in these “modern” times, we have many types of roles to play…
Husband, wife, sister, son, daughter, aunt… are some of the roles
we engage with personally… but we also play a vast number of roles
within society…as worker, as producer, as consumer are some of the roles
we play… but we also play at being a citizen, American, Patriot… among the
roles we publicly play at…we see this with UR… he is always, always
whining about the roles we play as American’s…that the most important
role we play is the role of a “patriotic American”… every other role is
unimportant… but ask yourself, is my role as American, English,
French, Russian… whatever it may be, really the most important role
one can play?
as if being an American, or English or Russian is the most important role
we can play? for most of us, the economic role playing is the most important
role we can play…to be an worker is the highest role one can play,
or to be a consumer is the highest role or to be a producer… my role
at work is to be a worker, as I don’t create anything…I simply scan products
into the system to “correctly” charge the customer…my job doesn’t have me
create anything…I don’t make sandwiches or make a cake… I simply ring up
the act of creation by someone else…I can’t see how anyone could make it
the role of existence as being a worker or a producer or a consumer…
in other words, we find meaning in doing something other than our jobs…
and we don’t find meaning in our consumption of goods… that “valuable” TV
set has no value in 5 years and is disposed of… how is that, in any sense of the word,
valuable?..
what is the highest praise we can offer someone? that they are “professional”…
I find that “praise” to be a damning one… for that is what defines a “modern”
person, one who is professional… and at what cost to their soul?
Kropotkin