Discuss the factory in connection with spaces and subjects of modernity - Essay Example

The introduction of the factories into the modern landscape led to a fundamental shift in the fabric of society worldwide. Because of their more efficient, mechanized production techniques, the resulting products were less expensive in terms of time and money than similar products created by hand in the cottage industries of the surrounding rural societies. Also, because the factories could begin operations before dawn and continue running until later in the evening, they had more time in which to produce these products.

This had the effect of bringing the prices down to the point where the cottage industries could no longer afford to stay in business and individuals were forced to come into the cities to find work – namely, at the factories. The factories, in order to keep track of their employees to pay them appropriately, artificially divided the day into shifts, including the day shift, night shift and graveyard shift. Through the use of this convention, factory workers began identifying themselves as a part of a crowd rather than an individual being.

In addition, they no longer had the power to order their day according to their individual biorhythmic schedules as they might have done in the small towns and farms, but were expected to conform to the rigorous routine espoused by the corporation. This objectification was further emphasized within the factory by the mechanistic work structures and the tendency to reward those individuals who “caught on” quickest to changes and adaptations. Georg Simmel (1903) wrote that this practice within the factory served to make each individual only a mere cog in the wheel, interchangeable at their work stations, yet indispensable in that perhaps only a few people knew how to operate that particular piece of machinery or that part of the production line.

In this latter sense, each man was also dependent on the others to get their jobs completed. Within this mechanized world, money emerged as the common denominator of all values. The more you have, the more individuality you are afforded within this metropolitan system. This wasn’t a new concept, but was further emphasized within the factories with the designation of shirt colors, as in white collar worker for those individuals who were in the upper tiers of the workfloor and blue collar workers for those who were expected to get dirty in the performance of their work – in other words, the drones.

Within this culture, the emphasis is placed on the objective worldview, in which everyone fits within a specific classification and must behave accordingly. This objective culture is defined as the collection of rules, tools, symbols and products that are created by human beings to help control human beings.The subjective refers to those aspects of the objective culture that an individual has been able to integrate into their lives based on their own set of ideals, morals, ethics and values.

Although metropolitan life places the utmost value on the objective culture, insisting that everyone follow the same drumbeat, the subjective culture, which is reached through expressions of art such as the cinema and the exhibition, resists such pigeonholing.In conjunction with the growth of the factories and the advancement in technologies, today’s culture has the chance to experience the industrial sublime. “The industrial sublime implies a machine large enough to be a mesmerizing part of the landscape and powerful enough to kill you” (Fox, 2001).

These superstructures inspire such awe that we are unable to maintain connection with the subjective self and instead stand transfixed at the power of the collective to achieve such grandiose constructions. ReferencesFox, William L. (April 2001). “The Energy Fix.” Las Vegas Life Magazine. Accessed 15 January, 2006 from < http://www.lvlife.com/2001/04/feature_the_energy_fix.html>.