Confession: I Am Misunderstanding Something About Government

Perhaps I have this wrong. 

I swear I remember a time when novelists portrayed the life of the bureaucrat, politician, or prison guard as the bleakest of all vocations; barren, grey, full of the tedium of rules, regulations; of capricious changes in protocol. I swear such jobs were described as the very acme of inefficiency, laziness, and meaninglessness. And I swear that other storytellers talked about the dreariness of those bureaus that were indeed incredibly efficient, portraying them as mindless, soulless assembly lines of conformity, warning us all that the perfectly efficient world was a dead one. Like a concentration camp, full of mechanical, dehumanizing harmony. 

But perhaps I have this wrong. 

I swear I remember a time when being an employee of the state was something one admitted with reluctance, fearing embarrassment. Unless one was a governor, or some other such personage of apparent import (like a foreign diplomat), a person did not generally flaunt that he or she was on the public payrolls. After all, state workers were not just seen as poorly compensated. They were seen as somewhat incompetent.  Saying one worked in the public sector was not the sort of thing one boasted about at a dinner party, unless one simply meant to boast about job security or some other banality. 

But perhaps I have this wrong.

I have this vague but haunting recollection of teachers, singers, poets, rock stars and filmmakers, all warning me about the vapidity, the soul-stripping vapidity, of work in government, of employment in the wastelands of civil service where conformity is tantamount -- for the collective "good." I thought I was weaned on rebelling against this soul-robbing collectivization. Wasn't I? Wasn't I told that the public sector, that world encased in red-tape and regulations and reforms and agendas and referendums and motions and amendments, was a black hole of creativity? Wasn't I warned to flee such places? Weren't these places and jobs always portrayed as eternally dull and insipid, inspiring nothing but listlessness and ennui? What about "estrangement" and "alienation"? Weren't these the offspring of the government complexes epitomized in the flat cement of the Berlin Wall? Wasn't I told to dream big dreams, to be my own person, to find my own way, to be a free spirit creating my own meaning, my own value and art? Wasn't I told to cultivate my own sense of the beautiful? I swear I was told these things, and that the state, the enemy of beauty, was death, just like the state hospitals were death: that if you wanted the worst humanity had to offer, just turn to the government for a job, or real help, or some cure.  

But perhaps I have this wrong.

I can't tell you where these images come from, the ones I have in my head, of drab and pitted hallways, of neighborhoods and projects -- often the same thing -- stretched out in grotesque repetition, cut in perfect egalitarian geometry: of impersonal streets on which one could only see blank-eyed pedestrians, or bicyclists rolling toward some government factory. I don't know where I heard comics mock "Gubmint cheese" and other sub-standard "charitable" handouts. I don't know where I heard satirists sneering at military housing, or condemning the projects I saw as a kid in the south Bronx, Newark, Jersey City, or the fringes of Philly. And I swear I was told that a government-made vehicle was a "shit box," especially if it came from those places where government was at its most-controlling best. 

But perhaps I have this wrong. 

Where, I wonder, did I learn to cringe when that huge family in upstate Wherever -- where all of them were employed by the prison or state college -- told me that I ought to get a "real" job and "work for the state?" Somewhere I must have learned to recoil when I heard of some poor sap who had to go to the state hospital for surgery, but I don't know where. Surely I must have been told by someone that having a public defender instead of a private defense lawyer was for losers, that everyone knew great lawyers didn't defend the lower primates in district or county court. Somewhere along the way someone must have told me that the county nursing home was not where I wanted to live out my days. Didn't someone tell me these things? 

Where, oh, where did I learn to equate the state with mediocrity, and far worse? And where did I get the idea that the private sector was where the achievers were, where talent flourished, where the best of the best were allowed to innovate, to explore and create and create and create, and were then challenged to innovate even more? (Oh, yes, I am aware of the dehumanizing potential of the free market and unfettered industry, but I am not suggesting these are lovely, either. But I may be suggesting that they are lovelier.)

All I can conclude is that I invented this all by myself. This is my doing. I am just dreaming that school -- and art and music and film and literature and church and nature -- taught me that the labors of the state, when made the highest good of society, are hell on earth.

But perhaps I have this wrong, too. 

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

Orwell On Socialism's Opportunity

Along with far too many other books, I keep at my bedside George Orwell's Why I Write, published by Penguin Books in its Great Ideas series. What follows is something I read to my wife the other night. (I am such a romantic; she yawned.) Please permit me to occasionally add things in [ ], and to use boldface when I think it necessary for emphasis.

From Page 71, George Orwell's Why I Write:

The fact that we are are at war [and in economic disarray] has turned Socialism from a text-book word into a realizable policy.

