The modern city lies at the heart of our lives. Such are the various working-people's quarters of Manchester as I had occasion to observe them personally during twenty months. If we briefly formulate the result of our wanderings, we must admit that 350,000 working-people of Manchester and its environs live, almost all of them, in wretched, damp, filthy cottages, that the streets which surround them are usually in the most miserable and filthy condition, laid out without the slightest reference to ventilation, with reference solely to the profit secured by the contractor. He wrote in a time far more human, more spiritual, and more connected to nature than our own. If Engels' had the misfortune to live in our time, he would see that our living conditions are, if anything, even worse.
People today have dreadful conveniences, that make life easier and remove all struggle and meaning.
Coupled with the modern removal from nature that we suffer from, far more pronounced than it was in Engels' time, and we have a populace and culture that is becoming increasingly existential, even if it doesn't realise it. As an existentialist, I am for the absence of meaning that we must bear - it is the only intelectually honest approach. However, I fear that there is a coming apocalypse, as the masses that compose our modern urban society are no longer spiritual and no longer seek or know meaning. They only think they do. This means that they are due a reckoning, as one day, perhaps soon, they shall wake up from their corporate, media induced sleep and realise how little they know, and what little they believe in.