"I think the academic world is largely lost, at least when it concerns fundamental questions."
“LIKE MEDICINE IS LOST FOR HEALTH, ECONOMY IS LOST FOR WELlFARE AND HAPPINESS,.. a lot of losses, to much for us poor people, isn't it?”
Harald, I'm sorry, but your point reeks of the tyranny of the functional. While I and my peer and friend may seem a little hyperbolic, you seem to forget, given your examples, that higher education is not just about about addressing the practical matters you describe, it was also meant to be a way of furthering democracy by creating citizens who can think outside of the system that demands our loyalty based on those practical achievements.
The important thing to note here (at least for my part (is that we all gotta find our flow and that it is all fuel for the fire. So if someone chooses to take the academic route, it would feel, for the most part, pathetic on my part to berate that person -especially when I know they could end up being crucial to my process -even if they seem to have succumbed to the tyranny of the functional or state philosophy. I can either use what they have in the positive sense of building my understanding with their understanding, or I can use it in the negative sense of recognizing what it is I am trying to avoid.
The problem for me starts when philosophers from the analytic/academic side of the analytic/continental spectrum smugly dismiss the continental/literary approach such as when Searle argued that Derrida was a philosopher for those that knew nothing about philosophy. I mean who was he to suddenly declare that he, and others who shared his sentiment, held the only criteria by which philosophy works? That just feels a little dogmatic to me (state philosophy (and the antithesis of what it is that philosophy could do. It feels like someone riding on the endorsement of corporate power as it tends to be expressed in corporate sponsorship of the universities.
And nothing captures what I'm talking about more than Sokal's hoax: throwing out false scientific evidence hoping that post structural and post modern philosophers might take the bait -which they did. I mean what did he prove? First of all, he proved that he was a prudish asshole and mean spirited p**** who thought of knowledge as a means to power rather than one of understanding. And as Joe Hughes points out in his reader's guide to Difference and Repetition, most of Sokal's exposition was peppered with claims of not understanding. Secondly, he established what most people already know: that philosophers are not scientists and that they have to trust in the authority of scientists when it comes to scientific matters.
Postcards:
Re: Postcards:
nothing must necessarily come from nothing
Re: Postcards:
“I rather see science as an extension of a certain brand of philosophy, and the way science draws its conclusions as a philosophical choice, though the choice has receded into the background and has become invisible, and now appears as an inevitability. “
Yes, this would seem to be a historical fact, that is given how science branched off of the initial inquiries of philosophers like Aristotle and Bacon. And while this aspect of it has pretty much been buried, you are right in pointing out that the choice to pursue scientific methods is still a philosophical one in that it involves the question how to best pursue understanding.
“Fact is [may the wrath of Strunk rest in its grave], science can not account for its own laws. Philosophy, at least VO, can. “
Nor its own methods. There are all kinds people using all kinds of methods that contribute to scientific knowledge including armchair methods very similar to that of philosophers –for instance: Einstein and Hawkings. Neither Einstein or Hawkings could directly observe the conclusions they arrived at, but could only arrive at them by playing with the concepts and knowledge available to them. All they could do is form hypotheses and test them against reality –which can include the body of knowledge they were working with.
But this is pretty much what any intellectually and creatively curious person does. This is why I find it a little suspect when someone comes on these boards and starts flashing the scientific method around like some badge of authority and, based on it, claim to have the final word on the subject. To paraphrase Rorty:
“Those who would strut into the room ready to set everything straight”
You tend to see this a lot with hardcore materialists and libertarians. They talk a lot about facts, objectivity, and rationality, then jump to indemonstrable conclusions like the mind is merely the brain or Capitalism is the only workable economic system on the face of the earth –that is as if either have been sufficiently demonstrated as, say, water will boil at 212 degrees at atmospheric pressure.
“Scientists know how to build using the laws that have been disclosed by thinkers. Scientists aren't usually thinkers, but rather laborers. Laborers who repeat actions, who apply existing thought in different situations, thereby selecting only situations that are compatible with these ideas. The scientific system is wholly circular, recognizes only outcomes that obey and sustain its limiting principles, disregards the vast cosmos of phenomena that do no obey this limiting; it draws out of nature a single aspect made of two qualities: isolation and repetition. All that doesn't let itself be isolated without collapsing into a different, lower nature, and all that does not infinitely repeat while remaining identical, is considered unreal.”
It sounds to me like you’re referring to Walter Kuhn’s normal science. And, in that sense, I would tend to agree with you. But let’s not underestimate the value of it. If science, much like art and philosophy, simply functioned when it was inspired, those disciplines would have died out a long time ago. It’s a little like something I learned from a book about making art concerning the myth of art as a mystical activity: art is, in fact (and may the wrath of Strunk rest in its grave), an activity like any other –like that of a cabinet maker. We tend to give inspiration privilege over craft. But inspiration comes when it will. Therefore, we have to focus on the basic activity, to maintain and develop craft, until that inspiration comes along. That way, when it does, we’ll have the resources we need to fully utilize it.
My point is that abnormal science, that which tends to lead to that inspiration, could not exist without the labor of normal science.
“If science "has its way", al that will exist on Earth will be isolated bits of identical quality. If we want to prevent this, science desperately needs to be subjected to humanity, to philosophy, to the ground from which its power once emerged.”
Yes, science does tend to work with isolated systems. It has to in order to work. The important thing is that it recognizes that. And I’m not so sure most scientists don’t. Granted, Hawking’s claim that philosophy is dead and the impression you get from a lot of trolls on these boards (those of materialist and libertarian kind) would suggest that. But I’m a little hesitant when it comes to judging the whole scientific community on Hawking’s lapse in judgment and a few wannabe gurus on the board. Ayn Rand tried to appeal to the scientific when she called her philosophy Objectivism. But I seriously doubt that the 97% of scientists who argue for man-made global warming caused by the mostly laissez Faire Capitalism she argued for would agree with the alleged objectivity of her claims.
Yes, this would seem to be a historical fact, that is given how science branched off of the initial inquiries of philosophers like Aristotle and Bacon. And while this aspect of it has pretty much been buried, you are right in pointing out that the choice to pursue scientific methods is still a philosophical one in that it involves the question how to best pursue understanding.
“Fact is [may the wrath of Strunk rest in its grave], science can not account for its own laws. Philosophy, at least VO, can. “
Nor its own methods. There are all kinds people using all kinds of methods that contribute to scientific knowledge including armchair methods very similar to that of philosophers –for instance: Einstein and Hawkings. Neither Einstein or Hawkings could directly observe the conclusions they arrived at, but could only arrive at them by playing with the concepts and knowledge available to them. All they could do is form hypotheses and test them against reality –which can include the body of knowledge they were working with.
But this is pretty much what any intellectually and creatively curious person does. This is why I find it a little suspect when someone comes on these boards and starts flashing the scientific method around like some badge of authority and, based on it, claim to have the final word on the subject. To paraphrase Rorty:
“Those who would strut into the room ready to set everything straight”
You tend to see this a lot with hardcore materialists and libertarians. They talk a lot about facts, objectivity, and rationality, then jump to indemonstrable conclusions like the mind is merely the brain or Capitalism is the only workable economic system on the face of the earth –that is as if either have been sufficiently demonstrated as, say, water will boil at 212 degrees at atmospheric pressure.
“Scientists know how to build using the laws that have been disclosed by thinkers. Scientists aren't usually thinkers, but rather laborers. Laborers who repeat actions, who apply existing thought in different situations, thereby selecting only situations that are compatible with these ideas. The scientific system is wholly circular, recognizes only outcomes that obey and sustain its limiting principles, disregards the vast cosmos of phenomena that do no obey this limiting; it draws out of nature a single aspect made of two qualities: isolation and repetition. All that doesn't let itself be isolated without collapsing into a different, lower nature, and all that does not infinitely repeat while remaining identical, is considered unreal.”
It sounds to me like you’re referring to Walter Kuhn’s normal science. And, in that sense, I would tend to agree with you. But let’s not underestimate the value of it. If science, much like art and philosophy, simply functioned when it was inspired, those disciplines would have died out a long time ago. It’s a little like something I learned from a book about making art concerning the myth of art as a mystical activity: art is, in fact (and may the wrath of Strunk rest in its grave), an activity like any other –like that of a cabinet maker. We tend to give inspiration privilege over craft. But inspiration comes when it will. Therefore, we have to focus on the basic activity, to maintain and develop craft, until that inspiration comes along. That way, when it does, we’ll have the resources we need to fully utilize it.
My point is that abnormal science, that which tends to lead to that inspiration, could not exist without the labor of normal science.
“If science "has its way", al that will exist on Earth will be isolated bits of identical quality. If we want to prevent this, science desperately needs to be subjected to humanity, to philosophy, to the ground from which its power once emerged.”
Yes, science does tend to work with isolated systems. It has to in order to work. The important thing is that it recognizes that. And I’m not so sure most scientists don’t. Granted, Hawking’s claim that philosophy is dead and the impression you get from a lot of trolls on these boards (those of materialist and libertarian kind) would suggest that. But I’m a little hesitant when it comes to judging the whole scientific community on Hawking’s lapse in judgment and a few wannabe gurus on the board. Ayn Rand tried to appeal to the scientific when she called her philosophy Objectivism. But I seriously doubt that the 97% of scientists who argue for man-made global warming caused by the mostly laissez Faire Capitalism she argued for would agree with the alleged objectivity of her claims.
Re: Postcards:
First of all: easy guys! You’re not saying much that I wouldn’t myself. You have to look at it in the context of what I was responding to. That said, thanks for giving me my around 500 word run for today.
“ I feel like I have to jump in here in defense of Science.”
Actually, no you don’t. If you look at what it was I was responding to and saying you might find on a further run that I was defending science as well –most notably here normal science. If you look through it, you will find I was responding to respected peer whose complete dismissal of science I didn’t completely agree with. Where I will agree with him is that philosophy has no reason to suffer the inferiority complex it has in the face of science. That, as far as I am concerned, is the result of Capitalist values and the tyranny of the functional. Hence the dominance of the analytic method and its smug dismissal of the continental. If philosophy, as far as I am concerned (and this where I stand fully allied with my peer), is to be of value, it has to, along with the analytic approach, distinguish itself from science in its methods and goals. It has to embrace its poetic side as well as its scientific.
“Your comments about Einstein and Hawkings for example. You say that, "Neither Einstein or Hawkings could directly observe the conclusions they arrived at, but could only arrive at them by playing with the concepts and knowledge available to them."
True, but you are neglecting the fact that they made predictions.”
No one would deny that. But what you are neglecting is the fact (and may the wrath of Strunk rest in its grave(that they arrived at those predictions by (much in the armchair manner of a philosopher (playing with concepts. Now Einstein may have eventually justified relativity through mathematics, but he clearly started by imagining the relationship between someone standing on a train watching a pulse of light bouncing up and down and someone watching that same train fly by. In fact, Einstein was very clear on the role that creativity plays in science.
And I’m sure it is the same case with Hawkings. However, Hawkings, unlike Einstein would dare to do, made the claim that science would make philosophy obsolete. Bad move, as far I’m concerned; especially considering (copping off Russell (the no man’s land that philosophy occupies between science and poetry. I mainly brought Hawkins into it because of his misguided arrogance.
“That's why science doesn't have room for the supernatural and that's why science doesn't much care about "theories" that merely attempt to look at the world through some "lens."”
Nor should it. However, one of the biggest failures with the continental approach lies not so much with its practitioners, but its detractors. And it comes from taking it too literally when, in fact, all it is offering itself as is a perspective. Continentals, for instance, have no problem with Baudrillard being described as a sci-fy writer who happens to be writing philosophy. We all know that there is no observable entity such as the simulacrum. But we can pretty much say the same thing about black holes, relativity, and evolution. No matter how compelling the evidence seems, they simply cannot be demonstrated in the same way that 1+1=2 or water boils at 212 degrees at atmospheric pressure can. They can only be inferred from the evidence given. Still, by taking on Baudrillard’s perspective, you can get a lot of understanding about how things work –even if they may be disproved by further evidence: the same inductive limit that black holes, relativity, and evolution is up against.
But even more: to dismiss the value of philosophy on that count is as much dismissing the value of poetry or art. And that would only veer science towards the fascistic-which makes the methods of art, poetry, and philosophy all that more valuable.
“Kuhn argued that normal science is necessary for revolutionary science to develop; that an alternative is necessary for paradigm change. Amongst the puzzle solving of normal science, anomalous data will become unable to be incorporated and throw the paradigm into crisis.
I wouldn't call normal science uninspired. I'd call it quite the opposite -- it's highly inspired by the current paradigm.”
Pretty much what I was saying: it’s what we do when nothing as big as a change in paradigm is happening. Point out, if you will, any point at which I said it was unproductive.
Plus that, I think we can apply Kuhn’s argument to the arts and philosophy as well. While you are right in that it is inspired by the shift in paradigm, it will not be as inspired as the paradigm itself. And that was the point I was making to my respected peer. But, more importantly, I was arguing for the import of the normal process in that it builds a foundation for the next paradigm shift.
We all know this from a personal microcosmic level of having experienced these personal paradigm shifts then having spent time perfecting it until the next paradigm comes along. It's pretty much what I do on these boards.
“ I feel like I have to jump in here in defense of Science.”
Actually, no you don’t. If you look at what it was I was responding to and saying you might find on a further run that I was defending science as well –most notably here normal science. If you look through it, you will find I was responding to respected peer whose complete dismissal of science I didn’t completely agree with. Where I will agree with him is that philosophy has no reason to suffer the inferiority complex it has in the face of science. That, as far as I am concerned, is the result of Capitalist values and the tyranny of the functional. Hence the dominance of the analytic method and its smug dismissal of the continental. If philosophy, as far as I am concerned (and this where I stand fully allied with my peer), is to be of value, it has to, along with the analytic approach, distinguish itself from science in its methods and goals. It has to embrace its poetic side as well as its scientific.
“Your comments about Einstein and Hawkings for example. You say that, "Neither Einstein or Hawkings could directly observe the conclusions they arrived at, but could only arrive at them by playing with the concepts and knowledge available to them."
True, but you are neglecting the fact that they made predictions.”
No one would deny that. But what you are neglecting is the fact (and may the wrath of Strunk rest in its grave(that they arrived at those predictions by (much in the armchair manner of a philosopher (playing with concepts. Now Einstein may have eventually justified relativity through mathematics, but he clearly started by imagining the relationship between someone standing on a train watching a pulse of light bouncing up and down and someone watching that same train fly by. In fact, Einstein was very clear on the role that creativity plays in science.
And I’m sure it is the same case with Hawkings. However, Hawkings, unlike Einstein would dare to do, made the claim that science would make philosophy obsolete. Bad move, as far I’m concerned; especially considering (copping off Russell (the no man’s land that philosophy occupies between science and poetry. I mainly brought Hawkins into it because of his misguided arrogance.
“That's why science doesn't have room for the supernatural and that's why science doesn't much care about "theories" that merely attempt to look at the world through some "lens."”
Nor should it. However, one of the biggest failures with the continental approach lies not so much with its practitioners, but its detractors. And it comes from taking it too literally when, in fact, all it is offering itself as is a perspective. Continentals, for instance, have no problem with Baudrillard being described as a sci-fy writer who happens to be writing philosophy. We all know that there is no observable entity such as the simulacrum. But we can pretty much say the same thing about black holes, relativity, and evolution. No matter how compelling the evidence seems, they simply cannot be demonstrated in the same way that 1+1=2 or water boils at 212 degrees at atmospheric pressure can. They can only be inferred from the evidence given. Still, by taking on Baudrillard’s perspective, you can get a lot of understanding about how things work –even if they may be disproved by further evidence: the same inductive limit that black holes, relativity, and evolution is up against.
But even more: to dismiss the value of philosophy on that count is as much dismissing the value of poetry or art. And that would only veer science towards the fascistic-which makes the methods of art, poetry, and philosophy all that more valuable.
“Kuhn argued that normal science is necessary for revolutionary science to develop; that an alternative is necessary for paradigm change. Amongst the puzzle solving of normal science, anomalous data will become unable to be incorporated and throw the paradigm into crisis.
I wouldn't call normal science uninspired. I'd call it quite the opposite -- it's highly inspired by the current paradigm.”
Pretty much what I was saying: it’s what we do when nothing as big as a change in paradigm is happening. Point out, if you will, any point at which I said it was unproductive.
Plus that, I think we can apply Kuhn’s argument to the arts and philosophy as well. While you are right in that it is inspired by the shift in paradigm, it will not be as inspired as the paradigm itself. And that was the point I was making to my respected peer. But, more importantly, I was arguing for the import of the normal process in that it builds a foundation for the next paradigm shift.
We all know this from a personal microcosmic level of having experienced these personal paradigm shifts then having spent time perfecting it until the next paradigm comes along. It's pretty much what I do on these boards.
Re: Postcards:
Just to give you sense of how fucked America is, and how tough it is to be a progressive in the Midwest:
I live close to an important Air Force base. Today we noticed a lot of jets flying over the area. Come to find out, it was practice for the air show that Obama cancelled last year in order to, at the demand of the Republicans, cut costs. And, of course, the person that explained that to me (someone, BTW, who is working a shit job (did so with a bit of vengeful pleasure that suggested that that [n-bomb] got his. Now first of all, in the words of a great thinker of our day and age, John Oliver:
“America, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
Secondly, and in explanation of the first point, the reason that Obama cancelled it last year was to cut frivolous costs in order to please the Republicans. But no doubt, it was tea bagger Republicans that bitched about the air show being cancelled. And this is what is so insidious about the whole thing. Apparently, when tea baggers and Republicans want to cut costs, what they mean are social programs that might actually help someone. But when it comes to being able to look at how big their dick is (via the technology of Capitalism (money is no object.
On top of that, I have the insult to injury in Ted Nugent and Hank William’s Jr. showing up locally –and a strange coincidence at that. Now to understand my feelings about this, imagine the last time I saw Nugent (that is for the 4th time (and having the whole thing transform into a fascist hate rally against Clinton and his team –that is when Clinton’s economy was the main reason anyone could afford to be there in the first place. On top that he denigrated his audience by screaming (and I am paraphrasing here:
“Hey all you fat beer guzzling motherfuckers: 52, alcohol and drug free, and in perfect shape!”
Or something like that. What he failed to acknowledge is how mediocre his career has been. He put out a few hits in his first 2 albums. But beyond that, I haven’t seen that much. And the only thing that made him a popular live was his misogynistic stage antics (I'm just here for all that good Midwestern pussy, that is before he got political, which he played on repeatedly throughout the first 3 times I saw him –mainly because of my being from the 70’s and it being almost kind of obligatory. There is a reason he had to turn to becoming a right-wing radio host. And since the fourth one, I have considered it a milestone when I see an artist I actually respect as many times as I have him: a small collection of Rob Zombie, KMFDM, and Yes. But I’m about to create a new milestone with Uncle Rob in September.
And I can only imagine what it will be like, between Nugent and William’s Jr., at that arena tonight: a bunch of old 70’s folks longing for the good old days of the 70’s when government was less intrusive, we had a clear sense of our social order that didn’t include minorities (the n-bomb dropped out of our mouths like it was nothing -we didn't know any better (and we told tales of gays coming out of the closet in the same way you might dark tales around a campfire.
It may be advertized as good old all-American fun: a testament to freedom. But all I see happening is a brown shirt rally built around how despicable progressives are and how they are ruining America. I’ll be lucky if my friend who went doesn’t want to lynch me when she gets back. And I would bet money that it will be mentioned how great it is to have the air show back. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Ted and Hank made an appearance.
I live close to an important Air Force base. Today we noticed a lot of jets flying over the area. Come to find out, it was practice for the air show that Obama cancelled last year in order to, at the demand of the Republicans, cut costs. And, of course, the person that explained that to me (someone, BTW, who is working a shit job (did so with a bit of vengeful pleasure that suggested that that [n-bomb] got his. Now first of all, in the words of a great thinker of our day and age, John Oliver:
“America, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
Secondly, and in explanation of the first point, the reason that Obama cancelled it last year was to cut frivolous costs in order to please the Republicans. But no doubt, it was tea bagger Republicans that bitched about the air show being cancelled. And this is what is so insidious about the whole thing. Apparently, when tea baggers and Republicans want to cut costs, what they mean are social programs that might actually help someone. But when it comes to being able to look at how big their dick is (via the technology of Capitalism (money is no object.
On top of that, I have the insult to injury in Ted Nugent and Hank William’s Jr. showing up locally –and a strange coincidence at that. Now to understand my feelings about this, imagine the last time I saw Nugent (that is for the 4th time (and having the whole thing transform into a fascist hate rally against Clinton and his team –that is when Clinton’s economy was the main reason anyone could afford to be there in the first place. On top that he denigrated his audience by screaming (and I am paraphrasing here:
“Hey all you fat beer guzzling motherfuckers: 52, alcohol and drug free, and in perfect shape!”
Or something like that. What he failed to acknowledge is how mediocre his career has been. He put out a few hits in his first 2 albums. But beyond that, I haven’t seen that much. And the only thing that made him a popular live was his misogynistic stage antics (I'm just here for all that good Midwestern pussy, that is before he got political, which he played on repeatedly throughout the first 3 times I saw him –mainly because of my being from the 70’s and it being almost kind of obligatory. There is a reason he had to turn to becoming a right-wing radio host. And since the fourth one, I have considered it a milestone when I see an artist I actually respect as many times as I have him: a small collection of Rob Zombie, KMFDM, and Yes. But I’m about to create a new milestone with Uncle Rob in September.
And I can only imagine what it will be like, between Nugent and William’s Jr., at that arena tonight: a bunch of old 70’s folks longing for the good old days of the 70’s when government was less intrusive, we had a clear sense of our social order that didn’t include minorities (the n-bomb dropped out of our mouths like it was nothing -we didn't know any better (and we told tales of gays coming out of the closet in the same way you might dark tales around a campfire.
It may be advertized as good old all-American fun: a testament to freedom. But all I see happening is a brown shirt rally built around how despicable progressives are and how they are ruining America. I’ll be lucky if my friend who went doesn’t want to lynch me when she gets back. And I would bet money that it will be mentioned how great it is to have the air show back. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Ted and Hank made an appearance.
Re: Postcards:
Watching Atlas Shrugged: My Struggle (and rise) as a Fascist Looter.
