Cultural Integration

“The renewal of life is the great theme of our age, not the further dominance, in ever more frozen and compulsive forms, of the machine.  And the first step for each of us is to seize the initiative and recover our own capacity for living; to detach ourselves from the daily routine to make ourselves self-respecting, self-governing, persons.  In short, we must take things into our own hands.  Before art on any great scale can redress our lop-sided [technology], we must put ourselves in the mood and frame of mind in which art becomes possible, as either creation or re-creation: above all we must learn to pause, to be silent, to close our eyes and wait.”

Lewis Mumford, 1951