Michael Hoover wrote: > > but > conversations here indicate that we sure do live in the age of > diminishing expectations, which in itself gives people fewer reasons > to spend time on political activism.
That's interesting (as well as depressing). A speculation: Assuming the truth of this, the driving force behind that trend is a longer work day (not only at work but getting to and from work). It leaves people short of breath. There is one sentence in _Capital_ that has always haunted me: "As soon as the working-class, stunned at first by the noise and turmoil of the new system of production, recovered, in some measure, its sense. . . ." Stunned at first. . . .I think the the reduction in free time (by which I mean time in which one is neither burdened with the tasks of reproducing oneself nor with simple fatigue and tension) over the last 30 some years is perhaps the strongest argument against Chomsky's claim that the u.s. is "incomparably more civilized" today than 40 years ago. "Civlization" (in any of its positive sense) can only mean more spare time for sheer loafing. Carrol
