MANIFESTO (a.k.a. Working jobs we hate, so we can buy shit we dont need)

Έτσι δημιουργούνται οι ενοχές; Επειδή προσπαθούμε να κάνουμε και να νιώσουμε αυτό που επιτάσσει το περιβάλλον; Ποιος προσπαθεί περισσότερο; Αυτός που περιμένει την επιβεβαίωση από εξωτερική πηγή; Μήπως η υγιής υποτακτική;

Ανατροφή των παιδιών και εκπαίδευση, γονείς και δάσκαλοι. Άρα γιατί στο άρθρο 18 μας λέει ο ευφυής βομβιστής ότι δεν φταίει το περιβάλλον; Δεν περίμενα να του βρω λάθος και να χυμήξω, απλά κάνει λάθος. Nature vs nurture δεν είναι ένα άλυτο ερώτημα, το ένα δεν μπορεί να είναι exclusive του άλλου, η απάντηση λειτουργεί συνδυαστικά (το έχουμε συζητήσει εκτενώς στο παρελθόν με αρκετούς από εσάς, ας μην επανέλθουμε γιατί θα ανασύρω όλες τις έρευνες με τους διδύμους που γνωρίζω και θα καραφλιάσετε πλήρως).

 

Δηλαδή είμαστε rats. Καλά, αυτό το ξέρουμε εδώ και δεκαετίες.

Α ρε Hirohito, δεν είχες φροντιστήρια των παιδιών να πληρώσεις, ούτε την ασφάλεια του αυτοκινήτου. Πόσο θα μου άρεσε να έχω surrogate activities από ανία, ταξίδια D και ξε-D έτσι, απλά για να περνάει η ώρα. Βαρέθηκα πια το κυνήγι, άσε που οι αλεπούδες είναι συμπαθέστατα ζωάκια.

Κι αν δεν έχουν, ας τους δώσουμε. Ποδόσφαιρο ας πούμε (η χούντα μας ήταν πολύ ανεβασμένη σ’ αυτά τα ψυχολογικά, τους τα έδιναν τα Αμερικανάκια μάλλον).

Με αυτό το σκεπτικό, το BDSM δεν είναι απαραίτητο, αρκεί να γαμάμε και να γαμιόμαστε, να αγαπάμε και να αγαπιόμαστε. Perv και βανίλα να παραμείνουν παρακαλώ, όλοι οι υπόλοιποι, φετιχιστές και TPE practitioners αποβάλλεστε στη χώρα του Hirohito. Αναγκαστικά ακολουθώ. Καλά μου τάλεγε η φιλενάδα μου ότι αρκεί να είμαστε μισότρελα παρτάλια (γιατί όμως κλαίει τότε τα βράδια; )

Τα σάρωσε όλα ο Σταχτοπούτος και τα έκρυψε κάτω από το χαλάκι μη τα βρει η κακιά μητριά. Να ξαναγυρίζαμε μήπως στην Αρχαία Ελλάδα, να συζητούμε όλη μέρα, να πηγαίνουμε στην παλαίστρα και να δημιουργούμε τέχνη; Έτσι , για να περνάει η ώρα. Γι αυτό του σάλεψε του Kazcynski, αν απαξιείς τα πάντα, (φιλοσοφία, λογοτεχνία , τέχνη, τον έρωτα) τι μένει; Πιάσε μου ένα κιλό πατάτες και λίγο κωλόχαρτο για μετά.

 

AUTONOMY

42. Autonomy as a part of the power process may not be necessary for every individual. But most people need a greater or lesser degree of autonomy in working toward their goals. Their efforts must be undertaken on their own initiative and must be under their own direction and control. Yet most people do not have to exert this initiative, direction and control as single individuals. It is usually enough to act as a member of a SMALL group. Thus if half a dozen people discuss a goal among themselves and make a successful joint effort to attain that goal, their need for the power process will be served. But if they work under rigid orders handed down from above that leave them no room for autonomous decision and initiative, then their need for the power process will not be served. The same is true when decisions are made on a collective bases if the group making the collective decision is so large that the role of each individual is insignificant [5]

43. It is true that some individuals seem to have little need for autonomy. Either their drive for power is weak or they satisfy it by identifying themselves with some powerful organization to which they belong. And then there are unthinking, animal types who seem to be satisfied with a purely physical sense of power(the good combat soldier, who gets his sense of power by developing fighting skills that he is quite content to use in blind obedience to his superiors).

44. But for most people it is through the power process-having a goal, making an AUTONOMOUS effort and attaining the goal-that self-esteem, self-confidence and a sense of power are acquired. When one does not have adequate opportunity to go throughout the power process the consequences are (depending on the individual and on the way the power process is disrupted) boredom, demoralization, low self-esteem, inferiority feelings, defeatism, depression, anxiety, guilt, frustration, hostility, spouse or child abuse, insatiable hedonism, abnormal sexual behavior, sleep disorders, eating disorders, etc.
[6]

SOURCES OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS

45. Any of the foregoing symptoms can occur in any society, but in modern industrial society they are present on a massive scale. We aren't the first to mention that the world today seems to be going crazy. This sort of thing is not normal for human societies. There is good reason to believe that primitive man suffered from less stress and frustration and was better satisfied with his way of life than modern man is. It is true that not all was sweetness and light in primitive societies. Abuse of women and common among the Australian aborigines, transexuality was fairly common among some of the American Indian tribes. But is does appear that GENERALLY SPEAKING the kinds of problems that we have listed in the preceding paragraph were far less common among primitive peoples than they are in modern society.

46. We attribute the social and psychological problems of modern society to the fact that that society requires people to live under conditions radically different from those under which the human race evolved and to behave in ways that conflict with the patterns of behavior that the human race developed while living under the earlier conditions. It is clear from what we have already written that we consider lack of opportunity to properly experience the power process as the most important of the abnormal conditions to which modern society subjects people. But it is not the only one. Before dealing with disruption of the power process as a source of social problems we will discuss some of the other sources.

47. Among the abnormal conditions present in modern industrial society are excessive density of population, isolation of man from nature, excessive rapidity of social change and the break-down of natural small-scale communities such as the extended family, the village or the tribe.

48. It is well known that crowding increases stress and aggression. The degree of crowding that exists today and the isolation of man from nature are consequences of technological progress. All pre-industrial societies were predominantly rural. The industrial Revolution vastly increased the size of cities and the proportion of the population that lives in them, and modern agricultural technology has made it possible for the Earth to support a far denser population than it ever did before. (Also, technology exacerbates the effects of crowding because it puts increased disruptive powers in people's hands. For example, a variety of noise-making devices: power mowers, radios, motorcycles, etc. If the use of these devices is unrestricted, people who want peace and quiet are frustrated by the noise. If their use is restricted, people who use the devices are frustrated by the regulations... But if these machines had never been invented there would have been no conflict and no frustration generated by them.)

49. For primitive societies the natural world (which usually changes only slowly) provided a stable framework and therefore a sense of security. In the modern world it is human society that dominates nature rather than the other way around, and modern society changes very rapidly owing to technological change. Thus there is no stable framework.

50. The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can't make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society with out causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values.

51.The breakdown of traditional values to some extent implies the breakdown of the bonds that hold together traditional small-scale social groups. The disintegration of small-scale social groups is also promoted by the fact that modern conditions often require or tempt individuals to move to new locations, separating themselves from their communities. Beyond that, a technological society HAS TO weaken family ties and local communities if it is to function efficiently. In modern society an individual's loyalty must be first to the system and only secondarily to a small-scale community, because if the internal loyalties of small-scale small-scale communities were stronger than loyalty to the system, such communities would pursue their own advantage at the expense of the system.

