Specialization

[The2ndWheel]

How much do you think the alienating factors of specialization have to do with how the world works today? From the functions of government, protests, war, whether this job and that job but not that job are sent away, to almost any decision you can possibily think of.

Do you want this process to continue? Does it have to continue with 6.5+ billion people on the planet? Not that you have a say in it, we have the smartest people from the best universities in government and private think tanks working on our future for you.

[Jim__]

1. That's an interesting question.

I've never though about how specialization could effect things outside of work. But I wonder, how many of us sitting in our little cubicles, pushing papers around are actually contributing to the war machine. And, since our work is so innocuous, so ordinary, we never consider how it effects the world.

So, specialization and ordinariness could be a part of the foundation of how the world works. Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth said that most people are intersted in the security of their own family and outside of that prefer to be left alone. That's why revolutionaries try to get the power structure to stike back. They know that power will over-react, they'll do things that will make it impossible for people to ignore them. When people can no longer ignore what's going on, they tend to be radicalized and seek to overthrow the power.

But, even if we are all contributing vitally to the war machine while we're sitting in our cubicles, and even if you could make people see this; that wouldn't make them react, because if they keep doing what they're doing, their lives remain ordinary and they can support their family.

It's the old Martin Niemoller syndrome all over, "First they came for the Jews ..." Today they are blowing up Iraq and Lebanon, But, they're so far away, and I have to feed my family. And when the war comes home, there will be no one left to help us.