — 1943

“640K ought to be enough for anybody.”  Bill Gates — 1981

“The truth is no online database will replace your daily newspaper.” Cliff Stoll, Newsweek — 1995

Flight

“Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible,”  Simon Newcomb, mathematician — 1902 (two weeks before the Wright brothers proved him wrong.)

“Airplanes are interesting toys, but they have no military value.”  Marshal Ferdinand Foch — 1911

Odds and Ends

“It will be years – not in my time – before a woman will become Prime Minister.”  Margaret Thatcher — 1974

“Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.” Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology — 1872

“No audience will ever be able to take more than ten minutes of animation.”
Walt Disney executive, considering Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs — 1930s

“That ‘rainbow’ song is no good. It slows the picture down.” an MGM producer, after first screening of The Wizard of Oz — 1939

But this is my favourite:

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”
Decca Recording Company, rejecting the Beatles — 1962

I rest my case.

Remembrance Day 2016

remembranceI’ve seen a lot of war memorials in my time, from the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor to the Eternal Flame over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe.  They’re all very much the same – structures cut out of quiet stone, asking us politely not to forget.  In Great Britain, every crossroads with a church and a pub has a cenotaph to World War I because that’s where those boys came from.  In France, there are rows and rows and rows of white gravestones because that’s where they ended up.  If you’ve ever seen them, you can never forget.

One hot summer day when I was a young man, I paused in front of the World War I cenotaph in Hedley, British Columbia.  It’s a single grey obelisk about two metres high.  I’d seen it many times before but never bothered to stop.  On that day in the glorious sunshine, its weathered grey was bright and warm and dry. There was no breeze in the drowsy afternoon, and no sound, just settling puffs of dust at my boot heels.  No one was there but me.  There were six or eight or maybe even ten names etched at the base (Hedley wasn’t a very big town in 1918.)  I touched the stone where the names were cut and read them to myself.  These were men (boys?) my age — sons and brothers.  They had looked at the same mountains I saw that day; saw the same creek wandering down to the Similkameen River.  They’d played games on that street, ran and laughed and learned how to talk to girls.  They were in their time what I was in mine — young and strong and full of the beauty of  the world.

Every year on November 11th, Remembrance Day, we pause for a moment and try, in silence, to touch names cut into stone.  And every year, I remember that I’ve forgotten the ones I held in my hand.

(Original version published in 2011)

Leisure — The First 40,000 Years

leisureForget the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, The Age of Enlightenment, The Space Age and even The Post-Industrial Age: all human history can be divided into two distinct periods — The Age of Work and the Age of Leisure.  Our great-great-great-grandparents lived in the Age of Work; we live in The Age of Leisure.  And that, in a nutshell, is why Western Society is speeding towards the Abyss of Hell like a runaway stagecoach full of passengers shouting “WTF happened?”

Let me explain.

Give or take a day or two, human history is really only about 40,000 years long.  (Before that, it’s kinda iffy — unless you’re specifically trained to spot the difference between a stone used as an axe and an axe made out of a stone.  Even mega-smart anthropologists argue about that one.)  Anyway, for the first 39,750 years of understandable history humans worked … dawn to dusk, every day … like … endlessly.  That’s what they did and they did it because there was only one alternative.  Oops, sorry: you’re dead.  They had a purpose — work your ass off and improve your lot in life, or face the alternative.  Things was simple in those days.

Then, about 250 years ago, a guy by the name of James Watt showed up.  History tells us that Watt invented the steam engine.  (He didn’t actually, but that’s a different tale.)  What history doesn’t tell us is that Watt, by setting off the Industrial Revolution, inadvertently created leisure.

There are all kinds of myths about the brutality of the Industrial Revolution, but the reality is machines started doing our work for us.  People, therefore, didn’t have to spend all their waking hours just trying to survive anymore.  They started doing other things — leisure activities.  (It’s no coincidence that book, magazine and newspaper sales went through the stratosphere in the 19th century.)  Slowly at first, but steadily, leisure (an unknown term before 1836) became an essential component of our modern world.  But now — in the 21st century — it has turned into a monster.

We spend millions on young people who kick, hit and throw a variety of balls around — and billions more to watch them do it.  We spend millions on people who sing to us, tells us stories or tell us what to wear.  We spend so much money on the film industry and spend so much time watching television that even Stephen Hawking can’t imagine the numbers.  We have created celebrities who literally have no redeeming qualities; they just exist, and we worship them.  We spend more time and energy playing video games than we do deciding who will govern us.  My God!  Has our world gone crazy?

For the vast majority of human history, leisure was an occasional activity that took us away from the soul-eating brutality of endless toil.  However, these days, leisure has become the reason we exist, and we’re so addicted to relentless entertainment we can’t see beyond binge-watching Full House reruns.

See you at the abyss!