Jamie DeWitt
Journal #2
After watching that film on The White City, I realized how crazy it is that in the 1800’s people were capable of building a city so marvelous and spectacular. This is because we are so technologically advanced today that we constantly think about anything that happened before the 1980’s as ancient and lacking marvel. People from all around the world came in peace to experience other cultures and learn about different ways of life. This is something that I do not think would ever be able to happen today because nations no longer get along as well as we used to. While the US likes to think of itself as a peace keeper, we have developed enemies. The closest thing we have to a world’s fair now is the Olympics, which even then is not even close to the extremeness of the World’s Fair in Chicago. Another thing that surprised me is that the White City has never been a priority in any history class or curriculum. Why do our education institutions not teach us about the great success the White City had? It was so architecturally sound and gigantic that it shrinks any other building in comparison. In my opinion, the white city was one of the biggest architectural and cultural accomplishments the US has ever had, and the world has ever seen.
Another thing that we discussed this week is the idea of our bodies being a motor, or running like motors. In my political economy class we learned about the history of the work day and how in the early ages people were only able to work from dawn to dusk because of no electricity, and many had a lot of leisure time. As companies began to form and people started to work more, leisure time slowly decreased. With the development of electricity and light, factories and offices now could run before sunrise and after sunset. Our bodies motors began ticking longer and longer. However, the biggest change was the development of the clock because it allowed for businesses to keep their workers for a maximum amount of hours to get the most work out of them. The clock made our bodies work on over time, causing them to become more tired and overworked. Our culture now changed from one of leisure to one of work. This we learned is called a paradime shift, in which something we know changes drastically which effects the way we live or see things. Now our lifestyles changed because we have less time for chores, family, sports etc because we must work more and more in order to compete with other workers.
Overall, we have realized now that as time goes on, our work drive only grows more and more. I wonder if our bodies will ever reach a point of destruction from the constant lack of sleep and over work. Where can the line be drawn where we as a society can regain leisure time and strengthen the bonds we have within our families and communities. Would shortening work hours strengthen communities and help provide more peace? Only time would tell.