Center and Periphery: a too Long Preface
I don’t want to focus on the grosser hypocrisies that characterize our culture at the present moment, such things as poorly disguised conflicts of interest in politics, corporate malfeasance, or even the pretense that the Supreme Court isn’t just men and women (Wizard of Oz, anyone?). Major scandals rise to the surface of everyday life like the proverbial “tip of the iceberg”–keeping commercial news agencies and Twitterites busy while we “get on with our daily activities.” Of the two, our “daily activities” and “the media,” which is the foreground, which the background? Is the distinction even valid?
Good journalism exists, and some of it might appear in the Smart Shit category of Dfugly. John Oliver is a favorite of mine, but as much as I like him, time should be spent thinking about his blend of information, human values and laughter. This trio of qualities which makes him so engaging also puts a soft cap the critical efficacy of his productions. In a society where almost everything–including thought itself–is subject to criteria of “customer satisfaction,” is it possible to be informative, critical, insightful and boring? In other words, just what is one “consuming” when watching John Oliver? The critique? The comedy? A bit of both? Neither? And the act itself of “consuming,” is that what we should be doing with “information”?
“Consumerland”: there aren’t many left to wonder at the Emperor’s new clothes because it’s what most of us end up wearing. Yet such a critique (“consumerland”) lurks in the wings of Part II because the task here is to connect the larger hypocrisies John Oliver points out on Last Week Tonight with the much wider sea of mundanities in which they make their appearances. Boats float and need both water and boat to make a spectacle out of a sinking ship. Twitter blather and online news coverage focus on the boat, the tragedy that makes a viable media product. The “spectacle” is the sinking ship. We forget about the boring stuff that’s going on at the same time, like the hidden parts of the iceberg, the person taking the photo, or even the waters from which the object of our attention has been extracted. Although ignored, those “boring” facets of any popular media product are far from neutral in the construction of a “viral” news story. One has to wonder: is the object of media existence “news” or “going viral”?
I’m going to zoom out and take the focus off the sinking ship and think more in terms of molecules, which is a paradoxical attempt to zoom in by zooming out. The focus, which is not a focus at all, is on you. Whether the true object of this essay is the “ship,” the invisible “rest of the iceberg,” or the ocean itself, remains yet to be seen. What is of primary interest to me will be the relationship between “the outrageous” and “the ordinary.” I don’t expect the results to be very humorous. It feels like exploring the relationship between a global industry of tabloid journalism and a single word (“Rosebud,” anyone?): a hopeless attempt at meaning creation upon which I’m going to embark nonetheless.
“And the Oscar for best supporting actress goes to…”
If the preceding was difficult to follow, try this: We all know which are our favorite scenes in a movie or a book. It may even be the case that we dislike a movie as a whole, but really like one particular scene which “stands out” from the rest of the film. Anybody that has been in a college English class knows that literary scholars draw our attention to certain passages or aspects of texts which professors believe to be more important than others. The same is true of historians who isolate events, forces or processes in the construction of their narratives. They can’t include everything in their rendering of human history, so a choice is inevitably made. Their stories are “keyed,” like symphonies (if you will). Even “objective science” turns the lens of its methods in specific directions, hoping to clarify certain questions in certain domains. (Accidental discoveries are the exceptions that ultimately prove the rule). I’m going to argue that all of these phenomena (even the accidents of science) share an essential trait: whether acknowledged or not, all are markers for the presence of “value(s).” [I refer the reader to “Part I” for clarification of how this word is being used.]
The famous prizes we bestow (Nobel, Pulitzer, Fields, Oscars, Grammy and all the rest) imply both continuum and distinction: They sit atop a mountain of human values (their “distinction”) while mostly forgetting about the minor characters that make the distinction possible (the “continuum”). (Does anyone know the name of Niels Bohr’s typist? Einstein’s first wife? What would have been the effect of incompetent typists in the publication of their papers? A postal workers strike?) And when a prize has actually been bestowed, somebody had to “play god” to make it happen: nobody climbs Mount Olympus without their consent. Who chooses the recipients? According to what values are they chosen? And for the purposes of this essay: where are all of us common mortals on this continuum? It is the roles of all secondary (tertiary, quaternary et al.) characters–“supporting actors and actresses”–that I’m looking at here. Our collective weight is huge and rarely the object of sustained examination. We’re too focused on the “center” and not focused enough on the “periphery.” It is the “support” that we provide, not to the enterprises we see as “Noble” (or Nobel), but to their negative counterparts that will interest me in this essay. For who but we ourselves can be held responsible for creating history’s greatest villains? The “center” is impossible without broad (unconscious? ill-advised? commercially driven?) support from the “periphery”; a “center” of “attention” does not distinguish itself out of nowhere. This nowhere is us.
