Shannan’s Reviews > The Road to Wigan Pier > Status Update

“And here you observe the huge contradiction which is usually present in the idea of progress. The tendency of mechanical progress is to make your environment safe and soft; and yet you are striving to keep yourself brave and hard. You are at the same moment furiously pressing forward and desperately holding back.”

Read chapter 12
I was only reading this book as part me Orwell completest mission and while the life of coal miners was interesting, the middle of the book was slowly stagnant. Then I reached the second to last chapter. It should be a stand alone work - it is accessible and outlines the fundamental conflict in our times mechanising the world.

Sometimes it’s really easy to forget that in the 30s plastics were not even a thing in the mind of the future.
“Where there is one aeroplane now, in those days there will be fifty! All the work that is now done by hand will then be done by machinery: everything that is now made of leather, wood, or stone will be made of rubber, glass, or steel; there will be no disorder..”

…but the effect of industrialism is to make it impossible for anyone to be self-supporting even for a moment. Industrialism, once it rises above a fairly low level, must lead to some form of collectivism…

In Wigan various people gave me their opinion that it is best to get shut of your teeth as early in life as possible. Teeth is just a misery, one woman said to me