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This week we delved deeper into understanding what this course is about and how we will go about learning more in this subject.

Our readings this week was the entirety of Mark Twain’s ‘Connecticut Yankee’ as well as the first chapter of ‘The Human Machine’ both readings held significant meaning to the course.

‘Connecticut Yankee’ was a discussion of how technology is accepted and produced, in the setting of King Arthur’s court this topic took a very interesting approach. We were able to see the hypothetical progress that an entire civilization might undergo if there was a huge shift in the technological situation of those people. I personally enjoyed the book due to the progress we saw in the characters. Sandy as well as Clarence are prefect examples of individuals who fully exemplified the progress one might see from the exposure to such advanced technology.

The other subject I would like to touch on is the documentary of the White City. The grandeur and scale of the exposition was incredible and is likely something we will never see again. But by far the most important part of the fair was the technology put on display. The only modern equivalent to the expo we might see today is a conference put on by companies and research organizations, but those conferences are very narrow in scope and would never see such diversity as what was at the 1893 fair. The fair personified the momentum that technology had during that time period. There were new discoveries being made every year which helped the fair to be as extravagant and impactful as it was.

Thoughts on:

Documentary; I thought that it was very interesting to hear about some of the advancements made just because of the construct of the White City. I never realized the spray paint made its debut just before the 1900s. Also, I was impressed at the acceptance shown for other cultures, I was always under the impression that we were not a very inclusive culture at that time, no matter what we tried to say.

CYIKAC; as I mentioned in class, I was surprised at the difference in connotation for the word Factory from the 19^th century to now. In my mind the word factory creates an image of an assembly line stretching on where the workers look tired and bored from standing and completing the same task day after day. In the context that Hank Morgan and by extension Twain is using it, the word factory could mean a place of creativity and change.

The 1893 World’s Fair was an impressive achievement both in showing people new technology and different cultures. It showed off various countries’ cultures and how they viewed technology of the time. It showed important aspects the American culture and how they thought. The city was built in two years and only to be temporary. I think this important because of how our society views technology now. Today we are focused on consumerism and in order for it to work people have to keep buying new technology. Companies try to make new technology that lasts only long enough so that the consumer doesn’t lose faith in the company and will buy the newest and greatest piece of their technology. In class we talked about how a company can put out software updates that makes a phone or computer run slows and make it feel like the technology isn’t working well anymore when in reality it would be working fine without the software updates.

Even if the technology we own is working fine we tend to want the newest piece of technology on the market. When a new version of a smartphone comes out every couple of years there are a lot of people who will get the new version even if their current phone is working perfectly fine. This is part of the consumeristic nature of our society. I think we subconsciously judge those with old technology because they haven’t been contributing to the economy in the traditional consumer ways.

Society has difficulty keeping up with the constantly changing technology which can be both a good and bad thing. As we talked about previously technology can change the way we interact with the world around us. It changes how we communicate with other people and how we gather information.

The idea that hard work equals success seems to be a fact; however, as the Human Motor and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court have shown, this cause and effect has not always been in place. The Human Motor takes a deeper look at the word “idleness” and tracks the various connotations it has acquired over the years. During the aristocratic era idleness was, “Not only free from approbation, but venerated and esteemed” (27). The less labor or work a person had to do, the more esteemed they were. In many ways laziness was a representation of wealth and power. However, during the period of Enlightenment many came to resent the aristocrats “idleness” including the philosophers of the time claiming, “‘he who eats in idleness what he himself does not earn steal’” (Rousseau as cited by Human Motor, 28). Such tensions rode into the 18^th century at the beginning of the industrial age. Modern thinker, Max Weber called idleness a “mortal sin [and] ‘destroyer of grace’”(27). The main reason for the turn in perspective was industry. Karl Marx coined it, “the victory of industry over heroic laziness” (30). Hard work was glorified while idleness and laziness were demonized. This tension can also be seen in Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court when Hank is thrown 13 centuries in the past. He came into King Arthur’s court with the values of the 19^th century’s industrial revolution including a strong value for hard work, “I’m not a man to waste time now that my mind is made up and there’s work on hand” (19). Many of the people he interacted with at the beginning of the book he deemed, childish and naïve in one instance he called them “white Indians” (21). This superiority complex comes partly from his perception of the local people as lazy and not understanding how to utilize hard work and be productive.