You and me
Keeping the reader’s interest might be a challenge. Journalism is, more than ever before, a commercial enterprise whose ultimate object is equal parts the “creation of a truth” and “holding your attention” (an odd combination of sincerity and flattery). John Oliver comes to mind again because he does both very well and in good proportion. Other journalists who do not rely on humor to captivate still understand that “your interest” is at least half their business. In the case of “yellow,” overtly tendentious or outright dishonest media, it may be all their business. The measure of their success is less the amount of “journalism” they produce than the number of subscribers they can claim. I don’t think it’s hard to demonstrate how the latter (running after subscribers) negatively affects the former: media structures are more often focused on their status as “pipelines for access” (driven by advertising revenues) than they are on the content for which they claim (or deny) responsibility. This phenomenon isn’t new. The physical “mail box” has always performed a similar function. What we now call “spam” has its origins in “junk mail” of the paper variety. People hated it back then, and there is reason to hate it even more today, leveraged as it is by our reliance on contemporary means of communication in all domains of human activity (work, personal, social, entertainment, etc.). Not only are we “living and working out of our mailboxes,” so to speak, we think less and less about who is holding the keys (and it’s not really you). Clicked on any EULA recently?
Your Attention Is Yours (or it’s supposed to be…)
Dfugly is not commercial journalism. It isn’t journalism at all. I’m not trying to sell you anything; I have no sponsors; there’s no “money in it for me”; it is not a “pipeline” for anything other than these words. I don’t have John Oliver’s talent for humor, so I’m going to come squarely down on the boring side of the equation. However, if you give these words a modicum of serious attention, they will probably be the source of at least some intelligent controversy; more perhaps than last year’s headlines which (let’s be honest here) most of us have already forgotten. The “big stories” of 2021 (Covid aside) have become just so much “water under the bridge.” What bridge? The one that forms the framework of everyday life and which contains the life itself which you currently call “yours.” (How much of it is still yours?) This “life” as well as its “framework” remain long after “hashtag anything” has come and gone. Everyday life matters more than any big story that floats across the two-dimensional world in which you are encouraged to live. One might say “its” attention has become “your” attention–though I don’t expect that statement to be immediately legible. Over time, I may myself forget what it’s trying to mean. My focus in this essay is therefore on the smaller life performances that few will acknowledge as complicit with the “headline level” hypocrisies that dominate the media, be this media the New York Times or your personal Twitter account; and the first thing I want to look at is the very mundane phenomenon of “having a job.”
Wealth and Worth I: a Silly Misunderstanding
“Wealth” and “worth”: If I have employment whereas another does not, this isn’t because my worth as a human being is superior (or inferior) to that of another, but this is often the implication. Therein lies one of our most common everyday hypocrisies. Adherence to the belief that, “I’m better than you because I have a better job than you,” is unspoken (even explicitly denied) but attested to all around us in obvious ways. Most of us don’t overtly “look down” on those who survive doing things that we ourselves would not like to do (cut grass, empty waste baskets, vacuum floors, clean bathrooms). We don’t “look down on them” because we don’t have to: the larger structures in which we operate do that for us. I know that’s a very strange thing to say. I’m hoping it will become clearer as this essay progresses. It’s going to be a bit of a slog, but I did promise you boredom in the preface, did I not? Moving on…
“Any CEO is a more important human being than the immigrant gardener who mows her lawn.” Few will agree with that statement (I should hope), for is it possible to believe that “monetary wealth” and “human worth” are the same thing? You yourself may not, but the world around you certainly does. All you need to do is wear the right clothes, drive the right car, live in the right neighborhood and the transformation is complete: you are now more important than any of those who wear the wrong clothes, drive the wrong car or live in the wrong neighborhood. One might call this the “institutionalized hypocrisy of employment.” It’s hard to see because like “institutionalized racism” and “institutionalized sexism,” it is built into the lens itself through which we see. It is even more prevalent than the latter because your ethnicity and gender are both ultimately subsumed by the economic system. Ethnicity and gender seem to matter most when examined in relation to economically or politically leveraged sectors of human activity. Once we focus on these two domains, the first thing we often do is count colors and reproductive organs.
A very competent example of this approach is right here:
Source (December, 2021): https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/genderwagegap/#video
Once we’re done counting “colors” and “sexual organs,” we then ask if these proportions reflect the proportion of their presence in the population at large. If 40 percent of the workforce is made up of women, then we “expect” to see a similar ratio (taking into account legitimate factors that will skew this ratio) of female presence in a given economic sector. The answers to these “proportion” questions are then used as data to validate claims of inequity or inequality, which they do, but only so long as we accept that it is primarily and perhaps only in certain, economically profitable zones of human activity that it “really matters.” Few of us are concerned with racial or gender inequality among convenience store clerks. We study inequality among engineers, doctors, business leaders, CEO’s and other higher-paying positions because underlying those inequities is a belief that your worth as a human is calculable as a function of your employment status. Of course there is a material advantage to having more (rather than fewer) “means,” who can deny that? The point I’m making is that this material advantage is often taken to be the equivalent of an ontological superiority as well. Treating “equity” as a function of higher-paying jobs makes sense only to the degree that human worth is understood as a function of employment status. The question of “human worth” per se is never asked because it is assumed to be synonymous with professional status or economic worth. The data are not meaningful without this overlap of “wealth” and “worth,” which ultimately drives us to consider “wealth” as the measurable equivalent of human “worth.” “Any highly paid executive is a more important person than the immigrant gardener who mows his lawn,” which is why nobody is publishing studies about racial or gender inequality among “landscape architects.” (What they get instead is euphemized: Gardeners, no. “Landscape architects”, yes!)
