A paradox of modernity


Isn’t modern life supposed to be simplier because of our technological advances? Where is our abundance of leisure time? the followinng quote says a lot (gleaned from internet reading; I did not see the book, or know the author).

“Why is it that a world dedicated to the pursuit of leisure and of machines that save labour is chiefly marked by its levels of rush, frenetic busyness and stress? . . . The paradox of modernity . . . is that however successful the understanding of time and space, the modern is less at home in the actual time and space of daily living than peoples less touched by [modern] changes. . . . Whatever the integration of space and time in science, in modern life there is at once cultural stagnation and febrile [feverish – I looked it up] change, a restless movement from place to place, experience to experience, revealing little evidence of a serene dwelling in the body and on the good earth.”

— Colin Gunton, The One, the Three and the Many: God, Creation and the Culture of Modernity (Cambridge University Press, 1993)

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