52. Suppose that a public official or a corporation executive appoints his cousin, his friend or his co-religionist to a position rather than appointing the person best qualified for the job. He has permitted personal loyalty to supersede his loyalty to the system, and that is "nepotism" or "discrimination," both of which are terrible sins in modern society. Would-be industrial societies that have done a poor job of subordinating personal or local loyalties to loyalty to the system are usually very inefficient. (Look at Latin America.) Thus an advanced industrial society can tolerate only those small-scale communities that are emasculated, tamed and made into tools of the system. [7]

53. Crowding, rapid change and the breakdown of communities have been widely recognized as sources of social problems. but we do not believe they are enough to account for the extent of the problems that are seen today.

54. A few pre-industrial cities were very large and crowded, yet their inhabitants do not seem to have suffered from psychological problems to the same extent as modern man. In America today there still are uncrowded rural areas, and we find there the same problems as in urban areas, though the problems tend to be less acute in the rural areas. Thus crowding does not seem to be the decisive factor.

55. On the growing edge of the American frontier during the 19th century, the mobility of the population probably broke down extended families and small-scale social groups to at least the same extent as these are broken down today. In fact, many nuclear families lived by choice in such isolation, having no neighbors within several miles, that they belonged to no community at all, yet they do not seem to have developed problems as a result.

56.Furthermore, change in American frontier society was very rapid and deep. A man might be born and raised in a log cabin, outside the reach of law and order and fed largely on wild meat; and by the time he arrived at old age he might be working at a regular job and living in an ordered community with effective law enforcement. This was a deeper change that that which typically occurs in the life of a modern individual, yet it does not seem to have led to psychological problems. In fact, 19th century American society had an optimistic and self-confident tone, quite unlike that of today's society. [8]

57. The difference, we argue, is that modern man has the sense (largely justified) that change is IMPOSED on him, whereas the 19th century frontiersman had the sense (also largely justified) that he created change himself, by his own choice. Thus a pioneer settled on a piece of land of his own choosing and made it into a farm through his own effort. In those days an entire county might have only a couple of hundred inhabitants and was a far more isolated and autonomous entity than a modern county is. Hence the pioneer farmer participated as a member of a relatively small group in the creation of a new, ordered community. One may well question whether the creation of this community was an improvement, but at any rate it satisfied the pioneer's need for the power process.

58. It would be possible to give other examples of societies in which there has been rapid change and/or lack of close community ties without he kind of massive behavioral aberration that is seen in today's industrial society. We contend that the most important cause of social and psychological problems in modern society is the fact that people have insufficient opportunity to go through the power process in a normal way. We don't mean to say that modern society is the only one in which the power process has been disrupted. Probably most if not all civilized societies have interfered with the power process to a greater or lesser extent. But in modern industrial society the problem has become particularly acute. Leftism, at least in its recent (mid-to-late -20th century) form, is in part a symptom of deprivation with respect to the power process.

To be continued

 

DISRUPTION OF THE POWER PROCESS IN MODERN SOCIETY



59. We divide human drives into three groups: (1) those drives that
can be satisfied with minimal effort; (2) those that can be satisfied
but only at the cost of serious effort; (3) those that cannot be
adequately satisfied no matter how much effort one makes. The power
process is the process of satisfying the drives of the second group.
The more drives there are in the third group, the more there is
frustration, anger, eventually defeatism, depression, etc.

60. In modern industrial society natural human drives tend to be
pushed into the first and third groups, and the second group tends to
consist increasingly of artificially created drives.

61. In primitive societies, physical necessities generally fall into
group 2: They can be obtained, but only at the cost of serious effort.
But modern society tends to guaranty the physical necessities to
everyone [9] in exchange for only minimal effort, hence physical needs
are pushed into group 1. (There may be disagreement about whether the
effort needed to hold a job is "minimal"; but usually, in lower- to
middle-level jobs, whatever effort is required is merely that of
obedience. You sit or stand where you are told to sit or stand and do
what you are told to do in the way you are told to do it. Seldom do
you have to exert yourself seriously, and in any case you have hardly
any autonomy in work, so that the need for the power process is not
well served.)

62. Social needs, such as sex, love and status, often remain in group
2 in modern society, depending on the situation of the individual.
[10] But, except for people who have a particularly strong drive for
status, the effort required to fulfill the social drives is
insufficient to satisfy adequately the need for the power process.

63. So certain artificial needs have been created that fall into group
2, hence serve the need for the power process. Advertising and
marketing techniques have been developed that make many people feel
they need things that their grandparents never desired or even dreamed
of. It requires serious effort to earn enough money to satisfy these
artificial needs, hence they fall into group 2. (But see paragraphs
80-82.) Modern man must satisfy his need for the power process largely
through pursuit of the artificial needs created by the advertising and
marketing industry [11], and through surrogate activities.

64. It seems that for many people, maybe the majority, these
artificial forms of the power process are insufficient. A theme that
appears repeatedly in the writings of the social critics of the second
half of the 20th century is the sense of purposelessness that afflicts
many people in modern society. (This purposelessness is often called
by other names such as "anomic" or "middle-class vacuity.") We suggest
that the so-called "identity crisis" is actually a search for a sense
of purpose, often for commitment to a suitable surrogate activity. It
may be that existentialism is in large part a response to the
purposelessness of modern life. [12] Very widespread in modern society
is the search for "fulfillment." But we think that for the majority of
people an activity whose main goal is fulfillment (that is, a
surrogate activity) does not bring completely satisfactory
fulfillment. In other words, it does not fully satisfy the need for
the power process. (See paragraph 41.) That need can be fully
satisfied only through activities that have some external goal, such
as physical necessities, sex, love, status, revenge, etc.

65. Moreover, where goals are pursued through earning money, climbing
the status ladder or functioning as part of the system in some other
way, most people are not in a position to pursue their goals
AUTONOMOUSLY. Most workers are someone else's employee as, as we
pointed out in paragraph 61, must spend their days doing what they are
told to do in the way they are told to do it. Even most people who are
in business for themselves have only limited autonomy. It is a chronic
complaint of small-business persons and entrepreneurs that their hands
are tied by excessive government regulation. Some of these regulations
are doubtless unnecessary, but for the most part government
regulations are essential and inevitable parts of our extremely
complex society. A large portion of small business today operates on
the franchise system. It was reported in the Wall Street Journal a few
years ago that many of the franchise-granting companies require
applicants for franchises to take a personality test that is designed
to EXCLUDE those who have creativity and initiative, because such
persons are not sufficiently docile to go along obediently with the
franchise system. This excludes from small business many of the people
who most need autonomy.

66. Today people live more by virtue of what the system does FOR them
or TO them than by virtue of what they do for themselves. And what
they do for themselves is done more and more along channels laid down
by the system. Opportunities tend to be those that the system
provides, the opportunities must be exploited in accord with the rules
and regulations [13], and techniques prescribed by experts must be
followed if there is to be a chance of success.

