Rage. Almost every adolescent feels at one time or another or most of the time a feeling of suffocation and expresses that feeling with rage. David Graeber in his on line essays on revolutionary social movements called “Revolutions in Reverse” , he focuses on this alienation. Why were so many American teenagers “entranced” by Raoul Vaneigem’s book “The Revolution of Everyday Life ?” he asked himself. Then he answers his own question. “It must be the highest theoretical expression of the feelings of rage, boredom, and revulsion that almost any adolescent at some point feels when confronted with the middle class existence.” The young see before then mind-numbing unimaginative work before them and it freaks them out.
I got to thinking about this. For a long time young working and middle class people were bought off. Not by the distractions of game playing, sports watching, or mindless movies although those activities helped the fragmentation of their social life. No it was more insidious. They were bought off by the myth of American freedom through ownership of your very own home. You could leave the nest and feather your own complete with mate and cute little chirpers. You were no longer subject to authoritarian education structures or parental controls. You were free.
But unlike a bird, you had little time to soar like an eagle or dart and play in the sky. To mix some metaphors, you got yourself saddled with debt and if you went to college, you piled on some more saddle packs full of anxiety and woe.
In the new AMC TV series “Hell on Wheels”, the railroad baron asks a couple of young Irish lads why they were in the middle of the U.S. tagging along as the continental railroad was being built. The brothers tell him of sneaking on a train when they were mere lads and going to the big city of Dublin. Their father found them and hauled them home, but it was the grandest time of their life. So for them a train was the symbol of freedom and they wanted to be a part of the building of that railroad in the hopes of capturing that feeling of freedom again.
For over 40 years we have been subjected to a bad version of “freedom” with its emphasis on the mythical rugged individual. But libertarians of the right should take a look at what left libertarians call “freedom” and maybe find some common ground. Here’s how the CrimethInc collective (who Graeber calls “the most inspiring young anarchist propagandists”) describes freedom:
We must make our freedom by cutting
holes in the fabric of this reality, by
forging new realities which will, in turn,
fashion us. Putting yourself in new situations
constantly is the only way to ensure
that you make your decisions unencumbered
by the inertia of habit, custom, law,
or prejudice – and it is up to you to create
these situations
Freedom only exists in the moment of
revolution. And those moments are not as
rare as you think. Change, revolutionary
change, is going on constantly and everywhere
– and everyone plays a part in it,
consciously or not.
Graeber calls this statement “elegant”. Direct action is, he says, “the defiant insistence on acting as if one is already free.” “Sovereign” may This is revolution and not some kind of “to the barricades” moment. This is releasing the barricades in our minds and unleashing our imaginations. It is pushing back against the elites who say that we need to get back into the boxes; the voting booths, the endless marches and rallies to petition our king for some gruel, writing letters to the aged satraps in the halls of congress, or sitting in the audience at public hearings of excruciating boredom. So-called “realistic” “pragmatic” choices are made in those boxes but “in an insurrectionary situation, on the other hand, suddenly anything is possible.”
This is what is called “reinventing everyday life.” So forget universities. Go sign up for a course in freedom at one of the Occupies. The tents may be gone for now, but the Forum is always open to those who choose to live as if they are already free.
Plenty of Time
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum….” ― Noam Chomsky
I like lively debate outside the box.
We have a local lawn service that employees some Latin American workers. The children work alongside the grownups. They work hard but take good breaks and quit by 4PM. I worked for my Dad in the summers and loved every minute. At the breaks, we got a donut in the morning and one Pepsi in the afternoon. Heavenly. My Dad was a history major and loved to talk about long ago and far away. He talked of the war and of growing up in The Depression. He taught me how to hammer a nail and to tighten a screw. I knew what the difference was between a wrench and a pliers. I helped him build a boat and a small horse barn. I helped him plant trees and pour cement. He taught me how to mow a lawn straight. That was the worst as my wandering mind and boredom led me to start making circles instead of lines. Then I would get hollered at.
I’ve changed my mind about education. From where did I really get my learning? I read a lot of books from the local public library. My parents bought an encyclopedia and a huge book on the Civil War. I know that Robert E. Lee’s horse was named Traveler because I read a book about it. At the same time I learned to question what I was reading. Mostly I learned from the stories my Dad and Mom told me of how they grew up in vastly different ways. I’m pretty sure I would have been fine without being stuck in a cinder block cell called a school room for 7 hours a day.
I had the fortune to be raised on the grounds of the school for the handicapped that my Dad ran. So I followed him like a puppy dog my mother said anytime I got the chance. My Dad wasn’t stuck behind his desk all day in some far away office is some building in downtown Chicago. Yes, I was fortunate. He didn’t make a lot of money, but he had plenty of time for me. I think that all children should have parents who have plenty of time.
There is child labor abuse like having little children work in coal mines. But then there was also adult labor abuse in those mines. Back breaking work in the fields in hot weather with no breaks is abuse. But so is sitting in a cement box all day being taught to take tests.
In Dimitry Orlov’s “The Five Stages of Collapse” he tells the story of how he as a young boy in the Soviet Union would fake an illness so he was sent home for weeks. There his grandmother would home school him for 3 to 4 hours and the rest of the time he would sled or play fetch with his dog. He also read a lot of books. His desk mate at school turned out to be a gypsy who scoffed at book reading and said that none of that was real and that his people kept everything in their head.
The powers that be hate leisure time for the riff raff. Leisure is for for the elite. Work is for the little people (to paraphrase Leona Helmsley). And if they have too much leisure time it leads them to question the prevailing order of things. The whole hierarchy thing comes into question. Why do some people get to loll around while others have to work their butts off? Yeh, why?
I was fortunate. I got to do meaningful work spending time with my Dad. I want that for everybody.
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Posted in Montana Life, Social Commentary
Tagged education, leisure, Montana, parents, work