The Fallen~Sparrow~Hawk

Obscurantism versus evolution or The old ways versus the new. April 18, 2002

“Just to think, it took four hours to prepare and just ten minutes to finish”. Alison said staring at her empty plate with a look of bewildered exhaustion. They, Alison, Brett and their three children had just returned from the south of England visiting relatives who lived, unlike themselves, in brick dwellings in which everything was at the flick of a switch. i.e.: wood-chopping replaced by a flick on the central-heating; switch!  Washing day to washing machine, load wash; five minutes; switch! Scraping pots and pans reduced to loading dishwasher; switch! Wood-burning stove to cooker and enough leisure time to lounge in front of the television; switch, or even take a full-time job to pay for it all; switch off.

You see the thing is all the switchflicking has to be paid for; there are unseen hands chopping the proverbial wood to feed the national grid; there are unseen water-gatherers, food-gatherers, clothes-scrubbers, stove-feeders, entertainers and boredom-breakers, nature-filmers and, with the proviso of disproportionate profit, they must all receive a promissory note of payment, they can use as currency in a promissory world.

At the Doon one is working for oneself. It is a job that has to be done. If the wood store goes down there is no fuel to cook and no heat in winter. This becomes immediately apparent and, like it or not, it has to be done. The same goes for water-collecting, laundry, planting and gathering the whole day taken up with tasks necessary for living.

Before the slow rise of the on-the-flick-of-a-switch consumer society there was no perceived choice. You either had slaves or servants or relied on the division of labour; the husband went out and toiled and the wife stayed home with the kids and cleaned and cooked all day. The idea of lying around all day, as Jane Austen’s characters do, was completely foreign to such women, (working class I mean).

So, the evolutionary urge to improve upon inventions; the hoe to the tractor; salt-storage to the fridge; water-collection to the stand-pipe and so on.

People live longer, they have an easier way of life; rent, gas, electricity, council tax and food bills paid; then follows a life of ease. Self-sustaining; wind turbine/generator, endless wood fuel, inexhaustible water supply, food from the ground; potatoes, celery, lettuce, onions, berries, herbs, broccoli, Spring onions, pulses; milk from goats, bread from the stove. What for money?

Of course everything takes that thing the modern world has managed to…manage; over manage, - time. ‘There are only so many minutes in a day’.