| You probably don't have the patience to read all this. |
[Feb. 7th, 2008|09:05 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  thoughtful | ] |
delay of gratification = hypocrisy
job training = ridiculous
breaking wave of civilization
this post will ramble about those three sort of topics above. that probably don't make much sense, as they were just notes I took to remind myself to think about more, and write about. I am posting it here because I don't keep an actual journal, and I type faster than I can handwrite, and its so much more legible.
Step 1.
Delay of Gratification = Hypocrisy
This won't make any sense to the rest of you, I'd imagine. But I will try anyway. Basically my whole life so far, has been a delay of gratification. School, more school. Reading, 'responsibility', etc. I have this urge to let go of all this and run and take what I want, and do what I want, and not leave anything for later. But I have been so indoctrinated to think that if I was just wantonly hedonistic and sensualistic (as in trying new experiences) I would end up just some low class slob living in a trailer watching south park and barely being literate. Probably voting republican and demanding welfare and having twelve kids or something. That definitely doesn't sound pleasurable to me. But its kind of the prototypical low class hedon that is relishing in all the worst aspects of American consumerism and hubris. I have this voice warning me "finish that book, finish college, get a job, retire, Or else you'll end up like that". And I shiver, I shudder, I work towards my degree. But really, the only reason I think that would happen if I didn't have a delay of gratification sensor is because I bought into the system. It is what teaches me that as a middle class white male I must stay away from immediacy. I must keep my distance from my pleasure. It will come next week, month, year. When I retire. When I die. Christ in the afterlife will make sure I am happy. But I am slowly coming to hate the hypocrisy in me that I do my best to be stoic (in some regards), to delay my impulses until later, when the only reason I am doing that is because a civilization I can't stand has told me that is the right thing to do if I don't want to end up as something to be reviled.
Step 2.
Job Training = Ridiculous
By job training, I of course mean the whole career system that has come about in the last 50 years or so. Theres so many people in our economy, we certainly can't have a guild system, with apprentices and journeymen and handywork. We have high school, and college, and graduate school, then our careers. It seems like this strange pile of manhours are building up, and thats why they are creating this strange factories for 'teaching' us and 'training' us. Speaking in generalizations here but: when WWII, a high school diploma was enough to get you to plenty of jobs that would keep you occupied until you died, if you wanted to excell you would go to college for your bachelors. when the babyboomers hit the workforce, suddenly a bachelors degree was what was needed to secure a job that will be 'good'. When GenX hit, they needed a masters, or a doctorate, etc. Now, for the post GenX generation, well we certainly haven't seen what the labor market will look like, we are gearing them up to require as much training as Gen X got. Certainly every generation has to suprass the previous one. Otherwise, how can you call yourself human? When you combine average life span, and global population also in the period between 1945-2000, you see this enormous job from 2 billion to 6 billion people, this life span increase thanks to medicine of, depending on where you life of course, to approximately 70 years old from ~50. Pre-Industrial, you could be happy to live to 50, averages might tend closer to 40-45. So we have this strange phenomenon in my mind of a massively swelling work force that lives longer and has nothing to do except to delay their entry by getting more training that has been 'accumulated' by the past generations. And thats where we get to step 3.
Step 3.
Profit.
The breaking wave of civilization. When you stop and look around at your world. Or more specifically, when I stop and look around my world. I see this enormously wealthy, exploitative system that has built up to value commodoties, and seek profit. But, how long can this system really go on? I could quote models and figures and statistics, but I feel safe to assume that even without doing so all of you will believe that right now we are about as materially wealthy as the planet could ever support. Soon enough this strange capitalistic globalized economy will collide with dwindling natural resources, and human ingenuity. I don't want to sound like a doomsday preacher, but I can't imagine a future of 2050 that is remotely similar in lifestyle to how we live today. So we have this strange workforce that is specially trained for niches, like me, the Historian, able to read and write and analyze and cite primary sources. Or you have the sociologist who gathers census data, or the pharmaceutical engineer who cooks up a cocktail that makes your brain produce twice as much of a pheromone as someone 65 should. But as the civilization descends from its zenith, we will be left holding our diplomas in our hands, wondering where we go from here. I wish I had better prepared myself, but I will enjoy surfing this wave until my life ends, even if I am straddling two worlds. A world of the future, and a world of the past. |
|
|
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
generickid's journal
listless
giddy
groggy
amused