“Human worth” per se is obviously a difficult question to tackle under any circumstance, and I claim no clear answers. My stake is simply to point out a systemic, everyday hypocrisy that is far more consequential than one might think. Although we proudly claim adherence to abstract notions of human worth which hold that it is distinct from monetary wealth, the structures in which we live out our daily lives, even the lenses through which we examine those lives, translate the question of “human worth” into one of “material wealth.” The assumption is always the same: People of means are more valuable than people not-of-means; and the more means you have, the more “valuable” you are. One does not have to be explicitly “biased” in order to “look down” on those “below” us. The socioeconomic structure as a whole, as well as the tools used to analyze that structure (data, most often about “earnings”), do that for us. Shoot the messenger if you must, but I am not an advocate for this nonsense.
From where I see it, the socioeconomic structure as well as statistical data about that structure tacitly promote an equivalency of “wealth” and “worth.” This broad, underlying belief pushes in the opposite direction of all conscious attempts to promote “equality.” The types of analysis (such as the Georgetown example linked above) do clearly show inequities within certain zones of the economic system, but they do very little with regard to examining the nature of the system itself and the values it supports which drive that inequality. Instead, they surreptitiously promote something more akin to “system buy in.” For example: the question is never, “What are the effects of a large, market-driven, consumer economy on human being?” The question is always, “How do we make buy-in/participation more inclusive?” It is this pursuit of 100 percent “inclusivity ” of “diversity” (in whatever form) that reduces the larger complex questions of “human being” into a single, simple question of “human having,” thereby collapsing distinctions between the ontological and the commercial. If there is a 21st century cogito, it is: “I have, therefore I am.” And of course, “the more you have, the more you are.” Go figure…
Efforts to “equalize the playing field” are well-intentioned, but I’m going to have to see them as largely misguided. They do nothing to dispense with the silliness of equating monetary wealth with human worth. As long as this deeply unsatisfactory understanding of human worth is predominant, I don’t think substantive progress in human affairs (aka: “social justice”) is possible. Initiatives to “diversify,” for example, do nothing to correct the equivalency of “wealth” and “worth.” Instead, they serve as “carrots on a stick” to get and keep players who start from historically under-privileged positions “in the game.” The equivalency of wealth and worth is the playing field, which means that the deeper problem is “the game” itself. Even if one were to assume near perfect equity of players across the board (in terms of race, gender, sexual orientation, what-have-you), it still promotes an equivalency of wealth and human worth, only now we are all “equally worthy” because we are all “equally wealthy.” This is not a thoughtful treatment of human worth by any moral-ethical standard. Not only does it mean that “human being” is defined by circumstantial predicates which may or may not attach to it (having = being), it effectively reduces “difference” to “sameness,” transforming individuals into interchangeable “data points” of equal material wealth. In such a utopia of equivalent wealth, it’s only a matter of time before “the rats” start running again, and we’re right back to where we started: trying to keep up with the Joneses in a structure that will always privilege “the Joneses.”
The bottom line is this: equality among human individuals is not coextensive with equality of earnings. It’s not because I earn as much as you, it’s not because my car costs as much as yours, it’s not because I live in the same neighborhood as you, it’s not because I can afford the same luxurious vacations as you, ad nauseum…that we are now equal to each other. So much of our attention is focused on these types of economic (in)equalities that the existence itself of human difference, real human differences (such as differences in values, in religions, in customs, in culture, in language) are assimilated by the economic system as “dollar equivalencies,” or, if they refuse or struggle to be assimilated, they tend to become objects of vilification (e.g. Islam, homosexuality, “illegal immigrants,” or “the homeless.”).
The reader may think I’m talking about “other people.” I’m not. I’m talking about you, and I’m talking about me. Everyday people. If you are still not convinced, I think I can show you just how deeply this economic hypocrisy (wealth = worth) is ingrained within us by applying its logic to ourselves: “Not only am I better than you because I have a job and you don’t. I’m better than me if I have a job. And the better the job I have, the better I am.” Conversely, take the shame one might feel while standing in line at the unemployment office. That lady behind the counter looking down at you over her spectacles: she may or may not be judging you. But you are certainly judging you! She has a job and you don’t. Your lack of employment might not be your fault. You might truly be a victim of forces that are much larger than yourself. (“It’s the economy, stupid!” Anyone?) Be that as it may, this is of little consolation to the unemployed individual or to the working poor as they fill out the paperwork to get food stamps. You’re still jobless (soon to be homeless), and regardless of how your joblessness came about, the attendant shame you feel as such, as shame, is because “anyone with a job is better than anyone without a job.” Including you. Forget about having a life, finding love, or even getting that toothache taken care of; you don’t even have a job!
