Charlie Chaplin Swallowed by a Factory Machine — Modern Times (1936)
The classic 1936 movie "Modern Times", directed and starred by Charlie Chaplin, is a satirical take on the industrialization and modernization of society in the early 20th century. The iconic scene of the Tramp (played by Chaplin) being swallowed up by the cogs of the factory's machine illustrates the movie's main critique: man has been eaten alive by the machine. The technology that should benefit humanity has instead mechanized human behavior and thrown men out of work, all in the name of progress and profit.
For all its satirical tone, the movie ends on a positive note of hope and optimism. Towards the end of the film, when Paulette Goddard's character Gamin is hopeless and questions whether it is even worth trying when all they are going to get is disappointment and poverty in return, Chaplin encourages her to smile. The last frame is another poignant moment of optimism, with the Tramp and the Gamin, arm-in-arm, walking down a road in the countryside looking at the sun rising on the horizon. Two free spirits in a world of automation. Two playmates opting to preserve their humanity in a modern and chaotic world.
Fast forward almost 100 years and our modern times now have a tone of pessimism, if not despair. Our digital age looks more like the horror movie Frankenstein than Chaplin's Modern Times.
The Magician's Bargain
The industrialization and technological advancements that took place during the late 19th and early 20th centuries rapidly transformed society, resulting in increased productivity and efficiency but also in the displacement of many workers by machines. The Age of Machine, as that period came to be called, was marked by machines replacing humans in the execution of manual and repetitive tasks. The machine could eat the man alive, to borrow Chaplin's iconography, but man and machine were still two separate entities.
After Chaplin gets swallowed alive by the machine, he comes out in complete "madness", dancing ballet and lubricating his fellow workers with an oil can. Although this scene can be interpreted in different ways, the analogy to human resistance is undeniable. Like Jonah in the belly of the whale, Chaplin spat out transfigured and ready to undertake his mission of human resistance. After all, man still has a soul, the creative power to dance, and the willpower to not conform. Man is still an individual separate from "the beast".
The transformations of the 21st century are much more profound and disturbing. In our digital age, the problem is no longer replacement (machines replacing man), but rather inseparability, the fusion of mind and machine. Instead of "dancing ballet" in resistance, we have willingly given up our souls and our humanity in exchange for the benefits provided by the machine: power, money, followers, fame…you name it. Unknowingly, we have accepted the magician's bargain: give up our souls, get power in return. But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power conferred will not belong to us.
The Abolition of Man
How did we get to this point?
How did we lose our souls in the span of less than a century?
In Chaplin's Modern Times, the Tramp and Gamin bond over their loneliness and their shared humanity. And this is what gives them the resilience and hope to walk forward despite the chaos of the world. In our modern times, we have lost our shared humanity, and here lies the danger that could lead to the destruction of humanity itself. Humanity can not exist in a vacuum. It only exists in the presence of others.
One can blame technology for making us more isolated and disconnected from our shared humanity. But let's not forget that technology is a tool and, as with any tool, will perform according to the will of those controlling it. Technology has deepened our detachment from each other, but it has not caused it. The source of the problem is men giving up their own share in the traditional humanity in order to devote themselves to the task of deciding what "Humanity" shall mean.1
In his book The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis discusses the concept of the Tao - a term he borrows from Chinese philosophy to describe the universal moral law that has governed human behavior since ancient times. Drawing from the main traditions and different cultures across history, Lewis shows us that the Tao is not a set of rules or commandments created by men, but rather a natural law that is discovered and recognized by human reason and intuition. As he puts it “the human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of imagining a new primary color, or, indeed, of creating a new sun and a new sky for it to move in.”2
C.S. Lewis argues that our over-reliance on rationalism and a lack of emphasis on moral education have led to a society without moral foundations or any sense of objective truth. Such a society breeds a culture of moral relativism, where individuals make decisions based solely on their subjective preferences, rather than any objective standards of right and wrong grounded in the natural law. Without a foundation of objective moral truth, society becomes increasingly relativistic and individualistic, losing its shared humanity. By rejecting traditional values, virtues, and ethics that make us human, modern man has stepped into the void, ceasing to be a man (body, mind, and soul) and becoming an artifact, an image created after his own concept.
In our digital age, the existential threat is not artificial intelligence overtaking ordinary people, but rather ordinary people giving up their share in traditional humanity. Like Chaplin going mad, we must resist. Our act of resistance is our opposition to a culture of narcissism and moral relativism. It is the celebration of our shared humanity by reclaiming the wholeness of humans and bringing God back into the center. Only a free human spirit can break out of its confinements.
C.S. Lewis (2020). The Abolition of Man (p. 25). Diana Publishing.
C.S. Lewis (2020). The Abolition of Man (p. 16). Diana Publishing.
fun fact: Chaplin's film set for Modern Times was entirely man-made because he too was rebelling the rising technology of his time!