To produce or not produce?

[undergroundpanther]

Everyday I hear it, Get a job succeed be"productive" It is the same old lines one would read on a motivational poster.Would 1 more person making stuff we do not need shuffling paper make this world better? If so for WHOM?

What if what is required to be "productive" is intolerable to you?
I myself do NOT want to get involved in the job "market" because I can't stand corporate culture.It HURTS me. I don't want to produce for any corporation, I hate corporations. I hate bullies. And corporate culture is crazy- making and it is psychopathic.
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/corpru.html


What if a person just wants their own time for them self instead of feeding an insatiable capricious corporation that could care less if they live or die.Is that really so bad?


What if I want my time to contemplate this culture of make believe, heal at my own pace and create for my pleasure and health and live in peace,care for my friends and strangers,explore the unknown to not be harangued by busybody people trying to"fix" me, change me, telling to "be somebody" or "make it" as in a "success" story.
I can't take the stress..of that kind of success.

To me the form of "success" advocate for the people in mental health rehab,homeless shelters, would kill me literally.I have had enough trauma and domination by assholes so now I detect and despise bullies and exploiters with an unquenchable hatred.. So I openly say, I want NONE of the thing called a job, or 'success'.I will resist it for my own sake. With every advance in income comes more work more labor more toil to maintain it and survive.. It never ends. Success is a soul sucking TRAP.

From a historical perspective, the cultural norm placing a positive moral value on doing a good job because work has intrinsic value for its own sake was a relatively recent development (Lipset, 1990). Work, for much of the ancient history of the human race, has been hard and degrading. Working hard--in the absence of compulsion--was not the norm for Hebrew, classical, or medieval cultures (Rose, 1985). It was not until the Protestant Reformation that physical labor became culturally acceptable for all persons, even the wealthy.

How come it's so evil for anyone to be so overwhelmed by the sick system they wish to NOT participate in it's abuses and exploitation? Why is it taboo to refuse to comply with all those disgusting corporate trappings?
Why should I take the carrots and submit to the stick, just because other people tolerate it and find satisfaction playing that game?

Why is it intolerable for any one to admit to having a stronger desire for ones own heath and happiness and finds their sanity is in not "going for it" and getting a job ?


I don't want to produce more shit for the very market driven process that is slowly killing us all on the inside out,as well as killing the earth we all depend on. I don't want to fall apart for profits sake.
http://www.cavalcadeproductions.com/ace-study.html


What's so WRONG about that? As I see it work is crazy making and over production is toxic. We as a species do NOT need any more growth or production or success because these are the very things that are destroying us..and the lack of time to seek within,enrich ourselves has made us overly dependent upon this sick game of haves and have nots,and the corporate system to survive,and we live so far away from each other or so clustered together the very earth cannot sustain us in those situations should the system and culture of make believe crash too fast.It's tragic.
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/corpru.html

And it is about time we realized working even more hours will not give us the things we really desire like,time to explore,learn, learn to survive,know our children,help others,develop empathy love and good relationships.We need to get comfortable with ourselves,silence and each other,re learn social skills and managing our own time,finding out who we are..
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/science/02free.html

We traded the inhuman market and we gave away a humane community.

And we got shafted into a raw deal,
http://www.stress.org/job.htm
http://workplaceviolence.wordpress.com/2008/01/30/bullying-bad-for-business/
http://www.hiddenhurt.co.uk/Types/faces.htm

one we think is rational or the only way to live and conforming to it has made so many suffer and we have learned to focus on the individual to avoid admitting we are all complicit in this mess and it is a social error. It is time humanity told the greedy corporates to fuck off and die, threw away their clocks, shared this earth, and confiscated the wealthiest 'families' land,resources and stolen assets and cleaned up the chemical and trash mess all their consumer crap ,sick ideologies ,grandiose schemes of civilization and greed for profits gone overboard that in a few thousand years has made too much of a wasteland of our of the world, us,and our lives and minds..

http://www.ratical.org/corporations/EndCorpGov.html

I just can't participate in the toxic corporate culture without being driven over the edge. At least I am aware of my limits and can admit it.Many people never do and when they crash and burn they never figure out why..
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B0CEFDC1E3EE733A2575BC1A9609C946797D6CF
http://cultronix.eserver.org/martz/
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/workplace.html


"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live." Norman Cousins

[GoneOffShore]

1. K&R

[Common Sense Party]

2. So are you going to live on a deserted island?

Or do you have a 100% self-sufficient farm somewhere? Or are you independently wealthy?

It's great that you want to take more time off to get comfortable with yourself and find out who you are. I'm all for that.

But you don't expect me to foot the bill for you...do you? Surely not. You can't possibly be suggesting that society should take care of you because you find corporate culture too hurtful.

[zonmoy]

3. She could start her own mom and pop type business.

something small and non corporate.

[Common Sense Party]

4. That's fine, but that's still a business, and profits and losses are involved.

Even sole proprietors are one form of corporations.

Even mom and pop stores have to deal with vendors and suppliers (corporations), not to mention earning enough to pay for operating costs, like paying the landlord's lease, paying for utilities, paying for inventory, paying taxes and fees, and then trying to make enough to provide for one's own living needs...

Doesn't give one much time to "find onesself."

[Two Americas]

80. not so

One helps the fishermen or the farmer, one eats. No profit or loss involved. No miserable coercion or complicity in an exploitative and destructive system, which is what you are promoting as though it were natural law.

Profit and loss have to do with skimming from the real wealth, the real value that others create. “Create” being the operative word. Seeing value only in terms of profit is pure right wing libertarian capitalism, and it suppresses creativity and so suppresses the creation of real wealth. You can’t “create” money. When money is used as a system for taking the value from the many and rewarding the few for controlling and speculating on that value, that is placing profits over people—certain social suicide.

The economy exists for people, people do not exist to serve the economy.

When people's natural creativity and social conscience are in direct opposition to some modern notion of "productivity" that is an indictment of the system, not the person making the enormous and vital and essential contribution - hard to say what the value of that is or what we should pay her for that; it would be a tremendous amount if justice were done - by pointing that out.

Besides, man does not live by bread alone, and living by withholding bread from others - that is death, first to the unfortunate few, then eventually to the human race.

[Mugu]

10. When you start your own business you quickly learn

that you are employed by the most demanding asshole that you ever worked for.

Regards, Mugu

[Two Americas]

93. no doubt true

I believe you. I think that in some cases what you say is true. We can only know our own personal experience of working for oursleves, of course, and I assume that you are speaking from personal experience.

I fully believe that those advocating misery for others are pretty miserable themselves.

[Two Americas]

29. not about "her"

The OP is not about undergroundpanther and solving "her problems," it is an indictment of all of us. Disagree if you must, but don't mischaracterize it.

[Two Americas]

28. singularly insensitive and callous

The bill has been footed for you in more ways, not just in terms of your material possessions, than you can even begin to imagine. But in our modern "I've got mine and the Hell with the rest of you" self-centered culture, we see all of the most important human values mocked and ridiculed as you do here. No one thinks they owe anyone anything, people take their advantages and privileges for granted, and think that our current destructive and exploitative culture is "human nature" or an inevitable result of natural law.

Your post betrays a very constricted and short-sighted view that only exceptional wealth, or dependency can be imagined as alternatives. We are all slaves, or masters. That is very sad, and your thinking is unusual historically and in this extreme form unique to our time and place. It is also certain to sink all of us, and is in direct contradiction to everything upon which our survivability as a species depends.

There was a time when this point of view would only be heard in reactionary and republican political circles, but it has been dressed up now with sufficient "liberal" or "progressive" camouflage, that it can be indulged in without guilt by people who are nominally Democrats or liberals, and becuase of that it is becoming pervasive.