67. Thus the power process is disrupted in our society through a
deficiency of real goals and a deficiency of autonomy in pursuit of
goals. But it is also disrupted because of those human drives that
fall into group 3: the drives that one cannot adequately satisfy no
matter how much effort one makes. One of these drives is the need for
security. Our lives depend on decisions made by other people; we have
no control over these decisions and usually we do not even know the
people who make them. ("We live in a world in which relatively few
people - maybe 500 or 1,00 - make the important decisions" - Philip B.
Heymann of Harvard Law School, quoted by Anthony Lewis, New York
Times, April 21, 1995.) Our lives depend on whether safety standards
at a nuclear power plant are properly maintained; on how much
pesticide is allowed to get into our food or how much pollution into
our air; on how skillful (or incompetent) our doctor is; whether we
lose or get a job may depend on decisions made by government
economists or corporation executives; and so forth. Most individuals
are not in a position to secure themselves against these threats to
more [than] a very limited extent. The individual's search for
security is therefore frustrated, which leads to a sense of
powerlessness.

68. It may be objected that primitive man is physically less secure
than modern man, as is shown by his shorter life expectancy; hence
modern man suffers from less, not more than the amount of insecurity
that is normal for human beings. but psychological security does not
closely correspond with physical security. What makes us FEEL secure
is not so much objective security as a sense of confidence in our
ability to take care of ourselves. Primitive man, threatened by a
fierce animal or by hunger, can fight in self-defense or travel in
search of food. He has no certainty of success in these efforts, but
he is by no means helpless against the things that threaten him. The
modern individual on the other hand is threatened by many things
against which he is helpless; nuclear accidents, carcinogens in food,
environmental pollution, war, increasing taxes, invasion of his
privacy by large organizations, nation-wide social or economic
phenomena that may disrupt his way of life.

69. It is true that primitive man is powerless against some of the
things that threaten him; disease for example. But he can accept the
risk of disease stoically. It is part of the nature of things, it is
no one's fault, unless is the fault of some imaginary, impersonal
demon. But threats to the modern individual tend to be MAN-MADE. They
are not the results of chance but are IMPOSED on him by other persons
whose decisions he, as an individual, is unable to influence.
Consequently he feels frustrated, humiliated and angry.

70. Thus primitive man for the most part has his security in his own
hands (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group)
whereas the security of modern man is in the hands of persons or
organizations that are too remote or too large for him to be able
personally to influence them. So modern man's drive for security tends
to fall into groups 1 and 3; in some areas (food, shelter, etc.) his
security is assured at the cost of only trivial effort, whereas in
other areas he CANNOT attain security. (The foregoing greatly
simplifies the real situation, but it does indicate in a rough,
general way how the condition of modern man differs from that of
primitive man.)

71. People have many transitory drives or impulses that are necessary
frustrated in modern life, hence fall into group 3. One may become
angry, but modern society cannot permit fighting. In many situations
it does not even permit verbal aggression. When going somewhere one
may be in a hurry, or one may be in a mood to travel slowly, but one
generally has no choice but to move with the flow of traffic and obey
the traffic signals. One may want to do one's work in a different way,
but usually one can work only according to the rules laid down by
one's employer. In many other ways as well, modern man is strapped
down by a network of rules and regulations (explicit or implicit) that
frustrate many of his impulses and thus interfere with the power
process. Most of these regulations cannot be disposed with, because
the are necessary for the functioning of industrial society.

72. Modern society is in certain respects extremely permissive. In
matters that are irrelevant to the functioning of the system we can
generally do what we please. We can believe in any religion we like
(as long as it does not encourage behavior that is dangerous to the
system). We can go to bed with anyone we like (as long as we practice
"safe sex"). We can do anything we like as long as it is UNIMPORTANT.
But in all IMPORTANT matters the system tends increasingly to regulate
our behavior.

73. Behavior is regulated not only through explicit rules and not only
by the government. Control is often exercised through indirect
coercion or through psychological pressure or manipulation, and by
organizations other than the government, or by the system as a whole.
Most large organizations use some form of propaganda [14] to
manipulate public attitudes or behavior. Propaganda is not limited to
"commercials" and advertisements, and sometimes it is not even
consciously intended as propaganda by the people who make it. For
instance, the content of entertainment programming is a powerful form
of propaganda. An example of indirect coercion: There is no law that
says we have to go to work every day and follow our employer's orders.
Legally there is nothing to prevent us from going to live in the wild
like primitive people or from going into business for ourselves. But
in practice there is very little wild country left, and there is room
in the economy for only a limited number of small business owners.
Hence most of us can survive only as someone else's employee.

74. We suggest that modern man's obsession with longevity, and with
maintaining physical vigor and sexual attractiveness to an advanced
age, is a symptom of unfulfillment resulting from deprivation with
respect to the power process. The "mid-life crisis" also is such a
symptom. So is the lack of interest in having children that is fairly
common in modern society but almost unheard-of in primitive societies.


75. In primitive societies life is a succession of stages. The needs
and purposes of one stage having been fulfilled, there is no
particular reluctance about passing on to the next stage. A young man
goes through the power process by becoming a hunter, hunting not for
sport or for fulfillment but to get meat that is necessary for food.
(In young women the process is more complex, with greater emphasis on
social power; we won't discuss that here.) This phase having been
successfully passed through, the young man has no reluctance about
settling down to the responsibilities of raising a family. (In
contrast, some modern people indefinitely postpone having children
because they are too busy seeking some kind of "fulfillment." We
suggest that the fulfillment they need is adequate experience of the
power process -- with real goals instead of the artificial goals of
surrogate activities.) Again, having successfully raised his children,
going through the power process by providing them with the physical
necessities, the primitive man feels that his work is done and he is
prepared to accept old age (if he survives that long) and death. Many
modern people, on the other hand, are disturbed by the prospect of
death, as is shown by the amount of effort they expend trying to
maintain their physical condition, appearance and health. We argue
that this is due to unfulfillment resulting from the fact that they
have never put their physical powers to any use, have never gone
through the power process using their bodies in a serious way. It is
not the primitive man, who has used his body daily for practical
purposes, who fears the deterioration of age, but the modern man, who
has never had a practical use for his body beyond walking from his car
to his house. It is the man whose need for the power process has been
satisfied during his life who is best prepared to accept the end of
that life.

76. In response to the arguments of this section someone will say,
"Society must find a way to give people the opportunity to go through
the power process." For such people the value of the opportunity is
destroyed by the very fact that society gives it to them. What they
need is to find or make their own opportunities. As long as the system
GIVES them their opportunities it still has them on a leash. To attain
autonomy they must get off that leash.

To be continued

 

Άρα, στα άτομα που πάσχουν από χαμηλή αυτοεκτίμηση, αισθήματα κατωτερότητας, ηττοπάθεια, κατάθλιψη, άγχος, ενοχές, αισθήματα απογοήτευσης, σεξουαλικές διαταραχές, διαταραχές διατροφής κ.ο.κ. θα αρκούσε για να στρώσει η γουνίτσα τους να βρουν στόχους ή να τους δοθούν στόχοι τους οποίους θα προσπαθήσουν να κατακτήσουν με ΑΥΤΟΝΟΜΕΣ προσωπικές τους προσπάθειες. Θα αποκτούσαν αυτοπεποίθηση και μία αίσθηση δύναμης. Χρήσιμο. Merci.

