Propaganda at it's best

I had never really been exposed to Charly Chaplin before watching this film, and so when I first saw his character with a square mustache I instantly thought of Hitler.  Modern Times came out in 1936 - only a few years before the entire world is at war with the Axis powers, and so I made a connection (probably an incorrect connection after our discussion in class) that this video is a call to action, encouraging all of America to be more industrious and not be a fool like Hitler.  In fact, only Hitler is such a fool that he needs help feeding himself.  And then!  We'll have the machine malfunction so that we can humiliate him in the process.

It kind of reminds me of the educational philosophy from a few years prior, apparent in Bing Cosby's song, Swinging on a Star:

...Would you like to swing on a star, carry moonbeams home in a jar.  And be better off than you are, or would you rather be a mule!

...if you hate to go to school, you may grow up to be a mule...

...if you don't care a feather or a fig, you may grow up to be a pig...

...if then that sort of life is what you wish, you may grow up to be a fish...

...and all the monkeys aren't in the zoo, everyday you see quite a few.  So you see it's all up to you.  You could be better than you are, you could be swinging on a star.

The world is swinging back to a meaning based culture!  Where your own ingenuity is what brings you success.  The world can be a better place if you're smart enough and apply yourself!  You can be swinging on a star if you just go to school!  Leonard Huxley (1894-1963) took this pendulum swing down a slippery slope and wrote a future-based novel about how unrestrained technology would turn the world into feeling-less robots.  We'd have baby making factories that produced the exact number of children each state needed.  There was even a setting to adjust the cognitive firepower of the people it kicked out!  Huxley's warning is against completely scientifically constructed societies that targets humanistic achievements, such as literature, art, and religion.