Modern times - Chaplin predicted societal woes

THOSE of a certain age may recall watching, as children, Modern Times, a 1936 epic comedy film, written and directed by Charlie Chaplin, in which his iconic Little Tramp character struggles to survive in the modern, industrialised world. 

Chaplin was lampooning rapid industrialisation, but also making a serious comment on the strains of modern life, as well as the indignities wrought by unemployment during the Great Depression in the United States.

It is worth considering what the great comic might have done with road rage, or what might be termed ‘parking rage’. According to District Court Judge Aingil Ní Chondúin, “car parks bring out the worst in people”.

She was commenting on a case on Wednesday that involved a confrontation between two motorists attempting to access the same disabled parking space at Cork University Hospital. One took photographs of the other with her phone, who, in turn, grabbed it and threw it.

Chaplin’s commentary was prescient. More than 80 years later, the inner rage of modern living is more acute than ever.