Αναγάγει επομένως όλα τα κοινωνικά και ψυχολογικά προβλήματα της σημερινής κοινωνίας στην επιβολή των αλλαγών εκ των άνωθε, εκ του συστήματος και την έλλειψη συμμετοχής των ανθρώπων στην διαδικασία απόκτησης δύναμης. Άρα είναι επόμενο κάποιοι να ψάχνουν να βρουν τρόπους ώστε να συμμετέχουν σε αυτή τη διαδικασία και κάποιοι να αισθάνονται ουσιαστικά ανήμποροι και δυστυχισμένοι, έως ότου τους δοθεί αυτή η δυνατότητα. Φαντάζομαι ότι αυτοί που διεκδικούν την δύναμη (τον έλεγχο) είναι τα πιο δυναμικά, πιο Κυριαρχικά άτομα ενώ οι «ανήμποροι» είναι μάλλον αυτοί που δεν διανοήθηκαν ποτέ ότι μπορούν να επιβληθούν στο περιβάλλον τους ή έστω στον εαυτό τους. Άραγε θέμα ιδιοσυγκρασίας; Βιωμάτων; Παιδείας; Μάλλον all of the above.

 

HOW SOME PEOPLE ADJUST



77. Not everyone in industrial-technological society suffers from
psychological problems. Some people even profess to be quite satisfied
with society as it is. We now discuss some of the reasons why people
differ so greatly in their response to modern society.

78. First, there doubtless are differences in the strength of the
drive for power. Individuals with a weak drive for power may have
relatively little need to go through the power process, or at least
relatively little need for autonomy in the power process. These are
docile types who would have been happy as plantation darkies in the
Old South. (We don't mean to sneer at "plantation darkies" of the Old
South. To their credit, most of the slaves were NOT content with their
servitude. We do sneer at people who ARE content with servitude.)

79. Some people may have some exceptional drive, in pursuing which
they satisfy their need for the power process. For example, those who
have an unusually strong drive for social status may spend their whole
lives climbing the status ladder without ever getting bored with that
game.

80. People vary in their susceptibility to advertising and marketing
techniques. Some people are so susceptible that, even if they make a
great deal of money, they cannot satisfy their constant craving for
the shiny new toys that the marketing industry dangles before their
eyes. So they always feel hard-pressed financially even if their
income is large, and their cravings are frustrated.

81. Some people have low susceptibility to advertising and marketing
techniques. These are the people who aren't interested in money.
Material acquisition does not serve their need for the power process.

82. People who have medium susceptibility to advertising and marketing
techniques are able to earn enough money to satisfy their craving for
goods and services, but only at the cost of serious effort (putting in
overtime, taking a second job, earning promotions, etc.) Thus material
acquisition serves their need for the power process. But it does not
necessarily follow that their need is fully satisfied. They may have
insufficient autonomy in the power process (their work may consist of
following orders) and some of their drives may be frustrated (e.g.,
security, aggression). (We are guilty of oversimplification in
paragraphs 80-82 because we have assumed that the desire for material
acquisition is entirely a creation of the advertising and marketing
industry. Of course it's not that simple.

83. Some people partly satisfy their need for power by identifying
themselves with a powerful organization or mass movement. An
individual lacking goals or power joins a movement or an organization,
adopts its goals as his own, then works toward these goals. When some
of the goals are attained, the individual, even though his personal
efforts have played only an insignificant part in the attainment of
the goals, feels (through his identification with the movement or
organization) as if he had gone through the power process. This
phenomenon was exploited by the fascists, nazis and communists. Our
society uses it, too, though less crudely. Example: Manuel Noriega was
an irritant to the U.S. (goal: punish Noriega). The U.S. invaded
Panama (effort) and punished Noriega (attainment of goal). The U.S.
went through the power process and many Americans, because of their
identification with the U.S., experienced the power process
vicariously. Hence the widespread public approval of the Panama
invasion; it gave people a sense of power. [15] We see the same
phenomenon in armies, corporations, political parties, humanitarian
organizations, religious or ideological movements. In particular,
leftist movements tend to attract people who are seeking to satisfy
their need for power. But for most people identification with a large
organization or a mass movement does not fully satisfy the need for
power.

84. Another way in which people satisfy their need for the power
process is through surrogate activities. As we explained in paragraphs
38-40, a surrogate activity that is directed toward an artificial goal
that the individual pursues for the sake of the "fulfillment" that he
gets from pursuing the goal, not because he needs to attain the goal
itself. For instance, there is no practical motive for building
enormous muscles, hitting a little ball into a hole or acquiring a
complete series of postage stamps. Yet many people in our society
devote themselves with passion to bodybuilding, golf or stamp
collecting. Some people are more "other-directed" than others, and
therefore will more readily attack importance to a surrogate activity
simply because the people around them treat it as important or because
society tells them it is important. That is why some people get very
serious about essentially trivial activities such as sports, or
bridge, or chess, or arcane scholarly pursuits, whereas others who are
more clear-sighted never see these things as anything but the
surrogate activities that they are, and consequently never attach
enough importance to them to satisfy their need for the power process
in that way. It only remains to point out that in many cases a
person's way of earning a living is also a surrogate activity. Not a
PURE surrogate activity, since part of the motive for the activity is
to gain the physical necessities and (for some people) social status
and the luxuries that advertising makes them want. But many people put
into their work far more effort than is necessary to earn whatever
money and status they require, and this extra effort constitutes a
surrogate activity. This extra effort, together with the emotional
investment that accompanies it, is one of the most potent forces
acting toward the continual development and perfecting of the system,
with negative consequences for individual freedom (see paragraph 131).
Especially, for the most creative scientists and engineers, work tends
to be largely a surrogate activity. This point is so important that is
deserves a separate discussion, which we shall give in a moment
(paragraphs 87-92).

85. In this section we have explained how many people in modern
society do satisfy their need for the power process to a greater or
lesser extent. But we think that for the majority of people the need
for the power process is not fully satisfied. In the first place,
those who have an insatiable drive for status, or who get firmly
"hooked" or a surrogate activity, or who identify strongly enough with
a movement or organization to satisfy their need for power in that
way, are exceptional personalities. Others are not fully satisfied
with surrogate activities or by identification with an organization
(see paragraphs 41, 64). In the second place, too much control is
imposed by the system through explicit regulation or through
socialization, which results in a deficiency of autonomy, and in
frustration due to the impossibility of attaining certain goals and
the necessity of restraining too many impulses.

86. But even if most people in industrial-technological society were
well satisfied, we (FC) would still be opposed to that form of
society, because (among other reasons) we consider it demeaning to
fulfill one's need for the power process through surrogate activities
or through identification with an organization, rather then through
pursuit of real goals.

To be continued

 

Θα απομονώσω εδώ την δεύτερη ομάδα, δηλαδή τους στόχους που επιτυγχάνονται με προσπάθεια. Στόχους, εφόσον υπάρξουν πρώτα αντίστοιχα κίνητρα. Εκ των έσω πρέπει να είναι;

Αν είναι κατασκευασμένες οι επιθυμίες δεν λειτουργεί η δουλειά;

Γιατί, τόσο εύκολο είναι για κάποιον να βρει σεξ και αγάπη; Μήπως βρίσκουν εύκολα κακό σεξ, με την έννοια «ελάχιστα απολαυστικό, αυνανιστικό, χάλια μαύρα» σεξ και «ψεύτικη» αγάπη, με την έννοια του «λίγη, επιφανειακή, κακέκτυπο» κλπ;

Ψάχνουν δηλαδή για νόημα. Σύμφωνα με τα ανωτέρω, οποιοσδήποτε εξωτερικός στόχος μπορεί να κουβαλήσει στην πλάτη του το νόημα. Σεξ, αγάπη, στάτους, εκδίκηση κλπ. Φαντάζομαι η επιλογή κρίνεται από την ιδιοσυγκρασία, τα βιώματα, το τυχαίο κλπ. Φαντάζομαι επίσης πως ο συνδυασμός των ανωτέρω μπορεί να λειτουργήσει.