Currently, Americans hold the same ideas as Hank and many philosophers in the Human motor; idleness is a sin. Growing up one is expected to get a job and be a “productive member of society”. I believe this philosophy has created the particular political climate we see ourselves in today. With many jobs being exported out of the country, taken over by machines, or “taken” by illegal immigrants America finds itself with an excess of workers. The notion that unemployment, or a lack of work, is a reflection of a person’s character comes out of the industrial age and people are feeling this shame. The uprising of many Americans voting for a man who’s main political stance is building a wall to keep jobs in the United States reflects the desperate times many Americans are going through. In many ways Trump could have been seen as their only hope to gain back their previously held status as a member of the work force and a productive member of society. I would like to mention the democratic party has a much more effective way of finding jobs for the unemployed, however, the sentiment of Trump’s campaign captured more of a reaction.

During our class discussion on Thursday, we began to relate our readings with the documentary that we watched in class. The common theme that we discovered involved the reciprocal relationship between work and leisure. In the documentary, The White Fair was the biggest display of work that the World had ever seen thus far. It took over 40,000 workmen to build the Fair grounds. Some people were working by choice in order to compete with other people (or countries). Before this time, people’s work was basic and need-based. But now, they were beginning to relate working with leisure. What the workers put in, the Fair got out. Their hard work created leisurely experiences for millions, including the workers who helped build the place. People could spend the 25 cents to go on the Farris Wheel and enjoy the spectacles. This was a time where people could see the “fruits of their labor”.

In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Hank Morgan experienced a world in which work and leisure operated in an unbalanced system. The peasants would be forced to work endless hours every day to not only provide from themselves, but for the Lords, King, and other people who were of a higher social standing. While this system was delightful for the Lords, Knights, and Kings, it was miserable for the peasants. They received little to no leisure time and when they did, it was nearly not enough to refuel their mental emotional and physical state to work at an efficient level. The relationship between work and leisure this time was not reciprocal, and therefore it was unbalanced.

This made me think about something I learned in one of my Sociology classes last semester. As globalization has developed, many companies have moved the production processes of their goods to countries or people that would be willing ot supply cheap labor. As a result, several forms of alienation have taken place in the workplace. A big form of alienation that occurs is alienation between a worker and the product that they make. A lot of the times, the workers providing the cheap labor do not make enough money to buy the product they are helping to make. Studies have shown that workers alienated from their products have a lower productivity level than those that are not. In terms of leisure and work this makes total sense. A worker might be willing to put forth more work, if it helped them accomplish their leisure. In the case of alienation, if workers were able to buy the products they made, they might be more efficient in the making of these products. Some people in the past have realized this connection and adjusted their workplace accordingly. For example, Henry Ford of Ford Motors changed the working standard of the time by manipulating the work and leisure relationship. He offered a very high hourly rate to his workers, which enhanced their productivity greatly for many reasons. Firstly, no other companies were offering an hourly wage that came close to being as high as Fords. His workers therefore would work hard because they did not want to lose the high paying job that would increase their standard of living. Additionally, the higher wage of the workers made it possible for them to buy their very own Ford car. Ford’s mission was to make a car that his own workers could afford. The manipulation of the production process through the assembly line cheapened the production costs allowing Ford to be able to pay his workers more, and sell the cars for cheaper. Because the workers could now afford the car, their work was directly relating to a large section of their leisure time. The average worker could own their very own automobile. Ford’s technique changed a paradigm at the time that people had to pay their workers as less as possible to ensure a good revenue.

While the forces of globalization have furthered alienation in the workforce, many companies, like Google, are beginning to change their workers experiences to enhance productivity. Work and leisure go hand in hand, and need to be working in a balanced system with each other to produce the best results.