Carrol Cox:
> And since the meaning of "middle class" is entirely subjective -- that is,
> since it does not hold the same connotation (Mill's use) for almost
> any two writers or readers, what the book is essentially about is nothing
> at all.
When I first heard of this, I thought it was a mere entertainment, like televised bungee-jumping, but given some of the uses of it I've seen here, I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't either an artifact of propaganda in favor of unrestrained, continuous industrialism for its own sake ("progress") or the mass-media equivalent of a troll.
Obviously, conditions in 1900 were in no way pre-industrial or non-technological, and in any case no serious conclusion can be drawn about people from a hundred years later being easily able to accustom themselves to its peculiarities.
But this is the carping voice of the skeptic.