How I Got My Start:
I tried to take the high road and give it a chance. I really did. But then I had tried as much with Rand and The Virtue of Selfishness, but got so nauseous by the third essay, I had to put it down. And nothing I further read or heard about her tempered my disgust. Certainly not the movie biopic, the Passion of Ayn Rand, in which she has an affair with an intern after telling her husband and the intern’s girlfriend what they were going to do. That only came across as some kind of psychopathic notion of enlightened honesty and the self indulgence of a narcissistic bitch: the kind of woman that would eat her babies as a peer once pointed out. And I had assumed my sentiment to be common among the creative community. So imagine my surprise when I read that Atlas Shrugged was being made into a movie in an article that gave the misleading impression that Angelina Jolie was backing it. But then why not? God only knows what runs through that chick's mind. One sometimes gleams a hint of the psychopathic in that icy glare: the poutty lips and that narrowing of the eyes as they zero in on the kill. Still, it seemed odd that the alleged Hollywood liberal elite would even consider it.
My curiosity took root and only intensified upon seeing a clip where Hank Reardon declares his utter indifference to the poor. For some reason, I got the impression that it would be one of those moody independent films like The Blue Rose Hotel. But in my scheme it was a sort of cyberpunk Trojan horse in which subtle critique is cleverly concealed within tribute. Plus that, there was always the possibility of being surprised. I had always been impressed when talent from the other side managed to present old school and Christian values in a way that was digestible and empathetic enough to temper my own extremes and revise my mental concepts. Such sensibilities, even if I didn't share them, could clearly be presented in a dignified and non-sanctimonious manner as in the movie A River Runs Through It, Robert Duvall in such roles as Rambling Rose and Second Hand Lions, the work of Terrence Malick, and, hating on chairs aside, Clint Eastwood's classicist/conservative approach to filmmaking. So when I kept coming across it on Netflix, it was only a matter of time before I would set aside my political leanings, push the play button, resolve to not tarnish my intellectual integrity with petty heckling, and give the woman, her story, and her position their day in court. But then authentic Christian/classical values are something quite different than Capitalist ones.
It was a matter of minutes before the hope dissipated and I found myself reeling in shock and astonishment at the second (if not third) rate production values. Many critics compared it to a TV mini-series. But I would equate it with the cheap B movies that are sometimes made for the ScyFy channel or shown on Fear Net. The only difference was that those films were generally innocuous enough to serve as mindless entertainment –something you stick with while rolling your eyes just to see if it ends in the way you predict. Atlas Shrugged, on the other hand, took the mean-spirited and paranoid route of conspiracy theory or holocaust denial: less the individual perspective that constitutes a work of art and more like war to anyone with a non-pathological sense of reality. I even began to suspect, perhaps out of denial, that what I was watching was not the theatrical release, but some made for TV knockoff much like the miniseries of Steven King's The Shining, that which stuck closer to the book at the expense of the production values, creativity, and style of Kubrick's version. Even when I recognized the clip where Reardon expresses his indifference to the poor, I wondered if it wasn't just another version of a key moment in the book. It just seemed odd that something like it would even be released in theaters, that some marketer would not have recognized that it might have made a better debut (it basically flopped with critics and the box office) in a more appropriate medium such as TV or straight to DVD. However, the more I watched and learned about it, the harder the possibility pressed itself: that ideological forces overrode business sense and the agents behind it thought they had something more than they actually did.
But I hung on anyway because between the cheesy production, the second rate special effects, and the one dimensional portrayals amplified by the talky ideology-laden dialogue, I had no choice but to focus on the message that was more or less being shoved down my throat. And while this approach seemed a little.... okay, a lot heavy-handed in Kevin Smith’s Dogma, and while I can now sympathize with the offense that Catholics must have felt in the face of that film, it gets really heavy handed and unsympathetic when you’re facing the equivalent of a master expecting the sympathy of the slave. It was becoming less about aesthetics and more about ideology, and a challenge I couldn't refuse.
My resolve continued to slip as a heavy handed contrast emerged between the protagonists and antagonists. In one corner of this mythical confrontation was the protagonists, Hank Reardon and Dagny Taggart, the respective heads of Reardon Steel and Taggart Transcontinental (a railway company), and champions of a miracle alloy that is lighter while being stronger; and in the other: the antagonists, those petty and bumbling government bureaucrats and rich quasi-socialists suffering from liberal guilt, the "looters" who skulked about plotting against the Promethean efforts of the supposed heroes, Reardon and Taggart. And as impressed as I was supposed to be by their heroics, I only found that awe undermined by the underlying message. Where I was suppose to hear stoic resolve, I only heard whining:
"Why is everyone picking on me? Am I not the driver of progress? The job creator?"
In Rand's world, apparently, no one understands them. The only surprise was that the antagonists didn't have Hitleresque toothbrush mustaches they could stroke as they contemplated their schemes and future victories. They were just short of it -and actually made the connection later in the series. But I hung on anyway. Then....
In hindsight, I'm not really sure what it was that set me off. I had seen the same kind of plot device in other movies: one to several people struggle for something until they come to a moment when their persistence pays off and it all comes together. It's a common and still effective motif in movies. But when Taggart and Reardon were riding alone on that train, to make their point about the safety of the Reardon steel used for the rails, and that triumphant music was playing in the back while the viewer was treated with a panorama of grand vistas, I felt it welling up. But when they came to that bridge gleaming in the sun, the one that Reardon had promised he could build in 3 weeks.... that was it. I had to throw down. It could have been how hokey it all seemed. It could have been the forced attempt to equate the beauty of nature with the beauty of Capitalism. It could have even been, as many RandHeads would have it: jealousy. But that neglects the many times I have found the approach effective in other movies where characters have done things beyond my capabilities -sometimes to the point of choking up or, if drunk enough, tears. Or it could have been my disgust at the sheer gall of thinking I could be manipulated into seeing the errors of my ways and prostrating myself before the glory of Capitalism. I could literally imagine a true believer (a Rand Head) standing behind me and shrieking triumphantly:
“You see it? Do you see it now?”
From that point to the end of part one (the story was divided, in Lord of the Rings fashion, into three parts with the third one pending), it was a self degrading frenzy of eye rolling and heckling my computer –when I’m not sure the poor thing deserved it. Meanwhile, the movie did everything it could to encourage my behavior. For instance, there was the heavy handed explanation that Rearden provided for the demise of the 20th Century Motor Company. Apparently, it was due to everyone getting pay raises based on need rather than merit. This was later reinforced by a loyal Taggart employee who explained to Dagny that new management had run it into the ground with new ideas about treating it like one big family. The question, though, was what factory (in reality that is) was it suppose to resemble. Granted, many companies will simplify things by granting raises through across the board percentages. But a percentage means that those who have been there longer will be gaining more. And, as far as I know, the way the more ambitious bypass that is by working their way up the ladder through promotion. But, once again: what profit seeking corporation would even consider such an approach? Of course, the preposterous nature of this slippery slope only foreshadowed the Kafkaesque labyrinth of bumbling and petty bureaucrats, and their policies, that grew more absurd as it went along.
But the bigger issue was Rand's well-known propensity towards the heroic and mythological coupled with her clear disgust for her antagonists. Her influence by Shakespeare made itself more and more apparent as it went along, which seems strange given Shakespeare's clarity on the corruption of power. What resulted was a vacillation between a comic book approach and a classical propensity towards speechmaking. On one hand, there were lines of dialogue that sounded like something off a Lichtenstein painting such as when James Taggart, an antagonist by virtue of his wanting to serve “the public good”, advised his sister, Tagny:
“You can’t leave. It’s a violation of the directive.”
Or this line by Reardon (typical of the false dilemma the story presented) as he stomped away from an agent of the State Scientific Agency:
“One of these days, you’re going to have to decide which side your on.”
Even the repetition of the line “Who is John Galt?”, which threaded throughout the narrative and was passed about like some cultish inside joke, as well as the mystery character himself who went about collecting high achievers like a shepherd gathering his flock, took on a hokey comic book aura.
On the other hand, there were these Shakespearian dialogues that, for the too obvious purpose of effect, seemed delegated to the more heroic characters. Esai Morales, for instance, as Francisco d'Anconia, skulked about like some modern Iago, shaman-like, dispensing wisdom in resonant soliloquies on the folly of fools who do not know what they do and the unrecognized wisdom of Lassie Faire Capitalism:
“When money seizes to be the tool of men by which men deal with other men, then men become the tools of other men.”
And this might have seemed a poignant point if it wasn’t for the fact that no one I know of is trying to get rid of money and that, as anyone who is not self-employed would know, even with money men are the tools of other men. This Shakespearean element got even more vulgar in Part Two with the heroics of Hank Reardon as he stood before court accused of violating the “Fair Share Act”, that which imposed a limit on how much one company can sell to another –another act committed by petty, bumbling bureaucrats that eluded me as to what the purpose would be.
“I do not recognize this court,” he stated in bold defiance, then proceeded to indict government policies that could not, in any dimension, exist. At one point, at the mention of “the public good”, he responded, yet again, with the same smug disregard he did earlier:
“I do not recognize the good of others as justification of my existence.”
And let’s be fair here. Robert Reich makes a convincing point, in SuperCapitalism, that we cannot expect corporations to act as moral agents. They exist solely to create profit for their shareholders. It is government that must serve as check and balance to corporate power. But then, it is government, regardless of what function it serves, that Rand and the moviemakers wanted to undermine. At another point, Reardon proceeded to frame the “public good” in terms of being defined by:
“….those who would regulate and define us in our businesses and homes by stealing our liberty.”
Of course, at this point the crowd broke into the cheers of the converted. But then, who wouldn’t? Who isn’t concerned about their personal liberty? The problem was that Reardon’s point was a little hard to assimilate with the fact that, in our world (the real one), the primary agent of social control (under the encouragement of the health insurance industry) has pretty much been our employers through drug testing, smoking policies, and increasingly wellness programs. But then I wasn't in that world, was I? I was in Rand’s world. Reardon then proceeded to describe the benefits provided by corporations, such as job creation and technological progress, while the crowd cheered and the court slammed their hammer and screamed:
“Silence! Or the court will be cleared!”
The cliché continued as the court, recognizing that they could not turn Reardon into a martyr, decided to sentence him to 10 years in prison then, in light of his achievements, suspend it. And note the irony here in that while this was a clear reference to the kind of double-speak we've gotten too use to out of government, in the real world, we're equally inured to it by corporate PR and spin. This was then punctuated by the following scene in which Dagny played cheer squad and told Reardon that he had provided a voice to the people. But what people exactly? The rich? Those who are ignorant enough to believe that their personal freedom is dependent on the freedom of the rich and powerful to do as they please?
Of course, you can get away with a lot in a movie if the comedic effects work. But this depends on character-defining wit. However, when this is applied to character built around a questionable and unsympathetic ideology, what results is a lot of lame humor. To give you a sense of it, think of the kind you see on church billboards, the heavy handed attempts at cleverness that can only fall flat and roll the eyes of anyone but the true believer, but addressed to the same kind of dogmatic certainty displayed throughout this love letter to Capitalism. At one point, Dagny Taggart, faced with an employee who drones “Who is John Galt?”, responds:
“Don’t ask that question if you can’t answer it.”
And it was these kinds of references to the mock heroics and above-the-fray nature of the main characters that were suppose to seduce me throughout it all. At another point, Taggart and a scientist played by Dietrich Bader plot to research a supposed super-battery that, as we are to understand it, only the private sphere is capable of making happen. When Taggart inquired as to where the plan would be carried out, the scientist assured her, in the conspiratorial way meant to suggest a couple of lovable rascals, that he can use his state funded lab to study it and that she shouldn’t worry since they have the best night watch there is: him. What poetic justice: the state’s failures are what allow the private sphere to carry out its own more heroic efforts. But the most telling came when a CEO and political candidate snarled when his train was stopped:
“I swear, if this train doesn’t make my campaign stop in San Francisco, I’ll make it my personal priority to nationalize this railroad.”
This was then followed by the drunken wit of a fellow traveler in a British accent:
“History shows that it is the only way to make the trains run on time.”
Get it? Nazi Germany? Trains running on time? Unfortunately, for the movie, the real humor laid in what those behind it wanted me to take seriously. At one point, CEOs and government officials are filmed walking, with expressions of serious intent, to a board meeting in (can you guess?) slow motion. The only thing missing was the hard beat and crunchy guitar from Kill Bill Volume One in the club scene with Lucy Lui's crew. But the continuous joke throughout it all was the way plot line built not through suspense, but rather through of the heavy handed manner in which Rand's message was being relayed through the escalation of the ludicrous. This tendency peaked, appropriately, at the very end of Part One when Ellis Wyatt, before leaving with Galt, left his newly discovered natural gas field in flames and a note that said:
"I'm leaving it as I found it."
Really? So now we know how he came into it. Apparently, he just wandered upon a burning field that no one else had noticed, put out the flames, and had his redneck self a natural gas field. And again, doesn't there seem to be an underlying whininess about it: the feel of a child throwing a fit?
Part two, in Peter Jackson/Lord of the Rings style, was almost admirable in the way it maintained the thread of absurdity and kept it building to the most preposterous moment yet: the introduction of Directive 10-289. In a scene that was clearly meant to chill my progressive ambitions, the President (played by Ray Wise) made a televised announcement of new policies that would make no sense in a purely communist regime, much less a democratic one. And in order to direct me as to how I was supposed to feel, there was everyone in the nation, rich and poor alike, watching with dropped jaws of shock and disgust. Among the policies were total bans on firing employees or employees quitting or changing their jobs, wage freezes, all companies surrendering their patents in the form of gift certificates, and a mandate on everyone to spend the same amount of money they had the year before. Of course, in a perfect world where the government wasn't so far up corporate ass as to actually act in the behalf of people, this might, at best, seem like a legitimate slippery slope. But how would wage freezes and bans on quitting or changing a job serve that purpose? In fact, what purpose would it serve under any circumstance? Forcing entrepreneurs to give up their hard earned patents would be a disincentive to new discovery. Even a Social Democrat and looter like me knows that. And the government has nothing on the market when it comes to forced consumption as anyone would know who, due to a lack of public transportation, has to maintain a car in order to get to work, or finds themselves in need of healthcare, or paying more for basic services such as TV which, by the way, use to be free, or generally wants to function in contemporary society. The only thing missing from the whole scene was the low, eerie hum of a synthesizer and someone shrieking at the president:
"Oh my God! It's a white Obama!"
From that pivotal point on, the denouement proceeded with a montage style breakdown that consisted of anti-corporation protesters, having been schooled in the principle of unintended consequences, turning anti-government, and Tagny pursing her scientific ally in a plane, having lost him to Galt, crashing, and, in the final scene, finally meeting the man himself: John Galt.
However, the real money shot, for both the mentality behind the movie and for me in its lame attempt at grim irony like that of the ending to Altman's Nashville, came with a bum sitting on a curve in the midst of the chaos, a sort of Nietzschian madman, writing on a piece of wood shaped like a gravestone:
America:
Born: 1776
Died: Yesterday.
How I Got My Start:
I tried to take the high road and give it a chance. I really did. But then I had tried as much with Rand and The Virtue of Selfishness, but got so nauseous by the third essay, I had to put it down. And nothing I further read or heard about her tempered my disgust. Certainly not the movie biopic, the Passion of Ayn Rand, in which she has an affair with an intern after telling her husband and the intern’s girlfriend what they were going to do. That only came across as some kind of psychopathic notion of enlightened honesty and the self indulgence of a narcissistic bitch: the kind of woman that would eat her babies as a peer once pointed out. And I had assumed my sentiment to be common among the creative community. So imagine my surprise when I read that Atlas Shrugged was being made into a movie in an article that gave the misleading impression that Angelina Jolie was backing it. But then why not? God only knows what runs through that chick's mind. One sometimes gleams a hint of the psychopathic in that icy glare: the poutty lips and that narrowing of the eyes as they zero in on the kill. Still, it seemed odd that the alleged Hollywood liberal elite would even consider it.
My curiosity took root and only intensified upon seeing a clip where Hank Reardon declares his utter indifference to the poor. For some reason, I got the impression that it would be one of those moody independent films like The Blue Rose Hotel. But in my scheme it was a sort of cyberpunk Trojan horse in which subtle critique is cleverly concealed within tribute. Plus that, there was always the possibility of being surprised. I had always been impressed when talent from the other side managed to present old school and Christian values in a way that was digestible and empathetic enough to temper my own extremes and revise my mental concepts. Such sensibilities, even if I didn't share them, could clearly be presented in a dignified and non-sanctimonious manner as in the movie A River Runs Through It, Robert Duvall in such roles as Rambling Rose and Second Hand Lions, the work of Terrence Malick, and, hating on chairs aside, Clint Eastwood's classicist/conservative approach to filmmaking. So when I kept coming across it on Netflix, it was only a matter of time before I would set aside my political leanings, push the play button, resolve to not tarnish my intellectual integrity with petty heckling, and give the woman, her story, and her position their day in court. But then authentic Christian/classical values are something quite different than Capitalist ones.
It was a matter of minutes before the hope dissipated and I found myself reeling in shock and astonishment at the second (if not third) rate production values. Many critics compared it to a TV mini-series. But I would equate it with the cheap B movies that are sometimes made for the ScyFy channel or shown on Fear Net. The only difference was that those films were generally innocuous enough to serve as mindless entertainment –something you stick with while rolling your eyes just to see if it ends in the way you predict. Atlas Shrugged, on the other hand, took the mean-spirited and paranoid route of conspiracy theory or holocaust denial: less the individual perspective that constitutes a work of art and more like war to anyone with a non-pathological sense of reality. I even began to suspect, perhaps out of denial, that what I was watching was not the theatrical release, but some made for TV knockoff much like the miniseries of Steven King's The Shining, that which stuck closer to the book at the expense of the production values, creativity, and style of Kubrick's version. Even when I recognized the clip where Reardon expresses his indifference to the poor, I wondered if it wasn't just another version of a key moment in the book. It just seemed odd that something like it would even be released in theaters, that some marketer would not have recognized that it might have made a better debut (it basically flopped with critics and the box office) in a more appropriate medium such as TV or straight to DVD. However, the more I watched and learned about it, the harder the possibility pressed itself: that ideological forces overrode business sense and the agents behind it thought they had something more than they actually did.
But I hung on anyway because between the cheesy production, the second rate special effects, and the one dimensional portrayals amplified by the talky ideology-laden dialogue, I had no choice but to focus on the message that was more or less being shoved down my throat. And while this approach seemed a little.... okay, a lot heavy-handed in Kevin Smith’s Dogma, and while I can now sympathize with the offense that Catholics must have felt in the face of that film, it gets really heavy handed and unsympathetic when you’re facing the equivalent of a master expecting the sympathy of the slave. It was becoming less about aesthetics and more about ideology, and a challenge I couldn't refuse.
My resolve continued to slip as a heavy handed contrast emerged between the protagonists and antagonists. In one corner of this mythical confrontation was the protagonists, Hank Reardon and Dagny Taggart, the respective heads of Reardon Steel and Taggart Transcontinental (a railway company), and champions of a miracle alloy that is lighter while being stronger; and in the other: the antagonists, those petty and bumbling government bureaucrats and rich quasi-socialists suffering from liberal guilt, the "looters" who skulked about plotting against the Promethean efforts of the supposed heroes, Reardon and Taggart. And as impressed as I was supposed to be by their heroics, I only found that awe undermined by the underlying message. Where I was suppose to hear stoic resolve, I only heard whining:
"Why is everyone picking on me? Am I not the driver of progress? The job creator?"
In Rand's world, apparently, no one understands them. The only surprise was that the antagonists didn't have Hitleresque toothbrush mustaches they could stroke as they contemplated their schemes and future victories. They were just short of it -and actually made the connection later in the series. But I hung on anyway. Then....
In hindsight, I'm not really sure what it was that set me off. I had seen the same kind of plot device in other movies: one to several people struggle for something until they come to a moment when their persistence pays off and it all comes together. It's a common and still effective motif in movies. But when Taggart and Reardon were riding alone on that train, to make their point about the safety of the Reardon steel used for the rails, and that triumphant music was playing in the back while the viewer was treated with a panorama of grand vistas, I felt it welling up. But when they came to that bridge gleaming in the sun, the one that Reardon had promised he could build in 3 weeks.... that was it. I had to throw down. It could have been how hokey it all seemed. It could have been the forced attempt to equate the beauty of nature with the beauty of Capitalism. It could have even been, as many RandHeads would have it: jealousy. But that neglects the many times I have found the approach effective in other movies where characters have done things beyond my capabilities -sometimes to the point of choking up or, if drunk enough, tears. Or it could have been my disgust at the sheer gall of thinking I could be manipulated into seeing the errors of my ways and prostrating myself before the glory of Capitalism. I could literally imagine a true believer (a Rand Head) standing behind me and shrieking triumphantly:
“You see it? Do you see it now?”
From that point to the end of part one (the story was divided, in Lord of the Rings fashion, into three parts with the third one pending), it was a self degrading frenzy of eye rolling and heckling my computer –when I’m not sure the poor thing deserved it. Meanwhile, the movie did everything it could to encourage my behavior. For instance, there was the heavy handed explanation that Rearden provided for the demise of the 20th Century Motor Company. Apparently, it was due to everyone getting pay raises based on need rather than merit. This was later reinforced by a loyal Taggart employee who explained to Dagny that new management had run it into the ground with new ideas about treating it like one big family. The question, though, was what factory (in reality that is) was it suppose to resemble. Granted, many companies will simplify things by granting raises through across the board percentages. But a percentage means that those who have been there longer will be gaining more. And, as far as I know, the way the more ambitious bypass that is by working their way up the ladder through promotion. But, once again: what profit seeking corporation would even consider such an approach? Of course, the preposterous nature of this slippery slope only foreshadowed the Kafkaesque labyrinth of bumbling and petty bureaucrats, and their policies, that grew more absurd as it went along.
But the bigger issue was Rand's well-known propensity towards the heroic and mythological coupled with her clear disgust for her antagonists. Her influence by Shakespeare made itself more and more apparent as it went along, which seems strange given Shakespeare's clarity on the corruption of power. What resulted was a vacillation between a comic book approach and a classical propensity towards speechmaking. On one hand, there were lines of dialogue that sounded like something off a Lichtenstein painting such as when James Taggart, an antagonist by virtue of his wanting to serve “the public good”, advised his sister, Tagny:
“You can’t leave. It’s a violation of the directive.”
Or this line by Reardon (typical of the false dilemma the story presented) as he stomped away from an agent of the State Scientific Agency:
“One of these days, you’re going to have to decide which side your on.”
