Such a simple statement to have so much wrong

[nettiger]

George Will, today's Washington Post:

Modernity means the multiplication of dependencies on things utterly mysterious to those who are dependent
The fact that anyone thinks this is acceptable to the most basic of knowledge is... well, it's insane

Comments

(Verdant)

[northwlf]

I don't know the context that Will's sentence there is in. But standing by iteself I have to agree with it. In a simpler (cruder, shorter more brutal) time ya lived on a farm. Everything done to survive and live was done either by you or by someone immediatly close to you. Now, in modern times, there're hundreds, maybe thousands, of people all doing specialized jobs that support each of us. This applies particularily to those of us in cities. I'm not referring to things like airconditioner repair or car maintenance. I mean say, the water and sewer system. The maintenance and powering of the electrical grid. The production chain that turns plants in the countryside to food in the grocery store. The who knows how many people doing who knows what that I haven't thought of. I don't know if it's a deplorable state of affairs, I consider it pretty morally neutral myself. But it's how modern life works and since I like modern life I don't see any reason to buck it. People were similarily ignorant in the past. There was a time when the farmers just knew "seed goes in here, food comes out" and did their livliehood by rote.