An Excellent Piece Of Writing

I have found this as a comment to this article on the alternet.org portal. There was no link to the comment itself, and it was buried under the pile of other comments, so I decided to re-post it here in its entirety. It is really an excellent piece of writing.

Quote:

Human progress is not a given consequence of new technology.

Posted by: Coleman on Jun 18, 2008 8:29 AM

Fifty years ago social scientists were writing utopian pamphlets wondering what ordinary folks were going to do with all their free time. The buzzword of the day was "automation." With modern machines, it took fewer and fewer people to reproduce the conditions necessary for the current standard of living. For example only a very small percentage of the population is engaged in agriculture, yet industrialized nations consistently yield food surpluses.

However, as we all know, the surpluses in agriculture, like every other commodity, are scandalously squandered while many go hungry. At every point in our system there is waste, from the excess restaurant food scraped off plates into the trash, to the most high-tech industrial processes which are - again, scandalously - devoted to producing the latest electronic trifles. This very act of wasting may be inherent in our notion of the "good life". And even if you don't agree with that, it's certainly central to the functioning of capitalism.

People who don't like work, or school, or cops, or the job options of their ghetto, people who are bored, people who don't identify with chauvinistic sexuality, people who are bad at performing their correct social roles are, by definition, a problem. They're a contradiction. They know, deep down, that nearly everything our society celebrates and champions - cutthroat competition, narrow and artificial standards of beauty, "efficiency" (the most Orwellian of popular terms) - are bankrupt notions emptied of their meaning.

However, as the aspiring social worker pointed out above, even with the best intentions (like becoming a social worker!), it is increasingly difficult to escape. The age-old social injunction to "get with the program," has always been delivered by parents, schools, judicial authorities, etc. Now, all of these entities have the option to medicate their subjects and abort the self-reflection and growth that comes with the individual negotiating her place in the world. It proves to be far cheaper, but like most cost-cutting, it might be fatally short-sighted.

The great irony is that a largely drugged populace may prove to be devoid of the dynamism and struggle that enabled the progressive aspects of capitalism in the first place. The bourgeoisie myth of the free, rebellious, maverick individual who flees his home and makes his own way seems is not only a relic of another time, but in the advanced capitalist nations is physically impossible. There is nowhere unthreatened by the great Sameness of our dumbed-down discourse, of our distracted and alienated corporate culture. There is nowhere to flee where you won't be trespassing.

Which is not to say that we shouldn't have anti-psychotic drugs or automation. Clearly we want these things, to some extent. And it is also not the case that we shouldn't have universal symbols for "get food here" or "get computers here", which is the benevolent aspect of easily recognized brands. The question is, as always, who is in control? Is their claim to rule legitimate? And why do they need to put so many people in jail? And why do they need to put so many people on drugs? And why are our schools like prisons, too? And why, if my job is unnecessary to life on earth, indeed, if my job is wasteful and thus detrimental to life on earth, why, then, do I work so hard?