[Common Sense Party]

39. That's all balderdash, of course.

I responded to the OP's message of not wanting to work anymore.

The message was not, "I am no longer physically able to work." It was, "I don't like work."

Society owes somebody who doesn't like to work very little.

What would happen if every person who didn't feel like working stayed home?

You use many words and say nothing of substance, and you speak no truth.

[Two Americas]

43. what would happen?

"What would happen if every person who didn't feel like working stayed home?"

We would have a chance to build a just and cooperative society, of course.

There was a time when everyone "stayed home" except to travel to help a neighbor, who also "stayed home." Home was the small family farm. "Home" at one time also meant community and extended family.

This ties in nicely with our recent discussions on homelessness, doesn't it?

Yes! You all must leave your homes, in every meaning of the word 'home' imaginable! You have no home, except and unless for those short periods of time when you are permitted to pay a banker for the privilege of living in a house, providing it does not interfere with the corporate dictates."

As I have said, we are all homeless, even those who "own" houses.

[Greyhound]

54. Ironically, this person as adopted and internalized a view point that

is diametrically opposed to the very concept of America. It is really just sad and why I hold so little hope for the future.

[undergroundpanther]

46. Society

let me be abused tortured at home ,I called them as a KID,the police never bothered to arrive,at school I was tortured and nobody stood up, no teachers stood up even though I asked them for help.Than because of societies ignorance about abuse and psychopathy and my desire to heal from my past I was tortured again in mental hospitals.So I think I have paid my dues with a broken mind and body to the psychopaths running this so called society.

So SSI which is WAY below the poverty line.A check I know most people could not bear, isn't asking too much for you is it oh you comfortable and miserly one?

I cannot stand bullies and the workplaces is FULL of them.Would you rather me work a week,lose it and kill a bunch of people because I DESPISE them and they trigger the fuck out of me? Or pay me a ridiculously small amount and leave me alone and let me survive in the way that works for ME?
You can't let society look the other way(by-stand) and break someones body and mind and expect them to like it, or trust said society again.

Only psychopaths believe in "willing victims".They try their damnedest to create the illusion willing victims exist.

[I work for workers]

49. I would rather you grow up.

It's ok if you want to be a homeless person. It's not smart, but it's ok.

It's not ok for you to threaten us, the working members of the board, because you don't want to support yourself. Using violence or the threat of violence to coerce people into doing what you want is not just morally reprehensible, it's easily definable; terrorism. If you are so unhinged that you don't trust yourself not to kill your coworkers, then maybe you should be hospitalized. I wouldn't feel comfortable working with someone who feels that way, and I would be downright scared to have them slinking around my neighborhood as a desperate street person.

If this post is serious, then you should consider getting help.

If this is an offensive troll post designed to stereotype the homeless and mentally ill, then grow up.

[undergroundpanther]

58. I would rather YOU learn to EMPATHIZE

rather than react and become an asshole whenever a concept comes up that scares you ,. or that you don't understand that stirs up emotions that make you talk like a thoughtless monster.I'd rather see you get an inner locus of control,and think before you shoot off your mouth,quit assuming, and learn to find meaning instead of desperate attempts to puff yourself up..The economy and work will not save anyone from the ugly reality of the human condition and how bad it hurts.

[I work for workers]

60. You threatened to kill some people if you didn't get more welfare.

I have absolutely no empathy for that. I was raised by parents who work hard. I myself work hard. I respect people who try, even though I know that doing so does not always result in the easy life we all want. I have no problem with society helping people out who really need it, and working to make the system as fair as possible for all of us trying to get by.

I have a major problem with someone demanding I support support their laziness and threatening me and my loved ones if I don't care to. Nothing you said scares me. It makes me sad. What is wrong with you? Parents making you get a job this summer? Grow up. If you try as well as you can and still need help, you'll find a sympathetic ear with me. Until you decide to do so, I have very little compassion for your situation.

[Two Americas]

91. highly reactionary

We, intellectuals - political writers, thinkers, students and organizers - supposedly on the left, have been so thoroughly trained to ignore power and economics when we think about politics that we can barely put a cogent political argument together any more. This leads to some very illogical thinking, since it is like discussing crop farming and ignoring that plants exist.

Your argument is a cousin to the "reverse racism" arguments, one of the many traps that await us, and that sabotage the political effectiveness of the left, when we ignore the role of power in society and in politics (!!) and instead embrace the right wing "personal responsibility" premises and assumptions.

When master chains, beats, and imprisons and exploits the slave, that is one thing. The master has power over the slave, and even if the master is a "good" master, that does not alter the inherent injustice and cruelty of the arrangement. When the slave retaliates, or rebels, or strikes back, that is not "equal" to the cruelty and injustice done to the slave by the master, and by the system. The only way to make the two seem equal is to scrupulously avoid and deny the role of power in the situation, and to personalize it. Then we can say that some masters - as individuals - are "good" while some slaves - as individuals are "bad."

That is precisely that argument that defenders of slavery used in the 1850's. The main danger, the main thing to worry about in their minds was that the slaves would retaliate or rebel, and that was to be seen as "bad" and was then used as an excuse for dismissing those advocating abolition.

The problem is that the line of reasoning you are using is the most effective way to support and defend a system that is cruel and unjust. There is no more reactionary argument that you could possibly make, no better service you could do for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful few. You are siding with the bullies. You are also in opposition to yourself, without realizing that you are.

[Common Sense Party]

105. You are a genius. You're pretty good at satire.

At first, I thought you might actually be serious.

Now, I know it's all a lark.

"We intellectuals"!!! LOL!!

[mondo joe]

71. Empathize? From the person going on about hating others and wanting to kill them?

:rofl:

[Common Sense Party]

77. It's hard to empathize with all ideas. Some are singularly bad ideas,

and deserve no empathy.

"Would you rather me work a week,lose it and kill a bunch of people because I DESPISE them and they trigger the fuck out of me? "

That idea comes to mind. Reprehensible.

It's rather ironic that you lecture the other poster about his need for an "inner locus of control." And you call HIM a "thoughtless monster"?

Going postal because people ANNOY you? You cannot be serious.

[undergroundpanther]

106. Annoyance is a pain

but abuse bullying and threats I will not tolerate past a certain point Office politics really threaten me..There is a difference between thought and action?. And wishing all psychopaths dead is not the same thing as killing them all.. Are you now for thought police? Gonna lock me up for pre-emtive "crimes" of thoughts and emotions that bother you? Like Minority report?
I can wish anything I want to wish.Live around a psychopath and you might learn why it is good to avoid them,and wishing them dead is a way to cope.
But I see subtleties like that get lost on reactionaries and ideologically dense so called purist/pacifists.

[LWolf]

5. I want to be productive. I want to produce.

I just don't necessarily want to produce the same thing my employers want me to.

My employers want me to produce test scores.

I want to produce authentic thinking, learning, and intellectual, social, and emotional prosperity.

[kineneb]

6. I "produce" but no one pays for handwork

I spin wool, I knit, I sew, I do woodworking, I paint in oils, I teach piano lessons. I like working by myself, at my own pace; in fact, I must work at my own pace.

Handwork and the arts are not valued in American society, only cheap shit from offshore is.

Quantity has won out over quality; we have the ultimate disposable "culture".

I can no longer work for The (Wo)Man, unless I wish to end up in the psych ward. The stress will send me over the edge.



I understand, U.P.
:hi:

[Xenotime]

115. Sounds like you have a hobby not a job.

[bobbolink]

7. We progressives need to do some massive rethinking!

Thanks for this!!

:applause:

[wildeyed]

8. For me, learning and working are the same thing.

I like money and material things, I respect the power that money represents, but I am rarely interested in pursuing a goal solely for monetary gain.

