tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post1939692907615884975..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: Today's Random WildeDale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-45328297171524437202008-05-16T23:53:00.000-07:002008-05-16T23:53:00.000-07:00I don't know if Wilde could have imagined some of ...I don't know if Wilde could have imagined some of our "service sector" jobs though. Personally, if I had to chose between working in a call center and digging ditches, I would prefer the latter. Dirt doesn't talk back or require constant mentally taxing production of bullshit like you need in most office work. Whenever I had something really mindless to do I would detach my mind and think about some math puzzle or software design I had cooked up. When you have a bunch of corporate cubicle rats around you to deal with all the time you find they require just enough brainpower to keep you from thinking about something useful.<BR/><BR/>As for Antonin's comments, I don't think there's anything "transhistorical" about the workday, just the rollback of years of progress toward shorter workweeks and better wages by the decades of movement conservatism. Other nations haven't followed suit and the extent to which they have now is due to Anglo-American neoliberal pressure.<BR/><BR/>America has managed to avoid mass unemployment in the face of automation and improved efficiency largely by pursuing endless growth in consumption using its amazingly advanced advertising industry. So you get huge demand for McMansions, SUVS, Jet Skis, boats and mountains of other crap. Environmental concerns and peak oil will make this model of growth difficult to sustain and force even Americans with their stupid work-for-its-sake mentality to make some choices about reduced work hours vs. having legions of the unemployable roaming around. My guess - Murka will choose the latter and dissolve into a Mad Max movie at some point. There's plenty of crazy festering out there in Redstateland. A new depression would just be the spark to ignite it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-16718981125490988522008-05-10T05:33:00.000-07:002008-05-10T05:33:00.000-07:00Having spent some time in the strawberry fields in...Having spent some time in the strawberry fields in all kinds of weather, I can assure you that it is not the least bit dignified. On the other hand, I agree with AnneC that there are some manual tasks that I find to be rather enjoyable (in my case, cleaning the kitchen--much to my family's delight).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17542998706242713651noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-93745342387875912008-05-02T15:56:00.000-07:002008-05-02T15:56:00.000-07:00I mostly agree with what I believe this passage wa...I mostly agree with what I believe this passage wants to convey in terms of social priorities, and no it is not my belief that ‘pre-emptive surrender’ or some such is in order.<BR/><BR/>However, we must recognize that, for all the advances (and setbacks) on the social front during the last century, not once was the mythology of human labour (which predates neocons by a long shot) even dented by any politico-economic discourse of some pre-eminence. The very idea that machines would one day replace workers and allow greater leisure, once a trope of long-term speculation in the West, has seemingly gone the way of other early sci-fi clichés, invalidated by the transhistorical persistence of the ol’ workaday. Except maybe in transhumanist circles...<BR/><BR/>I’d be curious to read Wilde’s anticipation of our current sacking of the commons. I’ll be sure to read this book on or offline if I get the chance.The Mathmoshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06296125148552532321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-8344072216543546582008-05-01T20:09:00.000-07:002008-05-01T20:09:00.000-07:00Hey, I actually kind of like manual labor. Repeti...Hey, I actually kind of <I>like</I> manual labor. Repetitive physical and other tasks can have quite a meditative quality to them. <BR/><BR/>Though there's a massive difference between doing something because you find it fulfilling, and doing something while in an exploited position for the sake of someone else's profit margin. <BR/><BR/>...Which was probably more the point of the quote, I'm guessing.Anne Corwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04940566603711834053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-10133529180138125982008-05-01T11:19:00.000-07:002008-05-01T11:19:00.000-07:00I don't agree that Wilde's view (excerpted here fr...I don't agree that Wilde's view (excerpted here from the longer Soul of Man Under Socialism, which has its strong points but also, to be sure, some weirdnesses on display) is entirely blind or indifferent to processes that find their current consummation in the ongoing enclosure of the creative and genomic commons, but even if he was, I have to say that declaring pre-emptive surrender to the neoliberal and neoconservative planetary bulldozer isn't exactly my idea of the best way either to testify to the criminality of the criminals among us or to resist their vile work. If you hear complacency or facile assimilation in any testament to hope haven't we lost more on our own accord even than they've already taken? I share your suspicion of utopian triumphalisms, that's for sure, but there are tradeoffs here.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-12884437262732467512008-05-01T11:01:00.000-07:002008-05-01T11:01:00.000-07:00Against Wilde's view, we now witness the forceful ...Against Wilde's view, we now witness the forceful exportation and rigidification of property regimes in the very realm of intellectual labor that he inhabited. History remains deaf to all utopias.The Mathmoshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06296125148552532321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-76609807792192242362008-05-01T09:08:00.001-07:002008-05-01T09:08:00.001-07:00Thanks, Margaret -- I just checked out some of you...Thanks, Margaret -- I just checked out some of your beautiful work available online, thank you for that! Happy May Day to you, too!Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-89903176204861554822008-05-01T08:31:00.000-07:002008-05-01T08:31:00.000-07:00Amen!Amen!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-61501358423739212422008-05-01T07:15:00.000-07:002008-05-01T07:15:00.000-07:00happy May DayI enjoy your blog!happy May Day<BR/><BR/><BR/>I enjoy your blog!margarethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02823248891213397186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-47091306487519408682008-05-01T05:17:00.000-07:002008-05-01T05:17:00.000-07:00This is quite possibly the greatest quote of all t...This is quite possibly the greatest quote of all time.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com