The May 31 , 1922 Modesto Evening News ( Modesto , California ) ran an article entitle , “ Big Laughs Coming , ” about how future generation may see at the styles , technology and piece of work living of 1922 .
The writer of this man clearly romanticizes the notion of rural life by proclaiming , “ We , voluntarily imprison in halter apartment or small house , will seem singular to our descendant . Daily we go to work in our prison cubicle , to pound typewriter key , push a pen or perform humdrum operations with machinery – when we might all be free in the outdoors of farmland . ” The total article appears below .
In cleaning family this spring , peradventure you scat across the honest-to-god kin album . If so , you had a laugh at the peculiar wearable styles and solemn expressions on the face of former multiplication .
Did it ever pass off to you , that our photograph are also going to get “ the merry ha - ha ” when future generation unwrap them in some dark nook of the dirigible - home that will be in use 75 or 100 age from now ?
The marvels of today will be laughably sometime - fashioned later on . It is voiceless for us to believe this . That has always been the way . Vanity being eternal , each generation – while express mirth at the past – is cock - sure that the present is “ the real thing . ”
Have you learn Mark Twain ’s sarcasm , “ A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur ’s Court ? ” Its film version make movie audiences roar at the laughable effect of a forward-looking American transported back into time 1400 years , unhorsing armored knights with a lasso and knock them down like nine - tholepin with a flivver .
The stately dignity of the antediluvian is ludicrous , from the 1922 viewpoint .
At timber milling machinery , squad used to hale boards to boxcar , where they were leisurely transferred by deckhand .
At a modern James Mill , the lumber is carried out to the boxcars on a long conveyor belt , a variety of endless move platform . The lumber comes in a stiff stream . An efficiency expert has compute how fast the dock worker at the car should work , and the smash is gear consequently . The stevedore works at a set fastness or gets immerse under oncoming board .
We reckon this organisation solemnly . But , having all the elements of humor , it will make future generation hawthorn - haw .
In the future tense , automatic machinery and inventions will free men from industrial slaveholding . chintzy , tight - fly plane will enable all to live in the country . Cities , at night , will be desert chemical group of factory buildings .
We , voluntarily imprisoned in cramped apartments or minuscule house , will seem queer to our posterity . Daily we go to work in our prison cells , to pound typewriter keys , push a pen or perform monotonous operations with machinery – when we might all be free in the out-of-doors of farmland .
Will the future consider us laughable , pathetic or crazy ?
It ’s a respectable thing the intermediate someone ’s sensory faculty of humor is not highly developed . Otherwise , we might either revolt against the stupidity of civilization – or express joy ourselves to expiry at our dignified solemnity .
See also : Anachronisms of the Future ( 1911)The Air Ship : A Musical Farce Comedy ( 1898)Sees World Better or Worse ( 1923 )
California
Daily Newsletter
Get the best tech , skill , and culture news in your inbox day by day .
intelligence from the future , deliver to your present tense .
You May Also Like