I figured out a while ago that happiness is the meaning of life. Not that quick fix kind of happiness that you get from a new purchase or a new infatuation, but the deep happiness of knowing you are in synch with the world and doing what you are supposed to be doing.

If how you are living your life is giving you that feeling, or at least moving you toward it, then, at least by my lights, that is a productive life already.

[leftofthedial]

9. commie

[otherlander]

36. Kind of ironic...

Communist nations may have had governments redistributing wealth, but their economies were still based on the same basic structures of industry. Does that make us more radical than the communists? :evilgrin:

[leftofthedial]

38. Actually, the USSR and "Communist" China

were a radical form of capitalism in which the state owned everything--the OPPOSITE of socialism.

We're not radical at all, we're just slowly catching up to where the soviets were since the 1920's. We're just making the corporations our government rather than the other way around. Teh effect on people is identical.

[Mugu]

11. "Success is a soul sucking TRAP."

I guess that depends on how one defines success.

One of the great things about this country is that we have many rights. Those rights include the right to self-pity and failure.

Regards, Mugu

[Common Sense Party]

18. Well said. n/t

[treestar]

66. Do you think people who "fail" deserve to suffer?

Do you believe it is their own fault solely?

[Mugu]

75. Where did I say that people who "fail" deserve to suffer?

Some people make up their own reality and then blame others when they're lonely.

Regards, Mugu

Edit: Spelling

[treestar]

97. The "right to self pity and failure" certainly does not sound all that

sympathetic.

Maybe if you can't pity yourself you can't have pity for others?

It still remains to be asked, what is the consequence of this failure? We may have a "right to failure" but then what happens?

[Codedonkey]

98. Get up and try again?

I'm by far the biggest failure I know... Well, at least I'm pretty close. Anyways, that doesn't stop me from trying. It also doesn't stop me realizing that I am the biggest cause of my problems, and that I am the one who has to do something about it... Of course that is just me, and I know not everyone is a total screw off like me.

[Kitty Herder]

12. Few people ever question the conventional wisdom on this.

Probably because the answers are too disturbing. Yes, what most of us spend most of our lives doing is pointless. But the alternatives are unbearable to most people, who aren't willing to give up a certain standard of living. And most think that any alternatives to the current soul-killing system are unrealistic.

[bobbolink]

13. You are much more productive, undergroundpanther, than any damned CEO!!

With all your research and vast knowledge, you have added more wisdom to DU and those around you than most people could ever hope to accomplish!

The problem is, what you offer and others like you, isn't valued in this damned society!

It isn't that you don't "produce".... it's that it's invisible because you don't have a paper claiming you are an "expert".

We at DU are very fortunate to have you, and the smart people here sit up and take notice of what you have to say!

:patriot: :applause: :patriot:

[Two Americas]

31. this is absolutely vital to undertsand

The contribution that undergroundpanther is making is so important, so vital for all of us, that it difficult to fully grasp or appreciate. The fact that it does not return riches and status to her, and therefore is not valued by many on this thread, is a damning indictment of the moral depravity of the critics, not an invalidation of the contribution.

Those in our society trying to make the most valuable and essential contributions are being systematically punished and destroyed, while the most destructive and anti-social behavior is lavishly rewarded. This is so obvious, so pervasive, that scholars in the future will be at a loss to explain how so many of us could not or would not see this when we were living it.

This blindness, and the illogical thinking required to construct a world view around this blindness, is having severe consequences for all of us in our daily lives, even if we fancy that we are doing well or succeeding. We are all in this boat together, and this boat is going to sink wjether or not you are out in the water hanging on to a lifeline and therefore "unproductive" or "mentally ill" or a "loser" or you are comfortably ensconced in a posh stateroom.

[bobbolink]

52. "Those in our society trying to make the most valuable and essential contributions are being

systematically punished and destroyed"

Absolutely.

:cry:

Yet, most just turn a blind eye.

We should ALL be grateful to undergroundpanther for the relentless effort, scholarship and RISK that is put into these posts for us to LEARN!! Free, even!

:loveya: for panther....

[Matariki]

72. What contribution beyond writing hate filled screeds on the interweb, may I ask?

[Two Americas]

79. she inspired me

That led me to spend a couple of hours helping out a neighbor.

You can't buy that.

And you call that "hate filled?"

[Two Americas]

14. the demand that we produce

Excellent post. Thank you undergroundpanther.

We are coerced to produce, and we must produce only that which benefits the few at the expense of the many. So even the meaning of the word "produce" has itself been corrupted.

Look around and it is easy to see that those who are producing things or providing services of real value, or things that cannot be easily controlled by the corporate juggernaut and harnessed to use for the benefit of the few, are either being "privatized" or are under horrendous assault and persecution - artists, teachers, nurses, farmers, to name but a few examples. Not only are our worst urges rewarded and praised and admired, our best urges are punished.

This corrupted and perverted notion of production has also corrupted every other aspect of our culture. Material success - most easily gained by committing oneself mind, body, and soul to anti-social predation and exploitation - has come to also mean "moral righteousness" and "mentally healthy" and "good citizenship." Good art is only that art which sells best on the "free market."

The demand that we "produce," and the severe and cruel penalties leveled against those who refuse to cooperate and are then called "losers" and "mentally ill" and "immoral," is actually a demand that we become slaves - physically, morally, and intellectually - that we become morally depraved, that we knuckle under to bullying and fully accept and contribute to the destruction of all that is truly good, truly productive, and truly healthy.

[undergroundpanther]

47. Thank you Two Americas

The Irony gets me,that the most intelligent radically deep thinkers on the problems of this culture and the destruction of community I have meet are poor,often non-white, homeless or on Disability. Our culture hates those who don't play make believe sell their soul to the market and pretend this sick system is just or even logical with them.
Bobbolink and Two Americas are among a few people on DU that Dem's need to listen to and learn from as well.
At least us here on the edge who feel the pain others deny are thinking of solutions to "the powers that be" and"the way things are",and because we are down in the pit seeing things as they ARE, we see from the bottom up,we can see the very things the mainstream is too scared, dumb or obedient to even consider as vital to our collective survival as clean air and an uncontaminated food supply..

[Two Americas]

87. the pit

That reminds me of an essay by Jack London about the pit. I'll post some excerpts.

Mods - this is in the public domain.

It is quite fair to say that I became a Socialist in a fashion somewhat similar to the way in which the Teutonic pagans became Christians--it was hammered into me. Not only was I not looking for Socialism at the time of my conversion, but I was fighting it. I was very young and callow, did not know much of anything, and though I had never even heard of a school called "Individualism," I sang the paean of the strong with all my heart.

This was because I was strong myself. By strong I mean that I had good health and hard muscles, both of which possessions are easily accounted for. I had lived my childhood on California ranches, my boyhood hustling newspapers on the streets of a healthy Western city, and my youth on the ozone-laden waters of San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. I loved life in the open, and I toiled in the open, at the hardest kinds of work. Learning no trade, but drifting along from job to job, I looked on the world and called it good, every bit of it. Let me repeat, this optimism was because I was healthy and strong, bothered with neither aches nor weaknesses, never turned down by the boss because I did not look fit, able always to get a job at shovelling coal, sailorizing, or manual labor of some sort.

And because of all this, exulting in my young life, able to hold my own at work or fight, I was a rampant individualist. It was very natural. I was a winner. Wherefore I called the game, as I saw it played, or thought I saw it played, a very proper game for MEN. To be a MAN was to write man in large capitals on my heart. To adventure like a man, and fight like a man, and do a man's work (even for a boy's pay)--these were things that reached right in and gripped hold of me as no other thing could. And I looked ahead into long vistas of a hazy and interminable future, into which, playing what I conceived to be MAN'S game, I should continue to travel with unfailing health, without accidents, and with muscles ever vigorous. As I say, this future was interminable. I could see myself only raging through life without end like one of Nietzsche's BLOND- BEASTS, lustfully roving and conquering by sheer superiority and strength.