Εκτός από μερικά θέματα τα οποία είναι σημαντικά και είναι επιλογή μας. Το ένα είναι η αυτο-διάθεση, εφόσον βρεθεί το κατάλληλο πλαίσιο. Το άλλο είναι η δημιουργία δικών μας στόχων σε αντίθεση με τους κατασκευασμένους στόχους.

Ίσως θα έπρεπε να το συζητήσουμε. Είναι σημαντικό θέμα. Αν θέλουμε να συζητήσουμε πραγματικά για fulfillment.

Με άλλα λόγια ο άνθρωπος πρέπει να είναι ελεύθερος και αυτόνομος στην εύρεση κατάλληλων στόχων, και να έχει την αυτοπεποίθηση να τους επιδιώξει και την δύναμη να τους επιτύχει. Το θέμα είναι ότι για να έχει κάποιος στόχο πρέπει να έχει την επιθυμία πρώτα. Πρέπει να έχει το κίνητρο. Πώς αποκτάται αυτό; Με παιδεία; Καλλιέργεια; Ενδοσκόπηση; Παρατήρηση; Γιατί έχω την αίσθηση ότι οι περισσότεροι άνθρωποι δεν έχουν καν την απαιτούμενη ενέργεια για να έχουν το κίνητρο; Θα έλεγα ότι ίσως η αίσθηση της κενότητας της ζωής μας λειτουργεί ως φαύλος κύκλος, μας κάνει νωθρούς, τίποτα δεν έχει ιδιαίτερη σημασία οπότε γιατί να θέλουμε οτιδήποτε; Μας λείπει ο ενθουσιασμός. Θα έλεγα πως ίσως χρειαζόμαστε εμψυχωτές. Καλλιτέχνες, συγγραφείς, μουσικούς, πολιτικούς, φιλοσόφους ή απλούς φίλους. Ή ακόμη και τους κατάλληλους εραστές.

 

THE MOTIVES OF SCIENTISTS



87. Science and technology provide the most important examples of
surrogate activities. Some scientists claim that they are motivated by
"curiosity," that notion is simply absurd. Most scientists work on
highly specialized problem that are not the object of any normal
curiosity. For example, is an astronomer, a mathematician or an
entomologist curious about the properties of
isopropyltrimethylmethane? Of course not. Only a chemist is curious
about such a thing, and he is curious about it only because chemistry
is his surrogate activity. Is the chemist curious about the
appropriate classification of a new species of beetle? No. That
question is of interest only to the entomologist, and he is interested
in it only because entomology is his surrogate activity. If the
chemist and the entomologist had to exert themselves seriously to
obtain the physical necessities, and if that effort exercised their
abilities in an interesting way but in some nonscientific pursuit,
then they couldn't giver a damn about isopropyltrimethylmethane or the
classification of beetles. Suppose that lack of funds for postgraduate
education had led the chemist to become an insurance broker instead of
a chemist. In that case he would have been very interested in
insurance matters but would have cared nothing about
isopropyltrimethylmethane. In any case it is not normal to put into
the satisfaction of mere curiosity the amount of time and effort that
scientists put into their work. The "curiosity" explanation for the
scientists' motive just doesn't stand up.

88. The "benefit of humanity" explanation doesn't work any better.
Some scientific work has no conceivable relation to the welfare of the
human race - most of archaeology or comparative linguistics for
example. Some other areas of science present obviously dangerous
possibilities. Yet scientists in these areas are just as enthusiastic
about their work as those who develop vaccines or study air pollution.
Consider the case of Dr. Edward Teller, who had an obvious emotional
involvement in promoting nuclear power plants. Did this involvement
stem from a desire to benefit humanity? If so, then why didn't Dr.
Teller get emotional about other "humanitarian" causes? If he was such
a humanitarian then why did he help to develop the H-bomb? As with
many other scientific achievements, it is very much open to question
whether nuclear power plants actually do benefit humanity. Does the
cheap electricity outweigh the accumulating waste and risk of
accidents? Dr. Teller saw only one side of the question. Clearly his
emotional involvement with nuclear power arose not from a desire to
"benefit humanity" but from a personal fulfillment he got from his
work and from seeing it put to practical use.

89. The same is true of scientists generally. With possible rare
exceptions, their motive is neither curiosity nor a desire to benefit
humanity but the need to go through the power process: to have a goal
(a scientific problem to solve), to make an effort (research) and to
attain the goal (solution of the problem.) Science is a surrogate
activity because scientists work mainly for the fulfillment they get
out of the work itself.

90. Of course, it's not that simple. Other motives do play a role for
many scientists. Money and status for example. Some scientists may be
persons of the type who have an insatiable drive for status (see
paragraph 79) and this may provide much of the motivation for their
work. No doubt the majority of scientists, like the majority of the
general population, are more or less susceptible to advertising and
marketing techniques and need money to satisfy their craving for goods
and services. Thus science is not a PURE surrogate activity. But it is
in large part a surrogate activity.

91. Also, science and technology constitute a mass power movement, and
many scientists gratify their need for power through identification
with this mass movement (see paragraph 83).

92. Thus science marches on blindly, without regard to the real
welfare of the human race or to any other standard, obedient only to
the psychological needs of the scientists and of the government
officials and corporation executives who provide the funds for
research.

THE NATURE OF FREEDOM



93. We are going to argue that industrial-technological society cannot
be reformed in such a way as to prevent it from progressively
narrowing the sphere of human freedom. But because "freedom" is a word
that can be interpreted in many ways, we must first make clear what
kind of freedom we are concerned with.

94. By "freedom" we mean the opportunity to go through the power
process, with real goals not the artificial goals of surrogate
activities, and without interference, manipulation or supervision from
anyone, especially from any large organization. Freedom means being in
control (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group) of
the life-and-death issues of one's existence; food, clothing, shelter
and defense against whatever threats there may be in one's
environment. Freedom means having power; not the power to control
other people but the power to control the circumstances of one's own
life. One does not have freedom if anyone else (especially a large
organization) has power over one, no matter how benevolently,
tolerantly and permissively that power may be exercised. It is
important not to confuse freedom with mere permissiveness (see
paragraph 72).

95. It is said that we live in a free society because we have a
certain number of constitutionally guaranteed rights. But these are
not as important as they seem. The degree of personal freedom that
exists in a society is determined more by the economic and
technological structure of the society than by its laws or its form of
government. [16] Most of the Indian nations of New England were
monarchies, and many of the cities of the Italian Renaissance were
controlled by dictators. But in reading about these societies one gets
the impression that they allowed far more personal freedom than out
society does. In part this was because they lacked efficient
mechanisms for enforcing the ruler's will: There were no modern,
well-organized police forces, no rapid long-distance communications,
no surveillance cameras, no dossiers of information about the lives of
average citizens. Hence it was relatively easy to evade control.