Parenthetically
My father was a Navy man. He enlisted at age 17 and then spent the next 26 years on patrol. He did not do this out of patriotism. He did this to escape poverty. He was a “patriot” in the sense of taking little interest in critiques of the country he served for so long. While alive, he did believe in most things American for the simple reason that they were “American.” Regardless, I don’t think he would have enlisted if other opportunities had presented themselves to him with more optimistic visions of economic viability. When you live in fear of poverty, in half-squalor, day after day, you want a way out and you want it before you end up dead or in prison. For some, drug dealing, gang membership or even “bit coin” are their “way out.” For my dad, it was the U.S. Navy. He was in Korea and Vietnam. After he retired from the Navy (which he did without a high school diploma), he took the GED at age 46 in order to make economic survival more feasible. He had a wife and two kids. He was also a union man, I don’t know to which union he belonged. Something to do with shipbuilding.
When he retired from the Navy, uneducated as he was, he spent my adolescent years half employed, half unemployed. “Lockheed Shipyard” was a name I often heard. Every morning he was up before dawn (Navy habit). When employed, he’d be off to the shipyards doing something I never understood: rigging. When unemployed, he was still always up before dawn and after taking my mom to work (she was some sort of clerk in a major insurance company), it was off to the unemployment office or to the union hall in the hopes of finding work. I have no idea what that was like for him, either morally (he never spoke about it) or even in simple descriptive terms (I never accompanied him there). I imagine, however, something akin to what one sees at times when driving through downtown Morristown (where I currently live) on weekday mornings: young men in work boots standing on the sidewalk in front of a convenience store, lunch in hand, hoping to make some money today. People drive by them in their Mercedes, BMW’s and Infinities.
Wealth and Worth II: Some Simple Observations
The “institutionalized hypocrisy of employment” (a rather cumbersome term, I know) becomes glaringly obvious when one observes how it translates itself into most forms of product or service. These latter are why you have a job in the first place, are they not: to procure for yourself a variety of goods and services? As everyone knows, goods and services mirror the effective purchasing power of their intended consumers. What is the cumulative effect on our understanding of human worth when most of what we purchase comes in two or three distinct classes? (“First, business and economy?”) It isn’t only that the former require more money to be spent than the latter–which is reasonable to the extent that “if you pay more, you should get more.” (But is that not already slippage in the wrong direction?) This practice also reinforces a belief that one’s worth as a human being is proportional to one’s purchasing power. Within the confines of the circuit of production and consumption, the equivalency of “wealth” and “worth” is constantly reinforced, as if the former (“wealth”) were a precondition and unit of measurement of the latter (“worth”). How many of us judge a person’s worth as a function of the brands a person is capable of consuming? How many of us judge ourselves based on some form of brand-name identification? (Hyundai or Lexus? Anyone?) Why is such an outward reflection of your purchasing power so important to you? Is that who you really are? Who are you trying to please, yourself? Is that “self” really your “self”? Do you do this “for yourself”?
Some may want to minimize the effects of conflating monetary wealth with human worth. Some may even go so far as to say, “What’s wrong with that? I am a better person than you because I have a better job and more money than you!” I honestly don’t know what to say to these people. Their adherence to this idea is comparable to that of a fanatic who is incapable of questioning the tenets of his religion. It is a hard tenet to contest because in strictly material terms, he is right. I know that’s an unexpected thing for me to say, but one gets nowhere without first giving the devil his due: Would you rather have more, or less money? More, of course, because almost everything you do in this world requires an exchange of funds. The more funds, the better. Me too! My extra purchasing power allows me to have “better things.” And those “better things” often map on to an illusory “better me!” It’s almost as if what I’m buying were not “things” at all, but my future “better self.” Ergo, people of means (a “me” of means) are “worth” more than people (a “me”) of less means. As widespread as this belief is, I see it as a blatant ontological error. You can’t “buy” for yourself a better “self.” You can’t buy a self at all, for that matter. It just doesn’t work that way, not unless you are delusional to the point of believing, actually believing that “who you are” is the equivalent of “what you own.” And who’s going to fall for that? [That’s sarcasm, in case you missed it.]
There’s another flagrant non-sequitur here: the “Protestant work ethic.” It goes something like this: if you work hard, you’ll reap rich rewards, and the harder you work, the richer your reward. To an extent, this is perfectly reasonable: I myself believe that “work” is required in any domain in which one would like to cultivate one’s abilities. (Leave aside, for now, the following question: Is purchasing power an ability?) The non-sequitur makes itself abundantly clear when one observes that the “Protestant work ethic” has as its ultimate object the transformation of “work” into something you no longer have to do. Is not the dream of early retirement everybody’s dream? If you retire with a fat bankroll at 35, this means you can participate as much as you could ever want to as a consumer, but never again have to participate as a worker. If you can’t win the lotto, well, try the “protestant work ethic,” whose ultimate ethic is, paradoxically, to no longer have one.
There’s a flip side to all of this which goes by the name of “poverty”: non-participation in a productive activity (you don’t go to work every day), but also the attendant inability to consume anything at all, including food, clothing, housing and healthcare. Protestant work ethic VS poverty. On one end of the spectrum there’s some form of tasteless decadence that represents for many the ideal of American success, the so-called “good life” (Generation Wealth, anyone? Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,... Anyone?); on the other end of the spectrum is something akin to desperation and fear, perhaps even freezing to death on a park bench. Somewhere between these two extremes are the day-to-day lives of all us nobodies–secondary, tertiary, quaternary characters in this economic comedy of human existence.