Even the repetition of the line “Who is John Galt?”, which threaded throughout the narrative and was passed about like some cultish inside joke, as well as the mystery character himself who went about collecting high achievers like a shepherd gathering his flock, took on a hokey comic book aura.
On the other hand, there were these Shakespearian dialogues that, for the too obvious purpose of effect, seemed delegated to the more heroic characters. Esai Morales, for instance, as Francisco d'Anconia, skulked about like some modern Iago, shaman-like, dispensing wisdom in resonant soliloquies on the folly of fools who do not know what they do and the unrecognized wisdom of Lassie Faire Capitalism:
“When money seizes to be the tool of men by which men deal with other men, then men become the tools of other men.”
And this might have seemed a poignant point if it wasn’t for the fact that no one I know of is trying to get rid of money and that, as anyone who is not self-employed would know, even with money men are the tools of other men. This Shakespearean element got even more vulgar in Part Two with the heroics of Hank Reardon as he stood before court accused of violating the “Fair Share Act”, that which imposed a limit on how much one company can sell to another –another act committed by petty, bumbling bureaucrats that eluded me as to what the purpose would be.
“I do not recognize this court,” he stated in bold defiance, then proceeded to indict government policies that could not, in any dimension, exist. At one point, at the mention of “the public good”, he responded, yet again, with the same smug disregard he did earlier:
“I do not recognize the good of others as justification of my existence.”
And let’s be fair here. Robert Reich makes a convincing point, in SuperCapitalism, that we cannot expect corporations to act as moral agents. They exist solely to create profit for their shareholders. It is government that must serve as check and balance to corporate power. But then, it is government, regardless of what function it serves, that Rand and the moviemakers wanted to undermine. At another point, Reardon proceeded to frame the “public good” in terms of being defined by:
“….those who would regulate and define us in our businesses and homes by stealing our liberty.”
Of course, at this point the crowd broke into the cheers of the converted. But then, who wouldn’t? Who isn’t concerned about their personal liberty? The problem was that Reardon’s point was a little hard to assimilate with the fact that, in our world (the real one), the primary agent of social control (under the encouragement of the health insurance industry) has pretty much been our employers through drug testing, smoking policies, and increasingly wellness programs. But then I wasn't in that world, was I? I was in Rand’s world. Reardon then proceeded to describe the benefits provided by corporations, such as job creation and technological progress, while the crowd cheered and the court slammed their hammer and screamed:
“Silence! Or the court will be cleared!”
The cliché continued as the court, recognizing that they could not turn Reardon into a martyr, decided to sentence him to 10 years in prison then, in light of his achievements, suspend it. And note the irony here in that while this was a clear reference to the kind of double-speak we've gotten too use to out of government, in the real world, we're equally inured to it by corporate PR and spin. This was then punctuated by the following scene in which Dagny played cheer squad and told Reardon that he had provided a voice to the people. But what people exactly? The rich? Those who are ignorant enough to believe that their personal freedom is dependent on the freedom of the rich and powerful to do as they please?
Of course, you can get away with a lot in a movie if the comedic effects work. But this depends on character-defining wit. However, when this is applied to character built around a questionable and unsympathetic ideology, what results is a lot of lame humor. To give you a sense of it, think of the kind you see on church billboards, the heavy handed attempts at cleverness that can only fall flat and roll the eyes of anyone but the true believer, but addressed to the same kind of dogmatic certainty displayed throughout this love letter to Capitalism. At one point, Dagny Taggart, faced with an employee who drones “Who is John Galt?”, responds:
“Don’t ask that question if you can’t answer it.”
And it was these kinds of references to the mock heroics and above-the-fray nature of the main characters that were suppose to seduce me throughout it all. At another point, Taggart and a scientist played by Dietrich Bader plot to research a supposed super-battery that, as we are to understand it, only the private sphere is capable of making happen. When Taggart inquired as to where the plan would be carried out, the scientist assured her, in the conspiratorial way meant to suggest a couple of lovable rascals, that he can use his state funded lab to study it and that she shouldn’t worry since they have the best night watch there is: him. What poetic justice: the state’s failures are what allow the private sphere to carry out its own more heroic efforts. But the most telling came when a CEO and political candidate snarled when his train was stopped:
“I swear, if this train doesn’t make my campaign stop in San Francisco, I’ll make it my personal priority to nationalize this railroad.”
This was then followed by the drunken wit of a fellow traveler in a British accent:
“History shows that it is the only way to make the trains run on time.”
Get it? Nazi Germany? Trains running on time? Unfortunately, for the movie, the real humor laid in what those behind it wanted me to take seriously. At one point, CEOs and government officials are filmed walking, with expressions of serious intent, to a board meeting in (can you guess?) slow motion. The only thing missing was the hard beat and crunchy guitar from Kill Bill Volume One in the club scene with Lucy Lui's crew. But the continuous joke throughout it all was the way plot line built not through suspense, but rather through of the heavy handed manner in which Rand's message was being relayed through the escalation of the ludicrous. This tendency peaked, appropriately, at the very end of Part One when Ellis Wyatt, before leaving with Galt, left his newly discovered natural gas field in flames and a note that said:
"I'm leaving it as I found it."
Really? So now we know how he came into it. Apparently, he just wandered upon a burning field that no one else had noticed, put out the flames, and had his redneck self a natural gas field. And again, doesn't there seem to be an underlying whininess about it: the feel of a child throwing a fit?
Part two, in Peter Jackson/Lord of the Rings style, was almost admirable in the way it maintained the thread of absurdity and kept it building to the most preposterous moment yet: the introduction of Directive 10-289. In a scene that was clearly meant to chill my progressive ambitions, the President (played by Ray Wise) made a televised announcement of new policies that would make no sense in a purely communist regime, much less a democratic one. And in order to direct me as to how I was supposed to feel, there was everyone in the nation, rich and poor alike, watching with dropped jaws of shock and disgust. Among the policies were total bans on firing employees or employees quitting or changing their jobs, wage freezes, all companies surrendering their patents in the form of gift certificates, and a mandate on everyone to spend the same amount of money they had the year before. Of course, in a perfect world where the government wasn't so far up corporate ass as to actually act in the behalf of people, this might, at best, seem like a legitimate slippery slope. But how would wage freezes and bans on quitting or changing a job serve that purpose? In fact, what purpose would it serve under any circumstance? Forcing entrepreneurs to give up their hard earned patents would be a disincentive to new discovery. Even a Social Democrat and looter like me knows that. And the government has nothing on the market when it comes to forced consumption as anyone would know who, due to a lack of public transportation, has to maintain a car in order to get to work, or finds themselves in need of healthcare, or paying more for basic services such as TV which, by the way, use to be free, or generally wants to function in contemporary society. The only thing missing from the whole scene was the low, eerie hum of a synthesizer and someone shrieking at the president:
"Oh my God! It's a white Obama!"
From that pivotal point on, the denouement proceeded with a montage style breakdown that consisted of anti-corporation protesters, having been schooled in the principle of unintended consequences, turning anti-government, and Tagny pursing her scientific ally in a plane, having lost him to Galt, crashing, and, in the final scene, finally meeting the man himself: John Galt.
However, the real money shot, for both the mentality behind the movie and for me in its lame attempt at grim irony like that of the ending to Altman's Nashville, came with a bum sitting on a curve in the midst of the chaos, a sort of Nietzschian madman, writing on a piece of wood shaped like a gravestone:
America:
Born: 1776
Died: Yesterday.
Last edited by d63 on Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:17 pm, edited 5 times in total.
Re: Postcards:
How I Faltered and the Plot Thickened:
I mean: why? Why did they even go through with this? Who would push such a project? They had to have seen how badly the whole project was developing. Wouldn't the stilted dialogue have been a clue? Were the Koch brothers behind it? It just seemed self defeating to showcase Rand’s work and thought in such a hokey and ridiculous manner. I found myself going back to the theory that what the producers were actually doing was offering up a combination of tribute and critique of the book. But that might have made a good movie. The only other possibility was that they were undermining it, in a backdoor kind of way, by presenting it in the most distasteful manner possible. But that seemed an incredible risk of money without marketing it and actually presenting it as satire. And, of course, there was the most obvious possibility of the project being pushed as propaganda by corporate interests or a right wing think tank.
By Part Two, I had calmed down and found myself playing the game of “why these actors would involve themselves?” And this was mainly because the cast from Part One had been completely replaced with what, as far I could tell, were more familiar faces. There was Richard T. Jones utilizing the same stoic loyalty as Dagny’s assistant that he did in Judging Amy and Paul McCrane portraying the same obnoxious worm, as a government official, that he did in ER. And the inclusion of these two suggested that they had been chosen, like character actors, for their perfect fit based on these previous roles. And further research showed that, unlike An American Carol where all the actors had some association with the Republican Party, there was nothing to indicate that any of these had any ideological affinity to the story itself. Nor was there any indication that they were lacking for work and participated out of desperation. The only conclusion I could come to is that they were just minor actors who took whatever work was available to them and stood little to lose by it: the immunity to career suicide that comes from being a minor actor. This especially seemed the case with Ray Wise, as Head of State Thompson, who, having gotten notice in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, seems to show up everywhere, regardless of quality, and keeps showing up due to his unique physical characteristics. He's hardly a precious diva when it comes to his art. And given that possibility, I had to wonder if such character actors such as Danny Trejo and William Forsyth might show up in the third installment. That said, though, I couldn't help but suspect that Esai Morales took the part to brush up on his Shakespearian chops, while Deidrich Bader took it to break from his more air headed roles and write complex mathematical formulas on glass, just like he saw Russell Crowe do on A Beautiful Mind.
Still, there was the question of what happened to the first cast. John Aglialoro, the driving force behind the series, implied that the cost of hiring the cast from Part One exceeded Part Two’s budget and added that Taylor Schilling, Dagny in Part One, had become a bona fide star. This was immediate cause for suspicion since I hadn’t heard of or seen much of her. However, as a little researched showed, she had since appeared in the movie The Lucky One and the Netflix Series, Orange is the New Black. But how did that make her anymore inaccessible or expensive than Esia Moralas, Ray Wise, or Diedrich Bader? And Aglialoro wouldn’t be the first executive to spin something. So there was still the possibility of what, in some deep, dark, and petty element of my psyche, would have given me the satisfaction of the sanctimonious: that the first cast, having seen what a flop they had participated in, jumped ship, or the less pleasurable one of the producers abandoning them in the hopes of getting it right the next time. Or it could have been a combination of both.
Unfortunately, the real history offered less leeway for self indulgence and sanctimony than I would have liked. After I got past my own expectations, and the propensity to read them into this, I found the truth to be a little less sinister. First of all, it was a project that took 30 plus years to be realized, starting in 1972 when Albert S. Ruddy approached Rand with the idea, which she agreed to on the condition that it focus on the love story between Reardon and Taggart and that she had final script approval. However, Ruddy rejected the offer and the deal fell through. It was then proposed as a 8 hour mini-series, but fell through again due to a CEO change. Rand even attempted a screenplay, but misfortune followed the project when she died 1/3 of the way through it. After yet several more setbacks, Aglialoro, an investor and co-writer to the script that finally got used, obtained the rights in 1992 only to suffer several more setbacks (including losing the commitment of Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, Charlize Theron, and Anne Hathaway to play Dagny) until the movie went into production in 2010 and was released in 2011. The hope was that Part One would finance the making of Part Two. But that, due to bad critical and box office reception, didn’t happen. However, Aglialoro and conspirators would not be discouraged and they somehow managed to scrape together an even bigger budget for Part Two only to create an even bigger flop. And as would be expected, the criticism it received was contingent on the individual’s ideological position. Most critics, being of a liberal or moderate lean, bludgeoned it with some caveats such as the look of the film and the casting choices in Part Two. But the most insightful criticism came from the A.V. Club:
"The irony of Part II’s mere existence is rich enough: The free market is a religion for Rand acolytes, and it emphatically rejected Part I.”
Reception in the Conservative press was, as we would expect, generally more positive while being more mixed than one might expect. Fox New’s Sean Hannity and Jon Stossel, along with critics from conservative journals, sang its praises , while others were a little more reserved in recognizing the bad production values while recommending it for the message. But a point needs to be made here, one I have neglected, in that not every conservative would necessarily advocate this series or the ideological extremes that Rand goes to. William F. Buckley Jr., for instance, rejected the book itself on the grounds of its underlying objectivism. It would serve us here to make an important distinction made by Thom Hartman between your everyday conservative and the Neo-Con, or what he referred to as a Con. As I have learned, throughout my intellectual process, conservatism can mean any number of things depending on which conservative you're talking to, and even if I disagree with it in general, it is far too complex to warrant, across the board, the venom I have focused on this particular extreme.
As it stands now, Part Three is slated to appear in the summer of 2014. And given the struggles and dramatic turns this project has gone through, it will be interesting to see if it does. The making of it has become a kind of narrative in itself –one that, like a cheap B movie, you can’t help but follow through with to see how it turns out. There will, of course, be the true believers that will try (much as Aglialoro did) to pass these struggles off as the result of a Hollywood leftist conspiracy. It was the critics that killed it; not the quality of the movie. And we have to attribute some credibility to this argument. Creative people, at least those in the arts, do tend to be more liberal. This is because their chosen pursuit requires that they be a little sympathetic and sensitive to the complexity of a given character or personality type. I, myself, have long felt it to be cornerstone of my creative process to recognize that, if I look deep enough into myself, there isn’t anyone I can’t at least empathize with, if not sympathize, no matter how despicable. Still, what did they expect? Aglialoro had to of anticipated resistance from the so-called Hollywood liberal elite. And no more than I could hope to get through to the true believers with this, how could they think this series would get through to the very people they are, with an air of disgust, referring to as “Looters”? How well would that work if people on my side of the fence referred to rich people and the true believers as “Hoarders”? How much corporate sponsorship could they hope to solicit?
In the end though, I had to eat a little crow in having to admit that it wasn't pimped by corporations, or a right wing think tank, for the sake of propaganda. And the Koch brothers, as far as I know, were not involved. Eventually, I had to admit, as much as I didn't want to, that it was a labor of love. With time, I found myself making further concessions as I went back through both parts in a more lucid and calm state of mind. I found myself, having gotten past the initial sting, a little more sympathetic with Jack Hunter, from The American Conservative, who noted:
“If you ask the average film critic about the new movie adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged they will tell you it is a horrible movie. If you ask the average conservative or libertarian they will tell you it is a great movie. Objectively, it is a mediocre movie at best. Subjectively, it is one of the best mediocre movies you’ll ever see.”
Once I got past my predispositions and expectations, I found it to be not totally lacking in cinematic quality. And it did seem a little more sophisticated than most B movies in that, between Rand and those who behind the series, there was a clear awareness of just about every plot device that Hollywood had to offer –even if they came off as clichés. And Rand certainly seemed to know how to put a story together (how to structure it), which gives some credibility to the achievements she managed with other books such as The Fountainhead. So I can easily see how someone who was a little more sympathetic to the ideology, or even indifferent (or just plain oblivious), could enjoy it in the same mindless manner I might with some low budget film on ScyFy or Fear Net.
And while I have yet to well up as the train crosses the bridge, I also found myself with an inkling of sympathy for Hank Reardon. In the beginning of Part One, he gave his wife, Lillian Reardon a bracelet made of Reardon Steel, a rather appealing piece of work and admittedly thoughtful gift that reflected Hank’s commitment to his work and his high hopes for her future. However, Lillian, a gold digging looter who spends much of the story skulking about and plotting against her husband, takes it as a symbol of his egoism, scoffs, and eventually trades it with Dagny for a pearl necklace. And we have to recognize the semiology at work in that achievement is given privilege over materialism, and in the suggestion that Dagny’s common understanding of this is what underlies the chemistry between her and Reardon. Interestingly, though, it was Lillian that provided the one insightful line in the whole thing. In a confrontation between her and Hank, over the divorce he wanted but she wouldn't consent to, she approached him, looked him straight in the eye, and said:
"I'm the one that knows you most. You're an ordinary man who thinks he doesn't owe anyone anything. But you do. You owe everyone."
What was revealed, whether consciously or not on the part of those who produced this story (perhaps even Rand), is the natural force fallacy that haunted and compromised Reardon's courtroom stand. What one needs to accept, that is in order to see his point as anything else than ludicrous, is the notion that it is perfectly natural for some to rise to the top even if it comes at the expense of others. And while we can agree with Reich that it is not the role of corporations to act as moral agents, we have to take pause when the question is asked:
“What do the rich owe us?”
The problem is the underlying assumption that the achiever acts in a vacuum, which is easy to do when Capitalism does such a effective job of mimicking a natural force and can be treated like an expression of nature (like the weather or death). But it’s not. It’s a human construct and, by virtue of that, an agreement. And as with any agreement, when it fails to work for all parties involved (or too few of them), it becomes a disagreement that warrants renegotiation. Second of all, in the real world, Reardon would not have created his wealth by himself. He would have built it on the productivity of labor and the purchases of consumers. So while he is not obligated to recognize the “public good” as justification for his existence (even though it actually is given that the "public good" was and is why we agree to Capitalism in the first place), he has every obligation to recognize it when it expresses itself through government policy –that is since his achievement was as dependent on that policy, via infrastructure, as anything. But then I’m speaking in terms of the real world where far less ludicrous forms of legislation are created and enforced. And doesn’t this interdependence between producer and consumer point to a major discrepancy between the real world and Rand’s? Throughout the story, we’re presented a scenario in which America is suffering from major economic distress, one that is unlikely to produce the consumer base necessary to support Reardon’s and Taggart’s activities. Where would the profits come from? It just seems that if such a scenario actually did exist, the only real struggle the main characters would have is avoiding bankruptcy.
And it gets more interesting, assuming this scene to be taken from the book, when we consider that Rand may have revealed an internal conflict that inadvertently gave the story a little depth. First of all, she clearly recognized that Capitalism was, in fact, not a natural force, but a human agreement that was vulnerable to further choices made by future agents. Otherwise, what would be the point? Why would she even feel the need to write Atlas Shrugged in order to “warn us”? And this just goes to a general inconsistency at work in the argument that results in a back and forth between Capitalism as an agreement that must be protected from the non-believers at all costs, and Capitalism as a natural force immune to all arguments against it -that is: dependent on which take happens to be convenient at the time. Furthermore, we get the feeling from this that Lillian, having broken through Hank's denial concerning his dependency on others, is Rand’s worst nightmare due to a truth that Rand could not completely overcome. You have to wonder if Lillian did not serve as her evil alter-ego: a composite of common characteristics (ambition, materialism, and general narcissism) and Rand’s own doubts about herself.
But, in all fairness, we should consider the time in which Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged which was published in 1957. At the time, the cold war was heating up and there were Marxist elements that still bought into the egalitarian dream of Communism. Nor was she the only one concerned about this aspect of it as was demonstrated in Kirk Vonnegut’s short story, published in 1961, Harrison Bergeron. Plus that, she, like Smith and Marx, had no way of foreseeing the actual consequences of her push for deregulation much as we saw in the economic meltdown of 2007. However, this point fails to redeem those who started this series in 2010 and, in fact, strategically chose the release date of the first part for tax day and the second for the 2012 election thereby confirming the series' status as propaganda.
And it’s not as if I’m completely unsympathetic with the ideology. I too recognize that “selfishness” is a term that tends to be bandied about by those who would selfishly insist that you focus on what it is they think you should be doing. Plus that, being a man of modest resources, I know what it’s like to be surrounded by people who either can’t do for themselves, or won’t, yet make demands that I’m expected to fulfill. Like Bill Maher, who expressed as much on Real Time, I too know what it’s like to feel like I’m the only one pulling the wagon while everyone else jumps in. But it’s always a little more complex than that. There is a big difference between deciding to balance one’s own needs with that of others and the plundering of taking what one wants regardless of who suffers. For one, what do we do with those who can’t do for themselves? Help them? Or do we take the more fascistic route of letting them die off? And it’s not like those that won’t lack for incentive or motivation. Working still seems to be a much better option than the hand to mouth existence I’ve seen such people get by on -social programs or not. But the most odious aspect of this is that Rand’s version of Capitalism acts as if society shedding this burden would magically make it disappear. What really happens, by not spreading the burden through social programs, is that it becomes more localized either through the crimes committed by the desperate, or the desperate that turn to those closest to them to survive. Take, for instance, the Tea Party justification for dismantling social security that refers back to the good old days when families took care of their elderly. The problem with this is that back then the elderly usually didn’t get so elderly because healthcare was less developed and effective (and life expectancy much lower) with the consolation of being less expensive. A stroke, heart attack, or cancer generally meant imminent death, not a lot of lingering around in a decrepit state. In other words, you were generally either healthy enough to take care of yourself, or dead. On top of that, a family could usually survive on one income, thereby leaving one parent, more often than not the wife, with the time to take care of the aged. And given that such a financial arrangement is no longer practical, I fail to see how such an approach could be conducive to “achievement”, which is supposedly the main issue here. But if we follow the reasoning through, we find that the only real achievement at stake is that of the Rand Head or Tea Bagger, since the possibility of achievement in their world would be contingent on either being fortunate enough to not have any relationships with those who cannot do for themselves, or even won't, or being cruel enough to abandon them -that is unless you have the good fortune of having excess resources in the first place.
And it is the repeatedly proven failure, poverty, and outright cruelty of their policies that forces them to the misdirection that Atlas Shrugged represents. Such self-indulgence simply cannot be propped up through reason -that is since reason, a cooperative venture, must inherently involve a consideration of all interests involved. Instead it must work purely in the mode of rationalization, an inherently competitive venture that seeks to dominate the discourse by any means available. Hence the false dilemma (it's either Capitalism or totalitarian Communism -take your choice) that neglects to get across how Liaise Faire Capitalism serves all our interests, downplays of its failures (the people dying due to lack of access to healthcare, food, or shelter, or ghettos and distressed environments that invariably exist under it), and emphasizes the evils of the looters who, we're suppose to believe, want it all -which now strikes me as a kind of transference in that the greed and megalomania of the Capitalist is magically imposed upon the reformer. But let’s be clear on this: neither myself, nor anyone I can think of, want to strip the rich of all their assets and distribute BMWs in the ghettos. The notion that they do is utter nonsense. And had Rand, or the movie makers, taken such considerations into the balance, they might have achieved something more than propaganda. They might have created a decent story. But that, in a spectacular way, is not what happened.
