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.

class warfare

As we look to the future of higher education, said the M.I.T. president, L. Rafael Reif, something that we now call a “degree” will be a concept “connected with bricks and mortar” — and traditional on-campus experiences that will increasingly leverage technology and the Internet to enhance classroom and laboratory work. Alongside that, though, said Reif, many universities will offer online courses to students anywhere in the world, in which they will earn “credentials” — certificates that testify that they have done the work and passed all the exams. tom friedman n y t 1-27-2013____________________________________________________________________ i wonder why tom is always so far behind the curve on these sorts of things...i took my first on line class from iu in the fall term of 2008...a labor history class to be exact...got an "a" too...all it really took was the ability to read the text and string two or three cogent paragraphs together that were germane to the topic...something like a more formal form of blogging...not that much of a stretch actually...and if there were credentials that came along with it i have yet to receive them ( not that i am one to dwell on credentials when so much of this life is an empirical sort of roller coaster that renders a good portion of formal learning irrelevant...they don't put that in the syllabus and it is doubtlessly an observation that some would roundly disagree with...but what do i know? )...some of the academics i know have embraced the on line university but most respond with reactions ranging from quiet unease to outright loathing with those farthest removed from computer science...liberal arts and humanities for instance...being the most outspoken proponents of classroom experience...all of which is fine and good but does not excuse tom form being such a plodding jerk or the engineering and technology centered geeks at mit from being patently biased about the value of on line learning...like all learning you only get out what you put in and i really need to see how they verify that each student has "done all the work and passed all the exams" when they only know them through a screen...my relationships with academics have not always been peaceful and loving but they were face to face and the amity and enmity as well as my grasp ( or lack thereof ) of the material were fairly plain to see...i am, in fact, enrolled in an on line class this semester and am fairly confident it will go well...but that doesn't mean i don't miss eye contact.

bads

"we still call it economic growth, or simply 'growth' in the confused belief that growth must always be economic. i contend that we have reached the economic limit to growth but we don't know it, and desperately hide the fact by faulty national accounting, because growth is our idol and to stop worshiping it is an anathema...i must confess surprise that denial has endured for forty years." herman e. daly. professor emeritus in the school of public policy, university of maryland.___________________________________________________________________ so why the denial about limits? and why the politically expedient cooked books? and why is growth an idol? it's not my idol...i believe in limits...social....cultural...economic...it's the hegemonic culture that is "hiding the fact by faulty national accounting"...i'm doing my best to decode the data and place it in context of an economy firmly embedded in the bioshpere and all the natural limits that entails, human ingenuity non withstanding...the hegemonic culture needs "growth" because it has developed a methodology of privatizing the benefits of that growth while socializing the costs...that is the basis of their position of wealth and privilege and the platform from which they inform us of their worldview and from which they propagandize us into thinking that it is our worldview and that it will benefit us all...that poverty can disappear through growth without sharing...they are, of course, lying through their teeth and laughing all the way to the bank while the "losers" keep on chasing the carrot...i am weary of the apologists for capitalism and "market mechanisms", techno-optimists and the rabid, greedy scum that people the stock exchange and investment banks...we all need material things to survive...goods if you will...but the system that produces those "goods" doesn't account for the "bads" it produces along with them...those are "externalities" and not subject to the scrutiny of public accountancy...enough...basta ya! it's time to ferret out the truth of our situation...build supportive communities...produce as much as we can on our own and utilize the consumerist utopia for what we need, not what someone else wants us to believe we need...in short a culture not an economy...that is a manifestly non-violent way to reduce the ruling oligarchy ( plutocracy? hamiltonian scam artists? pharaohs? brahmins? whatever you care to call them ) to irrelevance...to remove ourselves as far as possible from their worldview...take what you need from it and leave what aggrandizes them at our expense...it all starts in your neighborhood...not in theirs.

banking with bureaucrats

capital is infinitely flexible and adaptive with the "invisible hand" relentlessly regulating market mechanisms to keep supply and demand in equilibrium...that's why economists and their technocratic creatures accountants are so vital to the smooth functioning of the system...can't tell the players without a good set of well kept books...right? sure...and this is why on this balmy, climate change driven january day i find myself in receipt of a $0.28 check from j p morgan chase...drawn on the "disbursement clearing in trust for various mortgagors and various investors" division from columbus ohio...no doubt a few pennies that got misplaced in the whole payoff transaction business...let's see here...$0.45 in postage ( already the bureaucratic forms have cost them ) then there's the envelope and the cost of printing the check...and some low-level drone had to stuff it in the envelope and the sign off on a check sheet saying it had been stuffed...and then it had to be put in the mail and trans ported form ohio here to indiana and then stuffed in my mailbox by another bureaucratically controlled civil servant...this is becoming an expensive twenty-eight cent check and we haven't even gotten to the cost of cutting the tree, transporting it, pulping it, and rolling it into rolls which also had to be transported to some check paper printing and perforating the damned stub facility...yep...capital is flexible and knows how to adapt...no worries about the balmy january day or depleted resources or carrying capacity overshoot...they have the mentality to bring it under control.