The inefficiency of private capitalism has been proved all over Europe [and apparently the United States]. Its injustice has been proved in the East End of London. Patriotism, against which the Socialists fought so long, has become a tremendous lever in their hands. People who at any other time would cling like glue to their miserable scraps of privilege, will surrender them fast enough when their country [or their retirement plan] is in danger. War [and economic anxiety] is the greatest of all agents of change. It speeds up all processes, wipes out minor distinctions, brings realities to the surface. Above all, war [and economic disarray] brings it home to the individual. That he is not altogether an individual [you must share; sacrifice]. It is only because they are aware of this that men will die on the field of battle. At this moment it is not so much a question of surrendering leisure, comfort, economic liberty, social prestige. There are very few people in England [or America] who really want to see their country conquered by Germany [or Wall Street, or jihadists]. If it can be made clear that defeating Hitler [and income disparity] means wiping out class privilege, the great mass of middling people, the £6 a week to £2000 a year class, will probably be on our side. These people are quite indispensable, because they include most of the technical experts. Obviously the snobbishness and political ignorance of people like airmen and naval officers will be a very great difficulty. But without those airmen, destroyer commanders, etc. etc. we could not survive for a week. The only approach to them is through their patriotism. An intelligent Socialist movement will use their patriotism, instead of merely insulting it, as hitherto. [It is interesting to read news reports of Michelle Obama's frequent and recent meetings with military families in swing states.]

But do I mean there will be no opposition? Of course not. It would be childish to expect anything of the kind.

There will be a bitter political struggle, and there will be unconscious and half-conscious sabotage everywhere. At some point or other it may be necessary to use violence [like Weathermen bombs]. It is easy to imagine a pro-Fascist rebellion breaking out in, for instance, India. We shall have to fight against bribery, ignorance and snobbery. The bankers and the larger businessmen, the landowners and dividend-drawers, the officials with their prehensile bottoms, will obstruct for all they are worth [or maybe they will even help]. Even the middle class will writhe when their accustomed way of life is menaced. But just because the English sense of national unity has never disintegrated, because patriotism is finally stronger than class-hatred, the chances are that the will of the majority will prevail. It is no use imagining that one can make fundamental changes without causing a split in the nation; but the treacherous minority will be far smaller in time of war [and economic crisis] than it would be at any other time.

The swing of opinion is visibly happening, but it cannot be counted on to happen fast enough of its own accord. This war is a race between the consolidation of Hitler's empire and the growth of democratic consciousness. Everywhere in England you can see a ding-dong battle ranging to and fro -- in Parliament and in the Government, in the factories and the armed forces, in the pubs and the air-raid shelters, in the newspapers and on the radio. Every day there are tiny defeats, tiny victories. ... It is a struggle between the groping and the unteachable, between the young and the old, between the living and the dead. But it is very necessary that the discontent which undoubtedly exists should take a purposeful and not merely obstructive form. It is time for the people to define their war [and economic] aims. What is wanted is a simple, concrete programme of action, which can be given all possible publicity, and round which public opinon can group itself.

I suggest the following six-point programme is the kind of thing we need. The first three points deal with England's internal policy, the other three with the Empire and the world:

1. Nationalization of land, mines, railways, banks and major industries.
   
2. Limitation of incomes, on such a scale that the highest tax-free income in Britain does not exceed the lowest by more than ten to one.
   
3. Reform of the educational system along democratic [read 'radical egalitarian'] lines.
   
4. Immediate Dominion status for India [Iraq?], with power to secede when the war is over.
   
5. Formation of an Imperial General Council, in which the coloured [sic] peoples are to be represented.
   
6. Declaration of formal alliance with China, Abyssinia and all other victims of the Fascist powers.
   

The general tendency of this programme is unmistakable. It aims quite frankly at turning this war into a revolutionary war and England into a Socialist democracy.

[end of Orwell quote]

______________

Interesting: "...turning this war into a revolutionary war..." in order to produce a socialist state. Sounds eerily familiar.

Time to "cling."

©2008. All Rights Reserved.

Diuguid: The Palindrome's Palin Drone

I just heard about the column by Kansas City Star editorialist Lewis Diuguid in which Mr. Diuguid claims the use of the word "socialist" is essentially a racial slur: it is veiled, or not so veiled, racism. I tracked the piece down, as I had to read it myself. Sure enough. In Plains English, Mr. Diuguid gives us all an incredible history lesson.

"Socialism" is an old code word for "black."

And here I thought George Orwell was white. And Karl Marx. And Vladimir Lenin. And Josef Stalin. And Bill Ayres.

And I thought I was thoroughly white when I talked like a socialist after graduating from college.

I swear, if I did not know any better, I would have concluded that "socialism" is actually code word for "white guys who not only feed on envy, they feed it."

All sarcasm aside (for just a second), I am not really surprised at this great straining of the mind, this great bending off all reason.

But I do think a deeper truth is being overlooked here: the words "McCain" and "Palin" are old code words for radical white supremacists who are damned for what they don't do and what they don't say.

Seriously, say "socialism" to me and all I see is Dr. Zhivago, you know, all cold snowy white...and profoundly unhuman.