In the winter of 1967, Donald Campbell, a British world land and water speed record breaker, attempted to regain his water speed record in the tranquil setting of Coniston Water in England’s Lake District. Having already rocketed to a spectacular speed of over 310 mph (500 km/h), Campbell decided to make an even faster second run immediately. Turning his jet-powered speedboat Bluebird into the stillness of the lake’s waters, he applied the throttle and accelerated, surging forward and reaching full velocity in a matter of seconds. Yet, unbeknown to Campbell’s team, who were stationed at one end of the lake measuring Campbell’s speed, something was amiss. Without warning, the boat catapulted out of control across the water, split into pieces and sank soon afterwards. Campbell’s body was not discovered until 2001, a full thirty-four years after the event.
Holder of multiple land and water speed world records, Campbell was not alone in his pursuit of supersonic speed. In reality, he was a speed pioneer and part of the modern age that had come to venerate the increase in speed, and one that enthusiastically viewed the notion of speed as a sign of technological advancement and success.
Notably in the Western world, this epoch was a period characterized by a restless energy that preyed on speed records and shortcuts. By the turn of the twentieth century, amid the intensification of modernization and the fervor of Frederick Winslow Taylor’s principles of scientific management and efficiency of the Ford production line, speed, along with the emergent values of individualism, utility, efficiency, productivity, competition, and consumption – spawned largely through the rise of high-speed capitalism had according to Jeremy Rifkin “risen into prominence as a value of Western society and was an important factor in the motivation of individuals.”
Not surprisingly, then, to be efficient, productive and fast were virtues that would come to define the national psyche of many rapidly industrializing, Western nations, particularly the United States of America. These emergent values would form the production power that would rapidly propel Western society towards a faster order of things, the implications of which have reached all areas of society, including farming, medicine, travel and education.
Today the cult of speed is all pervasive in our day to day lives but who notices and who cares? Could speed in its various guises from fast food to fast fashion and industrial farming to quick-fix anti-biotics be killing us slowly? We at the Slow Human have a sneaky suspicion this could be so. However, just like our little green friend in the pot of gently simmering water, we appear not to take heed.