Mid-century freedom: man ‘on parole’

yougnstown

“Our modern industrial economy, based on impersonability, interchangability and speed, has worn away the old protective securities without creating new ones. It has failed to develop an organizational framework of its own within which self-realization on a large scale is possible. Freedom in industrial society, as a result, has a negative rather than positive connotation. It means a release from external restrains rather than a deep and abiding sense of self-control and purpose. Man is not free: he is out on parole.”

Arthur Schlesinger, The Vital Center, 1949

(Picture: Lost Youngstown)

Follow Chris Zappone on Facebook

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s