A kick to the eye. The sudden illumination, awakening. Then what? We’re faced with a choice- act boldly, or obsequiously fall in line.
It’s often said, we are social creatures. But what does that mean? Our genome evolved over millions of years (over a hundred thousand for our exact species). We were formed and given form through hunter/gather/foraging methods. Small bands of people acting cooperatively, non-hierarchal power structures, harmonious interaction with the land and its lifeforms.
Then, yesterday, or a few thousand years ago, through agriculture and pastoral living- we became sedentary, fenced in by boundaries and ideologies, controlled. Our population mushroomed, territories were annexed. Horsemen were elevated to warriors, shamans and chiefs told us what was what, the conquering hero was set loose upon the world. While the amount of labor- and dull labor at that- increased exponentially.
Yet through it all our DNA, though infinitely diverse, is still paleolithic in its essence. We were made to take care of each other, to love and respect what we kill and eat. To integrate, not dominate.
Flash forward to now. We’ve become so highly sedentary, voyeuristic, abstracted, that the modes of our existence are hardly noticed. Like fish in water. We sleep through our days, even though what we term soul is still aroused by the eternal verities; storms, acts of kindness, birth and death.
So what is the bone I’m picking here? Why the roundabout discourse? I’m trying to understand, get a perspective that matters. This is my town, my so-called tribe, so I’m reaching out, just like in primordial times.
When you live within the bubble it’s easy to pretend all is well enough. But get sequestered, or downsized, as I recently have, then it’s painfully clear “the system” is not what it’s cracked up to be. We don’t live for each other anymore. We are dispensable. Line items to be juggled by the chiefs and their priests.
In my case it’s hard to just let this go. Not because the years invested were wasted and my livelihood was stripped, but because the logic behind the cut is so shortsighted. And the potential harm done to our youth so significant. I brought this to the attention of our leaders, but have been ignored. The decision was made to eliminate tech support for the elementary schools, to save a few bucks.
For a people who supposedly value their tools, and live by the benefits and virtues of our technological superiority, we sure have fallen a long way.
Thank Corpse America
How many trees in a forest does it take before you can no longer see just one? Everywhere in nature overgrowth tends to lead to crowding-out the land, the sky, the water so that the very elements themselves seem to lose their cohesion and become amorphous globs.
To identify us “line items” as dispensable is a result of the slap in the face we get from downsizing and/or outsourcing. Some are taken by surprise, some don’t see the writing on the wall but in all cases we are devalued with little recourse to defend ourselves from the vagaries of all that’s what’s wrong with our American and our cousin’s workforces overseas.
The way down is an easy slide. The way up is just another mountain of despair. Thanks to Corpse America our economy is riddled with creditors and debtors, buying and selling, banks versus people…
The problem package, as you know, is that the primary economic paradigm is that corporations are profit-driven. Very little happens in life unless it is filtered through corporations. Along with the good of corporations comes the bad.
And corporate society can never shake the bad elements: abuse of power, inequitable wages, pinhead top down hierarchy, executive decisionmaking by a few out of portion to the total workforce, inhumane and destructive corporate behavior and much more “bad” not listed here. Ironically, the most important thing we need to do – undo the corporate powerbase – is the one thing we can never do.
We’re too busy struggling day to day to take out time to change the world.
Don't despair
Another quality inherent in the human, regardless of whether we are looking out for others or for ourselves, or even when seeking to destroy one another, is perseverance… where there’s a will, there’s a way.
I see you as one who perseveres so in a sense, your article doesn’t even sound like the spinoza I’ve come to know on these pages. I suspect the decision to eliminate can be reversed.
The best decisions, generally speaking, are a byproduct of intense pressure, but for the lack of that, sound reasoning combined with persistence at minimum.
This has been true forever I think. Just more complicated in trying to achieve desired results and stay within the confines of the law at the same time; but maybe, not really so true in the end; why I’ve heard that in some cases there have been uprising and war when only one person chooses to assert their will !
So, once you recover from your brutal realization that we are often trumped as individuals or a defined community of people, by so many other influences and variables, what are you going to do, and what can we do to help?
Reasoning and persistence
“All the reasonings of a man are not worth one sentiment of woman.”
~Voltaire
Spiral of Silence
Thank you both for perceptive and encouraging words.
Part of what gets me so down is captured well by this recent article.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-skeptics-break-the-cycle-of-false-beliefs Dictators and Diehards
When we figure what to do about this, locally and globally, then we’ll be getting somewhere.
Creativity, an endangered act
It should be made clear that cuts to technology, which passed in today’s school budget vote, means elimating my position. This has consisted of me being the sole person in the three elementary schools to help teachers, staff, administrators and students with simple computer use and operations. You’d be surprised how many people don’t know how to field the most basic tasks, like opening a document, copying and pasting, resizing a window, taking a picture, etc.