I mean: why? Why did they even go through with this? Who would push such a project? They had to have seen how badly the whole project was developing. Wouldn't the stilted dialogue have been a clue? Were the Koch brothers behind it? It just seemed self defeating to showcase Rand’s work and thought in such a hokey and ridiculous manner. I found myself going back to the theory that what the producers were actually doing was offering up a combination of tribute and critique of the book. But that might have made a good movie. The only other possibility was that they were undermining it, in a backdoor kind of way, by presenting it in the most distasteful manner possible. But that seemed an incredible risk of money without marketing it and actually presenting it as satire. And, of course, there was the most obvious possibility of the project being pushed as propaganda by corporate interests or a right wing think tank.
By Part Two, I had calmed down and found myself playing the game of “why these actors would involve themselves?” And this was mainly because the cast from Part One had been completely replaced with what, as far I could tell, were more familiar faces. There was Richard T. Jones utilizing the same stoic loyalty as Dagny’s assistant that he did in Judging Amy and Paul McCrane portraying the same obnoxious worm, as a government official, that he did in ER. And the inclusion of these two suggested that they had been chosen, like character actors, for their perfect fit based on these previous roles. And further research showed that, unlike An American Carol where all the actors had some association with the Republican Party, there was nothing to indicate that any of these had any ideological affinity to the story itself. Nor was there any indication that they were lacking for work and participated out of desperation. The only conclusion I could come to is that they were just minor actors who took whatever work was available to them and stood little to lose by it: the immunity to career suicide that comes from being a minor actor. This especially seemed the case with Ray Wise, as Head of State Thompson, who, having gotten notice in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, seems to show up everywhere, regardless of quality, and keeps showing up due to his unique physical characteristics. He's hardly a precious diva when it comes to his art. And given that possibility, I had to wonder if such character actors such as Danny Trejo and William Forsyth might show up in the third installment. That said, though, I couldn't help but suspect that Esai Morales took the part to brush up on his Shakespearian chops, while Deidrich Bader took it to break from his more air headed roles and write complex mathematical formulas on glass, just like he saw Russell Crowe do on A Beautiful Mind.
Still, there was the question of what happened to the first cast. John Aglialoro, the driving force behind the series, implied that the cost of hiring the cast from Part One exceeded Part Two’s budget and added that Taylor Schilling, Dagny in Part One, had become a bona fide star. This was immediate cause for suspicion since I hadn’t heard of or seen much of her. However, as a little researched showed, she had since appeared in the movie The Lucky One and the Netflix Series, Orange is the New Black. But how did that make her anymore inaccessible or expensive than Esia Moralas, Ray Wise, or Diedrich Bader? And Aglialoro wouldn’t be the first executive to spin something. So there was still the possibility of what, in some deep, dark, and petty element of my psyche, would have given me the satisfaction of the sanctimonious: that the first cast, having seen what a flop they had participated in, jumped ship, or the less pleasurable one of the producers abandoning them in the hopes of getting it right the next time. Or it could have been a combination of both.
Unfortunately, the real history offered less leeway for self indulgence and sanctimony than I would have liked. After I got past my own expectations, and the propensity to read them into this, I found the truth to be a little less sinister. First of all, it was a project that took 30 plus years to be realized, starting in 1972 when Albert S. Ruddy approached Rand with the idea, which she agreed to on the condition that it focus on the love story between Reardon and Taggart and that she had final script approval. However, Ruddy rejected the offer and the deal fell through. It was then proposed as a 8 hour mini-series, but fell through again due to a CEO change. Rand even attempted a screenplay, but misfortune followed the project when she died 1/3 of the way through it. After yet several more setbacks, Aglialoro, an investor and co-writer to the script that finally got used, obtained the rights in 1992 only to suffer several more setbacks (including losing the commitment of Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, Charlize Theron, and Anne Hathaway to play Dagny) until the movie went into production in 2010 and was released in 2011. The hope was that Part One would finance the making of Part Two. But that, due to bad critical and box office reception, didn’t happen. However, Aglialoro and conspirators would not be discouraged and they somehow managed to scrape together an even bigger budget for Part Two only to create an even bigger flop. And as would be expected, the criticism it received was contingent on the individual’s ideological position. Most critics, being of a liberal or moderate lean, bludgeoned it with some caveats such as the look of the film and the casting choices in Part Two. But the most insightful criticism came from the A.V. Club:
"The irony of Part II’s mere existence is rich enough: The free market is a religion for Rand acolytes, and it emphatically rejected Part I.”
Reception in the Conservative press was, as we would expect, generally more positive while being more mixed than one might expect. Fox New’s Sean Hannity and Jon Stossel, along with critics from conservative journals, sang its praises , while others were a little more reserved in recognizing the bad production values while recommending it for the message. But a point needs to be made here, one I have neglected, in that not every conservative would necessarily advocate this series or the ideological extremes that Rand goes to. William F. Buckley Jr., for instance, rejected the book itself on the grounds of its underlying objectivism. It would serve us here to make an important distinction made by Thom Hartman between your everyday conservative and the Neo-Con, or what he referred to as a Con. As I have learned, throughout my intellectual process, conservatism can mean any number of things depending on which conservative you're talking to, and even if I disagree with it in general, it is far too complex to warrant, across the board, the venom I have focused on this particular extreme.
As it stands now, Part Three is slated to appear in the summer of 2014. And given the struggles and dramatic turns this project has gone through, it will be interesting to see if it does. The making of it has become a kind of narrative in itself –one that, like a cheap B movie, you can’t help but follow through with to see how it turns out. There will, of course, be the true believers that will try (much as Aglialoro did) to pass these struggles off as the result of a Hollywood leftist conspiracy. It was the critics that killed it; not the quality of the movie. And we have to attribute some credibility to this argument. Creative people, at least those in the arts, do tend to be more liberal. This is because their chosen pursuit requires that they be a little sympathetic and sensitive to the complexity of a given character or personality type. I, myself, have long felt it to be cornerstone of my creative process to recognize that, if I look deep enough into myself, there isn’t anyone I can’t at least empathize with, if not sympathize, no matter how despicable. Still, what did they expect? Aglialoro had to of anticipated resistance from the so-called Hollywood liberal elite. And no more than I could hope to get through to the true believers with this, how could they think this series would get through to the very people they are, with an air of disgust, referring to as “Looters”? How well would that work if people on my side of the fence referred to rich people and the true believers as “Hoarders”? How much corporate sponsorship could they hope to solicit?
In the end though, I had to eat a little crow in having to admit that it wasn't pimped by corporations, or a right wing think tank, for the sake of propaganda. And the Koch brothers, as far as I know, were not involved. Eventually, I had to admit, as much as I didn't want to, that it was a labor of love. With time, I found myself making further concessions as I went back through both parts in a more lucid and calm state of mind. I found myself, having gotten past the initial sting, a little more sympathetic with Jack Hunter, from The American Conservative, who noted:
“If you ask the average film critic about the new movie adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged they will tell you it is a horrible movie. If you ask the average conservative or libertarian they will tell you it is a great movie. Objectively, it is a mediocre movie at best. Subjectively, it is one of the best mediocre movies you’ll ever see.”
Once I got past my predispositions and expectations, I found it to be not totally lacking in cinematic quality. And it did seem a little more sophisticated than most B movies in that, between Rand and those who behind the series, there was a clear awareness of just about every plot device that Hollywood had to offer –even if they came off as clichés. And Rand certainly seemed to know how to put a story together (how to structure it), which gives some credibility to the achievements she managed with other books such as The Fountainhead. So I can easily see how someone who was a little more sympathetic to the ideology, or even indifferent (or just plain oblivious), could enjoy it in the same mindless manner I might with some low budget film on ScyFy or Fear Net.
And while I have yet to well up as the train crosses the bridge, I also found myself with an inkling of sympathy for Hank Reardon. In the beginning of Part One, he gave his wife, Lillian Reardon a bracelet made of Reardon Steel, a rather appealing piece of work and admittedly thoughtful gift that reflected Hank’s commitment to his work and his high hopes for her future. However, Lillian, a gold digging looter who spends much of the story skulking about and plotting against her husband, takes it as a symbol of his egoism, scoffs, and eventually trades it with Dagny for a pearl necklace. And we have to recognize the semiology at work in that achievement is given privilege over materialism, and in the suggestion that Dagny’s common understanding of this is what underlies the chemistry between her and Reardon. Interestingly, though, it was Lillian that provided the one insightful line in the whole thing. In a confrontation between her and Hank, over the divorce he wanted but she wouldn't consent to, she approached him, looked him straight in the eye, and said:
"I'm the one that knows you most. You're an ordinary man who thinks he doesn't owe anyone anything. But you do. You owe everyone."
What was revealed, whether consciously or not on the part of those who produced this story (perhaps even Rand), is the natural force fallacy that haunted and compromised Reardon's courtroom stand. What one needs to accept, that is in order to see his point as anything else than ludicrous, is the notion that it is perfectly natural for some to rise to the top even if it comes at the expense of others. And while we can agree with Reich that it is not the role of corporations to act as moral agents, we have to take pause when the question is asked:
“What do the rich owe us?”
The problem is the underlying assumption that the achiever acts in a vacuum, which is easy to do when Capitalism does such a effective job of mimicking a natural force and can be treated like an expression of nature (like the weather or death). But it’s not. It’s a human construct and, by virtue of that, an agreement. And as with any agreement, when it fails to work for all parties involved (or too few of them), it becomes a disagreement that warrants renegotiation. Second of all, in the real world, Reardon would not have created his wealth by himself. He would have built it on the productivity of labor and the purchases of consumers. So while he is not obligated to recognize the “public good” as justification for his existence (even though it actually is given that the "public good" was and is why we agree to Capitalism in the first place), he has every obligation to recognize it when it expresses itself through government policy –that is since his achievement was as dependent on that policy, via infrastructure, as anything. But then I’m speaking in terms of the real world where far less ludicrous forms of legislation are created and enforced. And doesn’t this interdependence between producer and consumer point to a major discrepancy between the real world and Rand’s? Throughout the story, we’re presented a scenario in which America is suffering from major economic distress, one that is unlikely to produce the consumer base necessary to support Reardon’s and Taggart’s activities. Where would the profits come from? It just seems that if such a scenario actually did exist, the only real struggle the main characters would have is avoiding bankruptcy.
And it gets more interesting, assuming this scene to be taken from the book, when we consider that Rand may have revealed an internal conflict that inadvertently gave the story a little depth. First of all, she clearly recognized that Capitalism was, in fact, not a natural force, but a human agreement that was vulnerable to further choices made by future agents. Otherwise, what would be the point? Why would she even feel the need to write Atlas Shrugged in order to “warn us”? And this just goes to a general inconsistency at work in the argument that results in a back and forth between Capitalism as an agreement that must be protected from the non-believers at all costs, and Capitalism as a natural force immune to all arguments against it -that is: dependent on which take happens to be convenient at the time. Furthermore, we get the feeling from this that Lillian, having broken through Hank's denial concerning his dependency on others, is Rand’s worst nightmare due to a truth that Rand could not completely overcome. You have to wonder if Lillian did not serve as her evil alter-ego: a composite of common characteristics (ambition, materialism, and general narcissism) and Rand’s own doubts about herself.
But, in all fairness, we should consider the time in which Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged which was published in 1957. At the time, the cold war was heating up and there were Marxist elements that still bought into the egalitarian dream of Communism. Nor was she the only one concerned about this aspect of it as was demonstrated in Kirk Vonnegut’s short story, published in 1961, Harrison Bergeron. Plus that, she, like Smith and Marx, had no way of foreseeing the actual consequences of her push for deregulation much as we saw in the economic meltdown of 2007. However, this point fails to redeem those who started this series in 2010 and, in fact, strategically chose the release date of the first part for tax day and the second for the 2012 election thereby confirming the series' status as propaganda.
And it’s not as if I’m completely unsympathetic with the ideology. I too recognize that “selfishness” is a term that tends to be bandied about by those who would selfishly insist that you focus on what it is they think you should be doing. Plus that, being a man of modest resources, I know what it’s like to be surrounded by people who either can’t do for themselves, or won’t, yet make demands that I’m expected to fulfill. Like Bill Maher, who expressed as much on Real Time, I too know what it’s like to feel like I’m the only one pulling the wagon while everyone else jumps in. But it’s always a little more complex than that. There is a big difference between deciding to balance one’s own needs with that of others and the plundering of taking what one wants regardless of who suffers. For one, what do we do with those who can’t do for themselves? Help them? Or do we take the more fascistic route of letting them die off? And it’s not like those that won’t lack for incentive or motivation. Working still seems to be a much better option than the hand to mouth existence I’ve seen such people get by on -social programs or not. But the most odious aspect of this is that Rand’s version of Capitalism acts as if society shedding this burden would magically make it disappear. What really happens, by not spreading the burden through social programs, is that it becomes more localized either through the crimes committed by the desperate, or the desperate that turn to those closest to them to survive. Take, for instance, the Tea Party justification for dismantling social security that refers back to the good old days when families took care of their elderly. The problem with this is that back then the elderly usually didn’t get so elderly because healthcare was less developed and effective (and life expectancy much lower) with the consolation of being less expensive. A stroke, heart attack, or cancer generally meant imminent death, not a lot of lingering around in a decrepit state. In other words, you were generally either healthy enough to take care of yourself, or dead. On top of that, a family could usually survive on one income, thereby leaving one parent, more often than not the wife, with the time to take care of the aged. And given that such a financial arrangement is no longer practical, I fail to see how such an approach could be conducive to “achievement”, which is supposedly the main issue here. But if we follow the reasoning through, we find that the only real achievement at stake is that of the Rand Head or Tea Bagger, since the possibility of achievement in their world would be contingent on either being fortunate enough to not have any relationships with those who cannot do for themselves, or even won't, or being cruel enough to abandon them -that is unless you have the good fortune of having excess resources in the first place.
And it is the repeatedly proven failure, poverty, and outright cruelty of their policies that forces them to the misdirection that Atlas Shrugged represents. Such self-indulgence simply cannot be propped up through reason -that is since reason, a cooperative venture, must inherently involve a consideration of all interests involved. Instead it must work purely in the mode of rationalization, an inherently competitive venture that seeks to dominate the discourse by any means available. Hence the false dilemma (it's either Capitalism or totalitarian Communism -take your choice) that neglects to get across how Liaise Faire Capitalism serves all our interests, downplays of its failures (the people dying due to lack of access to healthcare, food, or shelter, or ghettos and distressed environments that invariably exist under it), and emphasizes the evils of the looters who, we're suppose to believe, want it all -which now strikes me as a kind of transference in that the greed and megalomania of the Capitalist is magically imposed upon the reformer. But let’s be clear on this: neither myself, nor anyone I can think of, want to strip the rich of all their assets and distribute BMWs in the ghettos. The notion that they do is utter nonsense. And had Rand, or the movie makers, taken such considerations into the balance, they might have achieved something more than propaganda. They might have created a decent story. But that, in a spectacular way, is not what happened.
Last edited by d63 on Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:21 pm, edited 5 times in total.
Re: Postcards:
The Comeback or how I Crossed My Bridge:
Of course, some true believers, those with the taste and the honesty to know bad cinema when they see it, would argue that it is unfair to judge Rand’s book, and the ideas behind it, on a badly made movie, that I should read the book. And outside of the most obvious objection, that the movie did little to inspire wading through a 1200 page book, there are a couple problems with this argument. For one, let’s imagine the movie made with top level talent. Let’s say George Clooney for Hank Reardon. I could see him play it with the mixture of drive, restraint, and civility that Rand seemed to want for this character. However, Clooney would play up the conflicts in more subtle ways, much as he did in Up in the Air. And this would have to include his stated indifference to the poor. He would have to find a way to smooth the vacillation between the likable Rearden and the smug, obtuse one. And that might include self doubt. For Dagny Taggart, any one of the actresses originally slated for the movie would work. Angelina Jolie could certainly play it hardnosed. As could Julia Roberts as was demonstrated in Charlie Wilson’s War where she played a right wing contributor to Senator Wilson’s agenda. But, for all the rough edges, Roberts had to play counter to Tom Hank’s humanity and make their compatibility seem realistic. Charlize Theron could certainly pull it off. And I don't know enough about Anne Hathaway to comment. But they would also have to incorporate the Madonna –like character of Taggart. And it's something we can be certain actresses of such a caliber would be willing to do. However, it would involve a little more than being nice to people who happen to serve their purposes. They might actually have to show a little reservation when witnessing the struggles of the poor. But regardless of who played what, it would require much better dialogue and a more rounded approach to the motivations of the main characters and those around them. And this would be especially true of the antagonists as no talented actor would choose to play the one dimensional villains portrayed. And this would likely require stepping outside of Rand’s original intent and message into a combination of tribute to those aspects of her thought that many can agree with, such as the value of achievement, and critique of those aspects many find repulsive. For instance, the main characters might have to be as fallible and prone to being wrong as they are heroic. And one thing good actors would not do, as Stallone has, and Costner back in his The Bodyguard days, is just tack those flaws onto their otherwise heroic behavior. Their flaws would have to be as intertwined in their character as their virtues. In other words, the greed and self indulgence would have to rear its ugly face.
And similar considerations would be at play concerning how the movie was made or by whom it was directed. Someone like Spielberg, for instance, would bring much better special effects into the mix and might approach it like he did War of the Worlds and jumble up time by setting it in the near future of 1957 when Atlas Shrugged was written. That would insulate it from the present and what we know now, thereby, making Rand’s predictions a little more palatable since the causality at work would be that of an imaginary world remote from our own. Plus that, it would effectively deal with something that bothered a lot of critics: the discrepancy between the movies economy, built around the railway, and our own digital economy. But Spielberg, like the actors, would want to mix it up. He too would want to dig into the multiplicity of motivations and circumstances and the conflicting ethical considerations. And once again, the only way to do so would be a subtle mix of tribute and critique.
Or it could be approached like a CGI remake of a graphic novel like Sin City or Sky Captain of Tomorrow. This would make it remote enough from our reality to preempt most comparisons between Rand's slippery slope and the way things have actually turned out. The problem, of course, is that purposely making it all seem like a cartoon would only seem like mocking the seriousness of Rand's message –at least to the true believers. It would lack the compromise that is characteristic of good art and risk becoming little more than propaganda for the other side. But if I had my choice, I would go with Neil Blomkamp. Given the point he made in the director's comments for District 9 (and expanded on in Elysium), that anyone who wanted a look into the future only needed to go to Johannesburg where 5% of the population holds all the wealth while the other 95% lives in abject poverty, and given the portrayal of it he gave in the movie, he would seem qualified and willing enough to bring out something that was conspicuously missing in the first two parts of the series: the distressed environments and ghettos that would certainly surround the world of Reardon and Taggart.
But regardless of who participates or how the movie was made, such high level artists would insist that there be changes and additions to Rand's original story in order to obtain the subtle complexity that distinguishes real art from propaganda. But then such a balanced perspective would not serve the tunnel vision and one sided perspective propping up the ideology. Such complexity would only raise the possibility that the only economic system that makes sense would be the one we're already in, the hybrid economy, and that beyond that there is only the question of which aspects of its multiplicity should be either left where they are, and which should be moved closer to either the command or the market side of the spectrum.
Therein lies the core problem with the argument that it’s not Rand’s fault, but mine for not reading the book. While I may not be able to completely blame Rand for a badly made version of her story, what I can almost be certain of is that the story and message is hers. This would seem evident in the high praise given the series by true believers such as Hannity and Fossel. Plus that, this was a labor of love by true believers who would have little reason to alter the message. But, for me, it was most evident in the fact that I have heard the same arguments used a thousand times against any argument I have presented for anything less than a religious and dogmatic faith in the invisible hand of the market.
And this leads me to question whether Rand's sensibility, and her zealous embrace of it, excludes her from the possibility of writing a classic. Once again, art's distinguishing asset, especially as concerns storytelling, is its ability to capture the complexity and often conflicting forces at work in reality. It, more than any other medium, is equipped to deal with the multiplicity of motives and the emergent subtleties that can come into play in any confrontation. But Rand only sees one side, that of Capitalism, and stubbornly maintains a blind spot for the other. At best, she only offers caveats such as her apparent respect for the railway service tech (which is the equivalent of the token black or gay friend for xenophobes) and her willingness to portray the rich surrounding the main protagonists as looters along with government and the needy masses. Consequently, I can’t help but feel that the main source of this deficit lays in a seething contempt, rooted in her experiences in communist Russia, for the other that she struggles to contain for the sake of integrity -or the expectations she found herself surrounded by as a Hollywood writer. Furthermore, we should consider the distinction between fancy and imagination made by Coleridge. In fancy, we indulge the fantasies that emerge from our baser impulses and thereby give into simplistic notions concerning the monsters that inhabit them. With imagination, we utilize the cognitive in an attempt to understand those monsters as having recognizable and sometimes sympathetic motivations. And Rand, given the one dimensional portrayal of her antagonists and heroes, clearly settles for the fanciful. And while you can entertain people with such, art, sooner or later, requires imagination -not the caveats she sprinkles throughout the story. Paul Krugman makes a humorous but observant point on this:
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
This becomes especially evident when we consider the main thread that ties it all together: John Galt, the enigmatic but shadowy figure that goes about like a shepherd gathering his flock of overachievers to take them to their promise land, a place where their efforts will be fully appreciated and nourished. But appreciated by who? And how does insulating oneself from the world nourish the creative impulses that arise from dealing with the problems presented by the world? And who exactly will there be to reward those accomplishments with money or applause? Lack of reward, after all, was the issue in the first place. They would, of course, have the appreciation of their peers. But would that be enough? As Nietzsche, an apparent influence on Rand, well knew: mediocrity, for all the frustration it might present, is as necessary to greatness as greatness is to it. There exists an interdependence between the two. But this seems to be a complete blind spot to Rand. This is why she can entertain this rather vindictive fantasy of Galt’s ultimate revenge: to stop the motor of the world, to punish the looters and show them the error of their ways by depriving them of the benefits of greatness and excellence. And how does she know that this will necessarily lead to the downfall? She bases this on the assumption that excellence can only flourish within the context of Laissez Faire Capitalism. But how does she know the challenges presented by a world without Galt’s flock wouldn't stimulate those left behind to rise to their full creative potential and assure the survival of their community? And wouldn’t it be poetic justice to see the strike fail and Galt and flock skulking back to society, hoping to partake of the fruits of its efforts, much as the scientist, who had tried to undermine Reardon Steel, did with Dagny after her success with the John Galt line? Perhaps then the looters could engage in the same heavy-handed nobility by deflecting the pathetic concessions of the once great. And in the end, doesn’t Galt’s strike feel like the child-like fancy of holding one's breath until they either get their way, or everyone’s face turns blue?