As for the unfortunates, the sick, and ailing, and old, and maimed, I must confess I hardly thought of them at all, save that I vaguely felt that they, barring accidents, could be as good as I if they wanted to real hard, and could work just as well. Accidents? Well, they represented FATE, also spelled out in capitals, and there was no getting around FATE. Napoleon had had an accident at Waterloo, but that did not dampen my desire to be another and later Napoleon. Further, the optimism bred of a stomach which could digest scrap iron and a body which flourished on hardships did not permit me to consider accidents as even remotely related to my glorious personality.

I hope I have made it clear that I was proud to be one of Nature's strong-armed noblemen. The dignity of labor was to me the most impressive thing in the world. Without having read Carlyle, or Kipling, I formulated a gospel of work which put theirs in the shade. Work was everything. It was sanctification and salvation. The pride I took in a hard day's work well done would be inconceivable to you. It is almost inconceivable to me as I look back upon it. I was as faithful a wage slave as ever capitalist exploited. To shirk or malinger on the man who paid me my wages was a sin, first, against myself, and second, against him. I considered it a crime second only to treason and just about as bad.

In short, my joyous individualism was dominated by the orthodox bourgeois ethics. I read the bourgeois papers, listened to the bourgeois preachers, and shouted at the sonorous platitudes of the bourgeois politicians. And I doubt not, if other events had not changed my career, that I should have evolved into a professional strike-breaker, (one of President Eliot's American heroes), and had my head and my earning power irrevocably smashed by a club in the hands of some militant trades-unionist.

Just about this time, returning from a seven months' voyage before the mast, and just turned eighteen, I took it into my head to go tramping. On rods and blind baggages I fought my way from the open West where men bucked big and the job hunted the man, to the congested labor centres of the East, where men were small potatoes and hunted the job for all they were worth. And on this new BLOND- BEAST adventure I found myself looking upon life from a new and totally different angle. I had dropped down from the proletariat into what sociologists love to call the "submerged tenth," and I was startled to discover the way in which that submerged tenth was recruited.

I found there all sorts of men, many of whom had once been as good as myself and just as BLOND-BEAST; sailor-men, soldier-men, labor- men, all wrenched and distorted and twisted out of shape by toil and hardship and accident, and cast adrift by their masters like so many old horses. I battered on the drag and slammed back gates with them, or shivered with them in box cars and city parks, listening the while to life-histories which began under auspices as fair as mine, with digestions and bodies equal to and better than mine, and which ended there before my eyes in the shambles at the bottom of the Social Pit.

And as I listened my brain began to work. The woman of the streets and the man of the gutter drew very close to me. I saw the picture of the Social Pit as vividly as though it were a concrete thing, and at the bottom of the Pit I saw them, myself above them, not far, and hanging on to the slippery wall by main strength and sweat. And I confess a terror seized me. What when my strength failed? when I should be unable to work shoulder to shoulder with the strong men who were as yet babes unborn? And there and then I swore a great oath. It ran something like this: ALL MY DAYS I HAVE WORKED HARD WITH MY BODY, AND ACCORDING TO THE NUMBER OF DAYS I HAVE WORKED, BY JUST THAT MUCH AM I NEARER THE BOTTOM OF THE PIT. I SHALL CLIMB OUT OF THE PIT, BUT NOT BY THE MUSCLES OF MY BODY SHALL I CLIMB OUT. I SHALL DO NO MORE HARD WORK, AND MAY GOD STRIKE ME DEAD IF I DO ANOTHER DAY'S HARD WORK WITH MY BODY MORE THAN I ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO DO. And I have been busy ever since running away from hard work.

Incidentally, while tramping some ten thousand miles through the United States and Canada, I strayed into Niagara Falls, was nabbed by a fee-hunting constable, denied the right to plead guilty or not guilty, sentenced out of hand to thirty days' imprisonment for having no fixed abode and no visible means of support, handcuffed and chained to a bunch of men similarly circumstanced, carted down country to Buffalo, registered at the Erie County Penitentiary, had my head clipped and my budding mustache shaved, was dressed in convict stripes, compulsorily vaccinated by a medical student who practised on such as we, made to march the lock-step, and put to work under the eyes of guards armed with Winchester rifles--all for adventuring in BLOND-BEASTLY fashion. Concerning further details deponent sayeth not, though he may hint that some of his plethoric national patriotism simmered down and leaked out of the bottom of his soul somewhere--at least, since that experience he finds that he cares more for men and women and little children than for imaginary geographical lines.

To return to my conversion. I think it is apparent that my rampant individualism was pretty effectively hammered out of me, and something else as effectively hammered in. But, just as I had been an individualist without knowing it, I was now a Socialist without knowing it, withal, an unscientific one. I had been reborn, but not renamed, and I was running around to find out what manner of thing I was. I ran back to California and opened the books. I do not remember which ones I opened first. It is an unimportant detail anyway. I was already It, whatever It was, and by aid of the books I discovered that It was a Socialist. Since that day I have opened many books, but no economic argument, no lucid demonstration of the logic and inevitableness of Socialism affects me as profoundly and convincingly as I was affected on the day when I first saw the walls of the Social Pit rise around me and felt myself slipping down, down, into the shambles at the bottom.

[Common Sense Party]

15. Lloyd Dobler said it best:

"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."

[aikoaiko]

16. You can do whatever you want and reap the consequences.

[Common Sense Party]

17. Yup. But if you pick up one end of the stick, you've gotta pick up

the other end as well.

Sometimes people forget about cause and effect. Actions have consequences. So does inaction.

[Two Americas]

82. all depends on your position

Looking at this from farm country where I live and work, we see a large segment of the population, and I would guess most of the people here, who are pretty much parasites — heavily subsidized, and contributing little of real value to the community, protected and coddled and pampered because they are willing to sell their souls for a few trinkets and are in the service of promoting the needs and desires of the wealthy and powerful few at the expense of the well being of the many. Pushing papers around, controlling people, gaining status, kissing asses, amassing credentials and titles, speculating and aiding and assisting in various ways those who are looting and destroying the planet and obliterating traditional human culture and cooperative and sustainable communities around the world.

We could eliminate suburbia and 90% of the corporate “jobs” there and no one would starve as a result, no one would go without shelter as a result. Suburbia and corporate jobs—getting ahead and accumulating material things—is a game of comparison, of relative position and status. When nothing of real value is being produced, all of the success, the “jobs” and pay, the accumulated trinkets and baubles, the speculative paper wealth, can only exist when and if someone else has to go without.

The OP is contributing more of real value with these posts to the well being of the human family than any random gaggle of a thousand white collar corporate climbers we could gather together do.

Who is forgetting cause and effect? Actions - as in complying with and profiting from and defending a system that threatens the survival of the entire human race - has consequences. Inaction - as in justifying leaving millions behind and condemning them to suffering and privation and so failing to act - also has consequences.

Farmers do not se any human beings as useless eaters. Everyone gets fed, without judgment. But if we did think in those terms, we would see most of them among the ranks of the “successful” and upwardly mobile in the sprawling, destructive and parasitical corporate business environment and the corporate factory towns for the modern house Negroes—suburbia.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

85. Many great posts to this OP and its responders.

:thumbsup:

[pamela]

19. "There are men (and women) too gentle to live among the wolves"

A Poem by James Kavanaugh

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who prey upon them with IBM eyes
And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
There are men too gentle for a savage world
Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws
And murder then for a merchant's profit and gain.
There are men too gentle for a corporate world
Who dream instead of candied apples and ferris wheels
And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves.
Who devour them with eager appetite and search
For other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry.
There are men too gentle for an accountant's world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove.
Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant's world.
Unless they have a gentle one to love.

