n a t b s

The capitalist bosses and owners are losing their identity as responsible agents; they are assuming the function of bureaucrats in a corporate machine. Within the vast hierarchy of executive and managerial boards extending far beyond the individual establishment into the scientific laboratory and research institute, the national government and national purpose, the tangible source of exploitation disappears behind the facade of objective rationality. Hatred and frustration are deprived of their specific target, and the technological veil conceals the reproduction of inequality and enslavement. With technical progress as its instrument, unfreedom-in the sense of man’s subjection to his productive apparatus-is perpetuated and intensified in the form of many liberties and comforts. The novel feature is the overwhelming rationality in this irrational enterprise, and the depth of the preconditioning which shapes the instinctual drives and aspirations of the individuals and obscures the difference between false and true consciousness. For in reality, neither the utilization of administrative rather than physical controls (hunger, personal dependence, force), nor the change in the character of heavy work, nor the assimilation of occupational classes, nor the equalization in the sphere of consumption compensate for the fact that the decisions over life and death, over personal and national security are made at places over which the individuals have no control. The slaves of developed industrial civilization are sublimated slaves, but they are slaves, for slavery is determined

“Neither by obedience nor by hardness of labor but by the status of being a mere instrument, and the reduction of man to the state of a thing.”

-Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (emphasis mine)

Here is the internal contradiction of this civilization: the irrational element in its rationality. It is the token of its achievements. The industrial society which makes technology and science its own is organized for the ever-more-effective domination of man and nature, for the ever-more-effective utilization of its resources. It becomes irrational when the success of these efforts opens new dimensions of human realization. Organization for peace is different from organization for war; the institutions which served the struggle for existence cannot serve the pacification of existence. Life as an end is qualitatively different from life as a means.

-Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man

True, the white man brought great change. But the varied fruits of his civilization, though highly colored and inviting, are sickening and deadening. And if it be the part of civilization to maim, rob, and thwart, then what is progress?

I am going to venture that the man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures, and acknowledging unity with the universe of things, was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization…

-Chief Luther Standing Bear

I actually think living in this society makes you dumb.  Not permanently so, but it numbs the mind.  Day after day of mindless drone work, followed by television, drinking, as well as the general bombardment of advertising and useless pop culture gossip that you can’t avoid even if you try.  It’s mind numbing.  And I have a case study: my own life!  I sort of swore off psychedelic drugs since college.  Haven’t tripped in 3 years, until this weekend.  When I was tripping, all that society-stuff that clutters the mind washed away.  I experienced what it feels like to have a mind at peace, a mind that’s not constantly prodded.  And I felt like a motherfucking genius.  And that clarity of thought has lingered into the week.  Still, I can feel the fog of society creeping back in, bringing me down.  I need to stay on top of it this time, try to drown out the distractions if possible and keep my mind limber with reading and writing.  And I think I need to trip more often than I have been.  A least once a year, if not more.  Clarity lies there.  I know, clarity is not what one traditionally thinks of when one thinks of tripping, but I tell you my friends, I had clarity like you wouldn’t believe that day.  Pure, simple, beautiful clarity.  And it’s so simple.  You just need to avoid distractions, and not get wrapped up in them.  I thought pot was my problem, I can now firmly say that it’s not.  Cliché as it is, it’s society’s fault.

I should be.  I need to keep my job.  Without a job I will loose my home and I’ll starve.  I’ll become a wretched degenerate, sneered at by business men, harassed by teenagers, and pitied by the compassionate.  Living in a subway station I’ll beg for money and I’ll get some. I’ll turn the money into food and spirits to ease my pain. And despite the fact that 6 million other Americans are also unemployed I’ll still hear that callous timeless heckle: “Get a job!”

But I’m free.

Free to choose servitude or slum, McDonald’s or Wendy’s, paper or plastic, Amex or Visa, Jet Blue or Delta, Democrat or Republican, Yankees or Red Sox, hybrid or regular, low sodium or vitamin fortified, United Health or Oxford.  Yes, it’s glorious to be a free human living in a world of choice.  Simply glorious.