And it is this vindictiveness, coupled with Rand's zealousness for her beliefs and her propensity towards fancy that undermines the aesthetic of the work. It appeals to beauty, but succumbs to propaganda. It's as if she is less concerned with convincing anyone of anything than rallying the true believers. She plays on the internal feedback loop of the cult dynamic. And in her Gecko-like world where greed, if not good, is acceptable for the sake of achievement, and altruistic notions such as the public good are spat out with snarls of disgust, a world where there are only the achievers and the looters, and in which we can assume most of us to be the latter, you have to wonder how much we are suppose care or feel for the main characters, to what extent we are suppose to share in the triumph of Reardon and Taggart as the train crosses the bridge. But then it wasn't sympathy or care that Rand wanted us to feel, was it? It was, rather, awe: the very awe that subjects of the past were suppose feel for their monarch.
This is evident in Dagny's relationship with a service tech from Taggart Railway. Rand, like most who argue for Laissez Faire Capitalism, was prudent in including the common man in her vision. As Deleuze and Guattarri point out: no tyrranny could exist in a vacuum. They always have to insulate themselves from those they would exploit by creating a cushion of loyal and well compensated benefactors. This is what Malcolm X was talking about when he referred to the house slave -in terms a little harsher than mine. But what he pointed out was that in the days of slavery, the slave owner would keep one family of closer to the house and give them advantages the others would not have. That way, when one of the lesser slaves started to get uppity and talk about rebelling or escaping, the house slave would be right there arguing that such acts of dissent could only make things worse. And one could easily see the RandHead fawning over this particular employee: complacent to the point of easy going, dedicated to his job, and perfectly willing, as an ex-employee of Twentieth Century Company, to reiterate Reardon’s explanation of its demise –not to mention his casual awe at finding himself in the presence of Dagny. After he explains to her where the scientist who created the super battery was, she asks if she can take his truck to which he responds in yet another lame attempt at humor that plays on the dogma of private property:
“Sure, it’s yours anyway.”
Of course, Dagny rewards this loyalty, as most employers do (?), by telling her other loyal sidekick, Eddie, to get that employee another truck since (another stab at humor) she stole his and to triple his salary. But we really need to look at the semiology at work here. What one might see in this employee is the one non-achiever that manages to avoid the tag of being a looter: someone perfectly willing to just do what their told and not question the forces at work in their life: the ideal producer/consumer. In other words, what is being praised here is conformity. And this seems a little strange and contradictory given that Rand, throughout her career, pushed her ideology under the banner of some radical form of freedom. She argued as if she were championing what was best for all. But the only vision that seems to be at work is a world in which the achievers, unobstructed, can enjoy the full fruits of their labors, while those that can’t complacently accept their position in life for the sake of the higher principle of Capitalism.
Despite all that, allow me to indulge in a cheap narrative device (that of the gratuitous plot twist) and actually plug the series and say that I look forward to Part Three, if for no other reason than to see how ludicrous it can get. And I would also confess that I do so, in part, in the pure Randian spirit of self interest. Why wouldn't I? Those that do will understand and appreciate the preceding essay all that more? Furthermore, I would implore Netflix not to take my 1 star rating as an inducement to take the series off their catalogue. It was their user critiques that inspired this. With most films I didn’t like, I wouldn't even bother. And I generally find negative criticism to be a little self indulgent in that it becomes more about the critic than the thing being criticized. But this case is special. And because of that, I would argue that it is Netflix’s social duty to keep it available as an ideological artifact, something to be approached in the same negative sense of Reefer Madness, the thought of John Calvin, and Mein Kampf. And while the series may not exactly represent Rand’s thought, story, and ideology, it clearly represents the mentality that has evolved from it. And in that sense, it is every bit as significant and culturally important as the book itself.
Furthermore, I would encourage everyone to see it –even at the risk of reinforcing the belief system behind it. While Roger Ebert expressed disappointment that the low quality of Part One preempted a healthy discussion around the work and ideas of Rand, I would respectfully disagree and reiterate that it may well be the ideology itself that preempted the possibility of a good movie. And that, in itself, is cause for discourse and contention.
Now for my fellow looters, my progressive and moderate peers, I would appeal to their forgiving nature and ask that they bear with it until they find themselves immune to the initial sting of insult and bad taste and find in it what I have: a sense of clarity about the other, the encouragement to set aside one's self-questioning and open mindedness and recognize bad reasoning when one sees it, and the recognition that when even the boundaries of common sense have been transgressed, one can no longer afford the luxury of being a noble or beautiful soul. We can no longer afford the relativity of acting like it is just one opinion among others. This, via global warming and the empire of globalization, can actually end up destroying civilization as we know it.
As for the true believers, the Rand and Ditto-heads who have invaded, throughout much of my intellectual life, a large part of my audio and ideological space with droning repetitions of Randian scripture and the unquestioning praise of producer/consumer Capitalism, many of which I have found to be otherwise decent people (some to the point of dear friends), I can, on one hand, see it as a just form of therapy or deprogramming in that given the task, the best method would be to strap them to a chair and force them to watch this nonsense, repeatedly, with the added effect of interspersing it with ad-like spots, made by real talent, that describe the misery and devastation their perspective has caused. Maybe then, after enough of it, they’ll develop some taste, then a clue, then hopefully, just hopefully, a social conscience. One can only hope that it might lead to an epiphany and recognition of what is effectively a sickness and form of addiction to producer/consumer Capitalism, and that this break from denial will force them to see their belief system for what it is: not so much reason as reason in the service of baser impulses. Maybe then they’ll see that referring to someone as “looters” is as much as calling them “rats” or “cockroaches” and goes to the same effect of reducing the other to an undesirable which must be overcome to achieve some erroneous notion of perfection. But more important is the hope that they’ll see Rand’s thought and Atlas Shrugged for what it is: the propaganda of the self indulgent and sociopathic, the hegemony that would blind us to the exploitation of those impulses, and the fancies that emerge from them, for the sake of advantage and power. On the other hand, many of “those people” are dear friends who are far more than their ideologies. Therefore, in my more rational moments, I lean towards forgoing strapping them to a chair. Still: I would recommend the series in the remote hope that they’ll see how absurd and disturbing some of the reasoning is to their dear friend. Maybe then they’ll think less in terms of defending their corner at all costs and, while not surrendering to my position on it (that would just be scary), recognize Atlas Shrugged for the dangerous extreme it is.
Of course, some true believers, those with the taste and the honesty to know bad cinema when they see it, would argue that it is unfair to judge Rand’s book, and the ideas behind it, on a badly made movie, that I should read the book. And outside of the most obvious objection, that the movie did little to inspire wading through a 1200 page book, there are a couple problems with this argument. For one, let’s imagine the movie made with top level talent. Let’s say George Clooney for Hank Reardon. I could see him play it with the mixture of drive, restraint, and civility that Rand seemed to want for this character. However, Clooney would play up the conflicts in more subtle ways, much as he did in Up in the Air. And this would have to include his stated indifference to the poor. He would have to find a way to smooth the vacillation between the likable Rearden and the smug, obtuse one. And that might include self doubt. For Dagny Taggart, any one of the actresses originally slated for the movie would work. Angelina Jolie could certainly play it hardnosed. As could Julia Roberts as was demonstrated in Charlie Wilson’s War where she played a right wing contributor to Senator Wilson’s agenda. But, for all the rough edges, Roberts had to play counter to Tom Hank’s humanity and make their compatibility seem realistic. Charlize Theron could certainly pull it off. And I don't know enough about Anne Hathaway to comment. But they would also have to incorporate the Madonna –like character of Taggart. And it's something we can be certain actresses of such a caliber would be willing to do. However, it would involve a little more than being nice to people who happen to serve their purposes. They might actually have to show a little reservation when witnessing the struggles of the poor. But regardless of who played what, it would require much better dialogue and a more rounded approach to the motivations of the main characters and those around them. And this would be especially true of the antagonists as no talented actor would choose to play the one dimensional villains portrayed. And this would likely require stepping outside of Rand’s original intent and message into a combination of tribute to those aspects of her thought that many can agree with, such as the value of achievement, and critique of those aspects many find repulsive. For instance, the main characters might have to be as fallible and prone to being wrong as they are heroic. And one thing good actors would not do, as Stallone has, and Costner back in his The Bodyguard days, is just tack those flaws onto their otherwise heroic behavior. Their flaws would have to be as intertwined in their character as their virtues. In other words, the greed and self indulgence would have to rear its ugly face.
And similar considerations would be at play concerning how the movie was made or by whom it was directed. Someone like Spielberg, for instance, would bring much better special effects into the mix and might approach it like he did War of the Worlds and jumble up time by setting it in the near future of 1957 when Atlas Shrugged was written. That would insulate it from the present and what we know now, thereby, making Rand’s predictions a little more palatable since the causality at work would be that of an imaginary world remote from our own. Plus that, it would effectively deal with something that bothered a lot of critics: the discrepancy between the movies economy, built around the railway, and our own digital economy. But Spielberg, like the actors, would want to mix it up. He too would want to dig into the multiplicity of motivations and circumstances and the conflicting ethical considerations. And once again, the only way to do so would be a subtle mix of tribute and critique.
Or it could be approached like a CGI remake of a graphic novel like Sin City or Sky Captain of Tomorrow. This would make it remote enough from our reality to preempt most comparisons between Rand's slippery slope and the way things have actually turned out. The problem, of course, is that purposely making it all seem like a cartoon would only seem like mocking the seriousness of Rand's message –at least to the true believers. It would lack the compromise that is characteristic of good art and risk becoming little more than propaganda for the other side. But if I had my choice, I would go with Neil Blomkamp. Given the point he made in the director's comments for District 9 (and expanded on in Elysium), that anyone who wanted a look into the future only needed to go to Johannesburg where 5% of the population holds all the wealth while the other 95% lives in abject poverty, and given the portrayal of it he gave in the movie, he would seem qualified and willing enough to bring out something that was conspicuously missing in the first two parts of the series: the distressed environments and ghettos that would certainly surround the world of Reardon and Taggart.
But regardless of who participates or how the movie was made, such high level artists would insist that there be changes and additions to Rand's original story in order to obtain the subtle complexity that distinguishes real art from propaganda. But then such a balanced perspective would not serve the tunnel vision and one sided perspective propping up the ideology. Such complexity would only raise the possibility that the only economic system that makes sense would be the one we're already in, the hybrid economy, and that beyond that there is only the question of which aspects of its multiplicity should be either left where they are, and which should be moved closer to either the command or the market side of the spectrum.
Therein lies the core problem with the argument that it’s not Rand’s fault, but mine for not reading the book. While I may not be able to completely blame Rand for a badly made version of her story, what I can almost be certain of is that the story and message is hers. This would seem evident in the high praise given the series by true believers such as Hannity and Fossel. Plus that, this was a labor of love by true believers who would have little reason to alter the message. But, for me, it was most evident in the fact that I have heard the same arguments used a thousand times against any argument I have presented for anything less than a religious and dogmatic faith in the invisible hand of the market.
And this leads me to question whether Rand's sensibility, and her zealous embrace of it, excludes her from the possibility of writing a classic. Once again, art's distinguishing asset, especially as concerns storytelling, is its ability to capture the complexity and often conflicting forces at work in reality. It, more than any other medium, is equipped to deal with the multiplicity of motives and the emergent subtleties that can come into play in any confrontation. But Rand only sees one side, that of Capitalism, and stubbornly maintains a blind spot for the other. At best, she only offers caveats such as her apparent respect for the railway service tech (which is the equivalent of the token black or gay friend for xenophobes) and her willingness to portray the rich surrounding the main protagonists as looters along with government and the needy masses. Consequently, I can’t help but feel that the main source of this deficit lays in a seething contempt, rooted in her experiences in communist Russia, for the other that she struggles to contain for the sake of integrity -or the expectations she found herself surrounded by as a Hollywood writer. Furthermore, we should consider the distinction between fancy and imagination made by Coleridge. In fancy, we indulge the fantasies that emerge from our baser impulses and thereby give into simplistic notions concerning the monsters that inhabit them. With imagination, we utilize the cognitive in an attempt to understand those monsters as having recognizable and sometimes sympathetic motivations. And Rand, given the one dimensional portrayal of her antagonists and heroes, clearly settles for the fanciful. And while you can entertain people with such, art, sooner or later, requires imagination -not the caveats she sprinkles throughout the story. Paul Krugman makes a humorous but observant point on this:
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
This becomes especially evident when we consider the main thread that ties it all together: John Galt, the enigmatic but shadowy figure that goes about like a shepherd gathering his flock of overachievers to take them to their promise land, a place where their efforts will be fully appreciated and nourished. But appreciated by who? And how does insulating oneself from the world nourish the creative impulses that arise from dealing with the problems presented by the world? And who exactly will there be to reward those accomplishments with money or applause? Lack of reward, after all, was the issue in the first place. They would, of course, have the appreciation of their peers. But would that be enough? As Nietzsche, an apparent influence on Rand, well knew: mediocrity, for all the frustration it might present, is as necessary to greatness as greatness is to it. There exists an interdependence between the two. But this seems to be a complete blind spot to Rand. This is why she can entertain this rather vindictive fantasy of Galt’s ultimate revenge: to stop the motor of the world, to punish the looters and show them the error of their ways by depriving them of the benefits of greatness and excellence. And how does she know that this will necessarily lead to the downfall? She bases this on the assumption that excellence can only flourish within the context of Laissez Faire Capitalism. But how does she know the challenges presented by a world without Galt’s flock wouldn't stimulate those left behind to rise to their full creative potential and assure the survival of their community? And wouldn’t it be poetic justice to see the strike fail and Galt and flock skulking back to society, hoping to partake of the fruits of its efforts, much as the scientist, who had tried to undermine Reardon Steel, did with Dagny after her success with the John Galt line? Perhaps then the looters could engage in the same heavy-handed nobility by deflecting the pathetic concessions of the once great. And in the end, doesn’t Galt’s strike feel like the child-like fancy of holding one's breath until they either get their way, or everyone’s face turns blue?
And it is this vindictiveness, coupled with Rand's zealousness for her beliefs and her propensity towards fancy that undermines the aesthetic of the work. It appeals to beauty, but succumbs to propaganda. It's as if she is less concerned with convincing anyone of anything than rallying the true believers. She plays on the internal feedback loop of the cult dynamic. And in her Gecko-like world where greed, if not good, is acceptable for the sake of achievement, and altruistic notions such as the public good are spat out with snarls of disgust, a world where there are only the achievers and the looters, and in which we can assume most of us to be the latter, you have to wonder how much we are suppose care or feel for the main characters, to what extent we are suppose to share in the triumph of Reardon and Taggart as the train crosses the bridge. But then it wasn't sympathy or care that Rand wanted us to feel, was it? It was, rather, awe: the very awe that subjects of the past were suppose feel for their monarch.
This is evident in Dagny's relationship with a service tech from Taggart Railway. Rand, like most who argue for Laissez Faire Capitalism, was prudent in including the common man in her vision. As Deleuze and Guattarri point out: no tyrranny could exist in a vacuum. They always have to insulate themselves from those they would exploit by creating a cushion of loyal and well compensated benefactors. This is what Malcolm X was talking about when he referred to the house slave -in terms a little harsher than mine. But what he pointed out was that in the days of slavery, the slave owner would keep one family of closer to the house and give them advantages the others would not have. That way, when one of the lesser slaves started to get uppity and talk about rebelling or escaping, the house slave would be right there arguing that such acts of dissent could only make things worse. And one could easily see the RandHead fawning over this particular employee: complacent to the point of easy going, dedicated to his job, and perfectly willing, as an ex-employee of Twentieth Century Company, to reiterate Reardon’s explanation of its demise –not to mention his casual awe at finding himself in the presence of Dagny. After he explains to her where the scientist who created the super battery was, she asks if she can take his truck to which he responds in yet another lame attempt at humor that plays on the dogma of private property:
“Sure, it’s yours anyway.”
Of course, Dagny rewards this loyalty, as most employers do (?), by telling her other loyal sidekick, Eddie, to get that employee another truck since (another stab at humor) she stole his and to triple his salary. But we really need to look at the semiology at work here. What one might see in this employee is the one non-achiever that manages to avoid the tag of being a looter: someone perfectly willing to just do what their told and not question the forces at work in their life: the ideal producer/consumer. In other words, what is being praised here is conformity. And this seems a little strange and contradictory given that Rand, throughout her career, pushed her ideology under the banner of some radical form of freedom. She argued as if she were championing what was best for all. But the only vision that seems to be at work is a world in which the achievers, unobstructed, can enjoy the full fruits of their labors, while those that can’t complacently accept their position in life for the sake of the higher principle of Capitalism.
Despite all that, allow me to indulge in a cheap narrative device (that of the gratuitous plot twist) and actually plug the series and say that I look forward to Part Three, if for no other reason than to see how ludicrous it can get. And I would also confess that I do so, in part, in the pure Randian spirit of self interest. Why wouldn't I? Those that do will understand and appreciate the preceding essay all that more? Furthermore, I would implore Netflix not to take my 1 star rating as an inducement to take the series off their catalogue. It was their user critiques that inspired this. With most films I didn’t like, I wouldn't even bother. And I generally find negative criticism to be a little self indulgent in that it becomes more about the critic than the thing being criticized. But this case is special. And because of that, I would argue that it is Netflix’s social duty to keep it available as an ideological artifact, something to be approached in the same negative sense of Reefer Madness, the thought of John Calvin, and Mein Kampf. And while the series may not exactly represent Rand’s thought, story, and ideology, it clearly represents the mentality that has evolved from it. And in that sense, it is every bit as significant and culturally important as the book itself.
Furthermore, I would encourage everyone to see it –even at the risk of reinforcing the belief system behind it. While Roger Ebert expressed disappointment that the low quality of Part One preempted a healthy discussion around the work and ideas of Rand, I would respectfully disagree and reiterate that it may well be the ideology itself that preempted the possibility of a good movie. And that, in itself, is cause for discourse and contention.
Now for my fellow looters, my progressive and moderate peers, I would appeal to their forgiving nature and ask that they bear with it until they find themselves immune to the initial sting of insult and bad taste and find in it what I have: a sense of clarity about the other, the encouragement to set aside one's self-questioning and open mindedness and recognize bad reasoning when one sees it, and the recognition that when even the boundaries of common sense have been transgressed, one can no longer afford the luxury of being a noble or beautiful soul. We can no longer afford the relativity of acting like it is just one opinion among others. This, via global warming and the empire of globalization, can actually end up destroying civilization as we know it.
As for the true believers, the Rand and Ditto-heads who have invaded, throughout much of my intellectual life, a large part of my audio and ideological space with droning repetitions of Randian scripture and the unquestioning praise of producer/consumer Capitalism, many of which I have found to be otherwise decent people (some to the point of dear friends), I can, on one hand, see it as a just form of therapy or deprogramming in that given the task, the best method would be to strap them to a chair and force them to watch this nonsense, repeatedly, with the added effect of interspersing it with ad-like spots, made by real talent, that describe the misery and devastation their perspective has caused. Maybe then, after enough of it, they’ll develop some taste, then a clue, then hopefully, just hopefully, a social conscience. One can only hope that it might lead to an epiphany and recognition of what is effectively a sickness and form of addiction to producer/consumer Capitalism, and that this break from denial will force them to see their belief system for what it is: not so much reason as reason in the service of baser impulses. Maybe then they’ll see that referring to someone as “looters” is as much as calling them “rats” or “cockroaches” and goes to the same effect of reducing the other to an undesirable which must be overcome to achieve some erroneous notion of perfection. But more important is the hope that they’ll see Rand’s thought and Atlas Shrugged for what it is: the propaganda of the self indulgent and sociopathic, the hegemony that would blind us to the exploitation of those impulses, and the fancies that emerge from them, for the sake of advantage and power. On the other hand, many of “those people” are dear friends who are far more than their ideologies. Therefore, in my more rational moments, I lean towards forgoing strapping them to a chair. Still: I would recommend the series in the remote hope that they’ll see how absurd and disturbing some of the reasoning is to their dear friend. Maybe then they’ll think less in terms of defending their corner at all costs and, while not surrendering to my position on it (that would just be scary), recognize Atlas Shrugged for the dangerous extreme it is.
Re: Postcards:
Efficiency:
There has lately, in America, been a major push by Democrats to increase the minimum wage. And while some of us can applaud the effort and see the short term benefits, and even support it in that capacity, we can’t help but look at the long term deficiencies. While it may well create demand in the short run, thereby, economic expansion, the inherent dynamic of our market economy will only over-ride the effects through inflation, via wage push and wage pull (and the greed of investors, until we’re right back where we started. We could easily see a day, for instance, when janitors are making 6 figure salaries but are no better off (if not worse) than they are now. This is because, as well intended as the Democrats are in this matter, they’re merely perpetuating more of the same by failing to get outside of the expansionary model of producer/consumer Capitalism and, consequently, may be inadvertently contributing to an ever increasing appetite for consumption that could result in our self destruction through economically motivated wars, environmental destruction, and depletion of our natural resources.
Sooner or later, whether through choice or force of circumstance, we will have to step outside of the market paradigm that works strictly in terms of more and less. We simply cannot, for instance, rest on the old adage that workers want more compensation for less work, while their employers pose, against these demands, their own requirement for minimal investment at maximum return. It might seem common sense. But with a closer look, we might see that the two positions are not so deeply entrenched. If they were, the workplace would hardly be worth any amount of compensation, a perpetual battle with management while struggling to stay afoot in the mass competition toward better paying and easier jobs. And how can one be so happy at 10 an hour and another so miserable at 20? The janitor whistles, easily, while mopping his floor. He seems entranced, content, as if in meditation. Another man, sleek and muscular from hauling furniture, makes enough to go to the bar, nightly, and wakes each morning to sweat it off. At quitting time, the cycle repeats. And no random piss tests. Vagrants, drifters, and welfare recipients continue to scrimp through their hand to mouth lives. Meanwhile, a white collar manager slumps over their computer, grumbles often, and when they can, steals a moment on Monster.com. He’s hardly afraid he’ll get caught and, sometimes, even hopes.