[undergroundpanther]

48. Tears...

I am lonely as hell in this merchants psychopathic world.
Sometimes it hurts so bad I long to go back from where I came.

[pamela]

53. I didnt mean to make you sad...

I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone in your thoughts.

I hope you won't go away. Your voice is valuable. I read your posts in another thread recently about "just world" theory and that has had a profound effect on me. I've discussed it with several people (outside of DU) and they were fascinated by it, too. I should speak up more in these threads but I'm an absorber. I take it all in and then share it with others at a later time. So you, Bobbie and others are not just shouting in the wind. There are many here who are listening and learning from you. I thank you for your contribution.

[undergroundpanther]

57. I wasen't sad

more like bittersweet,

I won't leave until either I am forced to,or DU finally gets it,and the wisdom about this problem and many others is understood about what is wrong with the way we are taught and live, and the causes of it. We need to grow beyond the same old crap that does nothing to enrich us and learn new things and find a new way of being one that is built not on power trips and who 'deserves' but on empathy and sharing,and a hatred of narcissism,psychopathy ,dominatioon,abuse and authoritarianism and it's enablers.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

89. Thanks for the poem Pamela.

I am having what is tantamount to an epiphany reading through these posts. For me, sifting through this OP and its respondent's replies, there is a crystallization of thought that has been eluding me for quite some time. Thank you again.

[FirstLight]

20. I may not be very "productive"

But I am using my talents and giving back to my community.
I am a former journalist, gone "freelance" - which means "starving artist"
so I have really one client, and have been working for her off and on for ten years...producing workshops, creating brochures, revamping her website...and because it is something I believe in and someone whom I mentor, I don't get paid very much...but I also feel that the exchange is so worth it because she has been very acommodating and caring about me and my family over the years. It is loyalty to the work that keeps me there...
I also work part-time at my church as secreary, and have recently decided to commit to one more year there. The pay is not great, but again, they put up with my absences due to being a single mom of three, they care about me and my life, and I get fringe benefits like parishioners bringing me produce, clothes for my kids, etc. So even if I am not well-off, I am cared for.

I stress about trying to make more money, believe me...but the reality is that I have a talent and gift that I have chosen to give in the "spiritual arts" and I can still publish newsletters, create, and be a communicatorin a very important way.
I would rather work for my COMMUNITY than for ANY CORPORATION...
Hopefully I will be able to snag a few "big money" jobs through the year to keep us afloat...
and the economy isn't helping matters, either...
MY family has told me my whole life I need to find a job with benefits and pension, etc...but the way things are going now, my checkered past in employment may come in handy for surviving in the future...

I guess I mean to say I agree with the OP that it is too hard to be forced into the commercial pandering of our talents, and sometimes our talents don't even matter to the MAN... I struggled with that my entire adult life. I quit many jobs beacuse I couldn't swallow that they ddn't fit my ideals - journalism being one of them... I valued the learning from each job, but they did not make me a better person, and the boses were not put out by my quitting, there was a line of cattle just waiting to step in when I left. Idealists are rare and fragile in this world of corporate greed...

I think about the song by Peter Gabriel, "Soulsbury Hill"

The day I don't need a replacement
I'll show them what the smile on my face meant...


Keep on trucking, underground panther... keep that fire in your soul kindled!

[seriousstan]

21. Then don't ask for anything others work to produce. You know...health care, food, shelter.

I guess us poor delusional working saps will just have to do without your drain on our production. However, I am sure you feel entitled to the fruits of our labors.

[FirstLight]

22. never planned to ask for you for anything....

...in fact, I am not on food stamps, or any aid of that sort...so I am not "living off the fruits of your labors"

maybe you should refrain from the angry reply unless you can understand that the point is that the machine of our society is eating
us alive, and leaving people, and the planet in devastation...

I have never had a sense of entitlement, and you have no right to say so unless you know me and my life!

[seriousstan]

23. Are you suffering from multiple personality disorder? I never replied to you.

Or are you just a

But since you want to defend the OP, explain how you live, eat and cloth yourself without working. Self-sufficient farming? That takes tools, seed and a lot of work.

[tavalon]

26. You didn't talk to me either, but such is the way of this website that you actually talk to many

not just one.

Kindly, keep your damn sockpuppet to yourself.

There are plenty ways of utilizing resources in a much less "one person, one income" sort of way. There are communal situations of which you appear to be completely unaware, that can allow for a much more fluid manner of living. There are more ways to be in this world than you appear to be aware of, Horatio.

Why don't you try to get your nose bent back into shape and realize that the OP and the person who posted to you have different points of view about how they wish to view productivity and it isn't a personal diss on you or your Puritan Work Ethic? They are asking you to not blindly accept but rather to think and consider other alternatives. As long as something is unexamined, the people who benefit from our "productivity" get to keep on getting and we keep thinking we're getting what they want us to think we're getting.

I wonder why this made you so angry? That would be something well worth examining.

[seriousstan]

27. And people who don't work on a commune are soon given the boot.

If you don't pull your weight you are left behind, even in your Utopian commune.

[Two Americas]

81. start pulling yours

An important part of pulling our weight - probably the most important part - as responsible members of the human community is to contribute to the spiritual well being of those around you and to not leave any behind. Somewhere in your distant past an ancestor of yours was not left behind, and certainly when you were an infant you were not left behind, and someday when you are old and infirm you will not be left behind, there were and will be people who take precisely the opposite view to the one you espouse here.

You are promoting the idea that each of us should be a lazy and self-centered parasite - parasites in the most important way, emotional, spiritual and intellectual parasites, social paerasites - when you express these ideas. You are eroding and attacking ideas that all of our survival depends upon. You took from others, but you begrudge any one else getting the benefits that you got. Yiu judge them, but expect to not be judged. That is the ultimate parasite, and the ultimate threat to the survival of the human community. We could feed and house 1000 people for life and it would cost us much less than supporting you does, and by tolerating your anti-social ranting and responding to you, and by not boycotting everything you ever produce, say, or do, we are supporting you. The ideas you are expressing are a poisonous threat to the survival of millions.

We, as humamn beings, don't leave our sick, wounded, or disabled behind. Those discouraged and heart-broken and outcast and forgotten and abused - and who wouldn't feel that way just listening to you? - are suffering from the worst condition that humans can endure; the most fatal. Failure to recognize that is not only cruel, it is a denial of your own nature, a failure to know yourself.

Stop being a drain on society and start pulling your weight. Telling others to shut up and suck it up is not pulling your weight - it is dragging us all down. Stop being so lazy.

[Two Americas]

114. our love affair with the boot

Boot lovers and boot lickers - one and the same. A trap for all of us. Kiss up and kick down, and be hyper alert as to who is above you and therefore must be kissed, and who is below you and must be kicked. Let this rule your life - so much so that you cannot walk by a peaceful discussion without feeling an overwhelming urge to stop and interrupt people and do some kicking.

Then build a society on that. What is the result? Endless war, destruction of the environment, torture of human beings, millions imprisoned, hunger, poverty, and homelessness. A small price to pay, are we to think, for the sake of keeping the social pecking order in place and to protect our imagined place in that order?

“Hey war and cruelty and poverty happen and always have. What can we do? It is human nature. They can never be eliminated. But greed and selfishness — those are terribly endangered, so we must practice them all the time lest we lose our knack for them, and they must be defended vigorously lest that dangerous and unrealistic ‘love’ crowd take away our sacred right to be bullies!”

And it all starts with the fear that makes us kiss up so that we won't be punished, and the sad little pleasure we get when we kick down against those who are below us.

Remember: kiss up, kick down.

The boots, the boots march on; tromp, tromp, tromp.

