Forgotten Wisdom
October 20, 2018
ALAN writes:
Modern Americans are drenched in distractions and drunk on diversions.
The endless assault upon the senses in modern life means (among other things) the loss or diminishing of something Americans a hundred years ago had mastered quite well: The ability to concentrate one’s attention, and the understanding of why that is important.
ITEM: In 1915, an executive in the Detroit Cadillac Motor Car Company wrote to an employee to inform him that his salary would be increased. He wrote: “The writer knows that you will appreciate this and he would suggest that the very best way to show your appreciation would be to cut out all unnecessary talk, petty jokes, and story-telling during business hours and keep your mind entirely on company business…. Eliminate all outside influences….” [Reminisce Magazine, May/June 1999, p. 52]
ITEM: In 1914, police officers in St. Louis while in uniform could ride free on trolley cars, and some of them developed the bad habit of talking with trolley car operators as they enjoyed that privilege. In response, the Chief of Police wrote: “….It is plain that motormen cannot give the attention necessary to their duties if they are drawn into conversation by passengers. .….one of the standing rules [ of the transit company ] is that passengers shall not talk to motormen nor motormen to passengers.”
The chief engineer of the transit company said: “…Nobody should talk to a motorman on duty. The motorman should direct all his attention to operating his car, for otherwise a serious accident may occur….” [St. Louis Police Journal, Oct. 31, 1914, p. 2]
That good sense is completely forgotten today, when it is common to see public transit vehicle operators chatting with passengers or other company employees while operating trains or buses. As E. Michael Jones wrote in 2009, “…experience has shown that when trains have two engineers, they tend to distract each other with their talking.”
That there are no rules today like those of 1914 is a sign of cultural decadence. That there is no one today who would enforce such rules if they existed is a greater sign of decadence.
Passengers on public transit must now listen to women drivers and women passengers chattering about their hair, cooking, gossip, etc. If it should be claimed that such chatter is of no consequence to public transit passengers, think again. Such chatter is objectionable precisely because it diverts attention. It is a prime example of what Lawrence Auster, in one of his best essays, called The Breakdown of Western Form [View from the Right, Nov. 22, 2002 ].
Women bus drivers and train operators are forever advising passengers what kind of day to have: Have a nice day!, Have a good day!, Have a good one! Have a blessed day! It is sickening to hear such twaddle. I spent decades riding on buses in St. Louis that were driven in those years almost exclusively by white men. None of them was ever witless or arrogant enough to advise me what kind of day I should have. They did their job right. It did not encompass nannyism or cutesy-poo chit-chat.
Where is that gravitas today? If you think it can be found, you will search long and hard for even a trace of it.
ITEM: In 1997, four people standing and waiting for their bus in St. Louis County were killed when a woman bus driver drove directly into them. It was claimed afterward that the driver thought she was stepping on the brake when she actually stepped on the accelerator. A meticulous examination and testing of the bus revealed no defects of any kind. The only other person on her bus was a woman instructor. At the moment of her fatal mistake, was her attention diverted because she and the instructor were chattering? Was the driver an Affirmative Action hire? Was the instructor an Affirmative Action hire?
“Newspapers” and “journalists” who pretend they are in business to report the facts were careful not to ask those questions, nor did the transit company disclose that information. Facts purposely concealed by people who claim they are in business to report the facts: Still more cultural decadence.
Some women transit operators are quite competent and courteous. Others leave a great deal to be desired. It is astonishing to listen to the ineptitude of some women entrusted with the responsibility to operate Metrolink trains in St. Louis. I was on such a train one day when the female operator said, “Eating and drinking are not prohibited on Metrolink trains.” She said it not once but repeatedly, not revealing a glimmer of awareness that she said the opposite of what she meant. It is not at all uncommon to hear some of them lose track of where they are.
ITEM: In 1938, an article on United Air Lines included a photograph of a glassed-in air traffic control tower in Chicago. A sign placed prominently on the desk near the windows reads in capital letters: “DO NOT TALK TO RADIO OPERATORS.” [“Air Transport Comes of Age: United Air Lines in Action”, Life Magazine, Aug. 22, 1938, p. 47 ]
Longtime readers of View from the Right might remember Lawrence Auster’s discussion of a plane crash in New York in 2009 in which 49 people died as a result of the pilot not paying attention to his flight instruments because he, in complete contempt for the sterile cockpit rule, was busy chattering with a 24-year-old female First Officer. Would she have been there without Feminist Agitprop or Affirmative Action Agitprop? [View from the Right, May 13, 2009 ]
“Driver inattention leading cause of traffic fatalities,” the Missouri Highway Patrol reported in 2002. No kidding? Who would have guessed?
How many more accidents and fatalities are waiting to happen because of such inattention?
And how many more public transit passengers would still be alive if Americans had sense enough to restore and enforce rules like those of 1914?