And then there are the intellectually and creatively curious, strange creatures that, in their ass-backwardness, approach the hierarchy of needs from the top down. They neglect basic creature comforts while clinging, often self destructively, to the drug-like addiction of self actualization. And what are they working toward? That is when so many of their heroes, the successful and famous, live public lives of misery, and sometimes kill themselves.
Clearly, we need to break it down to individual needs, demands, and desires. We need to penetrate the multiplicity and interrogate the interactions. Furthermore, we need to recognize that it is primarily about expectations and their satisfaction, and that satisfaction only seems binary and digital by virtue of a molar perspective on the issue. We need to consider the molecular multiplicity of efficiencies.
There has lately, in America, been a major push by Democrats to increase the minimum wage. And while some of us can applaud the effort and see the short term benefits, and even support it in that capacity, we can’t help but look at the long term deficiencies. While it may well create demand in the short run, thereby, economic expansion, the inherent dynamic of our market economy will only over-ride the effects through inflation, via wage push and wage pull (and the greed of investors, until we’re right back where we started. We could easily see a day, for instance, when janitors are making 6 figure salaries but are no better off (if not worse) than they are now. This is because, as well intended as the Democrats are in this matter, they’re merely perpetuating more of the same by failing to get outside of the expansionary model of producer/consumer Capitalism and, consequently, may be inadvertently contributing to an ever increasing appetite for consumption that could result in our self destruction through economically motivated wars, environmental destruction, and depletion of our natural resources.
Sooner or later, whether through choice or force of circumstance, we will have to step outside of the market paradigm that works strictly in terms of more and less. We simply cannot, for instance, rest on the old adage that workers want more compensation for less work, while their employers pose, against these demands, their own requirement for minimal investment at maximum return. It might seem common sense. But with a closer look, we might see that the two positions are not so deeply entrenched. If they were, the workplace would hardly be worth any amount of compensation, a perpetual battle with management while struggling to stay afoot in the mass competition toward better paying and easier jobs. And how can one be so happy at 10 an hour and another so miserable at 20? The janitor whistles, easily, while mopping his floor. He seems entranced, content, as if in meditation. Another man, sleek and muscular from hauling furniture, makes enough to go to the bar, nightly, and wakes each morning to sweat it off. At quitting time, the cycle repeats. And no random piss tests. Vagrants, drifters, and welfare recipients continue to scrimp through their hand to mouth lives. Meanwhile, a white collar manager slumps over their computer, grumbles often, and when they can, steals a moment on Monster.com. He’s hardly afraid he’ll get caught and, sometimes, even hopes.
And then there are the intellectually and creatively curious, strange creatures that, in their ass-backwardness, approach the hierarchy of needs from the top down. They neglect basic creature comforts while clinging, often self destructively, to the drug-like addiction of self actualization. And what are they working toward? That is when so many of their heroes, the successful and famous, live public lives of misery, and sometimes kill themselves.
Clearly, we need to break it down to individual needs, demands, and desires. We need to penetrate the multiplicity and interrogate the interactions. Furthermore, we need to recognize that it is primarily about expectations and their satisfaction, and that satisfaction only seems binary and digital by virtue of a molar perspective on the issue. We need to consider the molecular multiplicity of efficiencies.
Last edited by d63 on Sat Jul 26, 2014 6:17 pm, edited 11 times in total.
Re: Postcards:
Efficiency, a mechanical term used for equipment such as pumps, boilers, HVACs, etc., concerns the actual output of a system as compared to its theoretical rating and is a product of the differential between what the designer’s mathematics tell them (what something should be able to do) and what actually occurs in practice. But at a more fundamental level, it can also be the differential between the energy or resources put in to a thing (the input) and energy or resource gotten out (the output). And it is in this sense that we use the term. Only, for our purposes, we will define it in the more abstract sense of that which seeks to maximize itself by minimizing the differential between input and output.
And the best place to start to understand the complex interactions involved would be in an environment that typifies the background I got it from: the boiler room. First of all, we need to understand that there can never be 100% efficiency. Along the way, there is always a loss (heat loss) that can never return to an active or potential form. As any plant-op knows, you can never expect a 100% return on condensate on any boiler system. And like perpetual motion, everywhere we look, we find it equally elusive. Secondly, we must remain mindful that energy can never be created or destroyed, only transformed, eventually ending in its always final form: heat. Therefore, any motion or energy must be taken from something else. The pump must be driven by electricity. The electricity must be created by the turbine that, in turn, derives its energy from steam. And steam is the product of heat (remember heat loss?) taken from coal, its BTUs, that sees its efficiency reduced to ash. And finally, it must be remembered that our boiler room is a complex and dynamic interaction of efficiencies, a coexistence in which any one efficiency making too large a demand can steal energy from other efficiencies, thereby minimizing them and causing a breakdown in the supra-efficiency of coexistence. Furthermore, sub-efficiencies can be supra-efficiencies to their own relevant sub-efficiencies while also being sub efficiency to their own supra efficiencies. The pump, an efficiency in itself, is the product of a lot of sub efficiencies (the windings, the armature, etc.). It, in turn, is a sub-efficiency to the supra-efficiency of the boiler room (the plant) that, in turn, serves the supra-efficiency of the building by either heating or cooling it, thereby maximizing the tenant’s sub-efficiency of being comfortable that, in turn, serves the supra-efficiency of how they function in the building.
(And let's recognize the always supra efficiency of the co-existence of efficiencies: not above it all (but folded into all levels of the supra/sub relationships of Efficiency....
And thus we leave the boiler room with new tools to analyze our initial questions. We now see why the janitor can whistle while he meditates on the movement of the mop: time passes quickly in thought, and he has managed to keep his life within his means. For him, it is not matter of more; it is a question of efficiency. Likewise, the furniture hauler maximizes the efficiencies of his desire to drink and smoke pot without interference from the efficiency of job security. Plus he likes the exercise. Even the vagrants, drifters, and welfare recipients make more sense. They’ve balanced their efficiencies by lowering their demands. Meanwhile, the white collar worker struggles daily with the minimized efficiencies of job security, a sense of meaning, and family life due to long hours at the office that do nothing to increase financial efficiency in his salaried position -that is while the demands and expectations that have built up in his personal life (his and those around him) strain those financial resources. We further see the minimization of the supra-efficiency of co-existence that can occur when either the workers or employers make higher demands, and maximize their efficiency by compromising others. If the employer demands higher profit, that efficiency can only be maximized, that is since energy and resources cannot be created out of nothing, by stealing from the efficiencies of the employees and their sub-efficiencies. And should the worker demand more, this can only take from the supra-efficiency of the company that will, in turn, compromise the economy by raising prices thereby lowering the supra-efficiency of the economy as a whole .
Consequently, we now see that the Occupy Wall Street movement may not be a demand for more, but a demand for efficiency. It’s not about hating the rich. It’s about hating wealth at the expense of everyone else: the maximization of the large scale efficiencies of the few at the expense of others, and the minimization of their efficiencies. We can also see, finally, how our desire for self actualization can interact with other sub-efficiencies, and how the minimization of those others can lead one to misery, or even suicide. The applications seem infinite, and may well go beyond the issue of economics. The coexistence between the environment and civilization immediately comes to mind. But given our present focus, we might consider the possibility of a new ethical theory that says (complimenting the utilitarian) that those acts are good that maximize the supra-efficiency of coexistence. We might consider our happiest moments and ask: was it matter of having more? Or was it, rather, a matter of having all needs, demands, and desires, ours and those of others, come together in a state of harmonious co-existence: the coexistence of efficiencies?
And the best place to start to understand the complex interactions involved would be in an environment that typifies the background I got it from: the boiler room. First of all, we need to understand that there can never be 100% efficiency. Along the way, there is always a loss (heat loss) that can never return to an active or potential form. As any plant-op knows, you can never expect a 100% return on condensate on any boiler system. And like perpetual motion, everywhere we look, we find it equally elusive. Secondly, we must remain mindful that energy can never be created or destroyed, only transformed, eventually ending in its always final form: heat. Therefore, any motion or energy must be taken from something else. The pump must be driven by electricity. The electricity must be created by the turbine that, in turn, derives its energy from steam. And steam is the product of heat (remember heat loss?) taken from coal, its BTUs, that sees its efficiency reduced to ash. And finally, it must be remembered that our boiler room is a complex and dynamic interaction of efficiencies, a coexistence in which any one efficiency making too large a demand can steal energy from other efficiencies, thereby minimizing them and causing a breakdown in the supra-efficiency of coexistence. Furthermore, sub-efficiencies can be supra-efficiencies to their own relevant sub-efficiencies while also being sub efficiency to their own supra efficiencies. The pump, an efficiency in itself, is the product of a lot of sub efficiencies (the windings, the armature, etc.). It, in turn, is a sub-efficiency to the supra-efficiency of the boiler room (the plant) that, in turn, serves the supra-efficiency of the building by either heating or cooling it, thereby maximizing the tenant’s sub-efficiency of being comfortable that, in turn, serves the supra-efficiency of how they function in the building.
(And let's recognize the always supra efficiency of the co-existence of efficiencies: not above it all (but folded into all levels of the supra/sub relationships of Efficiency....
And thus we leave the boiler room with new tools to analyze our initial questions. We now see why the janitor can whistle while he meditates on the movement of the mop: time passes quickly in thought, and he has managed to keep his life within his means. For him, it is not matter of more; it is a question of efficiency. Likewise, the furniture hauler maximizes the efficiencies of his desire to drink and smoke pot without interference from the efficiency of job security. Plus he likes the exercise. Even the vagrants, drifters, and welfare recipients make more sense. They’ve balanced their efficiencies by lowering their demands. Meanwhile, the white collar worker struggles daily with the minimized efficiencies of job security, a sense of meaning, and family life due to long hours at the office that do nothing to increase financial efficiency in his salaried position -that is while the demands and expectations that have built up in his personal life (his and those around him) strain those financial resources. We further see the minimization of the supra-efficiency of co-existence that can occur when either the workers or employers make higher demands, and maximize their efficiency by compromising others. If the employer demands higher profit, that efficiency can only be maximized, that is since energy and resources cannot be created out of nothing, by stealing from the efficiencies of the employees and their sub-efficiencies. And should the worker demand more, this can only take from the supra-efficiency of the company that will, in turn, compromise the economy by raising prices thereby lowering the supra-efficiency of the economy as a whole .
Consequently, we now see that the Occupy Wall Street movement may not be a demand for more, but a demand for efficiency. It’s not about hating the rich. It’s about hating wealth at the expense of everyone else: the maximization of the large scale efficiencies of the few at the expense of others, and the minimization of their efficiencies. We can also see, finally, how our desire for self actualization can interact with other sub-efficiencies, and how the minimization of those others can lead one to misery, or even suicide. The applications seem infinite, and may well go beyond the issue of economics. The coexistence between the environment and civilization immediately comes to mind. But given our present focus, we might consider the possibility of a new ethical theory that says (complimenting the utilitarian) that those acts are good that maximize the supra-efficiency of coexistence. We might consider our happiest moments and ask: was it matter of having more? Or was it, rather, a matter of having all needs, demands, and desires, ours and those of others, come together in a state of harmonious co-existence: the coexistence of efficiencies?
Last edited by d63 on Sat Jul 26, 2014 6:41 pm, edited 11 times in total.
Re: Postcards:
“It is at work everywhere, functioning smoothly at times, at other times in fits and starts. It breathes, it heats, it eats. It shits and fucks. What a mistake to have ever said the Id. Everywhere it is machines –real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other ones, with all the necessary couplings and connections. An organ-machine is plugged into an energy-source-machine: the one produces a flow that the other interrupts. The breast is a machine that produces milk, and the mouth a machine coupled to it. The mouth of the anorexic wavers between several functions: its possessor is uncertain as to whether it is an eating machine, a talking machine, or a breathing machine (asthma attacks). Hence we are all handymen: each with his little machines. For every organ-machine, an energy machine: all the time, flows and interruptions.” –Deleuze and Guattari, The Anti-Oedipus
Hopefully by now I have established the framework upon which Eficiency is built: a Brownian universe very similar to that described by Deleuze and Guattarri in the intro to The Anti-Oedipus. We can even hope that we have added another tool to the process of schizoanalyse by highlighting the forces at work within desiring production. In fact, the terms are virtually interchangeable in that every desiring machine and relevant act of desiring production can be thought of as an instant of efficiency or the related term: expectation. And social production being a manifestation of desiring production, we can apply the overlap in terms to that level as well. What we must also take from D & G's model is its multilayer character, the way it enfolds from within enfoldment, from desiring to social production, and the molecular to the molar back to the molecular, in a non-hierarchal manner in which any individual instance can be both (to put it in D & G's machinic terms) component and machine. Once again, we return to the boiler room where a pump is both a machine to its various components while also being a component to the general system as well.
We should also consider here a concept and bring in the terminology brought up by Deleuze in his lecture on Spinoza: that of sad and joyful affects. Efficiency, down to its very core, is ultimately about power relationships or how power is exercised. (In fact, for my purposes, it is about undermining all excessive and abusive uses of power, to argue against the libertarian notion that any exercise of power is the only true expression of nature and, therefore, always for the general good.) Basically, they're both about the power relationship any instant of desiring production can have with the thing desired. In a sad affect, the desiring machine involved lacks the power to affect the object of desire -an instance of desiring production in itself. Conversely, a joyful affect is that of being able to affect it. And it doesn't take much to get from the concept to the issue of happiness in terms of the social or harmony in terms of our relationship with our environment. We can now see in the sad affect the minimization of Efficiency and the maximization of it in the joyful effect.
We can further articulate on the back and forth that runs from desiring production by adopting the Lacanian terminology of needs, demands, and desires as they develop in the child and carry on into adulthood. The child starts with needs (food, shelter, water, healthcare, etc.) to which the motherer attends. However, as the child grows more cognitive, it begins to develop more sophisticated expectations that it may think of as needs, but is rather an endless series of demands. And while the demands themselves can be obtained, what cannot be satisfied is the true motive behind the series itself (often a need for attention). Therefore, no matter how many of the demands are obtained, the series will never end because it is never about the thing being demanded. Eventually, due to the frustration of the motherer, who pulls away their attentiveness to those demands, and that of the child as they see less and less of their demands being met, the hope is that the child will eventually turn to what it desires or that which can be obtained but requires an active effort of figuring out what it is. This could be any number of things like self respect, meaning, achievement, or self actualization.
And we can see how these expectations can follow us into adulthood. No matter how old we get, we’ll always need food, water, shelter, and healthcare. And as much as we would like to think we outgrow our demands, they tend to plague us throughout all of our lives. For instance, what is a love relationship (and the underlying source of its volatility) but a long series of demands that two people make on each other? Like the child, we find ourselves demanding the full attention of the other while equally demanding our own space. And the sick (the body being a supra efficiency with its own sub efficiencies) will always demand to be better. The body demands it.
Finding our desire is what defines our maturity. We, the intellectually and creatively curious, for instance, define ourselves by what we come to know and create. However, we have to be wary of assuming that because we have found what we desire, we have found some way of keeping our demands forever at bay. Too many great minds have lived otherwise miserable lives to make that assumption. And too often, our desire can draw us back to it or find their selves subjected to other external and internal demands: the petty and mundane that are always seeking to steal resources from that which gives our lives meaning or the demand to be left alone and given time to practice our craft while demanding to be adored and respected, and once adored and respected, the demand to stay so.
And once we see these aspects of our makeup as different degrees of expectation given different levels of import that determine what level of energy we’re willing to invest in them, we can then translate them into the currency of efficiency and get a better sense of how this multiplicity might interact and emerge into the composite effect of the individual’s sad or joyful affects: the maximization (or minimization) of the always supra-efficiency of the coexistence of efficiencies.
We should first note that basic needs are pretty much low investment efficiencies that, if we focus purely on them, are generally easy to maximize. We could, for instance, live in a shack and eat rice as many third world people and Zen monks do. However, man does not live by bread and water alone. Not all of us want to live like monks or third world citizens, and we get further from need and closer to demand as we go from a bowl of rice to prime rib. The prime rib may fulfill the need of sustenance, but the enjoyment of that sustenance ultimately constitutes a demand. Still, at most points in between a bowl of rice and a prime rib (say a hot dog), the need for sustenance is an efficiency that is reasonably easy (at least in western industrialized nations -with qualifications in America) to sustain at a maximum level.
Desire, or having reached one's desire, presupposes a maximization of the always supra coexistence of efficiencies. Take, for instance, creative flow. In this state, the individual always has their individual expectations in a state of coordination in which those that are of less import are absorbing less energy while bulk of energy is being focused on what is most important thereby maximizing that particular efficiency by being able to meet the input resources required to achieve the desired effect. Take, for instance, Einstein's wardrobe. If Cronenberg's movie The Fly is accurate, had you of looked in Einstein's closet, you would have found a rack of exactly the same uniforms. The reason for this is that Einstein did not want to waste any more energy than he had to on deciding which outfit to wear so that he could focus all of it on complex mathematical and physics concepts.
And it was for good reason that he set aside the demand of vanity. Demand, it seems, because it can never be truly satisfied, only obtained, is clearly the least efficient form of expectation. And in its more extreme forms it can act as an all consuming parasite sucking the energy from more efficient forms of expectation and thereby undermine (or minimize) the always supra efficiency of coexistence.
Still, let’s not commit to becoming Zen monks and completely discard demands and the value they contribute to the experience of our point A to point B. We can never be fully rid of them anyway. And those small pleasures (watching TV, having a beer and Jager while typing this and listening to my playlist, and name your desert) can add to the justification of a life. It’s a matter of degree and the extent to which they sap energy from other expectations and efficiencies. It is just important to keep in mind that demands are not needs and always dispensable. Of course, it would seem that desires are equally dispensable. However, more so than with demands, desires are what justify our existence. And as the intellectually and creatively curious know: such a life without justification would be worse than no life at all.
Hopefully by now I have established the framework upon which Eficiency is built: a Brownian universe very similar to that described by Deleuze and Guattarri in the intro to The Anti-Oedipus. We can even hope that we have added another tool to the process of schizoanalyse by highlighting the forces at work within desiring production. In fact, the terms are virtually interchangeable in that every desiring machine and relevant act of desiring production can be thought of as an instant of efficiency or the related term: expectation. And social production being a manifestation of desiring production, we can apply the overlap in terms to that level as well. What we must also take from D & G's model is its multilayer character, the way it enfolds from within enfoldment, from desiring to social production, and the molecular to the molar back to the molecular, in a non-hierarchal manner in which any individual instance can be both (to put it in D & G's machinic terms) component and machine. Once again, we return to the boiler room where a pump is both a machine to its various components while also being a component to the general system as well.
We should also consider here a concept and bring in the terminology brought up by Deleuze in his lecture on Spinoza: that of sad and joyful affects. Efficiency, down to its very core, is ultimately about power relationships or how power is exercised. (In fact, for my purposes, it is about undermining all excessive and abusive uses of power, to argue against the libertarian notion that any exercise of power is the only true expression of nature and, therefore, always for the general good.) Basically, they're both about the power relationship any instant of desiring production can have with the thing desired. In a sad affect, the desiring machine involved lacks the power to affect the object of desire -an instance of desiring production in itself. Conversely, a joyful affect is that of being able to affect it. And it doesn't take much to get from the concept to the issue of happiness in terms of the social or harmony in terms of our relationship with our environment. We can now see in the sad affect the minimization of Efficiency and the maximization of it in the joyful effect.
We can further articulate on the back and forth that runs from desiring production by adopting the Lacanian terminology of needs, demands, and desires as they develop in the child and carry on into adulthood. The child starts with needs (food, shelter, water, healthcare, etc.) to which the motherer attends. However, as the child grows more cognitive, it begins to develop more sophisticated expectations that it may think of as needs, but is rather an endless series of demands. And while the demands themselves can be obtained, what cannot be satisfied is the true motive behind the series itself (often a need for attention). Therefore, no matter how many of the demands are obtained, the series will never end because it is never about the thing being demanded. Eventually, due to the frustration of the motherer, who pulls away their attentiveness to those demands, and that of the child as they see less and less of their demands being met, the hope is that the child will eventually turn to what it desires or that which can be obtained but requires an active effort of figuring out what it is. This could be any number of things like self respect, meaning, achievement, or self actualization.
And we can see how these expectations can follow us into adulthood. No matter how old we get, we’ll always need food, water, shelter, and healthcare. And as much as we would like to think we outgrow our demands, they tend to plague us throughout all of our lives. For instance, what is a love relationship (and the underlying source of its volatility) but a long series of demands that two people make on each other? Like the child, we find ourselves demanding the full attention of the other while equally demanding our own space. And the sick (the body being a supra efficiency with its own sub efficiencies) will always demand to be better. The body demands it.
Finding our desire is what defines our maturity. We, the intellectually and creatively curious, for instance, define ourselves by what we come to know and create. However, we have to be wary of assuming that because we have found what we desire, we have found some way of keeping our demands forever at bay. Too many great minds have lived otherwise miserable lives to make that assumption. And too often, our desire can draw us back to it or find their selves subjected to other external and internal demands: the petty and mundane that are always seeking to steal resources from that which gives our lives meaning or the demand to be left alone and given time to practice our craft while demanding to be adored and respected, and once adored and respected, the demand to stay so.
And once we see these aspects of our makeup as different degrees of expectation given different levels of import that determine what level of energy we’re willing to invest in them, we can then translate them into the currency of efficiency and get a better sense of how this multiplicity might interact and emerge into the composite effect of the individual’s sad or joyful affects: the maximization (or minimization) of the always supra-efficiency of the coexistence of efficiencies.
We should first note that basic needs are pretty much low investment efficiencies that, if we focus purely on them, are generally easy to maximize. We could, for instance, live in a shack and eat rice as many third world people and Zen monks do. However, man does not live by bread and water alone. Not all of us want to live like monks or third world citizens, and we get further from need and closer to demand as we go from a bowl of rice to prime rib. The prime rib may fulfill the need of sustenance, but the enjoyment of that sustenance ultimately constitutes a demand. Still, at most points in between a bowl of rice and a prime rib (say a hot dog), the need for sustenance is an efficiency that is reasonably easy (at least in western industrialized nations -with qualifications in America) to sustain at a maximum level.
Desire, or having reached one's desire, presupposes a maximization of the always supra coexistence of efficiencies. Take, for instance, creative flow. In this state, the individual always has their individual expectations in a state of coordination in which those that are of less import are absorbing less energy while bulk of energy is being focused on what is most important thereby maximizing that particular efficiency by being able to meet the input resources required to achieve the desired effect. Take, for instance, Einstein's wardrobe. If Cronenberg's movie The Fly is accurate, had you of looked in Einstein's closet, you would have found a rack of exactly the same uniforms. The reason for this is that Einstein did not want to waste any more energy than he had to on deciding which outfit to wear so that he could focus all of it on complex mathematical and physics concepts.
