John Ralston Saul saith:
" . . . we live in a corporatist society with soft pretensions to democracy. More power is slipping every day over towards the groups. That is the meaning of the marketplace ideology and of our passive acceptance of whatever form globalization happens to take."
And a bit later:
"For the moment, I would like to expand on the particularity of gods, kings and groups. They cannot function happily within a real democracy--that is, within a society of individuals. They are systems devoid of what I would call disinterest. Their actions are based entirely upon the idea of interest. They are self-destructive because they cannot take seriously the long-term or the wider view, both of which are dependent on a measure of disinterest, which could also be called the public good or the common weal."
And a bit later still:
" . . . the policies being put in place throughout the West are based upon exactly the opposite [of disinterest & participation]. Everything, from school education to public services, is being restructured on the self-destructive basis of self-interest."
And latest:
"Am I exaggerating? Are we truly living in a corporatist society that uses democracy as little more than a pressure-release valve? . . . But then, I am not making an absolutist argument. What I am talking about is the direction our society has taken. And how far it has gone along that path."
from "The Great Leap Backwards" chapter of The Unconscious Civilization, 1995. And it seems to me that we have continued in that direction and have made great strides along that path.
John Ralston Saul is an amazing fellow. I first encountered his great mind in Voltaire's Bastards, which is definitely on "The List" of 25 Books to Read Before You Die. When I read him, things that were previously baffling or incoherent seem to snap into place. Why is America, argued by some to be the greatest nation on the surface of the planet in at least four dimensions, doing such a shitty job of educating, feeding, and giving medical care to its denizens? Answer: because it serves the self-interest of the small group(s) in power to not care about those things . . . or even to want to subvert those things. If you educate people poorly, they are incapable of thinking independently and do not cause (as much) trouble for the ruling group(s). If you don't feed the poor, they die off, they provide motivation for others who don't want to starve to work, they tend to reproduce less, they become isolated from any avenue to power . . . and you save the money that would have been expended upon their worthless hides. And medical care . . . pretty much the same thing, isn't it? It's an amazing propaganda coup there, though. Many Americans--even the poor--have been convinced that it is somehow anti-American to provide everyone with access to medical care. Despite the fact that many, most, or all industrialized nations in the world do this. And the coup is achieved via media manipulation and ideology construction. (And by the way, people who are poorly educated are much more susceptible to manipulation by media and ideology.)
Ah, fuck. Can I go live in Ireland now, please?
My dad was a mechanic and a fix-it-up (or at least try to) kind of guy. I have irrefutable proof that this trait is not inheritable. I not only don't work on my car, I don't even wash it. And I lease. I don't cut my own grass. And when something breaks, I buy a new one . . . 'cause it usually costs as much, almost as much, or more to have somebody repair it . . . and since I cannot distinguish between shit and shinola, I have no way of knowing if a repairman is being straight with me or is screwing me big time. I just recently had a reminder of that when I took my 30+ year old stereo amplifier to see if it could be fixed, and was told it would cost $120. I abstained, got a new one from Amazon for less than the fix-it price, and found that when they'd been fiddling around with the old amplifier, one of the channels started working again.
However.
When my washing machine started stopping when it got to the end of the rinse cycle, I knew two things: I did not want to pay someone to come to my house and fix it, and I did not want to buy a new one since I am now living in seriously reduced circumstances. So I tried to trick it, going to other cycles and clicking on, 'round and 'round and 'round. It worked. Sometimes I would just re-start the wash cycle from the beginning and that wold work. And then all of that stopped working. So I did what any 21st century man would do: I went on the internet. I Googled something like, "washing machine will not go to spin cycle." Much to my surprise, I found a video that told me that it was probably the lid switch assembly. I went back to my filled-up-with-water-and-clothes washer, opened it, found the little hole where the lid switch was, and stuck a metal rod in it. The washer started spinning. Voila. The next time I did the wash and it stopped I repeated the process, but this time was rewarded by a tiny explosion and a flash. And that was the end of that.
So I went back to the fix-it video and watched it through, and I thought, "I can do that." And I took my washing machine apart.
It took me forfuckingever, and I had to keep looking and re-looking at the video . . . and there were some things that I just had to figure out . . . but I got that motherfucker apart. I found the look of it quite disturbing . . . like it'd just been circumcised and was still feeling the pain.
And then I found that sonofabitching lid switch assembly and got it out of there, feeling manly and triumphant.
I spent a little time doing a tribal chant 'n' dance, then got Joe and drove up to Lowe's, trophy in hand, and headed for the plumbing aisle. Before I made it to the aisle, a nice young fellow asked if he could help me, and so at ease was I within my manly skin that I boisterously said, "Yes! I need one of THESE," and I shook my lid switch assembly at him. "What is that?" he asked, and I balked for a moment before coming up with a reasonably close approximation of "lid switch wire assembly"--thought I'm pretty sure that the word "thingie" crept in there somewhere. The guy knew what it was right away, though, and told me, much to my dismay, that they didn't carry those kinds of parts. He told me that there was a Sears store in the South End that might carry it . . . or I could order if from Sears online.
Well let me tell you, I was stunned. I thought that you could build the entire world and all there is that's in it with the shit you can buy at Lowes. The truth had not set me free, it had made me sad . . . so sad. (But isn't that what the truth usually does? The only thing the truth sets you free from is happiness.) I mumbily thanked the young fellow for his help and went over to look at the washing machines, all fervor for fix-it-up having died within me.
The prices ranged from about $600 (for a metal box with an industrious midget inside) to well over $1,000, which is a sizeable percentage of my worldly wealth. So Joe & I went home. And that's when the thought occurred to me: Amazon really does sell all the shit you need to build the world & etc. I looked over the part I had wrested from the body of my washing machine and found a number. I went to Amazon and typed that number, and this is what I found:
I compared what I held in my hand and what I saw on the page. I zoomed and compared some more. I hemmed. I hawed. And then I said to my self, "It's $3.99, for Christ's sake," and I put the thing in my cart and punched the proper sequence of buy buttons.
The part arrived Saturday afternoon. I opened it. I showed it to my girlfriend. And then I watched some basketball.
But this morning I girded my loins and went into the basement, cued up the video again, and went to it. It wasn't easy. It took me a looooong time to get the lid switch screwed into place. My back was really aching. It took me a loooooong time to do every step, and I had to keep backing the video up, watch, back up, watch. (Thank God for the wo/man who invented that little 10 second back up thingie on the videos. Without it, fix-it-videos & porn wouldn't be nearly as useful.)
And . . . ?
I just came up from the basement after putting my freshly washed clothes into the dryer.
And now only one question remains: Whose your daddy?