96. As for our constitutional rights, consider for example that of
freedom of the press. We certainly don't mean to knock that right: it
is very important tool for limiting concentration of political power
and for keeping those who do have political power in line by publicly
exposing any misbehavior on their part. But freedom of the press is of
very little use to the average citizen as an individual. The mass
media are mostly under the control of large organizations that are
integrated into the system. Anyone who has a little money can have
something printed, or can distribute it on the Internet or in some
such way, but what he has to say will be swamped by the vast volume of
material put out by the media, hence it will have no practical effect.
To make an impression on society with words is therefore almost
impossible for most individuals and small groups. Take us (FC) for
example. If we had never done anything violent and had submitted the
present writings to a publisher, they probably would not have been
accepted. If they had been accepted and published, they probably would
not have attracted many readers, because it's more fun to watch the
entertainment put out by the media than to read a sober essay. Even if
these writings had had many readers, most of these readers would soon
have forgotten what they had read as their minds were flooded by the
mass of material to which the media expose them. In order to get our
message before the public with some chance of making a lasting
impression, we've had to kill people.

97. Constitutional rights are useful up to a point, but they do not
serve to guarantee much more than what could be called the bourgeois
conception of freedom. According to the bourgeois conception, a "free"
man is essentially an element of a social machine and has only a
certain set of prescribed and delimited freedoms; freedoms that are
designed to serve the needs of the social machine more than those of
the individual. Thus the bourgeois's "free" man has economic freedom
because that promotes growth and progress; he has freedom of the press
because public criticism restrains misbehavior by political leaders;
he has a rights to a fair trial because imprisonment at the whim of
the powerful would be bad for the system. This was clearly the
attitude of Simon Bolivar. To him, people deserved liberty only if
they used it to promote progress (progress as conceived by the
bourgeois). Other bourgeois thinkers have taken a similar view of
freedom as a mere means to collective ends. Chester C. Tan, "Chinese
Political Thought in the Twentieth Century," page 202, explains the
philosophy of the Kuomintang leader Hu Han-min: "An individual is
granted rights because he is a member of society and his community
life requires such rights. By community Hu meant the whole society of
the nation." And on page 259 Tan states that according to Carsum Chang
(Chang Chun-mai, head of the State Socialist Party in China) freedom
had to be used in the interest of the state and of the people as a
whole. But what kind of freedom does one have if one can use it only
as someone else prescribes? FC's conception of freedom is not that of
Bolivar, Hu, Chang or other bourgeois theorists. The trouble with such
theorists is that they have made the development and application of
social theories their surrogate activity. Consequently the theories
are designed to serve the needs of the theorists more than the needs
of any people who may be unlucky enough to live in a society on which
the theories are imposed.

98. One more point to be made in this section: It should not be
assumed that a person has enough freedom just because he SAYS he has
enough. Freedom is restricted in part by psychological control of
which people are unconscious, and moreover many people's ideas of what
constitutes freedom are governed more by social convention than by
their real needs. For example, it's likely that many leftists of the
oversocialized type would say that most people, including themselves
are socialized too little rather than too much, yet the oversocialized
leftist pays a heavy psychological price for his high level of
socialization.


To be continued

 

Εμ βέβαια. Άκου "θέλω να υπηρετήσω"! Καλά τα λέει αυτός καλέ. Και τον έβαλαν φυλακή ε; Ίσως αν έκανε BDSM αντί να στέλνει βόμβες, να ήταν ακόμα έξω, νάγραφε και κανένα βιβλίο, κανένα μάνιουαλ...

Κι αυτό μου ακούγεται σωστό, δεν γεμίζει κάποιος έτσι. Ούτε η απόκτηση παιδιών όμως μπορεί να θεωρηθεί real goal. Ωραία είναι η μητρότητα (και η πατρότητα), δεν λέω, αλλά είναι άσχετη με αυτή την αίσθηση της πλήρωσης, για την έλλειψη της οποίας κάποτε με κακίσανε - α εσύ έκανες τρία παιδιά και δεν γέμισες; Αλλά αυτός που μου το είπε ήταν πολύ γκρινιάρης (συνάδελφος) και δεν του κρατάω κακία για τις γκρίνιες του.

Για τα υπόλοιπα, αν και ενδιαφέροντα δεν έχω να πω τίποτε. Παρακάτω δεν έχει συνέχεια;

 

Μετά από μια μικρή αποχή λόγω εργασίας........Η συνέχεια



SOME PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY



99. Think of history as being the sum of two components: an erratic
component that consists of unpredictable events that follow no
discernible pattern, and a regular component that consists of
long-term historical trends. Here we are concerned with the long-term
trends.

100. FIRST PRINCIPLE. If a SMALL change is made that affects a
long-term historical trend, then the effect of that change will almost
always be transitory - the trend will soon revert to its original
state. (Example: A reform movement designed to clean up political
corruption in a society rarely has more than a short-term effect;
sooner or later the reformers relax and corruption creeps back in. The
level of political corruption in a given society tends to remain
constant, or to change only slowly with the evolution of the society.
Normally, a political cleanup will be permanent only if accompanied by
widespread social changes; a SMALL change in the society won't be
enough.) If a small change in a long-term historical trend appears to
be permanent, it is only because the change acts in the direction in
which the trend is already moving, so that the trend is not altered
but only pushed a step ahead.

101. The first principle is almost a tautology. If a trend were not
stable with respect to small changes, it would wander at random rather
than following a definite direction; in other words it would not be a
long-term trend at all.

102. SECOND PRINCIPLE. If a change is made that is sufficiently large
to alter permanently a long-term historical trend, than it will alter
the society as a whole. In other words, a society is a system in which
all parts are interrelated, and you can't permanently change any
important part without change all the other parts as well.

103. THIRD PRINCIPLE. If a change is made that is large enough to
alter permanently a long-term trend, then the consequences for the
society as a whole cannot be predicted in advance. (Unless various
other societies have passed through the same change and have all
experienced the same consequences, in which case one can predict on
empirical grounds that another society that passes through the same
change will be like to experience similar consequences.)

104. FOURTH PRINCIPLE. A new kind of society cannot be designed on
paper. That is, you cannot plan out a new form of society in advance,
then set it up and expect it to function as it was designed to.

105. The third and fourth principles result from the complexity of
human societies. A change in human behavior will affect the economy of
a society and its physical environment; the economy will affect the
environment and vice versa, and the changes in the economy and the
environment will affect human behavior in complex, unpredictable ways;
and so forth. The network of causes and effects is far too complex to
be untangled and understood.

106. FIFTH PRINCIPLE. People do not consciously and rationally choose
the form of their society. Societies develop through processes of
social evolution that are not under rational human control.

107. The fifth principle is a consequence of the other four.

108. To illustrate: By the first principle, generally speaking an
attempt at social reform either acts in the direction in which the
society is developing anyway (so that it merely accelerates a change
that would have occurred in any case) or else it only has a transitory
effect, so that the society soon slips back into its old groove. To
make a lasting change in the direction of development of any important
aspect of a society, reform is insufficient and revolution is
required. (A revolution does not necessarily involve an armed uprising
or the overthrow of a government.) By the second principle, a
revolution never changes only one aspect of a society; and by the
third principle changes occur that were never expected or desired by
the revolutionaries. By the fourth principle, when revolutionaries or
utopians set up a new kind of society, it never works out as planned.

