…And in time” his voice rose – “there will come a generation that had got beyond facts, beyond impressions, a generation absolutely colorless, a generation “Seraphically free From taint of personality” which will see the French Revolution not as it happened… but as it would have happened had it taken place in the days of the Machine.” - Forster, page 70 (quote taken from “The Lark Ascending,” a poem by George Meredith) Free from taint of personality : “The Machine Stops” “The Machine Stops” is a striking short story about a possible dystopia where technology rules humans. A single machine controls almost every aspect of life and everyone lives in complete isolation. Forster manages to create a world surprisingly similar to ours. With the pandemic, most activities were moved online. Though our COVID world never reached the levels of isolation as described in “The Machine Stops,” descriptions about the lectures that Vashti attends seem eerily reminiscent of the non-sto...