How Civilization Interfered with People’s Personal Lives: Modern Times and Tractor Drivers

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How Civilization Interfered with People’s Personal Lives: A Film Study
Films are part of the literature material that helps communicate the society’s state or events that occur within communities. In most cases, the directors use their direct experiences to communicate an underlying message about the social virtues or vices. In some cases, the different forms of literature relate by communicating the same message to the Modern Times and Tractor Drivers are some of the films whose message reflect the societal events. The two films provide insights about the concept of labor and its role on people’s lives. Modern Times is based on Chaplin’s sixteen-month world tour, where he experienced the political and economic consequences of the Great Depression. Similarly, Tractor Drivers also shows the daily experiences of the work environment, in which one of the characters is so much involved in working that she overlooks her other lifestyle developments. Based on this analysis, labor was a good initiative but destroyed by the capitalistic greed. Consequently, it has had a negative impact in and of itself.[Modern Times (United Artists, Charlie Chaplin, dir., 1936) https://nyu.kanopy.com/video/modern-times] [Tractor Drivers / Трактористы (Mosfilm, Ivan Pyriev, dir. 1939)/watch?v=z7LglSy4B3w&list=PLZ4C3ggHWQOyuZ_NxM0R2SRt2Djua0-nK&index=157&t=440s]
The films depict the advent of the new era of organized labor, in which people were organized into groups to perform specific tasks that would result in large-scale production. This trend was a departure from the traditional labor forms, in which people only worked for subsistence. Society members had specific times for everything and no activity interfered with the performance of the other. For example, during the day, people were found in their farms, tilling land or harvesting their produce to eat and store some for the future. Pastoralists would wake up and take their animals to graze until in the evening, when they would come back home to harvest milk and other types of food. The afternoons were meant for relaxation partly because of the unfavorable weather. Evenings were meant for light duties as people prepared food for supper before resting at night. At night, people had enough time to interact with their children, share stories, plan for the next day, and then retire to bed. The cycle was repeated the following day and so forth.
This traditional system was more socialist in nature without class differences, in which people played their role in society building without interfering with other people’s affairs. However, introduction of capitalism formed the basis of the modern class struggles and work conditions. Capitalists introduced the concept to the people as a form of civilization, in which they argued that it was meant to help better the lives of the people. However, as Hayek notes, the civilization course took an unexpected turn and instead of the continuous progress that it had promised people, it has brought evil in societies, threatening them with the return of the past ages of barbarism. People now find themselves to be working more than they used to work. Many b...