[Two Americas]

45. of course you do

Particularly when it comes to agriculture, your food is heavily subsidized in many ways and developed through the contributions of tens of thousands of people throughout history, none of whom were adequately compensated at all, let alone by you.

The most essential things upon which we are most dependent are the most poorly compensated. Without human beings working for the love of working, rather than in your paradigm of enforced labor, and without their main motivation being the well-being of others, your imaginary world, a world of selfishness - of two dogs fighting for one bone - where all must submit or starve, would not be possible. Therefore your life is the parasitical one, and the people focusing on something greater than what you can see and whom you are suggesting are the parasites, are actually subsidizing you.

The rest of us could survive without your contributions. I am not so sure we can without the contributions of the OP and others like her.

Do people exist for the sake of the economy, or does the economy exist for the sake of people? Is society merely an aggregate of activity driven by selfish individualism, or are all of our notions of individualism completely dependent upon centuries of cooperative community building? These are but two of the foundational and essential questions that you are not only failing to answer adequately, but are not even asking.

[tavalon]

24. I wonder why "they" get to decide what is productive

I think nurturing one's mental health and trying to heal oneself and whatever piece of the world one can is damn productive, while punching a timecard to do potentially mindless work may not be.

[Common Sense Party]

40. Well, "they" issue the paycheck, so "they" get to decide which

activities they will and won't pay for.

If you can find someone who will pay you to "heal yourself," you will be very fortunate indeed.

Good luck with that.

[I work for workers]

25. I think you need to learn to seperate

your job from your life. The point of work isn't the "feeding an insatiable capricious corporation", it is to maintain a comfortable existence for yourself and your loved ones. I've worked jobs I didn't like before, but I used them to finance a life that I do like.

From your post I gather you are young and immature, and that you aspirations to be some kind of transient are based on romantic notions you picked up reading books by people smart enough to make money off of their experiences. If that is truly what you want in life, then more power to you. If you decide to set the bar low enough you are bound to find the kind of success you talked about.

Consider some friendly advice though. Don't be stubborn about supporting yourself. Being a wandering outcast might sound like a fulfilling and realistic life's goal when you are a teenager, but that kind of hardship gets old fast. Once you get a bit older and realize it's too late to go back and make something better of yourself, you are going to be wishing that you did a little more growing when it still would have mattered.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

30. Work is a highly overrated pastime. To be avoided by any sensible being.

But, eating and having shelter, etc, is highly desirable.

So, I compromised. I worked as little as possible for as much as they would pay me.

Now that I'm retired, I can look back and say that I was (mostly) "successful" in my endeavors.

[FirstLight]

32. I gave my life example to show that you could still be "productive"

and yet be considered to be non-productive to those who buy into the idea of corporate mainstream.

The OP didn't say anything about being a wandering slacker, but is making a point that productivity has many faces. Society has shifted to make certain types of work less than important and downright unacceptable.

Is the work done using one's creativity and gifts any less important than the work done by someone who shows up to the cubicle day after day to make sure your car insurance is done right...? depends on your view...

There ARE folks who need the structure, need the reliability; and there are those who slowly die because they are "working" to work, and not for anything greater. There are people who HAVE to be doing something true and real and good, or they can't deal with themselves, they are stifled and suffocated by the job with no purpose. I can't explain it, but I am tired of feeling guitly because I can't hold a job for 10 years at the same company like my sister... we are not made the same, and I have to learn how to play to my own strenghts in a society that doesn't like non-conformists.

maybe it is like a right-brain, left-brain kind of thing...

Oh, and did you ever hear of someone who dreamed big and made a huge invention or great work of art who didn't TRY and conform and have the nice job that would fit in...and they just couldn't DO it?
Einstein and others come to mind, but I don't want to say the wrong name and get flamed...but you get the idea.

[Lorien]

33. It sounds like you've turned yourself into a bad cliche of what the

Right Wing always says that we are: lazy, self indulgent self involved people who want everything given to them. Just HOW do you feed yourself? Are you homeless? Do you beg on the street? That sounds more degrading to me than working for a corporation, working for yourself (which still means that you work for clients), or working in the service industry.

Growing up, my VERY productive mother would always send us off to school with "have a productive day" instead of "have a great day". She certainly drove us to be productive from day one-and yes, there could have been more of a balance in our lives. More fun, more time for reflection-but I've discovered over the years that we often find out just who we are through our work. We build relationships through work, we often find our loved ones through work.

Today is a case in point: this morning I got an email from a friend who was once an employee of mine. Another email came in from a friend who I met when she bought art that I PRODUCED on eBay. My friend Jose called-I met him through our mutual friend Tom, who was one of my best buddies when I worked for Walt Disney Feature Animation (yes, one of the biggest bullies of any corporation). Later my friend Renee called-I met her when she was my supervisor on "Beauty and the Beast"-a movie made quite a few years ago. Lastly my good buddy Jeff called to tell me that Warner Brothers (another big mean ol' corporation) had bought his intellectual property and would be making a movie out of it. I met Jeff in 1984 when he was my boss at a little animation studio in Ohio and we've been friends ever since.He's really happy about the movie deal; it's exciting and fun, not just profitable.

The point of all this is that I wouldn't know A SINGLE ONE of these people if I weren't "productive". I love them dearly and they enrich my life. Work is about more than simply producing; it's a way of connecting to others and the world around us. It can also be about exploring, learning, and becoming enlightened, even when we're not doing work that we love. As I said in another thread; I create stuff that I really hate sometimes. When times are tough I design toys for MGAE, the company that makes the "Bratz" dolls. I hate them and all that they stand for, but I find something good to take away from the experience: a). I'm drawing for a living, that's what I always wanted to do and the subject matter should not be important, b). I work with people at MGAE whom I really like and enjoy, 3). paying for food, shelter, and medical bills is good. I like being self sufficient-it improves my mood considerably (I'm prone to depression). Gandhi said "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in service to others". That service doesn't have to be in creating "stuff", nor must it only be volunteer work. Doctors, waitresses, psychologists, musicians, writers, journalists, artists, lawyers, janitors...all serve the rest of us. Some are compensated well for it and others are not, but they are a part of society-not sitting outside of it, believing that by being alone and doing ONLY what what they desire at any given moment they will rise above the maddening crowd. Work can be a challenge; no doubt about it. I've been beaten up by the best of them. People in the entertainment industry can be brutal and ruthless. But I didn't crumble, I didn't let it kill me; I took the bitter with the sweet. I left that industry with valued friends and experience, both of which I still enjoy to this day.

I hope that some day you can rise above self pity and pain to embrace another way of life. I've read many of your posts over the years, and in all seriousness, I think that much of your suffering comes from isolation and deeply ingrained beliefs (some imposed on you by others) that need very much to be altered. The only way that will ever happen is by leaving your comfort zone and venturing out into the world as something other than a victim. You are more than that, much more, and it's past time to release your hold on that identity that you've clung to for so long.

[Common Sense Party]

41. Well said. n/t

[Mugu]

51. Hear, Hear. n/t

[undergroundpanther]

55. Why assume I am isolated?

You don't know me, I have a LOT of friends. I have people I know ,I do stuff with them I help them out. I am in the underground, you won't find me in 'normal land',although some of my friends look very normal and some hold jobs out of necessity,they are not their job they are people, I make Friends very easily and I care very deeply. I had to get a looseleaf NOTEBOOK to fit all their numbers in it.
And I hate just as deeply.I am wounded but I also am free.

http://www.myspace.com/undergroundpanther
Ps. unlike most myspace accounts you see who have tons of "friends" for show, the friends I have on there under 'my freinds'(except for tom who I think owns myspace he's on everyones freinds list) ARE my friends in Real life also. They begged me to put up a page,so I did.Check the Orpheus album. Check my art,check mad pride..Yeah I am so isolated and my life So empty since I don't work.
Any more silly assumptions to make here about me?
I can blow them out of the water.

