An Industrialist Dream

We are stuck in an industrialist dream, and conservative winds are to blame. In a world rapidly approaching (never quite there) computed singularity, a cure to cancer, and answers to life's most basic questions, we sometimes get hung up on the things we are so used to. It is as though the air has settled, and the American empire is at the top of its game, and has no chance of decline. People go day to day, completing the same monotonous tasks over and over, such as working the same shift at a McDonald's from 8-4 everyday, or repeating small little tongue twisters over and over in an attempt to get the clearest and most efficient language as possible (believe me, this is very tedious work) without taking notice of the changing world around them.

Why, just last week I was sitting on my street corner in the ungodly hours of the morning patiently awaiting my 6 AM bus, and up to me walks a man with a satchel on that is severely weighing down his shoulder. When I inquired as to what was inside, he responded with a justification for why he was carrying what he was carrying without even explaining what it was in his pouch. After a moment I realized that he was carrying a typewriter inside, for as he explained it, "computers these days are just too hard to use, I wouldn't try to navigate that window thingy for my life! It is just too god damn complicated for me".

In all honesty it is not that hard to learn how to use a computer, he was just more used to his typewriter, and was unwilling to make the switch over to computed typing (I take solace in the fact that he will most likely never read this, for as we know, those window thingies are much to complicated for him). For the rest of his life he has concreted his reliance on a type writer. He has closed any possibility for escape, he has solidly resisted change.

Every great society has its typewriter moments, but I feel as though our current economic state, reeking of outdated economic policies and the same stale body odor of the big wigs that have haunted the halls of Congress since its establishment may be falling into a typewriter induced sleep, possibly, a monotonous industrialist dream....

There MUST be Time to Dream!

It has taken me until I have almost finished spending 3-4 full days locked up in my room doing school work to take to heart a story that Mr. O'Connor told us in class the other day. The way he told it he was given the opportunity to teach a foreign exchange student from Germany. When asked about her daily schedule, she said that she was let out of school at 1:30, and, in trying to explain her country's custom, uttered an intensely deep idea, that "there must be time to dream, no?". I realize now that she was correct; there must be time to dream. Yet here I sit silently, three to four days already past, rarely seeing the world outside of my desk, typing away at a blog-post that I hope will have some significance in someone's day when read. I can only hope to connect this idea to something larger... And then I think that I have it, what seems like a good connection to make, as it is not only me that is seemingly stuck in the past (for me the past few days of work, for America the past few decades of productivity).  In a country that so beautifully values efficiency, as well as craftsmanship, certain demands have been ceremonially put on those so fortunate as to be able to advance it. Although as we seemingly approach computer singularity, with our failing industrial economy at our feet, I can only help but wonder if we are advancing it at all. I read articles all the time by Slavoj Zizek who extols the idea that someday our cosmopolitan society will rid itself of capitalism, but I wonder when that day may come.

Is society at a halt, have we become much too used to the bindings of aversive, industrialized behavior? Do we need some time to dream, amid the clashing cogs of the machines we so fervently assemble? I say yes, but I question whether society as a whole can afford it, as whether or not I could afford myself a small break to write a blog post... ohh... wait.!

Protective Ignorance in Action: The Lost Opportunity of 9/11

"It was “the day that changed everything,” until it didn’t"

This line, one from an article by the great American journalist Frank Rich, puts into words the sentiment I feel every year on the anniversary of that fateful day. I have recently been appalled while reading some of my fellow classmates blog posts about the day, not because I feel as though their beliefs are incorrect, or that in any way I disagree with them as to THEIR personal significance for the day, but only because I believe that as a society, one of the people, by the people, and for the people, we misinterpret the meaning of such an important day.

I am talking of course, about the anniversary, recently past, of the bombing, by plane, of the World Trade Center, as well as the Pentagon, and an unsuccessful plane full of passengers whom, in their bravery, died trying to fight and deter those extremists who saw it fit to send a message to a once great nation (however long past this may be I will not speculate in this post). As Frank points out, "the hallowed burial grounds of 9/11 were supposed to bequeath us a stronger nation, not a busted one". I would like to believe that he meant for this sentence to signify the wake up call for American ignorance that still, to this day, plagues the majority of our population.

Now, what exactly I mean by saying American ignorance, I will try to sum up in as few words as possible (obviously not an all encompassing statement, but my try at simplification of a complex idea), if I were to define it, I would say this: American ignorance is an ethnocentric point of view, that is not aware of the cultural doom that ensues when it is assumed that the entire world wants to be Americanized. I feel as though this definition is at the root of the many problems that we as Americans have a hard time understanding. There is an explanation for everything, a sub-textual motive behind every action, and 9/11 is no exception to this rule. When I asked a friend of mine the other day why he believed the "terrorists" decided to commit the horrors that he did, he responded that it was because they hated America, yet when I probed deeper, it seemed as though he could not understand why, or at least justify why they would hate America, it is such a great place, right?

Wrong. I sometimes have trouble understanding these points of view, ones that do not get down to the nitty and gritty of intent/motivation/subtextualization and really try to understand a scenario, as nothing in the world is as black and white as "it is because they hate America". There are reasons they resent American policy, ways that they have been effected that we have not. The real fallacy of this event has not been the patriotic "United Nation" but the inability of a massive amount of the population to ask why the event happened. We stood behind a shield of exceptionalism while the international community quivered at the feet of our war mongering leaders. "The 9/11 decade is now over. The terrorists lost. But who won?" (Rich, link to article here: http://nymag.com/news/9-11/10th-anniversary/frank-rich/ )

The Scientific Shortfalls of Capitalism: An Empathetic Look at Offensive Realism in Society

Recently I have been having long periods of extended thought which come of a small observation I make, and snowball into tangential analyses about this and that subject which by the end really do not relate to the topic at hand. As I was reading Joseph Figura's post about the inability to question the morality of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, http://joeais.blogspot.com/2011/09/morality-of-consumption.html, I started to think about whether or not the basic assumptions of capitalism can remain valid. Having read a large amount of basic capitalist literature, I can surmise that all of the arguments in favor of a "free trade fixes all" type model really boil down to two basic tenants:

The human drive for a "free" capitalist system is one that is based in a framework of inevitable greed and biological competition based on instinct

At first, I feel compelled to believe that biologically we are wired to fight offensively against each other in order to gain an upper hand, from what the institutions that have previously developed our knowledge base always said was that natural selection is the rule of the law in relation to evolution. The problem with this theory is that the reasoning is completely circumstantial and not truly based in science, just a hypothesis never actually tested (although logically it does make sense - the logic being based on what we have been told by other inoculated beings). Up until this point, I felt trapped within the system, a single mind within 6 billion that understood that the current system where the rich are allowed free rain to push the poor through the gutter, disabling my prerogative to act in opposition to it. It just felt overwhelming. 

My friend Alex showed me this video, it is a scientific study done by the Royal Society for the Arts that highlights an assumption that people make about biological realism is inherently flawed. We are actually hardwired to be empathic, and understanding towards each other, and that a cosmopolitan and connected society are actually the next step in the development of society.

This came as a surprise to me.

I used to believe the stories I was told about the harsh and cold nature of evolution, but now that I have some evidence for comparison I see it as a slightly more subject theory. To somewhat tie it back to the original idea, I do think that good actions are somewhat not morally corrupt, but to assume that capitalism when used correctly cannot be questioned allows a slightly higher threshold for disagreement, I would encourage anyone who would like to contribute thoughts to this post to comment, as I am going to be writing about capitalism on a regular basis. I am sure of this.