Their youth and strength guide them
with thundering voices
toward speed and technology
and rigid, razor rails of industrialization.
All hail the city!
Let us applaud the automobile!
Glory be to the airplane!
They long for our flag to wave high
above the sooty stacks
lest it stay bright
but black and heavy
forevermore.
There are basically two forms of evolution, evolving the body of the animal to adapt, or to evolve extensions of the body, called technology (which means that man may be the most rapidly evolving creature on the planet). The fact that the creature has not mastered its own form of evolutionary development at a particular time in its history, does not negate it as a valid form of evolution.
Now the animal that evolves its body proper, cannot discard or create those changes fast enough to avoid extinction, however, the animal that evolves extensions of its body, can cast them off or even create them, provided he has sense enough to, at will. However, if it casts off its ability to evolve, its primal method of evolving, . . . . . . well, it ceases to evolve and becomes an evolutionary dead end, at the mercy of its environment–which means it has lost the will to live.
The problem is that man does not yet realize that technology is exo-evolution. Man can barely see past his nose.