20. Seeing Ourselves

Exposed to the whirlwind of technological revolution, we humans complicate our lives instead of seeking refuge in simplicity. Machines do much of our work; calculators relieve the torment of arithmetic; computers store our knowledge. Are we thereby less worried, less exhausted, better organized and happier? Certainly not; and if we are more comfortable, live longer and suffer less physical pain, the swings of ease and luxury do not compensate for the roundabouts of anxiety and depression. Those roundabouts are monuments to our seeming scorn for simplicity. We resign ourselves to the steady growth of complexity.

We cannot go backwards, but perhaps we can profit to some extent from the wisdom of our ancestors. Here, at random, are five prescriptions which might, to a limited extent, help stem the tide.

We should insist that communication be simple and clear. English, has a wide range of expression. It is the language of superb poetry, in verse and prose; it is the language of science and business. It contains plenty of short, concise words. We should upbraid the inventors of new long words and declare ambiguity a disgrace.

We must teach our children to relax. Tension is the hallmark of 20th century misery, and much of it is imbibed in infancy. Whatever the psychologists and sociologists may preach to us, we should revive the convention that parents disguise their worries from their families. Bottling things up is not invariably pernicious.

If we cannot ban the rat race, we must be more considerate to the rats. The Victorians were wiser. School lessons had to be well learned, and the birch rod was at hand if they were not; but the long drawn out misery of learning, almost by heart, set books for "O" and "A" levels would have been thought intolerable. Children were once encouraged to read many, books, not just a selected few, and to develop their critical faculties by acquiring a general knowledge of the civilized arts. Now they are subjected at the expense of a wider education, to brainwashing techniques only relevant to the gruelling contest of the examinations themselves.

Noise, loud and unrelenting, contributes more than ever before to our mental and emotional disturbance. Some of it is by choice: background music; radio and television sets left on when concentration is required elsewhere. Some of it—the roar of traffic and of aeroplanes—is accepted as incidental to modern society. But is it? We have always been mean in rewarding our inventors: those who invented jet engines, television and radar received totally inadequate recognition. Perhaps we should offer handsome tax-free incentives to all who produce genuine breakthroughs in noise abatement.

These are merely a few palliatives which help us to restore a little sanity despite the clatter of the world around us. The basic problem is much deeper set, nor would it be anything but ridiculous to assert that other generations were free from worry, stress and instability. The difference is simply that adaptation was easier when the acceleration of the rate of change was more gentle. But we have reasoning powers which other living creatures have not, and we also have a far greater measure of choice. We should reflect long and carefully on independence when all around us change.

And the important distinguishing feature of human beings is that they have souls. All the great discoveries and advances of the last 100 years have been in the material world. We should spend much more time looking inwards to see whether we can recognize within ourselves and element which no technological revolution and change can pollute or violate.