Right now it’s December, 2021. DEI(B) is all the rage. Yet I’m going to have to take a stand here: it’s kind of tiresome to hear so many words relating to social justice, equity, equality, inclusion (and now “belonging”) when one can hardly begin to summarize the after-effects of our own (largely unacknowledged) consumer driven complicity as we live out our daily lives between these two extremes of the American dream: one (apparently) positive (call it: “professional growth”), the other (in reality) a living nightmare.
“Let’s all sell our souls and work for Satan because it’s more convenient that way.” (American Beauty)
The extent to which the ideas I have been discussing permeate everyday life is, for lack of better, “mind blowing” and rarely the object of sustained attention. Why not? I believe it is because they have attained the status of “normality.” But where’s the hypocrisy here? Well, this too is kind of obvious: Who is going to openly defend the notion that your worth as a human being can be evaluated as a function of your monetary wealth? Practically nobody. And yet that is exactly how the dynamic of “human validity”–a horrific term–plays itself out hundreds of times a day, in your day, in my day, in everybody’s day as you drive your car, as you look at people’s clothing, as you pass through a “nice neighborhood,” as you look in the mirror, as you, as you, as you…
If “envy” is what drives consumer societies, managing “want” becomes the box in which we all end up looking for satisfaction. It’s the reason for all your junk mail, for all your spam. These are only part of how human beings are conditioned, from the moment of birth, into being viable “consumers.” Have most of us found satisfaction this way? “Personalization,” “individualization,” “diversity,” “inclusion” and “equity” are largely meaningless in such a context but remain of fundamental importance to human being despite an ambient culture in which these ideals are effectively reduced to forms of (semi) fearful conformity. Nobody wants to spend their lives in fear, ergo, questions of DEIB rise more potently to the surface as analogons to Freud’s return of the (socio-economically) repressed–in monstrous form, of course. These high ideals reconfigure themselves into the contents of “the vending machine” in front of which you stand (“Inclusion”) and “how close you are to the front of the line” (“Equity”). If you really want to address your uniqueness as an individual, drop the red-herring of “gender,” nobody cares, not unless you can back it up with purchasing power. Once that happens, you’re now just another part of the machine. Personally, I think you would do better to ask yourself this: Why are you standing in front of the vending machine in the first place? Is your push for “inclusion” merely a push for a better place in line? How is that “different” from everybody else? Is pushing A3 to get the last King Size Snickers bar really going to buy you happiness? Just what is it that you really think you’re doing? How did you find yourself “in line at the vending machine” in the first place? (René Girard, anyone?)
Worth and Wealth III: More (Even Sillier) Examples
Despite verbal assertions to the contrary, the structures which condition our social and economic interactions drive us to evaluate human worth as a function of employment status; this latter is of course directly related to the creation of purchasing power. This is not inherently good or bad (it can be either one depending on several other factors), but one must acknowledge a clear outcome of such a structure: it puts a shit ton of power into the hands of your employer. And it’s precisely at work–that zone where one is paid to be a “professional”–that certain hypocrisies of daily life become acute. If the ethos and ethics of what you do to eat are not coextensive with those which form the deepest values you espouse under such headings as “family,” “community,” “society,” “trust,” “faith,” “myself” or even “other people,” then you are in effect living by at least two deeply opposed sets of values. And while it’s certainly acceptable to be differently “appropriate”–whatever you believe that might mean–in different contexts, it is my contention that there are (or should be) some non-transgressable, human values sustained in all contexts (with the possible exception of open warfare–which, stupidly enough, ought to be avoided). If there is such a thing as “deeper human values,” (which I believe there are), what happens when these values enter into conflict with practical obligations of economic survival? Do you support “human values,” or do you support “your paycheck”? Heck, what am I saying,…even when it’s not a question of survival, when it’s merely a question of a few extra tax dollars, which do you choose: supporting the values you claim to espouse as a human being, or fifty extra dollars?
One common way this hypocrisy manifests itself is when “purchasing power” becomes a major factor in how we make everyday decisions. Never mind if a given choice is ethically right or wrong; too difficult! Answer this question instead: Which course of action is going to lead to monetary profit, and which to monetary loss? The moral-ethical gets translated into the financial, supporting a factitious equivalency between the two. One sees this happening all the time one is faced with a difficult, moral-ethical dilemma: the easiest thing to do is to make the decision that turns your income statement (or quarterly report) in “the right” direction. The same is true in institutions, who further support this hypocrisy through their efforts at public relations marketing. Large institutions wield sufficient media control to “spin” their corporate image in ways that look positive but which may in reality be nothing but moral-ethical window dressing. In such a context, what can be made of the rather feeble appeal to conscience that resides in the following truism: “Do the right thing, even when nobody is looking?” A parallel hypocrisy grows up beside it: “Do whatever you want, just don’t get caught.” In other words, manage appearances. Don’t bother with being ethical. (Too much trouble!) Seeming is far cheaper and probably more “impactful.” Just take care to present the right image, and always make sure it looks like you’re doing “a right thing.” The history books of future school children will then revere your name. (Christopher Columbus,…anyone?)
