Sally, I read both an excellent new chapter from Mike Hollinshead's book
and this article from the website you recommended.
The Taylor paper is still "movie company processes" with the knowledge
workers in the role of 19th century "composers". Knowledge workers
could be looking at the plight of the 20th century composers as their future
as well. (Of course the information on a standard not very complicated
score of music can still bust most hard drives so the comparison is only
a process one and not a complexity issue.) As Baumol said to William
Schumann, the composer President of Juilliard. "Why are you complaining
about the plight of the composer in the 20th century? You have a job!"
And there will be a limited number of service sector jobs available to them
as well, whenever the future "Samoza" class is hiring.
Or maybe it is Nicaragua! I have a mask on my wall brought back from
there by a student. It is made of screen wire and was worn by the
Sandinista rebels. They made it from a simple mold and after being
worn could be discarded in the jungle and would rust away in a few hours.
(No evidence) It had a face painted on it in a kind of soft shadow, since
screen wire is mostly space. The face had beautiful staring blue eyes
and pink/white skin. Up until I saw that mask, I never realized the race
of the people who wore it. Who was on top and who was on bottom with
no middle class. It took the combined threat of all of the gringo armies
to convince the electorate that it would be better for them to give up the
revolutionaries and survive. Like the other communitarian governments
they always chose survival over the possibility of affluence.
Contrast that with:
Even a little success in this country for the minorities has caused the rise
of a so-called White "Civil Rights" group in this country. They love those
Black Velvet Tiger paintings and they've confused Hippocrites with
hypocrisy ever since their ancestors used "not passing Greek" in the
schools as an excuse to come to America.
But I do like Taylor's last possibility and the one that I have advocated
for the list discussion since I came on a couple of years ago. He said:
>What comes after knowledge work? The choice is ours. If
>we fail to adapt our economic institutions to accommodate the
>extremely high productivity that will become possible, we may
>well face constant depression combined with a distribution of
>income that will be more extreme than we find today in
>countries such as Brazil and Mexico. Or we can enjoy lives
>without toil; lives in which we can take an abundance of goods
>and services for granted; lives without work as we know it
>today; lives filled with creative and fulfilling activities.
Earlier in the paper he talks about Thorstein Veblen in a cursory
manner but the point about the potential separation of productive
business activities (Veblen's machine) from human activities is
I believe, a good one.
Another point that he doesn't make is, but should, is
the parallel in the handling of today's information stocks with the
manipulations of the Morgan's and the Goulds, at the expense of
product in the late 19th century, is also enough to make one
shudder.
Like Veblen's belief in the ultimate machine, I tend to believe with
Taylor, that the eventual inclusion of all human literal knowledge
in the computer with a quick search function will radically change
our prejudices.
Like Veblen, I believe that the issue is whether
something "works" or not and not how you feel about it. I think
that many of the stories that should legitimately bring out our wisdom,
as teaching stories, are destroyed in the light of fundamentalism that
makes the stories and writings untrue because their "facts" are not
accurate science. The computer memory and search should contain
all literal writings with cross references. Just the small library on
periodicals at Carnegie Mellon has created a staggering difference
in their provinciality as well as respect for knowledge older than
100 years old.
I think we will eventually have to accept that the holistic non literal
nature is best left to the highest and most creative activities that
humanity can conceive while the concept of "Jobs" in the old "hired
hands" sense may very well pass away.
It could be one of the ironies of history that "jobs" will become as
they were in Peru during the Inca and in China in the Cultural
Revolution something that everyone does for a few short months
as a kind of tax for the system. The rest of the time will be given
to creative work or maybe even no work at all.
I have trouble with the no work idea maybe because of the
Baptists on the reservation and they may have been right about the
psychological need for it. But I don't believe we have begun to ask
the questions on this yet.
Two of those can best be shown with the following examples. The
first is about Medicine. We have a Medical Model that is basically
chemical intervention on a war footing against disease. A member
of my family that is now fifteen has, since birth, been a participant in
that belief system. Her health has steadily declined until this year
she missed a whole semester of school as the family took her from
the internist to the gastrointorologist, to the neurologist, to MRIs, to
various "oscopies" and she just got worse. Along the way she also
started psycho-therapy just in case. Actually, given the failure of
everyone to even help, the latter makes the most sense if she was
to survive the bungling of the rest. Finally we took her to a homeo-
pathist who works with a regular internist who ordered more tests.
He thought there would be all kinds of problems with too many
anti-biotics, immunizations, sick building syndrome, mono etc.
But when the tests came back, he asked about micro-wave ovens.
It seems that micro-waves kill enzymes that are necessary for
digestion and her digestion was the one thing that showed up on
the tests. She also had enjoyed cooking her own meals since
she was a baby, in the micro-wave oven. He explained that food
was her first medicine and that she had not had the necessary
enzymes to digest the food so it basically fermented in her stomach
and the resultant toxins gave her ulcers (no there were no bacterial
problems) and now her stomach was an irritated mess.
So he gave her a diet that eliminated any foods that had an irritating
effect on the stomach. No micro-waves of course but instead of a sick
person's bland tasteless diet, this French Doctor gave her five-star
recipes with the foods that she could have and told her how to make
them. Along the way he taught her basic nutrition about food mixing
so she would not be anemic along with her other problems. He also
used some very potent herbs which he taught her how to mix and she
took care of her own medicine. She improved immediately and is
now back in school with plenty of spunk to handle all of the problems.
It could be said that she had become "pro-active" a very popular word
these days, except she was always very proactive around her food.
She just did it in the wrong way (poor food mixing) and in the wrong
place (the micro-wave). But "fast food" is claimed to be nutritious
according to the market and micro-waves are supposed to be safe for
everyone. And modern medicine is supposed to heal but in all three
cases this young relative was in severe danger and they would have let
her die in service to their beliefs. (Also, her severe sore throats are gone
as are her constant headaches and nose bleeds.) Humans are not
machines and poisons in the environment will eventually kill our young
as well as the Eagles. There is a purpose for art (five-star recipes), it
heals.
Now, the reason that I say this is that medicine is as polarized as the
moral imperative of work. How about fighting the edict that "six days you
shall labor and one day shall you rest"? So Veblen was right but was
he clever.
The second story is about what Veblen called the "Instinct of Workmanship."
Certain professions cannot be practiced if they are not done so daily.
Almost all of the performing arts are in that category. Elaborate work
schemes like the Inca's and Mao's are not compatible with these
complicated psycho physical skills. Just as my relative's story is an
example of what Roger Williams termed "Bio-chemical Individuality"
so are we individual in our talent skill sets. It is my belief that ignoring
such things creates a very depressed, unhappy population and
ultimately a doomed one.
I believe in freedom and that everyone must come to their own life
choices but I also believe that it is the purpose of society to make
sure that those life choices are possible. When economists like
Rukeyser speaks so glowingly of speculative success while demeaning
"product work" it begins to sound like Robert Heilbroner's description of
the late 19th century economist's apologies for the pirates abroad in the
land with terms like "thrift and accumulation for cutthroat monetary games,
enterprise for outright fraud and gilded extravagances of the age as colorless
consumption."
The U.S. Preamble to the Constitution is an amazing piece of future
projecting. But like so many wonderful documents it has been praised
and ignored. Perhaps a refresher:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect
Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the
common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the
Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and
establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Note that the document is case sensitive.
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Chamber Opera of New York, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
