praxis

“the objective of all human arrangements is through distracting one’s thoughts to cease to be aware of being alive.”-fred nietzsche______________________________________ ________ i almost agree…arrangements take advantage of human nature (yes there is one despite the social sciences’ aversion to the idea )to induce one to “cease to be aware” of the negative impact of some situations and surroundings on the individual psyche…however one is certainly aware of being alive…and awareness of the negative impact has the capacity to return...the “arrangements” duration can vary and the anesthesia can fail…my visceral loathing of my place of employment is never so vivid as when i am in the parking lot waiting to go in…one supposes this is common since the concept of “work” or, rather “job” ( which we will define as paid work ) is unnatural and alienating ( in this marx was correct )…and yet, once the day has started this loathing fades into insignificance…however only if there is sufficient praxis ( and we will use the aristotelian definition of “goal oriented activity” rather than some kantian, or worse marxist , application of an apriori theory to events…we will be inductive and hypothesize from experience…empiricism only ) to focus the attention…to induce tunnel vision that makes the loathing, along with most other negative issues, fade…should the supply of praxis ( work ) be insufficient to last the day’s shift loathing can return in pre-praxis levels…when one’s attention is focused on work one is still well aware of being alive…particularly if the work involved is of a complex nature…awareness is focused but awareness exists…routinized, habitual work may allow the mind to wander…even back to loathing, however, usually, if the mind wanders too far the work demands a refocusing of attention…even habitual work has contingencies that can be violated…and one has to wonder exactly how aware of this facet of human nature capital is and how much it actually depends on it to have its necessities ( mostly profit ) seen to…another case of a human trait being subverted and applied to a purpose that may actually be inimical to one’s wellbeing…whether that would be psychological ( loathing is a defense against toxic situations ), physical, or both…one wonders just how much capitalism has “done for us”…and how much it has taken.

biotic corporatese

“stores remain an integral part of our omnichannel retail ecosystem”________________________ that overwrought statement comes from a press release from a “retail giant” announcing the now routine closing of “brick and mortar” stores…aside from wondering what committee is assigned the task of thinking this final vocabulary up ( and it is nothing If not final vocabulary ) i am inclined to think it is also an extension of the systematic attempt to make corporations biotic…alive…like the use of the term “ corporate dna “, “retail ecosystem” attributes living characteristics to an anthropogenic structure attempting to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts…which is a necessity since some of the parts are vanishing…the propaganda slant is that the vanishing is engendering a “healthier” situation…relativistic…does “healthier “ mean a more stable financial situation or is it symptomatic of “ecosystem” failure? the corporate “ecosystem” has become far more complex than its beginnings would have indicated… when the republic was young corporations were chartered for a specific purpose ( say road or canal building ) and for a limited duration ( once the road was complete the corporation ceased to exist )…they could not own other corporations or assets unrelated to their chartered purpose, nor could they make political or charitable donations ( no owned senators or corporate pr about how wonderful they are because of their good works as they take all the money they can )…not anymore…corporations are now recognized as “individuals” invested with rights ( one wonders about where the ”obligations” that generally are listed with “rights” have gotten to in this case ) and they behave like “individuals”, some of whom display a marked sociopathy in their self-interest…in their relentless approach to competitors ( especially smaller ones ) and their disregard for laws that might limit their prerogatives in seeking profit ( this i can document from personal experience…and here we encounter the suspension of early prohibitions in the area of political donations…money and power are fungible and money can make things disappear as well as appear )…and the ethics of seeking that profit are shaky at best…there is a singular focus on credit, especially in-house credit with a good deal of propaganda concerning the benefits while concealing the costs ( frankly i think debt is a national political agenda…a fair portion of the political establishment finds social spending an anathema and that would be because it mitigates at least part of what would be debt for the less privileged among us…debt is the only thing that makes new money [interest] and debt peonage where all the polity can afford to do is service interest on their debt in perpetuity is capital’s dream state of affairs ) and they spare no expense on advertising ( read propaganda again ) that subverts the consumer’s sense of value by striving to convert the discretionary into the necessary…corporations are not sociopaths...they are a legal screen ( and defense ) for the authoritarian ( admit it, all corporate structures are top-down authoritarian regimes and any leadership that they puke out into the public sphere is bound to be of an authoritarian bent ) sociopaths who create and control them…capital loves money and will go to almost any lengths to acquire as much as they can because ( again ) money and power are fungible…we all need to consume to survive and i am not innocent of “discretionary spending” that is not directly tied to subsistence ( clearly so since I am posting this on a website via a computer on my desk…that’s a start )…we are all embedded in “the system” and extrication is not a simple matter since some of what was once discretionary has actually become necessary…gasoline for instance…or electrical power…what can you do without electricity? my neighborhood empties out when there is an outage as people seek television and free wi-fi…we’re all wired in…opting out is a challenge.