And it was for good reason that he set aside the demand of vanity. Demand, it seems, because it can never be truly satisfied, only obtained, is clearly the least efficient form of expectation. And in its more extreme forms it can act as an all consuming parasite sucking the energy from more efficient forms of expectation and thereby undermine (or minimize) the always supra efficiency of coexistence.
Still, let’s not commit to becoming Zen monks and completely discard demands and the value they contribute to the experience of our point A to point B. We can never be fully rid of them anyway. And those small pleasures (watching TV, having a beer and Jager while typing this and listening to my playlist, and name your desert) can add to the justification of a life. It’s a matter of degree and the extent to which they sap energy from other expectations and efficiencies. It is just important to keep in mind that demands are not needs and always dispensable. Of course, it would seem that desires are equally dispensable. However, more so than with demands, desires are what justify our existence. And as the intellectually and creatively curious know: such a life without justification would be worse than no life at all.
Last edited by d63 on Sat Jul 26, 2014 6:44 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Re: Postcards:
Of course, the individual, as supra efficiency of coexistence to their given sub efficiencies, is also a sub efficiency to their given social situation. They always have to interact with their family and social circles, their workplace, and their social and political environment. And these social structures, as well, must take their place in the folds (acting as both supra and sub efficiencies) that expand from social groups and workplaces to communities on to states and political structures up to the world and the earth it inhabits all of which must work under the always supra efficiency of the coexistence of efficiencies.
But at this point, several things need to be cleared up. For one, the always supra efficiency of coexistence is not some over-riding entity that hangs over it all at the top of the hierarchy. It is not a grand narrative. It is rather an ethical, pragmatic, and possibly metaphysical imperative that works at all levels from the sub systems of the individual to their social structures up to the world and possibly the universe itself.
Secondly, I have used the term energy in the engineer’s sense of “the ability to do work” as an all purpose designation to several things that can serve as inputs or outputs. On the input side, it can be effort and resources as well, while on output side it can be any type of positive effect whether purposely desired (such as monetary return) or left to chance (an unexpected move in a work of art) or somewhere in between.
And finally, the previous description has been pretty much vague and abstract. And there is purpose behind that. For one, there is no concrete entity we can think of as an efficiency. There only expressions of them. And in many cases, there is no way of actually measuring the inputs or outputs, much less the differential between them. Consequently, many of our judgments concerning the level of efficiency will be subjective in nature and generally a matter of comparison between different degrees. Furthermore, we have to be careful about talking about the different levels of supra and sub efficiencies as if it were some kind of fixed hierarchy. For instance, to subordinate the individual to their various supra efficiencies could, in matters of social and political discourse, could lead to extreme conclusions that verge on the fascistic and authoritarian. That said, this is not science. Nor can it be expected to be a perfect fit to every possible situation. It is merely a model and tool that can be applied to reality to analyze the interactions of various systems and provide a different perspective along with a unique vocabulary to discuss what we find. And as abstract as it is, if we engage in a kind serious play with it, it can offer some very concrete understandings to very concrete situations and possibly solutions to the problems they present.
*
But as they say in Creative Writing: Show! Don’t tell! Therefore, I will offer a couple of examples that are more small scale then move on to the socio/political and economic where I think it has its most useful applications. I start with a personal experience which, because of reflection and hindsight, was the genesis of the concept:
In the mid 90's, when the position opened, I gave up my maintenance job, and the higher financial and personal rewards that came with it, to work in a garage booth where I would have more time to read and write. And in that capacity, it served the purpose in that, artistically and intellectually, the 7 years I worked there were some of the most productive I've ever had. In other words, by setting aside or de-prioritizing other expectations and efficiencies, I had managed to maximize the efficiency of my desire to learn and create. The problem was, in order to meet the external demands and effciencies on my life, I had to, on top of working 1 1/2 hours of overtime in the booth, work 4 more at a part-time job. This meant 14 to 15 hr. workdays. On top of that, the internal demand or efficiency common to most men my age at the time (getting laid), I had also committed to a 1/2 hr. of working out every night after work. What resulted was me getting 4 or less hrs of sleep, thereby minimizing the efficiency of the basic need of health that was, in turn, influenced by need of sleep. In other words, by delegating most of my energy and resources to my desire to learn and create, I had maximized the efficiency by drawing energy from the efficiency of my health and need to sleep thereby minimizing those to the extent that they began to make demands that minimized the efficiency of my ability to wake up in the morning. This, in turn, drew energy from and minimized the efficiency of my standing at work.
On top of that, despite the long hrs I was working, the financial feedback was never enough to meet the demands being made on me by my financial obligations (or demands) brought into the mix through bills, 3 children of which I was the non-custodial father and the only one with resources, the cost of materials to further my intellectual and creative process, and the assumption of those around me that since I was working so many hrs that my resources were unlimited -an assumption that I had fallen prey to earlier in the process, then found it impossible to get clear to others the falsity of it after I had seen through it myself.
What resulted was a mixed package in which, on one hand, I was happy in that I was maximizing the effiency of my desire to learn and create while being equally miserable because of demands and efficiencies external to that desire that were more and more minimized to the point that they eventually turned on me. Towards the end, even desire to pursue my studies began evolve into an inefficient demand for success, when I found myself attached to an art gallery in which I had sold several art works. Because of this, I found the efficiency of my desire to create in the bounce around fashion I was accustom to minimized the demand for success that compelled to focus my last 3 years in the booth on art.
It was this coexistence of efficiencies that eventually led to my being fired from the job, which in turn led to a 5 year coexistence that focused on the efficiency of padding my resume. But even that got compromised as my desire to create and learn morphed into a demand to get back to my liberal and fine arts roots that sapped energy from, and minimized the efficiency of my pursuit of vocational knowledge. And here I am today.
And before I move on, I would also point out how my experience shines some light on the experience of many, if not all, creative people in that the dynamics of efficiency and needs, demands, and desires prohibit the possibility of a perpetual creative flow. The problem with the coexistence and coordination of efficiencies involved in those moments, regardless of how invulnerable they may make us feel, is that the system never occurs in a vacuum. Even though the experience can set aside and de-prioritize all other needs, demands, and desires, in order to focus energy on the prioritized efficiency; it can never eliminate their expectations. Sooner or later, after enough neglect, those expectations (both internal and external) will amplify to the point of becoming demands and sabotage the current coexistence. As I write this now, even though I have found a tentative flow or maximum efficiency of coexistence, I can feel the demands of my backlog of books creeping up on me. And it is that dynamic that led to Sylvia Plath’s suicide after writing Ariel.
A darker coexistence of efficiencies, at least from the outside, can be seen in the world of the chronic alcoholic or drug addict. First of all, let us admit that when it comes to alcohol or drugs, there is, in terms of pleasure, a minimal effort or input coupled with a maximum effect or output. And it is this maximized efficiency that draws the alcoholic or drug addict into addiction. However, as they focus more and more energy on this particular efficiency in their life, they begin to de-prioritize other efficiencies such as environment and appearance thereby achieving a maximized coexistence of efficiencies. And they achieve this maximization by drifting further and further away from the general symbolic order (another efficiency and expectation) and falling into the psychotic pitfall of the nihilistic perspective: that which, having no solid criteria by which to judge actions creates its own semiotic bubble of signs and values. And it would only be when the internal/external demands begin to show themselves, mainly that of securing more alcohol or drugs, that the coexistence of efficiencies would be disrupted.
Try this thought experiment. Ask yourself: if you took a drug addict, gave them shelter and food, and all the drugs they needed, would they ever sincerely recognize their addiction? I would argue no since that recognition would require a need, demand, or desire external to their addiction. In a sense, they would be in Tennyson’s Land of the Lotus Eaters. They would simply have no way of getting outside of the maximized efficiency of the coexistence of efficiencies in which they were immersed. There would not be any external efficiencies to disrupt it.
And while we’re on the subject, let’s apply our new model to the subject of why artists are so disposed to drug and alcohol addiction. Take, for instance, the writer. First of all, let’s agree that writing is a grueling and tedious venture. It is a process of enduring a lot of minimized efficiencies for the sake of a highly maximized supra efficiency. Plus that, the writer never has the advantage (the maximized efficiency) of seeing their finished work for the first time. Therefore, is it any wonder that they might mix the maximized efficiency (the immediate pleasure) of alcohol or drugs with the often minimized efficiency of the writing process? And doesn’t the artist, because of their position in relation to the general symbolic order, have to recede into a semiotic bubble similar to that of the addict? Van Gogh, for instance? And isn’t that, in a sense, what Einstein was doing with his wardrobe?
*
As we move into the more large scale complexes of the social and political sphere, we can now, in a simpler, more accessible, and clear manner, apply a simple formula that can then be applied in retrospect to our previous examples:
E(pot.)=R/e
Wherein:
E=potential efficiency or efficiency potential which sounds a little more high brow and technical
R=resources
& e=expectations
In order to understand it, and its interaction with other instances of itself, we can apply simple and arbitrary numbers to the variables in the context of a workplace situation. We start with a single instance as applied to Bob the manager with the values:
R=10
& e=2
Therefore if we calculate the results, E=10/2, we get an efficiency potential of 5. However, let’s say that Bob, under pressure from upper management and the stockholders to increase profits, is forced to increase his expectations to a value of 5: E=10/5 therefore E=2. Of course, this loss of efficiency potential results in a great deal of anxiety and frustration for Bob and, in order to restore order in his life, the only thing he can do is increase his resource factor to 20, thereby resulting in 20/5=E, therefore E= an efficiency potential of 4, which is not quite the comfort level he had before but better than the drop he experienced. And this is because of the efficiency of improved conditions.
However, those resources had to come from somewhere. Enter average Joe the employee who starts with the same base values as those of Bob: R=10, e=2, therefore, E=5. But as the adage goes, shit flows downhill, and when Bob begins to put pressure on him, Joe’s expectancy rating goes up to 5, thereby, lowering his efficiency value to 2. Even worse, Bob is also forced to cut back costs by decreasing parts inventory and overtime which reduces Joe’s resource value to 5 thereby resulting in a calculation of 5/5 or an efficiency potential of 1. On top of that, the loss of overtime and extra money reduces the resource value of Joe’s financial efficiancy and, consequently, its efficiency potential leaving Joe no choice but to supplement and bring the resource value back up by taking on a second job which, in turn, affects the values involved in his efficiency potential for time management. And the chain reaction goes on not in the linear fashion our calculations would have us believe, but rather in a multidirectional fractal manner.
Of course most of us don’t need this formula to see how this type of thing can occur in the workplace. We’ve seen it firsthand and have, in a very real way, felt the distress and frustration that can result from having our efficiency potential lowered. A telling example of this can be seen in research done on Boeing employees who had lost their jobs due to cutbacks and those who had survived. What they found was that those who had been laid off were generally healthier than those employees that were still working for Boeing. And given our formula, it is easy to make an educated guess as to why this happened. For the laid off, as pressures increased within the company before their severance, they were probably already experiencing declines in their efficiency potentials. However, when they found themselves unemployed, while their resource values might have dropped drastically, the drop in expectancy values were such that they may have actually experienced an increase in efficiency potential. Meanwhile, those left behind who found themselves with a smaller staff dealing with an increasing workload may have experienced a steady decrease in their potential and actual efficiencies.
*
And this dynamic, as well as the formula, can be applied to the general economy as well. First we would note that Capitalism, as it was articulated by Adam Smith, would have been reasonably efficient in an economy that consisted of craftsmen, artisans, shopkeepers, and family farms. This is because the small populations involved and the expectations that centered around the desire for comfort and sustenance, rather than vast accumulations of wealth (demand), were easily met by the resources available. To put it in Marxist terms: the differential between the natural value of what was produced, and later translated into buying power (a resource), and the exchange value (expectation) was small enough to insure a smooth flow of exchange and, consequently, a maximized coexistence of efficiencies -that is, of course, unless you were a slave. It wasn't until mass production became necessary, because of growing populations, and those who owned the means of production began to demand higher feedbacks, thereby compromising the coexistence of efficiencies, that a Marx became necessary. And what is Communism, as it was intended, but the final maximized coexistence of efficiencies not by lowering expectations, but by evening them out to the point that efficiency potentials of all individuals were maximized.
However, because of the efforts of those influenced by Marx and the confidence instilled in the oliogopolies of the 50's and 60's and even into the 70's, a workable coexistence was established again -even if it was one that stayed within the perimeters of producer/consumer Capitalism. And once again, it only seemed workable if you were a white middle class laborer.
But the technology developed by the oligopolies and government sowed the seeds of their own destruction, by opening doors for more competition thereby lowering efficiency potentials of the rich through loss of security (a resource) thereby increasing their demand (expectancy) for more wealth in order to secure their standard of living. It was no longer a matter of having wealth; it became a matter of insuring it (another efficiency) by continuing to accumulate superfluous wealth (demand as expectation). This is what resulted in going from the 50's and 60's, where the CEO's of company expected around 20 times the compensation of their lowest paid employee, to the minimized coexistence of today where CEO's command 3 to 400 times their lowest paid employee. And as was the case with Bob the manager and everyday Joe, the only way these CEO's can continue to do so is turn their expectancies into maximum efficiency values is by increasing their resource values that, in turn, must steal from the resource values of those below them while forcing increased expectations upon them (through consumer demand and heavier workloads) and thereby minimizing their efficiencies and compromising the coexistence of efficiencies.
However, let’s give the pro-capitalist credit where credit is due in terms of the efficiency formula. For one, they are right in asserting that government, through regulation, can lower efficiency by lowering the resource factor through restrictions on what materials can be used. But this is generally due to environmental or labor and safety concerns that involve other efficiency occurrences that are just as important as the efficiency of profit if a respectable coexistence of efficiencies is to be maintained. At the same time, these disruptions can affect the working class efficiencies through indirect methods. A lot of drug and smoking policies are the results of government policy, but they are also the result corporate lobbying and corporate indifference to the right of individuals to do whatever floats their boats because those activities might compromise the individual’s role as producer/consumer. To give another example, we are coming to a time when the backyard mechanic is coming to an end due to the complex environmental controls that car producers must put into cars. This imposes upon the car owner the inefficiency of depending on the car dealer to keep that car running so they can get to work. But his, once again, only offers the car producer an opportunity to increase the efficiency of the demand for profit by forcing the consumer to depend on the dealer for maintenance of their vehicle thereby increasing their profit.
The less compromised assertion of the pro-Capitalist position comes from their faith in the ability of Capitalism to develop the technology and means of production they have grown addicted to. And this one is hard to question. This is because corporations can afford high expectations (e) because their resources (R) are such as to, because of our formula, to maintain a high efficiency factor (E) –that is if you consider the failures in league with the successes. But then I’m just rehashing Marx here.
The problem with this was pretty much articulated by James Burke in the 90’s series Connections. As he pointed out, technology at the time was progressing at a rate similar to Galileo’s Law of Falling Bodies: at a constant rate of acceleration. And the problem with this was that such a situation tended to evoke in people a taste for novelty –in other words: demand. And as we have already pointed out, demand is the least efficient form of expectation there is because it raises the e value to the point that the resources available to it may not be able to sustain a respectable efficiency potential. It can only sustain E value by raising R value. And this can only happen by stealing from other R values while raising e values to the point of demand and lowering their respective E values.
And in this lies the primary failure of Capitalism in terms of efficiency. And it is why Capitalism must put its emphasis on growth (demand) as compared to efficiency. The night after I had arrived at the formula for efficiency potential, I found myself second guessing in that I began to wonder if, since efficiency is basically about an input/output differential, if the formula should have actually been E=R-e. But then I began to think about how the e variable affects the calculation as a whole. Now say we start with the values R=10 and e=5 therefore E(pot.)=2. Then we drop the e value to 2 and get an efficiency potential of 5: an increase of 3 from our initial point. Now we drop the e value to 1 and we get an E(pot.) of 10 or an increase of 8 from our initial point. And this non proportional increase in the efficiency potential seems perfectly in line with reality in that breathing (with an expectation value of one and oxygen being at a high R value) is the most efficient thing we could do -almost at a 100% actual efficiency. And the only thing that could compromise that is a drastic reduction in the R value as concerns oxygen such as suffocation or lung disease. As compared to actions at higher e value, we hardly put any effort into it. And on top of that, the act is carried out with hardly any effort at all and leaves us a lot of (excuse the pun) breathing room (resources) that can be delegated to other efficiency potentials such as technology that work through the burning of oxygen.
I began to realize that my second guessing was the result of confusing 2 different issues - that of potential efficiency and actual (or actualized) efficiency- and I had forgotten the principle from which the formula had emerged: that the potential for efficiency tends to decrease as expectations increase. Plus that, the simpler calculation of E=R-e gives the impression that as resources increase one can increase their expectations proportionally. And that, to me, seems to play right into the hegemony of Capitalism and neglects the principle of diminishing returns that tend to come from increased expectations. As another principle of mine states:
“The probability of a system breaking down seems to grow in an asymmetrical proportion to the complexity and sophistication of that system.”
And as I also realized, not even the formula for actual efficiency takes the route of simple mathematics, but rather algebraic one of: E(act.)=O/I wherein:
E=actual efficiency
O=output
and I=Input
But the formula gets more reflective of reality when we consider what happens as we increase the e factor. We start again with an R value of 10 and an e value of 5 which results in an E value of 2. Then we increase the e value to 10 which puts us at an E value of 1. Now in order to get back to our original E value, the R value would have to increase to 20 (or an increase of 10). But when we increase our e value to 15, we have to increase our R value to 30 in order to sustain an E(pot.) value of 2. In other words, for every increase of 5 in e value, there has to be disproportional increase of 10 in R value. This is because as expectations increase, what is expected becomes more complex in nature and therefore more vulnerable to inefficiencies or failures. Plus that, the R value always has a ceiling either in general or, more likely, within a given potential’s horizon. And in this sense, our formula lands us in the principle of diminishing returns as expectation increases. And on top of that, as we already pointed out, the R value can only be increased by stealing from the R value of other efficiency potentials, thereby decreasing their value.
Capitalism, however, and clever creature that it thinks it is, thinks it can overcome this problem by not settling for an E potential of 2. But let’s say it seeks to increase its original state of e=5 and R=10 to an E(pot.)=5. It would either have to lower its e value to 2 (which we know Capitalism is incapable of) or raise its R value to 25 which, once again, means that it has to steal from other E potentials. The problem is the increase in R value requires an increase in e value. This is what defines Demand in Lacanian terms. And it is this privilege given to growth over stability (the maximum efficiency of coexistence), mathematically defined, the underlies the snowball effect that has led to the very rich demanding obscene accumulations of wealth at the expense of everyone else.
*
Anyway, my time has ran out on this project, and I want to make a few brief notes for myself when I return to it:
1. I want to follow this with a return to the Lacanian model and point out how Capitalism’s privilege given to demand undermines the always supra efficiency of the coexistence of efficiencies, then move on to solutions based on government the acts as a facilitator of this coexistence, then finally consider the possible metaphysical implications of efficiency as a kind of strange attractor that can possibly apply to both micro and macro physics.
2. I would like to apply the formula to arguments among the pro-capitalists (for instance, the way the resource of willingness to make the effort is cancelled out by required increases in the e value –in other words: the notion of self determination). And I would like to go after the precarious notion that Exchange value=Buying power.
And, finally, 3. I want to see if I can fuse Spinoza’s (via Deleuze) sad and joyful affects into the text and bring out the import of power relationships in terms of efficiency.
D&G, Lacan, and Baudrillard: the post(Marxist turn to consumption.
And I smell the stink of Deridda in this....
But at this point, several things need to be cleared up. For one, the always supra efficiency of coexistence is not some over-riding entity that hangs over it all at the top of the hierarchy. It is not a grand narrative. It is rather an ethical, pragmatic, and possibly metaphysical imperative that works at all levels from the sub systems of the individual to their social structures up to the world and possibly the universe itself.
Secondly, I have used the term energy in the engineer’s sense of “the ability to do work” as an all purpose designation to several things that can serve as inputs or outputs. On the input side, it can be effort and resources as well, while on output side it can be any type of positive effect whether purposely desired (such as monetary return) or left to chance (an unexpected move in a work of art) or somewhere in between.
And finally, the previous description has been pretty much vague and abstract. And there is purpose behind that. For one, there is no concrete entity we can think of as an efficiency. There only expressions of them. And in many cases, there is no way of actually measuring the inputs or outputs, much less the differential between them. Consequently, many of our judgments concerning the level of efficiency will be subjective in nature and generally a matter of comparison between different degrees. Furthermore, we have to be careful about talking about the different levels of supra and sub efficiencies as if it were some kind of fixed hierarchy. For instance, to subordinate the individual to their various supra efficiencies could, in matters of social and political discourse, could lead to extreme conclusions that verge on the fascistic and authoritarian. That said, this is not science. Nor can it be expected to be a perfect fit to every possible situation. It is merely a model and tool that can be applied to reality to analyze the interactions of various systems and provide a different perspective along with a unique vocabulary to discuss what we find. And as abstract as it is, if we engage in a kind serious play with it, it can offer some very concrete understandings to very concrete situations and possibly solutions to the problems they present.
*
But as they say in Creative Writing: Show! Don’t tell! Therefore, I will offer a couple of examples that are more small scale then move on to the socio/political and economic where I think it has its most useful applications. I start with a personal experience which, because of reflection and hindsight, was the genesis of the concept:
In the mid 90's, when the position opened, I gave up my maintenance job, and the higher financial and personal rewards that came with it, to work in a garage booth where I would have more time to read and write. And in that capacity, it served the purpose in that, artistically and intellectually, the 7 years I worked there were some of the most productive I've ever had. In other words, by setting aside or de-prioritizing other expectations and efficiencies, I had managed to maximize the efficiency of my desire to learn and create. The problem was, in order to meet the external demands and effciencies on my life, I had to, on top of working 1 1/2 hours of overtime in the booth, work 4 more at a part-time job. This meant 14 to 15 hr. workdays. On top of that, the internal demand or efficiency common to most men my age at the time (getting laid), I had also committed to a 1/2 hr. of working out every night after work. What resulted was me getting 4 or less hrs of sleep, thereby minimizing the efficiency of the basic need of health that was, in turn, influenced by need of sleep. In other words, by delegating most of my energy and resources to my desire to learn and create, I had maximized the efficiency by drawing energy from the efficiency of my health and need to sleep thereby minimizing those to the extent that they began to make demands that minimized the efficiency of my ability to wake up in the morning. This, in turn, drew energy from and minimized the efficiency of my standing at work.