109. The American Revolution does not provide a counterexample. The
American "Revolution" was not a revolution in our sense of the word,
but a war of independence followed by a rather far-reaching political
reform. The Founding Fathers did not change the direction of
development of American society, nor did they aspire to do so. They
only freed the development of American society from the retarding
effect of British rule. Their political reform did not change any
basic trend, but only pushed American political culture along its
natural direction of development. British society, of which American
society was an off-shoot, had been moving for a long time in the
direction of representative democracy. And prior to the War of
Independence the Americans were already practicing a significant
degree of representative democracy in the colonial assemblies. The
political system established by the Constitution was modeled on the
British system and on the colonial assemblies. With major alteration,
to be sure - there is no doubt that the Founding Fathers took a very
important step. But it was a step along the road the English-speaking
world was already traveling. The proof is that Britain and all of its
colonies that were populated predominantly by people of British
descent ended up with systems of representative democracy essentially
similar to that of the United States. If the Founding Fathers had lost
their nerve and declined to sign the Declaration of Independence, our
way of life today would not have been significantly different. Maybe
we would have had somewhat closer ties to Britain, and would have had
a Parliament and Prime Minister instead of a Congress and President.
No big deal. Thus the American Revolution provides not a
counterexample to our principles but a good illustration of them.

110. Still, one has to use common sense in applying the principles.
They are expressed in imprecise language that allows latitude for
interpretation, and exceptions to them can be found. So we present
these principles not as inviolable laws but as rules of thumb, or
guides to thinking, that may provide a partial antidote to naive ideas
about the future of society. The principles should be borne constantly
in mind, and whenever one reaches a conclusion that conflicts with
them one should carefully reexamine one's thinking and retain the
conclusion only if one has good, solid reasons for doing so.

INDUSTRIAL-TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY CANNOT BE REFORMED



111. The foregoing principles help to show how hopelessly difficult it
would be to reform the industrial system in such a way as to prevent
it from progressively narrowing our sphere of freedom. There has been
a consistent tendency, going back at least to the Industrial
Revolution for technology to strengthen the system at a high cost in
individual freedom and local autonomy. Hence any change designed to
protect freedom from technology would be contrary to a fundamental
trend in the development of our society.

Consequently, such a change either would be a transitory one -- soon
swamped by the tide of history -- or, if large enough to be permanent
would alter the nature of our whole society. This by the first and
second principles. Moreover, since society would be altered in a way
that could not be predicted in advance (third principle) there would
be great risk. Changes large enough to make a lasting difference in
favor of freedom would not be initiated because it would realized that
they would gravely disrupt the system. So any attempts at reform would
be too timid to be effective. Even if changes large enough to make a
lasting difference were initiated, they would be retracted when their
disruptive effects became apparent. Thus, permanent changes in favor
of freedom could be brought about only by persons prepared to accept
radical, dangerous and unpredictable alteration of the entire system.
In other words, by revolutionaries, not reformers.

112. People anxious to rescue freedom without sacrificing the supposed
benefits of technology will suggest naive schemes for some new form of
society that would reconcile freedom with technology. Apart from the
fact that people who make suggestions seldom propose any practical
means by which the new form of society could be set up in the first
place, it follows from the fourth principle that even if the new form
of society could be once established, it either would collapse or
would give results very different from those expected.

113. So even on very general grounds it seems highly improbably that
any way of changing society could be found that would reconcile
freedom with modern technology. In the next few sections we will give
more specific reasons for concluding that freedom and technological
progress are incompatible.

To be continued

RESTRICTION OF FREEDOM IS UNAVOIDABLE IN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY



114. As explained in paragraph 65-67, 70-73, modern man is strapped
down by a network of rules and regulations, and his fate depends on
the actions of persons remote from him whose decisions he cannot
influence. This is not accidental or a result of the arbitrariness of
arrogant bureaucrats. It is necessary and inevitable in any
technologically advanced society. The system HAS TO regulate human
behavior closely in order to function. At work, people have to do what
they are told to do, otherwise production would be thrown into chaos.
Bureaucracies HAVE TO be run according to rigid rules. To allow any
substantial personal discretion to lower-level bureaucrats would
disrupt the system and lead to charges of unfairness due to
differences in the way individual bureaucrats exercised their
discretion. It is true that some restrictions on our freedom could be
eliminated, but GENERALLY SPEAKING the regulation of our lives by
large organizations is necessary for the functioning of
industrial-technological society. The result is a sense of
powerlessness on the part of the average person. It may be, however,
that formal regulations will tend increasingly to be replaced by
psychological tools that make us want to do what the system requires
of us. (Propaganda [14], educational techniques, "mental health"
programs, etc.)

115. The system HAS TO force people to behave in ways that are
increasingly remote from the natural pattern of human behavior. For
example, the system needs scientists, mathematicians and engineers. It
can't function without them. So heavy pressure is put on children to
excel in these fields. It isn't natural for an adolescent human being
to spend the bulk of his time sitting at a desk absorbed in study. A
normal adolescent wants to spend his time in active contact with the
real world. Among primitive peoples the things that children are
trained to do are in natural harmony with natural human impulses.
Among the American Indians, for example, boys were trained in active
outdoor pursuits -- just the sort of things that boys like. But in our
society children are pushed into studying technical subjects, which
most do grudgingly.

116. Because of the constant pressure that the system exerts to modify
human behavior, there is a gradual increase in the number of people
who cannot or will not adjust to society's requirements: welfare
leeches, youth-gang members, cultists, anti-government rebels, radical
environmentalist saboteurs, dropouts and resisters of various kinds.

117. In any technologically advanced society the individual's fate
MUST depend on decisions that he personally cannot influence to any
great extent. A technological society cannot be broken down into
small, autonomous communities, because production depends on the
cooperation of very large numbers of people and machines. Such a
society MUST be highly organized and decisions HAVE TO be made that
affect very large numbers of people. When a decision affects, say, a
million people, then each of the affected individuals has, on the
average, only a one-millionth share in making the decision. What
usually happens in practice is that decisions are made by public
officials or corporation executives, or by technical specialists, but
even when the public votes on a decision the number of voters
ordinarily is too large for the vote of any one individual to be
significant. [17] Thus most individuals are unable to influence
measurably the major decisions that affect their lives. Their is no
conceivable way to remedy this in a technologically advanced society.
The system tries to "solve" this problem by using propaganda to make
people WANT the decisions that have been made for them, but even if
this "solution" were completely successful in making people feel
better, it would be demeaning.

118 Conservatives and some others advocate more "local autonomy."
Local communities once did have autonomy, but such autonomy becomes
less and less possible as local communities become more enmeshed with
and dependent on large-scale systems like public utilities, computer
networks, highway systems, the mass communications media, the modern
health care system. Also operating against autonomy is the fact that
technology applied in one location often affects people at other
locations far away. Thus pesticide or chemical use near a creek may
contaminate the water supply hundreds of miles downstream, and the
greenhouse effect affects the whole world.

119. The system does not and cannot exist to satisfy human needs.
Instead, it is human behavior that has to be modified to fit the needs
of the system. This has nothing to do with the political or social
ideology that may pretend to guide the technological system. It is the
fault of technology, because the system is guided not by ideology but
by technical necessity. [18] Of course the system does satisfy many
human needs, but generally speaking it does this only to the extent
that it is to the advantage of the system to do it. It is the needs of
the system that are paramount, not those of the human being. For
example, the system provides people with food because the system
couldn't function if everyone starved; it attends to people's
psychological needs whenever it can CONVENIENTLY do so, because it
couldn't function if too many people became depressed or rebellious.
But the system, for good, solid, practical reasons, must exert
constant pressure on people to mold their behavior to the needs of the
system. Too much waste accumulating? The government, the media, the
educational system, environmentalists, everyone inundates us with a
mass of propaganda about recycling. Need more technical personnel? A
chorus of voices exhorts kids to study science. No one stops to ask
whether it is inhumane to force adolescents to spend the bulk of their
time studying subjects most of them hate. When skilled workers are put
out of a job by technical advances and have to undergo "retraining,"
no one asks whether it is humiliating for them to be pushed around in
this way. It is simply taken for granted that everyone must bow to
technical necessity and for good reason: If human needs were put
before technical necessity there would be economic problems,
unemployment, shortages or worse. The concept of "mental health" in
our society is defined largely by the extent to which an individual
behaves in accord with the needs of the system and does so without
showing signs of stress.

