Laudator Temporis Acti

C.E.M. Joad (1891-1953), "The Face of England: How It Is Ravaged and How It May Be Preserved," Horizon, Vol. V, No. 29 (May, 1942) 335-348 (at 335-336):

The ravages, of course, began long before the war. The invention of the internal-combustion engine may be regarded with justice as the greatest single disaster in the history of mankind. Not only has it destroyed the security of England and made wholesale death and mutilation familiar things; it has also destroyed the beauty of England, killed quiet, and, with quiet, dignity. Take, for example, the case of Sussex. Who would have thought, as we wandered years ago through the Weald in spring and saw that incredible profusion of primroses and wild daffodils, or in summer through the empty spaces of the high downs, that these things upon which we had been nourished in childhood and had grown to rely upon in manhood, turning to them again and again for rest and refreshment of the spirit, would in our time be destroyed, dying before we ourselves should die? Yet so it is. First, the railways scattered their scurf of 'resorts' along the coast and accumulated little ganglions of vulgarity around their stations, as an alien body thrust into the flesh accumulates a zone of inflamed tissue around its place of entry; but the county as a whole remained inviolate. Then came the cars. The south and south-east of England were brought within the range of daily accessibility from the centre, with the result that London burst like a bomb and scattered its debris far and wide over the faces of Surrey and Kent, and presently over that of Sussex. With the coming of the car the peace of the county was broken, its traditions destroyed, its power to refresh and reinvigorate the spirit, a power which depended in part upon its emptiness and its peace, impaired. Its inhabitants bought gramophones and grew basely rich; its roads became maelstroms of traffic along which cars hurled their inert occupants to the coast, its valleys came out in a rash of angry pink; every hilltop had its villa, every village its multiple store, while the sacred peace of the downs was broken by the snorts of motor-bicycles and the hoots of straining cars. If the horde of invaders had derived benefit from their defilements, the case though bad would have been bearable. In fact, however, the majority of those who rifled beauty were unaware of what they did. Walking, just before the war, on Amberley Down, I came upon a small Austin perched upon its highest point, outraging the sight of all beholders. I approached, intending to draw the attention of the occupants to the beneficent but unobserved law which forbids a car to park itself more than fifteen yards from the highway (see the Road Traffic Act 1930). Within it sat a young man and his girl. Their backs were to the view, their windows shut. Were they engaged in the fulfilment of a function intelligible, if there misplaced? They were not. They were sitting stolidly, side by side, listening to the fat-stock prices over the wireless.

Hat tip: Eric Thomson.

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Labels: Luddism