A second, mundane source of contradictory value investments at work is how we dress. Simple, no? I mean it’s just clothing: body protection from the elements. The range of differentiated forms of body covering exhibited by human cultures across the globe leads to a very simple conclusion: clothing is a semiotic. It is “signs and signage” which function much like the brand name on the back of your car, along with the brand name university sticker that graces its back window. (Brand name brains? Is there such a thing as a “brand name brain”?) Attire is not neutral. If anyone is still in doubt, ask yourself this: are uniforms neutral? Police attire? Gang wear, anyone? In some neighborhoods, the wrong color might buy you a cap in the head. Whether or not one personally espouses the meanings and/or values that have been “sewn” into one’s jacket,…that is a different question. At work, I still must wear the clothes of my profession and thereby support the values of that class of clothing and that class of profession. Even in the absence of formal rules of attire, the informal rules of attire will probably be enough to “lose you the deal” if you choose not to respect them. (1975, Dress for Success, anyone?) Is this not an ambient and normalized form of coercion? Clothing, and more broadly, body markings are among the most powerful forms of cultural identification on the planet. Is it not highly significant, then, that one has so little freedom over one’s pro-fession-al appearance? Just what are you ad-hearing to? Do you even know? Here too, being and seeming are confused, with precedence given to “seeming” in order to efface all real differences which might jeopardize profit. Why is this the case? How does this change not only your behavior, but how you conceive of yourself? And what are the consequences of this uni-formity for deeper questions of human being and personal identity?
Ford VS Chevy: “The best vehicles money can buy” (until they aren’t)
Pursuing one’s “professional growth” is regularly and unquestioningly applied as word-justification for a plasticity of values. As one “grows” professionally, one might often find oneself “switching sides.” Whether or not one ever truly had a side to begin with is a different question. (Hypocrisies within hypocrisies?) For instance, it may be the case that I never thought much of Ford vehicles in the first place, but my Ford paycheck not only puts food on the table, it also puts words into my mouth. “Ford cars are the best vehicles money can buy!” Until, that is, Chevy doubles my salary and offers me a position as sales manager. “Chevy cars are the best vehicles money can buy!” Most will see this as simply pursuing one’s professional growth–which it is if one values one’s paycheck over any form of personally professed allegiance. I guess the enhanced paycheck white-washes whatever betrayal (personal or tribal) a change of allegiance implies. I guess this also means that any faith I might have had in your word was just me being naive. I’m fine with that, for I don’t like what is implied by your version of savvy. Clearly, your allegiance is for sale to the highest bidder. I can therefore put little faith in anything you have to say, praise and criticism alike.
There’s a simple test I like to apply when evaluating the sincerity of someone’s words: Is that person at liberty to say otherwise? If not, then it’s hard for me to consider their words as sincere. It might be the paycheck that’s talking. Perhaps we should simply consider this as a normalized form of “professional dishonesty.” After all, everybody’s doing it, right? And climbing the corporate ladder is why we’re on this earth in the first place, no? In which case I have got to ask: Does this dishonesty not fundamentally alienate yourself from yourself? I know you may need to fool me to get me to purchase your brand. Caveat emptor, as they say. So you’ll say what you have to say. Your boss will be none too happy, in any case, to hear you whisper in my ear: “No, really. Go buy the Toyota.” Fool me if you can; your dinner is depending on it. But you might want to ask: Are you fooling yourself as well? When does one start to believe one’s own spiel? Or when do you simply stop caring about honesty, about sincerity, about authenticity, about your word, because the risk to your paycheck is too great for you to speak your truth? This is no way for human beings to live. It entirely evacuates trust as an intersubjective feature of human interaction, replacing it with “contractual obligations” and a legal system. Now, it’s just a question of who can afford the best lawyers, and I’ll give you a hint: it probably isn’t you.
Another Childhood Memory
When I was in my teens, I participated in what was called “Junior Achievement.” (I just Googled it. It still exists. Its mission may have evolved over the years. I will speak of it from my own personal experience). My parents were a non-English speaking immigrant mother, and a father who escaped poverty in Detroit by joining the Navy at the youngest legal age possible. Like all parents, they wanted better for their children than the life they themselves were living. So they sent me to “achieve” at the age of 15. It turned out that “Junior Achievement” was preschool for future salesmen. First, we made stained glass window decorations because we needed a product to sell; then, we were taught “salesmanship” skills which we practiced at a stand we set up in the local shopping mall. I’m not going to say whether this was a good or bad thing to be doing. It was just my parents, uneducated and from very humble origins, doing the best they could to give their 15 year-old son a better start in life. What I am sure of is this: almost every aspect of the Junior Achievement experience caused me some form of discomfort. Esthetically: I didn’t look like those whom I was being trained to emulate. Never (ever!) could I have been a poster-boy for “salesman of the year.” I had all the wrong features and keenly felt how poorly I fit in. Secondly, I was morally uncomfortable in my cheap ensemble of blue polyester slacks, collared shirt, sport coat and one of my dad’s few ties. “Here’s me, pretending to be something that I was not.” Neither did I like the way we were taught to beguile people into purchasing something they didn’t already want. We were taught “tricks,” elementary forms of rhetoric (cf. Plato’s Gorgias) whose function was singularly directed at “making a sale.” Although we never out-and-out lied, nothing in the words I was being taught to use felt like “me.” “Me,” could never enter those words.
