Combines and Conciousness

Since the latter half of my last post already expounds upon Ong’s statement that “more than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness” (78), I will dive right into evaluating the impact of another invention upon human awareness. Having been raised in the boondocks of Illinois, I will use the combine as my example.
Named so because it “combines” the processes of harvesting, threshing, and cleaning crops, the combine was introduced to the world in 1838, though it was many years before it became a widely-used machine. Yet once the costs of production came down enough to make it an affordable investment, it completely revolutionized the farming industry.
According to most statistics, in the mid 1930s, over 40% of the American workforce was employed in farming. Today, that number is below two percent - and much of that progress can be attributed to the introduction of the combine. Thus far, however, I have only discussed it’s physical affects; yet it must be made clear that this invention (as all inventions are wont to do) forever changed human consciousness. But how, you might ask?
The influence of the combine on human consciousness might not be as visible as that of other inventions, but with every phenomenon, one must evaluate both the seen and the unseen consequences of everything. By allowing the process of farming to become exponentially faster, the creative energies of hundreds of thousands of farmers were freed up, thus giving them the opportunity to apply these energies to other uses. Though the transition might have been rough in the beginning, and obviously caused a lot of unemployment in the beginning, these temporary hardships have allowed not only the US, but the world to achieve a higher standard of living today.