120. Efforts to make room for a sense of purpose and for autonomy
within the system are no better than a joke. For example, one company,
instead of having each of its employees assemble only one section of a
catalogue, had each assemble a whole catalogue, and this was supposed
to give them a sense of purpose and achievement. Some companies have
tried to give their employees more autonomy in their work, but for
practical reasons this usually can be done only to a very limited
extent, and in any case employees are never given autonomy as to
ultimate goals -- their "autonomous" efforts can never be directed
toward goals that they select personally, but only toward their
employer's goals, such as the survival and growth of the company. Any
company would soon go out of business if it permitted its employees to
act otherwise. Similarly, in any enterprise within a socialist system,
workers must direct their efforts toward the goals of the enterprise,
otherwise the enterprise will not serve its purpose as part of the
system. Once again, for purely technical reasons it is not possible
for most individuals or small groups to have much autonomy in
industrial society. Even the small-business owner commonly has only
limited autonomy. Apart from the necessity of government regulation,
he is restricted by the fact that he must fit into the economic system
and conform to its requirements. For instance, when someone develops a
new technology, the small-business person often has to use that
technology whether he wants to or not, in order to remain competitive.



THE 'BAD' PARTS OF TECHNOLOGY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM THE 'GOOD' PARTS



121. A further reason why industrial society cannot be reformed in
favor of freedom is that modern technology is a unified system in
which all parts are dependent on one another. You can't get rid of the
"bad" parts of technology and retain only the "good" parts. Take
modern medicine, for example. Progress in medical science depends on
progress in chemistry, physics, biology, computer science and other
fields. Advanced medical treatments require expensive, high-tech
equipment that can be made available only by a technologically
progressive, economically rich society. Clearly you can't have much
progress in medicine without the whole technological system and
everything that goes with it.

122. Even if medical progress could be maintained without the rest of
the technological system, it would by itself bring certain evils.
Suppose for example that a cure for diabetes is discovered. People
with a genetic tendency to diabetes will then be able to survive and
reproduce as well as anyone else. Natural selection against genes for
diabetes will cease and such genes will spread throughout the
population. (This may be occurring to some extent already, since
diabetes, while not curable, can be controlled through the use of
insulin.) The same thing will happen with many other diseases
susceptibility to which is affected by genetic degradation of the
population. The only solution will be some sort of eugenics program or
extensive genetic engineering of human beings, so that man in the
future will no longer be a creation of nature, or of chance, or of God
(depending on your religious or philosophical opinions), but a
manufactured product.

123. If you think that big government interferes in your life too much
NOW, just wait till the government starts regulating the genetic
constitution of your children. Such regulation will inevitably follow
the introduction of genetic engineering of human beings, because the
consequences of unregulated genetic engineering would be disastrous.


124. The usual response to such concerns is to talk about "medical
ethics." But a code of ethics would not serve to protect freedom in
the face of medical progress; it would only make matters worse. A code
of ethics applicable to genetic engineering would be in effect a means
of regulating the genetic constitution of human beings. Somebody
(probably the upper-middle class, mostly) would decide that such and
such applications of genetic engineering were "ethical" and others
were not, so that in effect they would be imposing their own values on
the genetic constitution of the population at large. Even if a code of
ethics were chosen on a completely democratic basis, the majority
would be imposing their own values on any minorities who might have a
different idea of what constituted an "ethical" use of genetic
engineering. The only code of ethics that would truly protect freedom
would be one that prohibited ANY genetic engineering of human beings,
and you can be sure that no such code will ever be applied in a
technological society. No code that reduced genetic engineering to a
minor role could stand up for long, because the temptation presented
by the immense power of biotechnology would be irresistible,
especially since to the majority of people many of its applications
will seem obviously and unequivocally good (eliminating physical and
mental diseases, giving people the abilities they need to get along in
today's world). Inevitably, genetic engineering will be used
extensively, but only in ways consistent with the needs of the
industrial-technological system.

To be continued

 

Ελπίζω να έχει κάτι καλύτερο να προτείνει αντί να γκρινιάζει απλώς. Σίγουρα δεν είμαι διατεθειμένη να ζήσω χωρίς πλυντήριο ρούχων, εκτός αν έχω σκλάβο.

Δεν νομίζω να στέκει να μεταφέρω τις απόψεις του περί αλλαγών στην κοινωνία στην ριζοσπαστική "βελτίωση" ατόμων. Μπορεί όμως και ναι.

Οι απόψεις του μου θύμισαν λίγο το βιβλίο του H.D.F Kitto για τους Αρχαίους Έλληνες και γιατί τελικά η πρόοδος οδήγησε την κοινωνία τους και τις αξίες τους σε παρακμή, με την εξειδίκευση της εργασίας και την ανάπτυξη του εμπορίου (σε φαύλο κύκλο) και την παράλληλη οικονομική άνθηση.

Πώς όμως μπορεί κάποιος να πείσει τους ανθρώπους να πάνε ενάντια στην φύση τους; Η κατοχή υλικών αγαθών είναι must σε όλες σχεδόν τις κοινωνίες (εκτός ίσως από τους Bushmen, Aborigines, Tarahumaras κλπ). Έχω δει ενδιαφέρον ντοκυμαντέρ με πιθήκους, όπου εισήχθη το "νόμισμα" της μπανάνας από τον άνθρωπο (υπερπληθώρα τροφής) και αμέσως οι δυνατοί πήραν όλες τις μπανάνες και οι αδύναμοι ζητιάνευαν μπανάνες από τους δυνατούς. Μήπως είναι μέρος του ενστίκτου επιβίωσης, η τάση για συλλογή και κατοχή υλικών αγαθών; Μήπως είναι συνυφασμένο με την κοινωνική ισχύ, όταν από ότι φαίνεται όλες οι κοινωνίες, ακόμη και αυτές των ζώων, αναγνωρίζουν δυνατούς ηγέτες και αδύναμους ακολούθους, για την καλύτερη επιβίωση του είδους (λύκοι, γορίλες κλπ). Και αν η ισχύς νοείται μέσα από την κατοχή αγαθών ή με άλλους τρόπους και όχι με την μυικη δύναμη, δεν οδηγούμαστε πάλι στο παρόν σύστημα; Θα μπορούσε μία αγροτική κοινωνία παλιού τύπου να αντισταθεί στην "πρόοδο" (ο Kitto λέει όχι) και αυτές τις τάσεις κτήσης αγαθών και απόκτησης προσωπικής ισχύος, όταν ακόμη και οι Αρχαίοι Έλληνες δεν μπόρεσαν; Και πώς μπορεί κανείς να παρακάμψει το παρόν σύστημα με επιτυχία, όταν είδαμε ότι όλες οι κομμουνιστικές κοινωνίες απέτυχαν τελικά;

Ίσως είναι αφελείς οι ερωτήσεις μου, δέν γνωρίζω πολλά επί του θέματος, απλές απορίες είναι...