[Common Sense Party]

76. How do you live? How do you eat? Where do you live?

How do you afford internet connection?

I'm just curious.

Perhaps others would benefit from knowing how you do what you do--others that also want to drop out of the "rat race."

[Two Americas]

94. an ancient question

People have been asking this question since the beginning of time. Saints and philosophers and religious leaders have tried to answer this.

Here is one answer, that while associated with a particular religion, does explore this question and offers an answer worthy of consideration, I think.

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

[Common Sense Party]

96. I was asking the OP how HE manages, thank you.

I was looking for specifics, not scriptures.

[Two Americas]

102. none of your business

Personal details as to how a poor person is surviving or coping are no one's business, and demanding them is a form of intimidation just as it would be with any vulnerable person, such as a child, or an elderly or handicapped person. I have no doubt that you were fishing for private information about the OP - in the form of challenging their credibility as a devious way to discredit their opinion - and that is why I jumped in.

[Common Sense Party]

104. No, none of YOUR business.

Get off your freakin' Victimhood Express. You're pathetic.

[undergroundpanther]

108. Obviously he has no "common sense"

Or any sense for that matter except to act nasty to people whom bother his little rationalized POV.He protest too much about his common'sense' I think.. By his reactions and bullshit ploys he lives a life of quiet desperation.. Shh, listen you can hear him writhe in cognitive dissonance under his bluster and all he can do is try to intimidate..What an ass hat. Two Americas,some people are too far gone..

[Lex Talionis]

62. Very, very good post. I wish I could be as eloquent as you. n/t

[Midlodemocrat]

64. Outstanding post and spot on. (nt)

[mondo joe]

69. Excellent. Well done, Lorien. NT

[taught_me_patience]

121. great post

couldn't have said it better.

[otherlander]

34. If we could create communities...

Based on "give support, get support" instead of "make products get products"... Things would still be produced, but not on this scale of vast machinery. Things produced on *human scale*... New technologies would still be developed, but not to generate a profit. New technology would be developed based on human want and need...

[undergroundpanther]

56. A sharing ethic

I share what I have. I like to share..
When I die none of what i have now will be mine, not even this body.
I come with nothing and I go with nothing, in between I borrow and share with all that ask.
Pretty simple really.People that fear communities are the ones who like to have to themselves and like the power having has over have nots..
This is a war of two ways of being.

One is about empathy,equality, sharing,respect,cooperation,negotiation,being fair,just and supportive,about love and taking care of each other and being cared about, the cycle of sharing and receiving and sharing what you receive.This kind of culture is about reciprocation and balance and the community relating together.

The other kind of culture is about isolation, a fear of insecurity,insignificance of the individual,it is obsessed with,legacy, domination,status,hierarchy and submission control and selfishness and winner takes all.It thrives on the suffering of many for the security and hedonism of the most ruthless few.
This is the kind of culture we have now and it cannot sustain itself without causing destruction of anything around it and eventually itself, it is like a cancer killing it's host,and when the host dies, it dies..

[otherlander]

67. But we can't expect people

to be driven by a want to help others. It's not how humans or any animals really work. If we were, democracy would work great. Communism would work great. But we're not. It's not a realistic expectation. Other animals take care of each other out of a sort of *self-interest*, not altruism, a desire to keep themselves alive by living in packs for hunting & protection and a desire to pass on their DNA and keep the young alive. We're really the only *social animals* that I can think of who, if we acted entirely out of self-interest, would only look out for ourselves. It's not a biological thing, it's just the way our society's set up. If any other species of social animal tried to operate in this way it would probably go extinct. Trying to understand how we got to be this way and why we're able to continue doing so. :shrug:

[Two Americas]

86. the exact opposite is true

Of course we can - and do - "expect people to be driven by a want to help others."

Human survival is contingent upon the undeniable fact that we are a cooperative and communal species, motivated primarily by altruism and helping others. It is only within community that the notion of individualism can even exist or makes any sense. Individualism that denies or breaks down community - and we can see this all around us - also destroys individualism. Haven't you noticed that the more everyone is "in it for themselves" the more simultaneous pressure there is for social conformity, and the more alike everyone thinks and acts?

The altruism of others that is the source of everything you have and are is taken for granted by you, that is all.

It is pure right wing libertarianism, the very essence of the poisonous right wing doctrine - to argue otherwise. That doctrine may well be the most severe threat to the survival of the human race that we have ever faced.

[otherlander]

119. Of course I've noticed that.

I'm not taking anything for granted. Don't tell me I'm taking things for granted. I'm just saying that the primary motivation to have a cooperative community isn't altruism, it's self interest: The better the community works, the more likely the individual is to thrive. The motivation is "give support, get support", and thus, the individual supports the community out of self-interest.

And, when raised in a cutthroat environment, where the motivation is not "give support, get support" but rather "make products, get products" the individual will often try to get products at the expense of others, because self-interest no longer motivates the individual to support the community. Altruism would still motivate the individual to support others, but we can't expect any species of animal to be primarily motivated by altruism.

Of course, if a group of individuals want to form a community where they take care of each other out of altruism, they're free to do so. There are all sorts of voluntary communities where this has worked, and continues to work, such as communes. I think I might like to live on a commune.

But we can't expect the entire HUMAN RACE to be altruistic, it's just not a realistic expectation. Human society as a whole works only when people are motivated to support each other out of self interest.

[otherlander]

120. Not going to answer, are you?

Can't disagree without someone without implying that they're a libertarian?

[warren pease]

35. The thing about corporate success: Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat. n/t

[Common Sense Party]

42. Define "rat race."

I know many people who are "corporate successes" who do amazing things for the community and for society, all while making a profit.

[Two Americas]

44. a mindset

You are illustrating it pretty well. It is the short-sighted and self-centered notion that it is following natural law to create dog-eat-dog societies of every man for himself.

[warren pease]

50. It's just a glib saying that's intended as the short version of...

..."The sky's the limit, son. Just keep your nose to the grindstone and you'll make full partner before you're 50. But remember: put in at least 60 hours a week every week or we'll replace your lazy, unproductive ass with somebody who's got a little better work ethic!"

In economic times such as we're experiencing now, it's also a synonym for "race to the bottom;" a competition that nearly all corporations take to like penguins to ice and that all of them desperately want to win.

Seen another way, the standard attitude of corporate management and execs regarding the intrinsic worth of human beings and the nobility of their labor -- expressed numerically -- looks about like this:

Intrinsic human worth: ~0
Nobility of labor: -57 and dropping fast
The god of productivity: +100 with a bullet

The alpha rats don't give two turns on the treadmill about anything but their own advancement, egos, net-worth, relative status in the group, upward mobility, stock options, corner offices, limos and glomming the corporate jet's window seats. Oh, and fawning chicks, too; lots of fawning chicks.

The worth of the humans who work for them, and therefore their rate of compensation, is measured mainly by how well they're able to abet these rat princes' power and status grabs.

Some people -- usually young, ambitious, healthy, fairly smart, borderline insane -- buy into this crap and live much of their lives by corporate rules and values. I've known quite a few of them over the years and although I seem to have no problem getting along with them as acquaintances and, rarely, friends, it's obvious that they see things through a very different lens than I do.

These are the people for whom the Japanese coined a word -- Karoshi -- that translates to "death from overwork." The condition had apparently become so commonplace that using more than one word to describe it was considered a waste of time that could be spent more productively.

So that's the rat race as I see it. Most people I've worked with don't have any ambitions to win it. Anything but. They just want to survive long enough to cash in their 401Ks and IRAs and go hopping and skipping and dancing out the glass door for the last time.

