N. Arthur Coulter writes: Every human being is enmeshed in the vast and intricate world-wide system that I call the Machine. The Machine is a network consisting of a large number of social, political, military, economic and cultural components. I call it the Machine because its mode of operation is so very much like the smaller machines man has produced in such abundance. The essential characteristic of machine is repetition—it repeats a sequence of movements over and over again, always the same, though differing perhaps in speed or force produced. The pistons of an automobile engine move up and down, up and down, endlessly. The wheels of a locomotive turn around and around. A printing press goes through the same complex sequence of movements, over and over again. To mechanize a process is to organize it to repeat itself as exactly as possible. So it is with the World Machine. It imposes on each human being a variety of patterns that he or she is expected to follow repeatedly. Get up, make breakfast, wash the dishes, make the beds, go shopping, come home, fix dinner, wash the dishes, watch TV, go to bed, etc. etc. etc. —patterns we repeat again and again, patterns we follow exactly lest we be punished. The Machine rules us all. We are only cogs spinning around and around. (02/22/02)
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