Thursday, April 09, 2009

Just be glad you have a job

Nobody is glad they have a job. They are glad they have some way to live with dignity.

Suffering indignity is not something to be glad about, even if you are deemed useful to an employer. People are used all the time -- but it is not because they are lucky. More often than not, it is because they are desperate. Desperation is not something to be glad about.

It may be true that we are living in an age which does not grant you well-being merely because you are a human being who, by nature, requires it. But we have lived through many ages -- and more than a handful rank pretty fucked up. Some people recognize this at the time -- for example, that slavery was not "cool," even if it was the basis of a preindustrial economy comprised of large landholders. This doesn't mean the sentiment always wins, or that it doesn't take a very long time for it to do so; but in any event it begins.

What this suggests is that now may not be the best time to start mistaking what is majorly fucked up about our own circumstances as "a fact of life," or anything to be grateful for. Everyone gets hit by issues of health and well-being in varying degrees; nevertheless, everyone gets hit.

The routing of every great crime begins with a culture of nonacceptance. It begins with a thought and ends with action.

2 comments:

cemmcs said...

I'm glad you're writing this blog. I have just been looking it over. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

"The routing of every great crime begins with a culture of nonacceptance. It begins with a thought and ends with action."

I am going to put those words over the desk at the job that I "should be happy" to have. Thankyou thankyou. So there is still hope for the nonacceptance of:
war
capital punishment
hunger
preventable ill health

It occurs to me that 200 years ago, all these things were more accepted as just a part of the way things are than today. "The arc of history is long, but..."