an attempt to understand modernity....

it cannot be doubted that our “modern” state is one of
doubt, mistrust, fear, anger and even hate… but what has
brought about this outlook?

I have laid out one possibility of this “modernity”…

the conflict between the Enlightenment and the next period, the Romantic
era…we see both of these in our modern times… conservativism is
a Romantic outlook… to hold to one’s feeling as being supreme is Romantic…
whereas the Enlightenment find its ideal in science and rationality…

the tale of the twentieth century can be told as a conflict between Romanticism and
the Enlightenment…

let us bring into the mix one more factor… Socrates and his motto’s…

to know thyself and the unexamined life isn’t worth living…

let us think about these things in light of the event that shattered the
20th century… the Holocaust…the event that has made us rethink
what we are…

we might be able to think about our times, history itself in terms of before
Auschwitz and after Auschwitz…

what was the occasion of the Holocaust? let us think about the Holocaust in
terms of Socrates maxims… to know thyself and the unexamined life isn’t worth living…

what drove the Nazi’s then and today? hate… pure and simple…they hate everyone
who isn’t what they are…the ideal Aryan/Nazi is white, male, blond hair, and the
one that is hard to cover, they are clean… but what does that mean? that the Jews
were considered to be unclean, that homosexuals were considered to be unclean…
that communists were considered to be a danger to the new world order of Nazism…
if not unclean themselves…but how does one figure out what is clean and
what is unclean? part of the breakdown for sure was racial, but I suspect that
the meaning of unclean comes from an ethical understanding…
truth and justice was clear and obvious from a Nazi standpoint…
you held these ideals… if you didn’t, you were unclean…and the
ideals were ethical ideals…hitler was driven by ethics to pursue
an utopian project of improving the human race…
who did he have tossed into prison? those whose ethics weren’t
ethics he approved of…he wanted to have clean, pure Germans…
but that understanding of clean and pure, what did that actually mean?

here we reach Socrates first maxim… to know thyself…

they made no attempt to understand what drove their hate or their anger…
German propaganda was such that if you weren’t “clean or pure” it was clearly
the fault of someone else… how can you be pure ethically if everyone around you
isn’t clean or pure? To remove those who prevented you from being clean or pure, that
was the point of the concentration camps…to remove those who weren’t clean or pure
from German life…but the fact is, an honest appraisal of oneself would have
brought an understanding that one’s ethical failure is one’s ethical failure…
there is no one else to blame… and that flies in the face of being human…
blame some else for one’s one failure is what we do as human beings…
and one of the prime directives of Nazism… why can’t I be a “good” human
being? well its clearly because of someone else…left to me own devices, I
clearly would be a “good” human being… because well, look at me…I am white,
male, “Pure”… I would be gold if it weren’t for others contaminating me…

here comes the second Socratic maxim… the unexamined life isn’t worth living…

had one engaged in an honest examination of one’s life, and then take
responsibility for that life, we would see that our failure to be a “good” human
being (whatever that means) was our responsibility… we are the result of
our work or lack of in work to who we are… who we are is the result of
our own efforts…

here come the second concept we should engage with… Autonomy…

Autonomy: 1. the quality or state of being self-governing especially:
the right of self government…

2.self-directing freedom and especially moral independence personal
autonomy…

the question of the Nazi’s is the question of Autonomy…if you accept the Nazi
viewpoint that the state is in corruption because of “others” who are unclean
and un pure…you are not engaged in being Autonomous…to hold others
guilty of your own state is not “self-directing freedom and especially
moral independence personal autonomy”

to say others are to blame for one not being clean is to admit to
avoiding being Autonomous…in other words, avoiding responsibility
for one’s own being and actions, is not being Autonomous…for freedom
must come with accepting responsibility for who one is and their actions…

so we return to the Enlightenment, one of the moral obligations of
the enlightenment was the personal attempt to become Autonomous…
it was the central feature of Kant’s writings…how to become
an Autonomous person was one of the key features of Kant…
and his answer was duty… to hold to duty is to be autonomous…

if we accept the idea that the Romantic era was oppose to the
Enlightenment, then they oppose this idea of becoming Autonomous…
and this holds true all the way to today… look at the GOP… a Romantic
organization if there ever was one… and look at what the GOP does to
anyone, anyone who opposes the standard line… look at how the GOP
cancelled Liz Chaney because she wouldn’t toe the party line that
IQ45 won the election…the most most important ideal in the GOP
is “ideological purity”…and that is as far away from being an Autonomous
person as one can be…and in this, the GOP is no different then the Nazi
party in holding to “ideological purity” or any different then the Soviet Union
party during the 30’s when it held the “great purge”…
removal of any who didn’t subscribe to the party line…with its “Show trials”

so the “modern” man must begin to engage in an understanding to
Know thyself and then to engage in an examination of one’s own life…
and to that I offer up the next maxim… to become Autonomous
one must, must take responsibility for one’s own life…for the bottom line
with Socrates is to become an Autonomous person… that was his “formula”
to become Autonomous…

we can see here, at ILP, the denial of responsibility, the attempt to avoid
any accounting of one’s life, the refusal to engaged in an examination
of one’s life… each of these is part of being a “Modern” man…

if we fail to have some engagement with our own personal responsibility,
if we fail to attempt to become “Autonomous” people…
if we fail to Know thyself, then we face more
possibilities of the Holocausts in our future…

