reading nietzsche

"at bottom one now, when confronted by work, and what is invariably meant is relentless industry from early until late, that such work is the best police, that it keeps everybody in harness and powerfully obstructs the development of reason, of covetousness of the desire for independence. for it uses up a tremendous amount of nervous energy and takes it away from reflection, brooding, dreaming, worry, love and hatred; it always sets a small goal before one's eyes and permits easy and regular satisfactions." frederick nietzsche. "the dawn"___________________ i'm not sure fred's quite nailed it down here...he has some of the elements, but it seems to be more of a statement of nietzshe's distaste for factory work ( and, by extension, i am assuming factory workers ) than an unbiased assessment of the state of the worker...the need to work does indeed direct " a tremendous amount of nervous energy" away from lengthy reflection on a system that is extractive ( some would say extortionist ) to the core and based on the few enjoying wealth at the cost of the many ( despite what thorsten veblen and fucking ayn rand say )...but work is symptomatic of a consumerist system that is the real policeman...it does not place "a small goal before one's eyes and permit easy and regular satisfactions"...rather it engineers desires for more and larger...for new and novel...and it seeks to preserve itself by engendering an imperative of competitive consumption as the path to social status across the whole spectrum of society...from highest to lowest "more" is instilled as the greatest ethical good which keeps people working...marvin harris maintained that debt was the prime mover of the west's cultural materialism but i am inclined to think that "more" is the imperative and that is the true source of debt and is the mechanism that impels the system...economic obligation based on consumerist competition is what shackles us to work...that it serves to keep people in line is a bonus for the elites who putatively control things ( that they are embedded in an ecosystem is something their economists have dissembled to them about and all that ignorance is about to come home to roost in smaller everything including wealth...everything carries the seeds of its own destruction...capitalism too )...old fred has a lot to say about the angst and alienation that characterizes industrial work in his writings ( as a classicist he seems to also have a gross fear of anything "modern" ) but i believe they are based more on a traditional german romantic ( nietzsche is nothing if not a romantic ) abhorrence of the industrial revolution and all that entailed rather than its impact on working masses.

fuck tom friedman

globalization apologist, booster, propagandist...world class jerk

abstraction vs. satisfaction

friday was a furlough day where i work...no paid work...at least not paid in the abstract representation of work called money...there was payment in the form of satisfaction, however...the intent behind money is to represent work sanctioned by an economic elite...work that buttresses its position of power and privilege...work that extracts money from the economy without supporting the elite ( what would be termed "vice for instance ) is deemed illegal and negatively sanctioned...money is simply a tool of the elite made basic to everyone because it is the only way to obtain basic needs in a consumer society, just as debt ( also a buttress to the elite ) is the positively sanctioned way of buying upward mobility ( or, at least, the pretense of upward mobility )...satisfaction is something the elite works hard to eliminate through media propaganda that creates engineered desire ( a buttress to debt ) because it is a basic threat to money...it can be obtained by the lower orders without engaging in any activity either positively sanctioned or deemed illegal so it subverts the entire money/desire/debt paradigm...primarily mental and connected to some form of constructive activity it falls beyond the influence of money...i went out to the local extension campus of indiana university and visited with friends in the archives and checked on my research garden there...then i went out and photographed some peri-urban agricultural fields i have been monitoring this past year then headed home to upload the photos and do some writing...true they were all activities connected to the consumer economy by their use of energy...but they were low cost and non debt producing and my mental outlook was vastly improved...i had a good time with no physical exchange of cash and without bringing home any of those holy of holies for the elite...consumer goods...i'm planning more subversive activities, like visiting my granddaughter, soon.

megacity

"in 2052 most of the world's population will live in big cities...the big cities will be divided into two types of communities, as they are today. the center ( or multiple centers ) will be part of the industrialized world, with adequate infrastructure. the periphery will be huge shantytowns basically without infrastructure. there will be 'cities of gold' on a 'planet of slums'...the huge populations in the megacities of 2052 will be part of the global community. still, most people will live their lives as part of a local community that will form the stable frame for their daily lives. the local community will gain importance for most people as the main source of their identity rather than the megacity itself. the multi-center structure will facilitate the cultivation of specific cultural traditions..." per arild garnasjordet and lars hem.___________________________ humans have been on the planet for about a million years and some of them have lived in cities for about five thousand...i have to wonder what in those nine hundred ninety-five thousand years of evolution has equipped them to pack themselves together in high-rise buildings ringed by atrocious slums...i can see where economic drivers will spell the end of the cul-de-sac and zoysia grass lawns sprawling further and further into rural areas...the advent of liquid fuels with less efficiency and much lower energy density than current fossil fuels ( you have to burn about four times as much ethanol as gasoline to do the same work...something the national corn growers boosterism for "corn based ethanol" is silent about...that and the impact it has on food prices ) will spell the end of the long-distance commute from suburbia for all but those with the wealth and the hankering to rusticate...but what in a history of foraging and nomadic pastoralism prepared people for megacity sedentism? well...there may be a hint in what garnasjoret and hem have to say and it's the part about the " multi-center structure" allowing "cultivation of specific cultural traditions"...some anthropologists i know say that culture is "everything humans do"...i am inclined to see it as problem solving...creating uses for a given area's assets and adaptations for its limits...it may be economics that drive future populations into sprawling slums as opposed to sprawling gated communities ( although i am willing to wage those won't readily disappear...just be closer to the slums...more heavily gated as well ) but it will be a tradition of cultural adaptation to local conditions that hold them together ( if anything can hold them together ) and make them livablr at all.