Tuesday 10 August 2010
Great philosophical thoughts No 1 ........ You can't stop progress can you?
One of the truest "truisms" about society concerns the accelerating rate of change that people now experience. Think about it for a moment. We were hunter gatherers for hundreds of thousands of years and a mere ten thousand years ago started the transition to agriculture. Centuries of agricultural society gave way to the industrial mode of production a couple of hundred years back and the pace of change started to pick up speed. Even so I don't suppose that a time traveller from say the 1780's would have felt all that out of place in 1880 London. In my 68 years the capital has changed beyond recognition and I'm not talking about multiculturalism here. No, I'm thinking of the really important things, like pubs. Time was when you would be lucky to get a pickled egg and a packet of crisps in most pubs with some establishments admittedly having a separate dining room upstairs. Now it's almost impossible to have a quite pint without being surrounded by people having their dinner. The truth is that more and more pubs have become restaurants in all but name. Is this pace of change just too much for the human psyche? I fear that it may be.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
So much for Ian Bone's idea that pubs could substitute for community or social centres for anarcho meetings. The duchess and me have just finished a short spin around wales and I can honestly say that at times we could travel for 20-30 miles and not a hostelry in sight. Loads of boozers for sale though, "for development". The days of a pint, fag, newspaper, game of whatever,chat are fucking gone; but then I am of a generation that demanded change. yep we've had plenty of change but little I can take pleasure in unfortunately.
Post a Comment