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- Xref: sparky alt.support:1239 misc.jobs.misc:5956
- Newsgroups: alt.support,misc.jobs.misc
- Path: sparky!uunet!paladin.american.edu!darwin.sura.net!news.udel.edu!brahms.udel.edu!bew
- From: bew@brahms.udel.edu (Ben Williams)
- Subject: Re: life and work
- Message-ID: <Bt6vGx.4BF@news.udel.edu>
- Summary: How to be a good little cog...
- Keywords: bad memes
- Sender: Ben Williams
- Nntp-Posting-Host: brahms.udel.edu
- Organization: University of Delaware
- References: <9208042336.AA12811@apple.com> <1992Aug6.174731.12324@eskimo.celestial.com>
- Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 17:05:21 GMT
- Lines: 51
-
-
- In article <1992Aug6.174731.12324@eskimo.celestial.com> kurt@eskimo.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrum) writes:
- A very good article on life and work...
-
- Kurt, thanks for your excellant post on some of the philosophical underpinnings
- of our "work ethic." As I've stated in my e-mail message to you, I am very
- interested in reading the essay you mentioned.
- I hope that Bob Black's essay, "The Abolition of Work" talks about
- things we should all be talking about. Such as the way our society makes us
- all feel worthless and degraded if we aren't "working". We are all born
- guilty (is it perhaps the Christian "original sin" turned into the service
- of the capitalistic mega-machine known as America). And what ultimately does
- this Work we must all do to be able to redeem ourselves accomplish: the
- destruction of the natural world, the turning of it into artifacts that allow
- us to escape. What? The dinning noise of the mega-machine going about its
- business of destroying the world. Its seems to me that the more people who
- choose (or are forced to) not work, the better are the chances of the human
- race surviving (note to prospective employers - just a little joke, eh :-).
- I can't overemphasize the importance I see in this idea of our
- capitalistic society's need to bring up its members as little cogs in the
- "great machine". How does it do this: By defining you as a worthless
- nothing if you are not working. Thus we are all born and grow up with the
- idea that we are inherently without value. You think I am kidding? Ok,
- quit your job (if you are lucky enough to have one) and walk down the
- street and think, I feel OK about my life, about who I am and what I am.
- Just don't talk to any of your friends. They might ask you what you have
- been "doing" lately...
- Now look at the state of the world today. Does it sometimes remind you
- of one big stinking pigsty (my apologies to the little pre-bacon bits).
- Well, this is what you get from a group of people who know that deep down
- inside they are all ultimately worthless. That they are basically nothing
- without their little plug into the great economic dream (nightmare) of
- America.
- But where can you talk about things that are so fundamentally
- important? Well, perhaps alt.conspiracy, since we don't want people in
- general going and using their individual intelligences, for gods sake
- (don't you love the way the Internet tries to break down thought into
- little categories). Don't let them in on the little secret, that its all a
- big farce. It wouldn't be good for the economy you know...
-
- Ben (sorry, I tend to rant sometimes).
-
- ps - Dear employers. You see what happens when people are unemployed and
- have idle time to "THINK." They start having crazy thoughts like this.
- You've got to help put a stop to this MADNESS!!!
-
- --
- Ben Williams
- bew@brahms.udel.edu
-
- What we got here is a failure to communicate...
-