On top of that, despite the long hrs I was working, the financial feedback was never enough to meet the demands being made on me by my financial obligations (or demands) brought into the mix through bills, 3 children of which I was the non-custodial father and the only one with resources, the cost of materials to further my intellectual and creative process, and the assumption of those around me that since I was working so many hrs that my resources were unlimited -an assumption that I had fallen prey to earlier in the process, then found it impossible to get clear to others the falsity of it after I had seen through it myself.
What resulted was a mixed package in which, on one hand, I was happy in that I was maximizing the effiency of my desire to learn and create while being equally miserable because of demands and efficiencies external to that desire that were more and more minimized to the point that they eventually turned on me. Towards the end, even desire to pursue my studies began evolve into an inefficient demand for success, when I found myself attached to an art gallery in which I had sold several art works. Because of this, I found the efficiency of my desire to create in the bounce around fashion I was accustom to minimized the demand for success that compelled to focus my last 3 years in the booth on art.
It was this coexistence of efficiencies that eventually led to my being fired from the job, which in turn led to a 5 year coexistence that focused on the efficiency of padding my resume. But even that got compromised as my desire to create and learn morphed into a demand to get back to my liberal and fine arts roots that sapped energy from, and minimized the efficiency of my pursuit of vocational knowledge. And here I am today.
And before I move on, I would also point out how my experience shines some light on the experience of many, if not all, creative people in that the dynamics of efficiency and needs, demands, and desires prohibit the possibility of a perpetual creative flow. The problem with the coexistence and coordination of efficiencies involved in those moments, regardless of how invulnerable they may make us feel, is that the system never occurs in a vacuum. Even though the experience can set aside and de-prioritize all other needs, demands, and desires, in order to focus energy on the prioritized efficiency; it can never eliminate their expectations. Sooner or later, after enough neglect, those expectations (both internal and external) will amplify to the point of becoming demands and sabotage the current coexistence. As I write this now, even though I have found a tentative flow or maximum efficiency of coexistence, I can feel the demands of my backlog of books creeping up on me. And it is that dynamic that led to Sylvia Plath’s suicide after writing Ariel.
A darker coexistence of efficiencies, at least from the outside, can be seen in the world of the chronic alcoholic or drug addict. First of all, let us admit that when it comes to alcohol or drugs, there is, in terms of pleasure, a minimal effort or input coupled with a maximum effect or output. And it is this maximized efficiency that draws the alcoholic or drug addict into addiction. However, as they focus more and more energy on this particular efficiency in their life, they begin to de-prioritize other efficiencies such as environment and appearance thereby achieving a maximized coexistence of efficiencies. And they achieve this maximization by drifting further and further away from the general symbolic order (another efficiency and expectation) and falling into the psychotic pitfall of the nihilistic perspective: that which, having no solid criteria by which to judge actions creates its own semiotic bubble of signs and values. And it would only be when the internal/external demands begin to show themselves, mainly that of securing more alcohol or drugs, that the coexistence of efficiencies would be disrupted.
Try this thought experiment. Ask yourself: if you took a drug addict, gave them shelter and food, and all the drugs they needed, would they ever sincerely recognize their addiction? I would argue no since that recognition would require a need, demand, or desire external to their addiction. In a sense, they would be in Tennyson’s Land of the Lotus Eaters. They would simply have no way of getting outside of the maximized efficiency of the coexistence of efficiencies in which they were immersed. There would not be any external efficiencies to disrupt it.
And while we’re on the subject, let’s apply our new model to the subject of why artists are so disposed to drug and alcohol addiction. Take, for instance, the writer. First of all, let’s agree that writing is a grueling and tedious venture. It is a process of enduring a lot of minimized efficiencies for the sake of a highly maximized supra efficiency. Plus that, the writer never has the advantage (the maximized efficiency) of seeing their finished work for the first time. Therefore, is it any wonder that they might mix the maximized efficiency (the immediate pleasure) of alcohol or drugs with the often minimized efficiency of the writing process? And doesn’t the artist, because of their position in relation to the general symbolic order, have to recede into a semiotic bubble similar to that of the addict? Van Gogh, for instance? And isn’t that, in a sense, what Einstein was doing with his wardrobe?
*
As we move into the more large scale complexes of the social and political sphere, we can now, in a simpler, more accessible, and clear manner, apply a simple formula that can then be applied in retrospect to our previous examples:
E(pot.)=R/e
Wherein:
E=potential efficiency or efficiency potential which sounds a little more high brow and technical
R=resources
& e=expectations
In order to understand it, and its interaction with other instances of itself, we can apply simple and arbitrary numbers to the variables in the context of a workplace situation. We start with a single instance as applied to Bob the manager with the values:
R=10
& e=2
Therefore if we calculate the results, E=10/2, we get an efficiency potential of 5. However, let’s say that Bob, under pressure from upper management and the stockholders to increase profits, is forced to increase his expectations to a value of 5: E=10/5 therefore E=2. Of course, this loss of efficiency potential results in a great deal of anxiety and frustration for Bob and, in order to restore order in his life, the only thing he can do is increase his resource factor to 20, thereby resulting in 20/5=E, therefore E= an efficiency potential of 4, which is not quite the comfort level he had before but better than the drop he experienced. And this is because of the efficiency of improved conditions.
However, those resources had to come from somewhere. Enter average Joe the employee who starts with the same base values as those of Bob: R=10, e=2, therefore, E=5. But as the adage goes, shit flows downhill, and when Bob begins to put pressure on him, Joe’s expectancy rating goes up to 5, thereby, lowering his efficiency value to 2. Even worse, Bob is also forced to cut back costs by decreasing parts inventory and overtime which reduces Joe’s resource value to 5 thereby resulting in a calculation of 5/5 or an efficiency potential of 1. On top of that, the loss of overtime and extra money reduces the resource value of Joe’s financial efficiancy and, consequently, its efficiency potential leaving Joe no choice but to supplement and bring the resource value back up by taking on a second job which, in turn, affects the values involved in his efficiency potential for time management. And the chain reaction goes on not in the linear fashion our calculations would have us believe, but rather in a multidirectional fractal manner.
Of course most of us don’t need this formula to see how this type of thing can occur in the workplace. We’ve seen it firsthand and have, in a very real way, felt the distress and frustration that can result from having our efficiency potential lowered. A telling example of this can be seen in research done on Boeing employees who had lost their jobs due to cutbacks and those who had survived. What they found was that those who had been laid off were generally healthier than those employees that were still working for Boeing. And given our formula, it is easy to make an educated guess as to why this happened. For the laid off, as pressures increased within the company before their severance, they were probably already experiencing declines in their efficiency potentials. However, when they found themselves unemployed, while their resource values might have dropped drastically, the drop in expectancy values were such that they may have actually experienced an increase in efficiency potential. Meanwhile, those left behind who found themselves with a smaller staff dealing with an increasing workload may have experienced a steady decrease in their potential and actual efficiencies.
*
And this dynamic, as well as the formula, can be applied to the general economy as well. First we would note that Capitalism, as it was articulated by Adam Smith, would have been reasonably efficient in an economy that consisted of craftsmen, artisans, shopkeepers, and family farms. This is because the small populations involved and the expectations that centered around the desire for comfort and sustenance, rather than vast accumulations of wealth (demand), were easily met by the resources available. To put it in Marxist terms: the differential between the natural value of what was produced, and later translated into buying power (a resource), and the exchange value (expectation) was small enough to insure a smooth flow of exchange and, consequently, a maximized coexistence of efficiencies -that is, of course, unless you were a slave. It wasn't until mass production became necessary, because of growing populations, and those who owned the means of production began to demand higher feedbacks, thereby compromising the coexistence of efficiencies, that a Marx became necessary. And what is Communism, as it was intended, but the final maximized coexistence of efficiencies not by lowering expectations, but by evening them out to the point that efficiency potentials of all individuals were maximized.
However, because of the efforts of those influenced by Marx and the confidence instilled in the oliogopolies of the 50's and 60's and even into the 70's, a workable coexistence was established again -even if it was one that stayed within the perimeters of producer/consumer Capitalism. And once again, it only seemed workable if you were a white middle class laborer.
But the technology developed by the oligopolies and government sowed the seeds of their own destruction, by opening doors for more competition thereby lowering efficiency potentials of the rich through loss of security (a resource) thereby increasing their demand (expectancy) for more wealth in order to secure their standard of living. It was no longer a matter of having wealth; it became a matter of insuring it (another efficiency) by continuing to accumulate superfluous wealth (demand as expectation). This is what resulted in going from the 50's and 60's, where the CEO's of company expected around 20 times the compensation of their lowest paid employee, to the minimized coexistence of today where CEO's command 3 to 400 times their lowest paid employee. And as was the case with Bob the manager and everyday Joe, the only way these CEO's can continue to do so is turn their expectancies into maximum efficiency values is by increasing their resource values that, in turn, must steal from the resource values of those below them while forcing increased expectations upon them (through consumer demand and heavier workloads) and thereby minimizing their efficiencies and compromising the coexistence of efficiencies.
However, let’s give the pro-capitalist credit where credit is due in terms of the efficiency formula. For one, they are right in asserting that government, through regulation, can lower efficiency by lowering the resource factor through restrictions on what materials can be used. But this is generally due to environmental or labor and safety concerns that involve other efficiency occurrences that are just as important as the efficiency of profit if a respectable coexistence of efficiencies is to be maintained. At the same time, these disruptions can affect the working class efficiencies through indirect methods. A lot of drug and smoking policies are the results of government policy, but they are also the result corporate lobbying and corporate indifference to the right of individuals to do whatever floats their boats because those activities might compromise the individual’s role as producer/consumer. To give another example, we are coming to a time when the backyard mechanic is coming to an end due to the complex environmental controls that car producers must put into cars. This imposes upon the car owner the inefficiency of depending on the car dealer to keep that car running so they can get to work. But his, once again, only offers the car producer an opportunity to increase the efficiency of the demand for profit by forcing the consumer to depend on the dealer for maintenance of their vehicle thereby increasing their profit.
The less compromised assertion of the pro-Capitalist position comes from their faith in the ability of Capitalism to develop the technology and means of production they have grown addicted to. And this one is hard to question. This is because corporations can afford high expectations (e) because their resources (R) are such as to, because of our formula, to maintain a high efficiency factor (E) –that is if you consider the failures in league with the successes. But then I’m just rehashing Marx here.
The problem with this was pretty much articulated by James Burke in the 90’s series Connections. As he pointed out, technology at the time was progressing at a rate similar to Galileo’s Law of Falling Bodies: at a constant rate of acceleration. And the problem with this was that such a situation tended to evoke in people a taste for novelty –in other words: demand. And as we have already pointed out, demand is the least efficient form of expectation there is because it raises the e value to the point that the resources available to it may not be able to sustain a respectable efficiency potential. It can only sustain E value by raising R value. And this can only happen by stealing from other R values while raising e values to the point of demand and lowering their respective E values.
And in this lies the primary failure of Capitalism in terms of efficiency. And it is why Capitalism must put its emphasis on growth (demand) as compared to efficiency. The night after I had arrived at the formula for efficiency potential, I found myself second guessing in that I began to wonder if, since efficiency is basically about an input/output differential, if the formula should have actually been E=R-e. But then I began to think about how the e variable affects the calculation as a whole. Now say we start with the values R=10 and e=5 therefore E(pot.)=2. Then we drop the e value to 2 and get an efficiency potential of 5: an increase of 3 from our initial point. Now we drop the e value to 1 and we get an E(pot.) of 10 or an increase of 8 from our initial point. And this non proportional increase in the efficiency potential seems perfectly in line with reality in that breathing (with an expectation value of one and oxygen being at a high R value) is the most efficient thing we could do -almost at a 100% actual efficiency. And the only thing that could compromise that is a drastic reduction in the R value as concerns oxygen such as suffocation or lung disease. As compared to actions at higher e value, we hardly put any effort into it. And on top of that, the act is carried out with hardly any effort at all and leaves us a lot of (excuse the pun) breathing room (resources) that can be delegated to other efficiency potentials such as technology that work through the burning of oxygen.
I began to realize that my second guessing was the result of confusing 2 different issues - that of potential efficiency and actual (or actualized) efficiency- and I had forgotten the principle from which the formula had emerged: that the potential for efficiency tends to decrease as expectations increase. Plus that, the simpler calculation of E=R-e gives the impression that as resources increase one can increase their expectations proportionally. And that, to me, seems to play right into the hegemony of Capitalism and neglects the principle of diminishing returns that tend to come from increased expectations. As another principle of mine states:
“The probability of a system breaking down seems to grow in an asymmetrical proportion to the complexity and sophistication of that system.”
And as I also realized, not even the formula for actual efficiency takes the route of simple mathematics, but rather algebraic one of: E(act.)=O/I wherein:
E=actual efficiency
O=output
and I=Input
But the formula gets more reflective of reality when we consider what happens as we increase the e factor. We start again with an R value of 10 and an e value of 5 which results in an E value of 2. Then we increase the e value to 10 which puts us at an E value of 1. Now in order to get back to our original E value, the R value would have to increase to 20 (or an increase of 10). But when we increase our e value to 15, we have to increase our R value to 30 in order to sustain an E(pot.) value of 2. In other words, for every increase of 5 in e value, there has to be disproportional increase of 10 in R value. This is because as expectations increase, what is expected becomes more complex in nature and therefore more vulnerable to inefficiencies or failures. Plus that, the R value always has a ceiling either in general or, more likely, within a given potential’s horizon. And in this sense, our formula lands us in the principle of diminishing returns as expectation increases. And on top of that, as we already pointed out, the R value can only be increased by stealing from the R value of other efficiency potentials, thereby decreasing their value.
Capitalism, however, and clever creature that it thinks it is, thinks it can overcome this problem by not settling for an E potential of 2. But let’s say it seeks to increase its original state of e=5 and R=10 to an E(pot.)=5. It would either have to lower its e value to 2 (which we know Capitalism is incapable of) or raise its R value to 25 which, once again, means that it has to steal from other E potentials. The problem is the increase in R value requires an increase in e value. This is what defines Demand in Lacanian terms. And it is this privilege given to growth over stability (the maximum efficiency of coexistence), mathematically defined, the underlies the snowball effect that has led to the very rich demanding obscene accumulations of wealth at the expense of everyone else.
*
Anyway, my time has ran out on this project, and I want to make a few brief notes for myself when I return to it:
1. I want to follow this with a return to the Lacanian model and point out how Capitalism’s privilege given to demand undermines the always supra efficiency of the coexistence of efficiencies, then move on to solutions based on government the acts as a facilitator of this coexistence, then finally consider the possible metaphysical implications of efficiency as a kind of strange attractor that can possibly apply to both micro and macro physics.
2. I would like to apply the formula to arguments among the pro-capitalists (for instance, the way the resource of willingness to make the effort is cancelled out by required increases in the e value –in other words: the notion of self determination). And I would like to go after the precarious notion that Exchange value=Buying power.
And, finally, 3. I want to see if I can fuse Spinoza’s (via Deleuze) sad and joyful affects into the text and bring out the import of power relationships in terms of efficiency.
D&G, Lacan, and Baudrillard: the post(Marxist turn to consumption.
And I smell the stink of Deridda in this....
Last edited by d63 on Sat Jul 26, 2014 6:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Postcards:
The following are 2 writings I have come up for an open submission concerning the issue of how to best organize society, both surrounding the issue of efficiency. Hopefully one of them will offer you the cliff notes on what I’m getting at with this issue:
You are an efficiency: that which is maximized by minimizing the differential between energy input and energy output, or expectation and result. In turn, you are the composite effect of the various sub-efficiencies (the needs, demands, and desires) that constitute your makeup and that you are, as you read this, coordinating in order to extract meaning from the instance of efficiency before you. In other words, in order to extract meaning from this you would have to privilege it by de-prioritizing other expectations and thereby focus the energy you might exert on those on finding out what this particular piece of writing has to tell you , it being a coexistence of efficiencies in itself composed of an over-riding theme that seeks expression through the coexistence of sentences, words, and punctuation. In fact, it would seem to be the point of a 400 word limit: to find the most efficient way of getting a point across via more efficient sentences via more efficient word choices.
On top of that, in extracting meaning, you have extended your personal sub systems into the social by coordinating them with mine in such a way that, between the two of us, we have established yet another coexistence of efficiencies from which, hopefully, both of us have achieved the desired results with a minimal differential between the work (that which causes a change in space) put into it and that which we get out of it. If we didn’t, that would mean we have the minimized efficiency of putting work into something that has given us minimal feedback and, in the process, have stolen resources from other instances of efficiency/expectation that might have been maximal.
Now think about it: have your happiest moments been a matter of having more as producer/consumer Capitalism would have you believe? Or have they been a matter of coordinating your expectations in such a way (by prioritizing so that every instance of expectation has the resources they need for what they have to do) that everything seems in its right place? And shouldn’t we extend this, the worth of a society being rationally based on the happiness of its individuals, to the various social relationships we find ourselves in by coordinating resources in such a way that the individual has what they need to accommodate what they have prioritized? And shouldn’t we, in the face of manmade climate change, apply the same principle to our environment?
*
As it stands, under the milieu of producer/consumer Capitalism, the discourse around society’s organization is generally dominated by the terms of more and less: more profits for less investment poised against more pay and benefits for less work. And it doesn’t take much to see the paranoid centers that might emerge from this. And it’s easy to see the failure of capital in this. But it can also be seen in the labor side. As well intended as American movement towards a higher minimum wage seems, it only succumbs to the expansionary model of Capitalism by courting inflation through wage push and wage pull and only contributes to the drive towards ever increasing consumption that may well result in our demise via man made climate change. Plus that, the problem isn’t that we don’t make enough; it’s that everything costs too much.
I would oppose to this Efficiency, not in the sense of some corporate or Orwellian police state, but rather in the technological/machinic (as in Deleuze and Guattarri) sense of that which is maximized by minimizing the differential between the energy put into a thing and the energy gotten out or that between expectation and the results. Or it would be better to say that it is about the efficiency of the coexistence of efficiencies or instances of input/expectation that exist throughout the vast complex of interconnected systems that run back and forth between the individual, their immediate social circles, their communities, their various political affinities, their world community, and the natural environment in which the various levels exist in. It would be about distributing resources and coordinating expectations in a way that would allow each individual person and thing to maximize the instances of efficiency/expectation that are most important to them by not allowing an individual instance to demand so much that they steal resources from other instances.
In this sense, producer/consumer Capitalism, for all its claims to be the most efficient manner of distributing goods and services, shows itself to be remarkably inefficient in that it must, by necessity steal resources from other instances of efficiency/expectation by dominating our lives with the petty and mundane. We, as the creatively and intellectually curious should know this more than anyone. And the only solution to this is to expand the public economy that can provide goods and services without involving the factor of profit seeking behaviors.
You are an efficiency: that which is maximized by minimizing the differential between energy input and energy output, or expectation and result. In turn, you are the composite effect of the various sub-efficiencies (the needs, demands, and desires) that constitute your makeup and that you are, as you read this, coordinating in order to extract meaning from the instance of efficiency before you. In other words, in order to extract meaning from this you would have to privilege it by de-prioritizing other expectations and thereby focus the energy you might exert on those on finding out what this particular piece of writing has to tell you , it being a coexistence of efficiencies in itself composed of an over-riding theme that seeks expression through the coexistence of sentences, words, and punctuation. In fact, it would seem to be the point of a 400 word limit: to find the most efficient way of getting a point across via more efficient sentences via more efficient word choices.
On top of that, in extracting meaning, you have extended your personal sub systems into the social by coordinating them with mine in such a way that, between the two of us, we have established yet another coexistence of efficiencies from which, hopefully, both of us have achieved the desired results with a minimal differential between the work (that which causes a change in space) put into it and that which we get out of it. If we didn’t, that would mean we have the minimized efficiency of putting work into something that has given us minimal feedback and, in the process, have stolen resources from other instances of efficiency/expectation that might have been maximal.
Now think about it: have your happiest moments been a matter of having more as producer/consumer Capitalism would have you believe? Or have they been a matter of coordinating your expectations in such a way (by prioritizing so that every instance of expectation has the resources they need for what they have to do) that everything seems in its right place? And shouldn’t we extend this, the worth of a society being rationally based on the happiness of its individuals, to the various social relationships we find ourselves in by coordinating resources in such a way that the individual has what they need to accommodate what they have prioritized? And shouldn’t we, in the face of manmade climate change, apply the same principle to our environment?
*
As it stands, under the milieu of producer/consumer Capitalism, the discourse around society’s organization is generally dominated by the terms of more and less: more profits for less investment poised against more pay and benefits for less work. And it doesn’t take much to see the paranoid centers that might emerge from this. And it’s easy to see the failure of capital in this. But it can also be seen in the labor side. As well intended as American movement towards a higher minimum wage seems, it only succumbs to the expansionary model of Capitalism by courting inflation through wage push and wage pull and only contributes to the drive towards ever increasing consumption that may well result in our demise via man made climate change. Plus that, the problem isn’t that we don’t make enough; it’s that everything costs too much.
I would oppose to this Efficiency, not in the sense of some corporate or Orwellian police state, but rather in the technological/machinic (as in Deleuze and Guattarri) sense of that which is maximized by minimizing the differential between the energy put into a thing and the energy gotten out or that between expectation and the results. Or it would be better to say that it is about the efficiency of the coexistence of efficiencies or instances of input/expectation that exist throughout the vast complex of interconnected systems that run back and forth between the individual, their immediate social circles, their communities, their various political affinities, their world community, and the natural environment in which the various levels exist in. It would be about distributing resources and coordinating expectations in a way that would allow each individual person and thing to maximize the instances of efficiency/expectation that are most important to them by not allowing an individual instance to demand so much that they steal resources from other instances.
In this sense, producer/consumer Capitalism, for all its claims to be the most efficient manner of distributing goods and services, shows itself to be remarkably inefficient in that it must, by necessity steal resources from other instances of efficiency/expectation by dominating our lives with the petty and mundane. We, as the creatively and intellectually curious should know this more than anyone. And the only solution to this is to expand the public economy that can provide goods and services without involving the factor of profit seeking behaviors.