If this looks like a healthy, functional organism to you, by all means call it something more in keeping with that point of view. To me, a corporate environment -- not in all cases, I'm sure, but in all the ones I've observed first-hand -- is a dictatorship that intentionally introduces a climate of fear and uncertainty to keep the lower-to-mid-level workers, who are usually treated as interchangeable parts, in line.

Corporations stifle creativity; actually make important decisions relying on group-think; routinely insult their employees with petty rules and meaningless regulations put in place solely to demonstrate managerial power; and institute periodic cost-cutting measures that somehow never seem to include executive compensation, $750/night hotel suites or pointless travel on the corporate jet(s).

In short, if someone like B. F. Skinner set out to create a microcosmic environment the objective of which was to make the most people the craziest in the shortest period of time, I doubt he could do much better than simply replicate the totalitarian lunacy of the modern American corporation. Probably elsewhere, too, but my experience is confined to the US.

Sane people should keep their distance from these soul-suckers.


wp

[undergroundpanther]

59. Sane people should keep their distance from these soul-suckers.

I can't stand them, I want them all dead. I avoid them like poison. A world without bullies, narcissists,dominator's, psychopaths and authoritarians,that kind of world would require the end of corporate rule,"leaders" tolerance of abuse and by-standing, and the end of group think and the resurgence of sharing empathy and taking care of each other as people and cherishing ourselves and each other,respect for each other and ourselves and our world as well as valuing our worth in non economic terms and cherishing all of our freedom and dignity.

[Lex Talionis]

63. "I can't stand them, I want them all dead."

All I can say is. Hope you don't have access to any weapons or poison. Take your meds, you'll be OK. Personally, I like beating them at their on game.

[Matariki]

74. Have you ever heard it said that the thing people hate the most is what they themselves are.

That certainly seems to be true here - a bully hating bullies.

[Two Americas]

95. a common argument

This is the argument used throughout time to attack the powerless and defend the powerful. In the 1850's examples of "dangerous" slaves were used to say "see? The slaves are no better than the masters!" which was an effective argument for defending the system, and therefore for defending slavery. Here at DU I have often heard the argument that the "poor are not better human beings just because they are poor" or "not all rich people are bad people and I am tired of rich people being blamed" and most recently we are to believe that homeless people are oppressing and persecuting the people working in the "helping the poor and homeless" industry, or that professionals in the mental health field are somehow being oppressed and persecuted by their potential patients.

Master killing slaves is not “equal” to slaves idly wishing the master dead. See the difference? The fear of a slave insurrection is not s justification for leaving slavery in place, nor a defense of the system. Requiring the slaves to be perfect - and focusing on the slightest little shortcoming - while defending all masters based on the rare benevolent ones, is a function of the power imbalance, and of acceptance of that power imbalance.

It is the failure to see or acknowledge the power imbalances in society that is the main cause of the power imbalances, and the most important thing that any of us can do to keep those power imbalances in place.

[Matariki]

100. Do you just wait until a thread is long, then make a run through bash of posts?

And btw, while yes I do see a powerless person ranting, they are ironically ranting about some fantasy of power to kill people who annoy them. Hard to take anything seriously from a hateful person like that. I suspect if said person actually had any power they would be just they kind of bully they profess to hate.

[Lex Talionis]

103. Good riposte. point to you.

[Two Americas]

110. perhaps

For those keeping score.

This is a perfect illustration of the poisonous mindset that the OP is asking us to examine and consider.

Imagine seeing this thread as a contest where people earn points for destroying the opposition - by whatever means necessary, even at expense of ruining the discussion and angering or humiliating fellow human beings - and keeping score and trying to win. What would it say about a society where it was impossible to escape people who obsessively and compulsively did this?

Think about that. In other words, human beings cannot interact in any way for any purpose without score being kept and that being measured by people being destroyed.

[Mugu]

78. Wackos believe that they're the only sane ones. n/t

[Two Americas]

84. if what you say is true...

...you have just condemned yourself far more than you have the target of your hatred.

The human family can, and always has, supported and even learned and benefited from "wackos." Our greater family, however, cannot survive the dominance of judgmental and heartless people.

Throughout history those who have made the greatest and most enduring contributions to the well being and happiness of millions upon millions of human beings have struggled under the yoke of sneering and controlling domination by others and impoverishment and ridicule. Many of them - maybe most - could not get or keep a "job" and were misunderstood and mistreated by people around them. The most cruel mistreatment for us as human beings are the barbed and cruel and dismissive words that are used on us.

You don't know that you are sneering at a great person among us; that is not the point. You would not know whether you were or not, and wouldn't care, unless some person more powerful than you told you that you should care.

[Mugu]

90. Your response clearly illustrates my point.

[Two Americas]

92. hollow and empty

These little victories - little gotchas - that people indulge themselves in are hollow and empty. Not for me - they don't affect me much - but for the person using them. They are based on the false hope that by rejecting other people and treating them as pariahs, that this will keep their own ghosts and monsters - the ones that they are struggling to keep such a tight lid on - at bay and that they will find peace this way. But it does not work, and that is why they have to be used in larger and larger doses. It is like a drug, an addiction to denial and cruelty and indifference, that promises peace but that is needed in greater and greater amounts and that distorts everything in our lives. We can see this all around us - people in the terminal stages of this addiction - frantically defending the selfish individualism and the denial of their true natures, as their lives become more and more empty and meaningless.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

83. I love your writing, and the incredible intelligence behind the words.

Many accolades to you.

[Duer 157099]

37. God I couldn't agree more

I don't even need to add anything, that's how much in agreement I am.

[Lex Talionis]

61. More power to you, if you can live like you want to. n/t

[Neecy]

65. I've always worked for big corporations

And I don't expect them to care if I live or die. I don't expect anything from them except for a paycheck that allows me to to have a roof over my head and food on the table in return for my efforts.

The people I've worked for and worked with are just that - people. I don't project in advance that they're part of a 'psychopathic' or 'toxic' corporate culture or some kind of monsters. If you think that working at a job you aren't interested in might be soul-crushing or distressing then you have every right to feel this way and in the end you're responsible for the decisions you make for your life. But the world isn't really as scary or threatening as you may think.

Only you know what you can and cannot deal with, but to draw such sweeping conclusions seems like a cramping worldview. You'd be surprised at how many good people are out there.

[Skittles]

116. count me among them, Neecy

:hi:

[mondo joe]

68. You can be as productive or unproductive as you like. But you're well advised to set your

expectations to match.

[Two Americas]

107. ... or else!

(The unspoken second half of that statement.)

"Quit your crying or I'll give you something to really cry about!"

[undergroundpanther]

109. I know what you mean..

[Zorra]

70. Magnificently awesome post. Where have you been all my life?

[HCE SuiGeneris]

73. What I have been unable to express in words, you have defined for me.

Thank you very much for giving this voice. :cry: :hug:

[1]

88. nice... ok,,,

but how do you eat?

[Codedonkey]

99. with a fork, I bet.

[undergroundpanther]

111. LULZZZZ

Good one. But to be fair sometimes I use my hands..or a spoon or a spork...*Smirk*

[1]

113. cool...

good luck with that.

[Codedonkey]

101. I never viewed work or success like that.

I always viewed it as working toward a goal of doing something that I could enjoy doing... getting paid is just an extra plus...

[undergroundpanther]

112. Well if that's what you want..

But you have to ask at some point is it WORTH it.To give up so many years and your irreplaceable time alive ,and in my case my sanity for it?

[Der Blaue Engel]

117. The only thing I want to produce is my writing

I wish I could figure out how to live that life and not be part of the corporate system. I often have fantasies of "dropping out," living "off the grid," etc.

[elleng]

118. Care for others.

.