Bullseye! Back in the 1950s, we didn't have much money, didn't take exotic vacations, didn't get TV sets until the mid-50s....But we had tremendous community and relationships that have lasted decades, often until death...I used to conduct informal polls in my favorite restaurant, asking people if there was a decade they would; like to return to....most picked the 1950s...
Excellent. I have just watched great Peter Santanello documentary about rich Cherokee community in North Carolina. Kids get 500.000. USD upon adulthood and then further payments, paid health care, education, etc. All paid from casino profits. Drugs and domestic violence are rampant in that community. I see connection with what you wrote here.
I haven't watched that, but we have a friend-of-a-friend who is native and got $ for years in the mail. It was a mess for him: he wanted to drink and fight, and the free money allowed him to do just that in lieu of building a life. He's finally becoming mature and responsible in his late 40's.
The central tendency is specialization within the foundational domain of meaning. The rest is primarily a support structure allowing unblinking focus on efficiency in direction of monetary velocity.
We observe the current "crisis of competence," and it is very real. It is an outgrowth of specialization in service to efficiency.
The essay is correct to highlight the shaving of trivial vestiges of inefficiency. Resources are finite and within the complex, specialized roles that constitute modern western livelihoods, competition increases in direct correlation with entropy.
Those ascendent within the competition for scarce resources, are well aware of how their specialization increases their fungibility. This creates the "always on" workplace cultures that characterize our time and place in history.
It's a vicious, self-reinforcing feedback loop constituting a demoralizing "race to the bottom." Criteria for success are not objective, they are always relative. As each percentage point is shaved, the averages are thereby moved; we compete against ourselves to the sustainable profit of no one.
“Thus efficiency does not simply change how we obtain things; it also changes how we value them. Struggle and scarcity deepen meaning, …”
Wonderful and thoughtful essay. However, it concerns only the social relationships among people within societies while ignoring the physical aspects of such a modern lifestyle as you decry. The physical drudgery of centuries past, which you lament, is part and parcel of our genetic heritage. In short, we have adapted to thrive in such a harsh lifestyle over millennia.
The Industrial Revolution, then the Technological Revolution, of the last couple of centuries has happened suddenly with little time for humanity—at least in the Western world—to adapt. Hence we, as physical beings, are in poor health amidst abundance never dreamed about by our forefathers. Metabolic Syndrome—leading to chronic disease such as obesity, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, affects most all of us in one form or another. Hell, we even suffer from constant *eating* throughout our waking day.
Modern medicine can only do so much to support a lifestyle we are not meant to live via millennia of evolution.
You are right. This is another important aspect of modernity and increasing evolutionary mismatch. On the hand, we have been saved from drudgery. On the other, we often overeat and don't exercise enough. I think the important thing is to be honest about tradeoffs and to think about the gains *and* losses of increasing technological sophistication.
Where is the sweet spot? Maybe when the value of a child is such that a society still perpetuates itself. Having children is a good proxy for this tension between efficiency and meaningfulness. Maybe the sweet spot is the tipping point between replacement and sub-replacement birth rates. In most of the west this was in the 70’s.
Bullseye! Back in the 1950s, we didn't have much money, didn't take exotic vacations, didn't get TV sets until the mid-50s....But we had tremendous community and relationships that have lasted decades, often until death...I used to conduct informal polls in my favorite restaurant, asking people if there was a decade they would; like to return to....most picked the 1950s...
Interesting--my friends generally pick the 90s. Part of this, of course, is when one grew up. But some of the loss is real. Nostalgia is powerful.
--Bo
I think Paul Kingsnorth would approve of this essay.
I'm embarrassed to say that I had never heard of him. I have now. Thanks!
--Bo
Superb essay. Kudos.
Excellent. I have just watched great Peter Santanello documentary about rich Cherokee community in North Carolina. Kids get 500.000. USD upon adulthood and then further payments, paid health care, education, etc. All paid from casino profits. Drugs and domestic violence are rampant in that community. I see connection with what you wrote here.
I haven't watched that, but we have a friend-of-a-friend who is native and got $ for years in the mail. It was a mess for him: he wanted to drink and fight, and the free money allowed him to do just that in lieu of building a life. He's finally becoming mature and responsible in his late 40's.
The central tendency is specialization within the foundational domain of meaning. The rest is primarily a support structure allowing unblinking focus on efficiency in direction of monetary velocity.
We observe the current "crisis of competence," and it is very real. It is an outgrowth of specialization in service to efficiency.
The essay is correct to highlight the shaving of trivial vestiges of inefficiency. Resources are finite and within the complex, specialized roles that constitute modern western livelihoods, competition increases in direct correlation with entropy.
Those ascendent within the competition for scarce resources, are well aware of how their specialization increases their fungibility. This creates the "always on" workplace cultures that characterize our time and place in history.
It's a vicious, self-reinforcing feedback loop constituting a demoralizing "race to the bottom." Criteria for success are not objective, they are always relative. As each percentage point is shaved, the averages are thereby moved; we compete against ourselves to the sustainable profit of no one.
“Thus efficiency does not simply change how we obtain things; it also changes how we value them. Struggle and scarcity deepen meaning, …”
Wonderful and thoughtful essay. However, it concerns only the social relationships among people within societies while ignoring the physical aspects of such a modern lifestyle as you decry. The physical drudgery of centuries past, which you lament, is part and parcel of our genetic heritage. In short, we have adapted to thrive in such a harsh lifestyle over millennia.
The Industrial Revolution, then the Technological Revolution, of the last couple of centuries has happened suddenly with little time for humanity—at least in the Western world—to adapt. Hence we, as physical beings, are in poor health amidst abundance never dreamed about by our forefathers. Metabolic Syndrome—leading to chronic disease such as obesity, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, affects most all of us in one form or another. Hell, we even suffer from constant *eating* throughout our waking day.
Modern medicine can only do so much to support a lifestyle we are not meant to live via millennia of evolution.
You are right. This is another important aspect of modernity and increasing evolutionary mismatch. On the hand, we have been saved from drudgery. On the other, we often overeat and don't exercise enough. I think the important thing is to be honest about tradeoffs and to think about the gains *and* losses of increasing technological sophistication.
--Bo
Where is the sweet spot? Maybe when the value of a child is such that a society still perpetuates itself. Having children is a good proxy for this tension between efficiency and meaningfulness. Maybe the sweet spot is the tipping point between replacement and sub-replacement birth rates. In most of the west this was in the 70’s.
That makes sense to me
--Bo
Bo, observations I had thought little about, thanks.
You bet!
--Bo