Does anyone else wish they lived before the industrial revolution?

Question

There are emotional benefits to the industrial revolution- Such as much accessible healthcare and food and an abundance in pleasurable items. But I honestly think the industrial revolution has done more harm to us and the earth than good.

I can do without the materialism, people were just fine without our modern comforts and pleasures.

I just wish that instead of working in a factory, doing the unnatural act of making the same motion with my hands for hours on end to be able to buy food, that I could grow and hunt my own food and not even worry about unnecessary things like computers, phones, cars, and air conditioning. I wish I lived in the days where capitalism didn't have the technology needed to turn us into human robots.

Answer 1

I sometimes do.

Answer 2

No. No one I have ever met, and I HAVE met some stupid people. The only person that would wish for an existence prior to the industrial revolution is one that knows not what they are talking about.

Answer 3

I did this. As a young man we bought land in Maine and built our own house without using power tools. We lived without electricity, but we were unable to grow all our own food, make our own leather, and so on. We relied on kerosene lamps, a 19th century technology, so our return to an earlier era wasn't complete, but it was instructive. We were also quite isolated from other people, something people in earlier eras were not. Living more simply is much more pleasant if there is a community living the same way.

Answer 4

My uncle, cousin and aunt wish like that.

Answer 5

You have a poor vision of pre-industrial revolution time period. Regardless, nothing stops you from being a farmer or hunter now. In the meantime, you get to live past the age of 40, have a better than 10% chance of being literate, take a hot shower in fresh water, be able to walk the streets without stepping in sewage, and have food that isn't covered in mold.

Answer 6

No, I don't wish that. So don't work in factory doing repetitive, mind numbing work. I don't and never have. There are plenty of ways to happily exist in the modern world. But if you don't have the education and imagination to climb out of your rut today, then you would no doubt have been a feudal servant or slave in some former pre-industrial society where, unlike the modern world, you would have had nearly zero chance of escaping it. .

Answer 7

Before the industrial revolution my life would have been short dirty and unwholesome. My ancestors come from a region of France called Franche-Comté which is last place in Western Europe to have serfs. Their marriage licenses and birth certificates describe the parents as "so-and-so, a coal merchant" or "so-and-so a tailor" because it was important to distinguish ourselves from serfs. We were laborers and had a miserable existence but almost everyone else was in servitude.



Do you value your freedom so little?

Answer 8

You might appreciate Johann Huizinga's "The Autumn of the Middle Ages," a beautifully written book.



Also, learning some vocations with which you are more organically linked is facilitated by the search phrase "real work matters rwm.org" The vocational programs are listed by area, so location to a more rural or less-mechanized area is feasible.



Matthew B. Crawford is an example of one who's moved to a more authentic place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Crawford ("Shop Class as Soulcraft").



Related: "The Soulless One," "Man, Master of His Destiny," "The Road Less Traveled."

Answer 9

This is just fantasy. Most people were not fine, and died in childhood. Hunting and land ownership for farming was only for the wealthy.



Most people has no education, no healthcare, toiled all day in dirty dangerous jobs for some boiled cabbage and potatoes with no opportunity to ever do anything different in their whole life.