The Air Conditioned Nightmare - The Treadmill

A further passage from Henry Miller's, The Air Conditioned Nightmare.

'The saddest sight of all the is automobiles parked outside the mills and factories. The automobile stands out in my mind as the very symbol of falsity and illusion. There they are, thousands upon thousands of them, in such profusion that it would seem as if no man were too poor to own one. In Europe, Asia, Africa the toiling masses of humanity look with watery eyes towards this Paradise where the worker rides to work in his own car. What a magnificent world of opportunity it must be, they think to themselves. (At least we like to think that they think that way!) they never ask what they must do to have this great boon. They don't realize that when the American worker steps out of his shining tin chariot he delivers himself body and soul to the most stultifying labour a man can perform. They have no idea that it is possible, even when one works under the best possible conditions, to forfeit all rights as a human being. They don't know that the best possible conditions (in American lingo) mean the biggest profits for the boss, the utmost servitude for the worker, the greatest confusion and disillusionment for the public in general. They see a beautiful shining car which purrs like a cat; they see endless concrete roads so smooth and flawless that the driver has difficulty keeping awake: they see cinemas which look like palaces; they see department stores with mannequins dressed like princesses. They see glitter and paint, the baubles, the gadgets, the luxuries; they don't see the bitterness in the heart, the scepticism, the cynicism, the emptiness, the sterility, the despair, the hopelessness which is eating up the American worker. They don't want to see this - they are full of misery themselves. They want a way out; they want the lethal comforts, conveniences, luxuries. And they follow in our footsteps -blindly, heedlessly, recklessly..................
But we look at these bad dreams constantly with eyes open and when someone remarks about it we say, 'yes, that's right, that's how it is!' and we go about our business or we take to dope, the dope which is worse by far than opium or hashish - I mean the newspapers, the radio, the movies. Real dope gives you the freedom to dream your own dreams: the American kind forces you to swallow the perverted dreams of men whose only ambition is to hold their job regardless of what they are bidden to do.
The most terrible thing about America is that there is no escape from the treadmill which we have created.'