But more specifically, I’m titled the technolgy integration specialist, and that involves introducing and facilitating use of programs in classes K-6; to make movies, learn new devices, take slide shows, set up virtual museums, create blogs, construct timelines, create digital newsletters, use word processing suites, animate blood cells, make comics and graphic stories, playlists, and oral histories. I’ve also help classes make film festivals, or tour remote places with google earth, document field trips.
In addition, and somewhat apart from this—though ideally it shouldn’t be–I’ve built, maintain, and try as much as possible to advance the schools web sites. Each school has its very different approach, and their results vary as well. In short, many are the opportunities to use the tools, if people want to seize them, I’m there to help.
I’m sharing this view here for the general public as to what was just cut and is now not offered. In my five years in the job I’ve not met with the Superintendant, or the School Board, or the administrators as a whole to share with them my progress on what I see in the field. Though I have tried to initiate this many times, it has never come to pass.
—
These learnings and productions are foundations of creativity, especially as it realtes to exploration on the cusp of modern tools. In the language of my original post, from my point-of-view, it seems the message now is– Firemaker, Cave Painter, Sky Watcher…your services are no longer needed. .. Good luck with that!
Irony is..
So, there was a point in time at today’s meeting where Dora Bouboulis asked/motioned that some funds be made available to the school board so they’d have some money to begin televising their meetings; that they’d be able to escape a vacuum that now exists.. by drawing in more people (and therefore more interest) from the general population.
It was made clear that this was the intention of the school board, (but we can’t tell them how to specifically spend.. ). So, now it’s all the more confusing that they’d eliminate your position when clearly they seem to agree with the need in the modern world for the use of this specific technology.
The rationale isn’t adding up as to why they’d eliminate your position when it’s clear they want to advance their own by the use of technology.
If I were you, I’d offer myself as a consultant, or in some other capacity to see if there’s a way back in on different terms? I have a feeling this will become a situation, very quickly, of not missing the water til the well runs dry. I happen to agree with you that they’ve really made a big mistake by eliminating your position.
It doesn’t help your employment situation in an immediate sense, but if I were you, I’d use technology to make a presentation and offer my services to other schools or organizations who have a better awareness of the need. Freelance. I have worked at various jobs over the years where employers sent groups of their employees out for training on the very basics you’ve mentioned. The employees loved it, and obviously, it was to the benefit of the employer at the end of the day.
A final note, and although this might not sound like the nicest thing, but the last thing I’d do is offer to give any of my knowledge away without compensation. I mean, once it’s given away, there’s even less of an opportunity to convince anyone it has value worthy of a paycheck.
Act boldly or fall in line
This essay covers so much territory and so much of it rings true that it’s hard to really know what to say. I think many of us are on the horns of the same dilemma. We care very much but we don’t know what to do. Meanwhile, some of our problems are so big and looming that if we don’t act boldly, we’re going to be mown down.
Our Spinoza writes:
“We’re faced with a choice- act boldly, or obsequiously fall in line.”
And also:
“We’re social creatures…”
Presumably if we’re social creatures, we’re going to want other people to be acting boldly too. There aren’t that many people acting boldly right now. And then, when you have no idea what to do, it’s hard to act boldly. Acting requires that you have an action in mind. Which leaves us with what to do? Such a conundrum for so many. Hell, even Bill Moyers seemed frustrated on tv today, sounding almost sarcastic when he told his guest that his answers to our current economic problems were “very imaginative.”
I think part of the answer lies in the second part of the equation: “or obsequiously fall in line.” I’m not sure Americans are that good at that, so while we may not act boldly, there’s a chance we might react boldly.
Anyway, I’m glad to hear these questions asked out loud. It helps me to know others are thinking along the same lines. And if we all start talking about what we’re up against, and where we are, and other pressing life questions, I think we might stand half a chance of getting through whatever lies ahead. Otherwise, current signs are not encouraging. If anything, small victories aside, Western Civilization seems to be going in the wrong direction.
Essential Tech
I was dismayed by the response at Representative Town Meeting that the tech position was cut to be replaced with “enhancement”, which I understand to be a code-word for improving standardized test scores.
At a time when we should be increasing tech education, we seem to be cutting back on it. We do have some good afterschool and Career Center programs that touch on techie things. Kids around here can more easily learn the rudiments of music, theater, or circus skills (all great skills) in established programs around town. We have no equivalent for the tinkering sort, and we should.
(We tried to fill this void with a Maker Workshop effort last year, but the response was somewhat flat. Maybe we were too soon.)
Good tech jobs for graduates require more than knowing how to use a phone. You need to know how sites and apps are built, how to plan and code, and all the related intelligences to create a working prototype.
Perhaps it is hard to teach things we don’t understand, and easy to get rid of them. There were some eloquent defenses of language programs and dual credit college-level courses at Representative Town Meeting, and it was explained how these skills helped raise kids from poverty. It’s important to put money in, we were told, early on to save money later.
I’d say the same is true of technology.