E.M. Forster: The Machine Stops.
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In this video I read E.M. Forster's most prescient short story "The Machine Stops". This short story is our version of Plato's Cave. Human beings are reduced to lumps of flesh constantly on the lookout for ideas to affect them. This is also a warning for all those engaged in "online philosophy" or however we want to refer to it. For we must not become masters of shadows.
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What a wonderful find, rendition and analysis, Johannes! Thank you for this.
Laura thank you very much, Laura!
Excellent essay. It was Forster's response to H.G. Wells "Utopian" ideal that all of humankind should be controlled by elite technocrats. Which with governments "following expert advice" is leading to this scenario. Food to be delivered by Uber, packages by Amazon.
E.M.Forster was 111 years ahead of his time.
Indeed. He was, I believe, for he still was classically educated - and such an education allows one to see that which is to come
What a prophetic story..... how easily it sits with us in the 21st c. !
Indeed!
I really think this is the future of mankind! I am so sorry to say.
awesome vid. made me appreciate this short story on a deeper level
Thank you, Sean!
The machine is any apparatus which separates us from first-hand experience of the real world.
Great vid! Don't worry about the early cut-off.
Thank you!
"There is nothing to be learned from history anymore. We're in science fiction now."
― Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997)
What may be his motivation to claim this? Even if his absolutist statement about science fiction were true, then we need all the more understand where we come from.
@@JohannesNiederhauser I'm guessing the quote is being ironic, SF being put down by the literati, but we are all living in the dystopia they envisioned.
Great
Thank you kindly
whether Wall-E society in deep space, or merely under the earth's crust, the humans can remove themselves from reality wherever they be. inside The Matrix or the empty shell of Liebniz's wheelworks/mill. The fanaticism of coming A.I. we can either deal with reality or be consumed by it. reality won't go away, and our untenable efforts to escape it eventually break down. without the balance of suffering in our lives, humans dissolve, and we lose the ability to reach the pole of joy. Thank You for introducing me to this text.
Plato's cave understood in its historical context is incredibly interesting. Firstly, there is the obvious point that we have evidence that alot Greek Religious Activity took the form of the Descent into the underworld and then the ascent into the outerworld, this is the story of Persephone and the Orphic rendering of Dionysius. The cave itself I think is used in large part because what Plato is saying is that the obsession, or the primacy of the appearance, of the image, means that we are not able to concretely experience what is actually real. Those trapped in the cave are literally submerged in sensuous matter, in the earth. If then we consider that caves were also used as burial places the story also gives the sense of rebirth, this being the use for the Greeks, you enter the cave and are reborn. However, they understood this entrance into the cave in the sense of the detachment from contingency, in a certain sense then the cave, dark and damp, is the death of sound, of the contingencies of the world, and hence when we reemerge we are reborn in full appreciation of the world in its glories.
What is then so interesting about Forster's retelling is specifically his introduction of the element of Sound. For us moderns who exist in such a way that we have infinite pleasures at our disposal, any kind of silence, is anathema. We are constantly surronded by Sound, the background noise of the City, Cars etc. The result of this is that we quite literally are unable to hear music. The supreme doctrines of the Orphics was the entirety of the world was a song, this continues then into Pythagoras and Plato, mathematical harmonies etc, but the obvious point with music as opposed to noise is that music relies upon silence. Real Music demands your attention, it forces you to think and to feel, it is not mere noise, a comfort like cookies. This relies upon pain and ultimately upon pauses, that is silence. What I think is so powerful about Foster's story then is that even in the cave, submerged beneath the earth, Man has not escaped noise but has been engulfed by it.
I would also somewhat question your reading of the airship, and the airship not giving ideas. I think rather what that element of the story is is the Ascent to the Heavens. Such Ascents must not be seen as flights from the world but as flights to the world. For the Ancients the Heavens were more glorious, truer, and more real than the sublunar earthly realm, hence why they are paradises inhabited by angels. To fly in this way is to be in the world, and aware of this, to move through the world knowing that you move through it. It is interesting I think that Foster contrasts Vashti, who is an avid devotee of the Machine, with this flight with the Airship. She like us thinks herself more able to experience life, in a sense she can fly further, but this is only through bringing things to her, she does not wish to go anywhere, but simply consume.
I think ultimately what has happened is that we no longer seek to overcome ourselves.
TH-cam removed the movie. I saw it on youtube years ago. where can it be seen now? Other than purchase. It possibly may not play on my DVD. Is there a link to it one can share???
Hello handsome! Your audio and video have greatly improved. Have you ever worked for Audible? 👍
Do you want to date my avatar...?