> Mead: You know that you’re in control of it. The American attitude toward the machine is that it's something we make and it’s something we can fix. In fact, American men like it in a state of continual breakdown so they can fix it, I’m inclined to think. But, all the way, from sort of, futuristic and cubistic, kind of painting and attitudes in World War I, and after World War I, in Europe, [there’s] this fear of the machine. And either the dynamism of the machine so you and your plane dive to death, or some nonsense, or, that the machine was going to take over, was much stronger. But in the average American, this is not [the case]. And most of these people were Americans.

World War 1 brought death in Europe on an industrial scale, metered out by artillery and the machine [gun]. Might explain Europeans' attitudes to 'the machine'.