It’s only honest to admit that were I truly an artisan of stained glass, I’d be happy to sell my creations to somebody who found them beautiful. It was because they were beautiful that I made them in the first place. But none of that was true. I was not an artisan of stained glass; I took no special pride in my creations, beyond a native wish to do my best at whatever I did (a character trait). The main reason I was engaged in this particular form of “achievement” was to practice the art of re-directing capital (albeit in very minor sums). I did enjoy making the faux stained glass decorations, but this activity was undertaken only as a means to have a product to sell. It was secondary to the practice of peddling them. I might as well have been making the “widget” from your freshman econ textbook. Ah! But if you can sell your widget! Now that’s a different story altogether! Indeed it is! Widget, gadget, do-hicky, life hack or twerking…If you can sell it, it may be worth a fortune (Pet Rocks, anyone?). But if you can’t, well, it’s pretty much worthless (“wealth-less”?) no matter how much energy, time, skill and passion you may have poured into it.
Do I need to say it? Junior Achievement made no sense to me at all. Its origins were not in me but in an anonymous world of round holes that needed similarly rounded pegs to fill them. And the rounder you were as a peg, the more “successful” you could potentially become. Some 40 years later, it occurs to me: as well-intentioned as my “Junior Achievement” mentors may have been, I had a heart (or a soul, call it what you will) that spoke to me independently of my potential for future earnings. It still speaks to me today, independently of who signs my paycheck. I won’t say this is a non-problematic relationship: it is obviously problematic. The truth is that I was unable to assimilate the (largely) unspoken values of “Junior Achievement.” Either I didn’t fit them or they didn’t fit me. Neither am I comfortable with the grown-up version of Junior Achievement that goes by the common noun of “success.” “Living the dream!” (Clink, clink…champagne glasses. Happy now?)
“What we have here is failure to communicate”
Yes, I have produced a rather long litany of everyday hypocrisies that I have spent too much time pointing out. I get it. TLDR. I guess that’s just who I am. As consolation for your attention, I can offer you this: most of what I have treated above is succinctly condensed into the following scene from Cool Hand Luke. All that is required is the ability to read it. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qDt1WDzhmU (Or if the link is dead, just go find the film on your own).
“Sorry, Luke. I’m just doing my job. You gotta appreciate that.” The guard is presented with a choice: he can be the human being he feels he is (“Sorry, Luke”), or he can be “the prison guard” which provides him with a roof over his head, with food on the table or with money to keep his kids in college (“I’m just doing my job.”). The guard has within him a set of human values that makes his task reprehensible to himself. He is emotionally aware of his own hypocrisy, which drive him to seek forgiveness from its intended victim. As a “professional,” he must carry out his task, which is to put Luke into solitary confinement because his mother died. (If you don’t get that, go watch the entire film. It is one of the few films that I will superlativize with the word: “masterpiece.”) Bottom line: to which set of values does the prison guard owe the greatest allegiance? To the human, which he carries around with him wherever he goes (“Sorry, Luke.”), or to the one that signs his paycheck (“I’m just doing my job”)? You’re going to have to decide that for yourself.
“Nah! Calling it your job don’t make it right, boss.”
Calling anything “your job” does not make it right. The relationship, properly understood, is the reverse: the rightness of a given job should arise out of its conformity with a human value. The prison guard is in a classic “double bind.” He has no reasonable choice in the matter: act in conformity with his personal values, or keep his job. Some might respond: “Hey, nobody is forcing him to be a prison guard. If he’s not happy, he should go find another job!” As if switching lives were as easy as switching shoes. It is not. Especially if one has a mortgage, children, a local community and non-monetary connections of all sorts to one’s local environment. Cutting all those threads, picking up and moving (not to mention getting hired somewhere else) are far from simple. And even if one succeeds in doing all of this, chances are you will find yourself in similar moral-ethical quandaries at your new job. (“Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.” Anyone?) Short of being a migratory farm worker–a prospect few look upon with envy–treating a human life as callously as one treats a pair of shoes is a gross over-simplification, certainly lacking compassion, probably only thinkable to someone who comes from a privileged background and–if I may be permitted–patently moronic. One cannot change one’s economic mode of subsistence on demand. Double binds of the severity portrayed in Cool Hand Luke don’t happen every day. But when they do, to what extent do we opt for our paychecks while assuaging our conscience–if we have one at all–with: “Sorry, Luke. I’m just doing my job. You gotta appreciate that”?
I could easily widen this circle of “everyday hypocrisies.” So, I should think, could you. One could broaden it beyond the professional, recenter it on personal relationships, or narrow it to how you go about driving your car. What would be the point? Is there a way out? Do we become martyrs to our deeper, human values? Would doing so be brave or foolish? Admirable or pitiful? I don’t really know. Truly, I do not know. However much I may support certain values, the fact is that I have not martyred myself in order to prove my adherence to them. In this, I’m no better than most. I, like you, need a roof over my head and food in the refrigerator.
