The Carousel of Progress has survived many revolutions and it sits by itself on the edge of Tomorrowland, dramatically overshadowed by magic mountains and haunted houses and mermaid castles. It is a milestone in Walt Disney’s lifelong obsession with technology. He built it for the World’s Fair in 1965, he personally supervised every detail of it, it is a funky old pre-digital thing, a carousel that turns and reveals the wonders that technology has brought to us – running water, heat, electricity, refrigerators and electric stoves.
He insisted it be moved to Disney World and remain there, and he loved it so much his successors have honored his wishes, although I would not be surprised to see it vanish one day.
More than anything else in Disney World, it is a very personal reflection of Disney’s own experience of technology, he had a child-like awe of it, and very romantic notion of it: it would make the world a better, safer and more wonderful place. Disney was a very complex man, but his view of technology was not.
On the carousel, a stage turns and we follow a family and their dog as technology changes and improves their lives, and we all ending up singing about a better tomorrow. Technology has changed the world beyond even Disney’s brilliant imagination, but our view of it is more nuanced – it brings good things, it takes good things away.
Disney’s Midwestern idea about America seems pretty one-dimensional now, even saccharine, but in his lifetime it was very much true that technology radically altered the life of American families, and for the better. He saw his mother get running water so she didn’t have to walk to the well, and his family get heat and light. Those were big changes in his life.
Disney was a Midwesterner at heart, and a romantic. He revered science, and he thought engineers and scientists could make the world a nearly perfect place, and Disney World is a reflection of this simplistic and satisfying vision, one of the many reasons so many people love to go there. It is a lot more fun that reading the news.
Like a lot of people when they age, Disney did not change much in his later years, and he did not grasp how much America was changing or how much technology would run away faster than our ability to grasp it’s importance or keep up with it. I think it is precisely that nostalgic and simplistic view of technology – and of America – that people love so much about Disney World. It is a reassuring place, it speaks to values and dreams that were simpler, and it speaks to common ideas that are appealing in a country so polarized.
We know now that technology is, in fact, a powerful force, but the tragedy of technology is that it takes something away for everything it brings, that is the deal with the devil.
There was no suffocating “left” and “right” dominating politics in Disney’s time, just a people largely united around the idea of a country whose technology would brighten our future had no limit, and whose tomorrows would never stop getting better. You can see his passion for this idea in the Carousel Of Progress. May it stand forever.