Modernity’s Effects on Man’s Formerly Lifelong Commitments to Church, Community, Profession, and Family
Man’s existence for thousands of years was one of comforting consistency. He happily accepted the world around him, knowing he had little capacity to change it. He accepted his place of birth, firm in the belief that migration to other lands was assuredly dangerous. He took comfort that his religion was righteous and the only noble path to follow. All his fellow citizens knew it’s tenets to be absolute truth, the holy text was the only book in the entire town.
He was satisfied with his career, a blacksmith. He had worked hard, first as a page then as a journeyman on the way to becoming a master. After 11 long years of education and constant labor he was finally a business owner in control of his own smithy. He believed deeply that licensing and training had to be tightly regulated otherwise anyone could get involved in such a lucrative trade. Consumers could be hurt by faulty axe blades and there would be too many smiths for any one of them to make a good living. He was close friends with the other men in the smithing guild having grown up with them. He was a regular at his church and at community gatherings. He believed in caring about and improving his local community. He saw the same people at work, the market, and at church. He was friendly with most of them. It was a small community and some people did things he didn’t agree with but he was kind to everyone knowing he would be sharing this town with them for a lifetime.
He had two boys and loved them very much. He worked very hard to provide for them and his wife who he had married at 16. She was his world. She was the only woman he had ever really known. Their two families had agreed to the marriage when they were children. They were best friends growing up and couldn’t be happier with the arrangement. His life was calm, stable, and dignified. He would freely admit there was much he did not know but this lack of knowledge was not a deficit in his life. He was a content man. He worked hard, enjoyed his free time with caring friends, loved his family, and had some gold coins saved for a rainy day. Life was a dream.
Then the world changed. technological breakthroughs occurred and free markets carried both goods and labor to the farthest ends of the earth. Society cheered the miraculous progress. The increase in living standards and wages, the decrease in prices of consumer goods were shocking and marvelous. New medical treatments returned sight to the blind and mobility to the lame. GDP per capita increased 15% a year for 400 years.
But not everything changed for the better. People’s community ties became transient as they relocated for work in pursuit of better opportunities. People began to question their religion as they learned to read and had access to more literature. They questioned all the beliefs central to one’s identity. Churches and community centers fell into disrepair. The monopoly of guilds with strict membership rules and privileges were dissolved and all industries liberalized. No one could stop a foreigner from moving to your town and opening up a competing smithy. They no longer needed to appease the local bureaucrats, they just needed to prove to your neighbors and friends that they were as good a blacksmith as you and willing to do the work for cheaper.
His wife gained financial freedom due to women entering the labor force. She went to seamstress school and was now making a high enough wage to fully support herself. She decided she no longer wanted to be cooped up in the house all day just doing chores and typical wifely duties. She also reveled in the idea that she could, if she finally divorced her tiresome husband, date anyone she took a liking to. She could bring men back to her fancy new apartment that she was now able to afford. The troupe of new boy toys still paid on most of the dates but knowing she could afford to take them out and pay herself was fun and exciting. She was forging her own path in this new and complicated world. She was now undoubtedly living her best life.
She of course still loved her boys very much but was now neglectful of her motherly duties. She was just too busy now due to work and the parade of muscular dimwits shuffling through her bedchamber. The boys immediately felt this lack of attention from their mother. Their father had taken up heavy drinking and was no better. His world was shattered having lost his wife, the only woman he’s ever really known. The boys sank into a deep depression as it seemed no one cared anymore. They missed the togetherness of just sitting in a quiet room surrounded by family.
The father sat in a dimly lit bar crying quietly. His smithy had just declared bankruptcy due to the foreign competition who had recently migrated to town. His guild and social network had collapsed with so many smith owners no longer able to afford their dues. He was effectively an outcast at his church due to his recent divorce but had quit going anyway having just read Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil.” He was now a firm believer that there was no God and no meaning in the universe. His boys no longer spoke to him because his mother had filled them with lies regarding the end of their marriage. However, the beer he was consuming was a marvel of modernity. A beverage of this sort would have been reserved for royalty only a short time ago, too expensive for a man of modest means. The quality control was astounding, something only a mechanized industrial process can ensure. Thus, a man cried but his tears salted a beverage that was created with the utmost efficiency. A Keynesian economist looked down upon this wreckage and smiled.