I’m going to beg for clemency to the extent that the greater evil is not my participation per se, it is that of having few real choices. There is coercion here, and the question is: where does this coercive power come from? You personally are not responsible. I personally am not responsible. No one is personally responsible because we are all collectively responsible. When the major part of “all” refuses to take responsibility for any community-wide state of affairs–when the majority can’t even see its own responsibility–then each of us is trapped in fearful (or frustrated) pursuit (or protection) of our next meal. I plead “fear” (and a wish to avoid violence) as the driving force behind my participation in a morally bankrupt economic system. (Malcolm or Martin?…Anyone?) I am not a terrorist, but it is possible to at least understand why an individual might be driven to violence. I am not advocating violence, far from it. I am advocating for a higher degree of individual awareness and the slow change that greater awareness must inevitably bring about. I believe in education (which is not synonymous with “vocational training” or any form whatsoever of “job certification”). Education is what DF_Ugly is ultimately about. You are free to agree with what is said here, or disagree with what is said here. That’s kind of the point, no? Whatever the case, honest participation in the exchange and (often uncomfortable) confrontation of ideas is the only real source of “education.” Such an exchange keeps moral-ethical thinking alive, which has as its ultimate result a perpetual investigation of human values and a perpetual re-examination of what it means to be human. All true forms of education are thoughtful and compassionate neighbors of civil disobedience.
“The end comes soon. We hear drums, drums in the deep. They are coming.”
I’m going to offer the following as the single most observable outcome of any circumstance in which human and professional values enter into conflict: Let’s not even bother to ask. Call this “fearful conformity,” for even if you were to have only a gut feeling that “something is wrong here,” what all us nobodies know for sure is this: saying, “No” is potentially costly. And that is how all of us secondary, tertiary, quaternary characters exercise our so-called responsibility. Avoid the cost, look out for your own individual job security and conform. Say: “Yes!” With as much fake enthusiasm you can muster. Why stop there? Conform proactively! As much as possible in fact; become the ideal “corporate man” (even if you are a woman) and climb that ladder. “Success awaits!” Maybe you’ll get your face on the cover of Fortune magazine. Once there, a sidebar will praise your tenacity, your ingenuity, your entrepreneurial spirit as well as mention all you do to help “those less fortunate than I.” Ways of helping out are everywhere: you can look after the general welfare of the poor, promote culture and sponsor an art museum, help the homeless, start a charity or make sure that a certain level of human dignity is upheld in your local community. You can,…Hold on a sec! Are these not the role of good government?
If human governments refuse to uphold basic human values, this leaves “good deeds” available for completion by anyone with a few extra dollars and time to spare. Don’t get me wrong. It is impossible to see any charitable act as unwelcome in and of itself. If somebody needs help and you can afford to help, then by all means, please help!
What I object to is the larger paradigm which creates an excess of both at the same time: obscene wealth, and those in dire need of help. Between the two is a huge middle class that aspires to “wealth” while also living in fear of falling through an absent safety net. (“Carrot on a stick,” or “Needs must as the devil drives”? Probably a bit of both.) These extremes, as well as this large middle class that upholds a confusion of “wealth” and “worth,” should simply not be the case. It’s just bad for human being. The existence of these three classes–the very rich, the very poor, a fearful middle class trapped in between–are all indicative of shortcomings in government. Safeguarding basic human dignities is everybody’s business, which in a democratic society means it’s the business of government, of the people, by the people. How many “middle class people” fill the highest positions in government? Can middle class people (the majority of us) even afford to get elected to influential positions in government? And when government is peopled by only the wealthy, whose interests do you think they are going to put first? Yours or theirs? Safeguarding basic human dignities is our first business and should not be left to the discretion of the wealthy. To this paradigm of material wealth creation and elective, moral self-redemption, I’m going to have to say, “No.” Despite the fact that “professional ambition” and “maximizing professional growth” (as measured by income level) are the unexamined twin-gods of our time, they result in a “profit from” then “give back” logic that strikes me as trying to both have your human cake and eat it too: a hypocritical expedient for saving face. You did, after all, “profit from” and therefore did support and continue to support the values of a system which created the inequalities in the first place. I’d rather try to examine the causes themselves of inequality, to take a harder look at the role of government in the creation of these inequalities, and then think (think first) before trying to solve them. So before you go off and pat yourself on the back for your “good deeds,” you should at least ask why the wealthiest country in the world has need of your charitable support. Veterans? Veterans?!? Why do veterans have to beg? Why are high school students forming clubs to “support our veterans”? Is not support for veterans clearly the obligation of the governments they served? It appears that not every ex-soldier is also a senator’s son. Go figure…
In the meantime, I’m as guilty as you. Well, maybe not quite, but not innocent either. I have a good job, and though I spend a great deal of time writing these essays, I’m not above throwing band-aids-in-passing at gaping societal wounds on my way to my nice dinner in downtown Anywhere, USA. (“Spare some change?”) Then again, I’m also right here, right now, taxing your patience by raising some pretty simple questions and by making some pretty simple observations. Is this the right thing to be doing? Well yes, but I do it in my own, particular way. So should you.
Thédoc