Kropotkin

so what is exactly different that we can name our age “modernity”…

it seems to me, there are several reasons, as to their value, that is debatable…

one: we in this “Modern’’ age have come to believe that ''GOD IS DEAD”…
and all the ensuing complications arising from that notion that “GOD IS DEAD”…
part of being “modern” lies within that concept of ''GOD IS DEAD"…

It is an attempt to be “Autonomous” free from the effects of religion…
but we have turn from being Autonomous in Religion to being held hostage
in its replacement religion, we have turned from Religion to the STATE
as an replacement for religion… just as we need to be Autonomous from
religion, we need to become the long process of being Autonomous in
the political sphere… communism, democracy, monarchy, anarchism
are all replacements for religions… we have simple change our prayer from
the church to the STATE…

we cannot be Autonomous if we are down on our knees praying to the church or
its modern replacement, the STATE…

two: we have not come to some accountability to what it means to be human given
the various revolutions that have dominated our Modern times… for example,
we have yet come to terms with the scientific revolution, even though that
has lasted for the last 500 years… we have yet come to terms with the political
revolution created by the French Revolution…we have yet come to terms with
the Industrial revolution that has transformed society from a rural agricultural society
to our modern, industrial, complex society…we have yet come to terms with the
capitalistic takeover of the economic world…a revolution as it were…

we haven’t caught up with our dramatic changes that has occured within our
society within the last 200 years… in other words, we are dealing with
a modern, industrial 20th century with 18th or 19th or even 20th century idea’s
and beliefs…we hold beliefs that don’t match the reality on the ground…
hence we are lost and confused as to what it means to be human…
for what it means to being human has changed during the last 200 years
and we haven’t caught up to that…

  1. one of the dramatic changes in our society/cultural has been the change
    between the relationship between the individual and the society…
    we haven’t, yet, worked out how the individual fits into society
    and what role the society plays within our individual life…

and this question relies on the previously mentioned question of
Autonomy… how do we become Autonomous people given
the intrusive nature of modern society?

how do we find a balance between being individuals and being members
of a state/society/culture? this balance has been lost… it may have been one
of the reasons that the prior society, the western society lasted true to form for
over 500 years…from say, 1400 to 1900… man knew his place within society…
it was spelled out in clear and understandable terms…
not so much today… and perhaps, perhaps, that is one of the reasons we
are so lost in todays Modern world?

capitalism has isolated us from each other and turned us into atoms,
floating within a society that doesn’t give a shit about us unless we are
producing profits… being productive citizens…capitalism has loosened
the relationship between the individual and the society/state/culture…

the only relationship capitalism forces on everyone is the connection
we hold to money, to profits… society under capitalism directly
and quite clearly tells us we hold less value then the money/profits we
produce…that information devalues us, demeans us… we lose our
connection to our state/culture/society if are only connection to
the state/culture/society lies within the profits we create…

if you want to reconnect man to our society, then we must challenged
capitalism attempt to atomized us as human beings… that we only have
value if we are “productive members of society”… creators of profits…
otherwise we have no value, no use to modern society… this disconnection
of human beings from society has helped create our Modern society…

to succeed we must reconnect human beings to society as our value must
come from something other then the creators of profits…
we must have value within a society by other means then just creators of profits…

the question of our humanity lies in finding a new meaning of what it means to be human…
more then just a creator of profits… but something that holds value to society…
what connects us to a society/state/culture other then profits?

I hold value even if I don’t produce profits… that is a revolutionary statement…

and in that statement lies the beginning of the next step in what it means to be human…

the next revolution is to admit that human beings hold value even if they don’t believe
in god, don’t pray to a state, even if they don’t go to church… even if they don’t create
profits… we still have value…that is the next revolution…

Kropotkin

in thinking about Modernity, we think in terms of the ism’s and
and ideologies that Modernity has brought about in the last 500
years… capitalism, communism, socialism, progress (yes, even progress
is an ism) not to mention all the smaller ism’s like “Dadaism” for example…
and Continental philosophy as another example…

think about these various “Ism’s”…the one thing I am struck by is the
various ism’s don’t have an ending point… think about Catholicism…
it has a beginning, a middle and a very definite end… the end that
we are supposed to desire and want…a big part of religion is within the
eschatology of that religion…but notice in our modern ism’s and ideologies,
that “last things”, eschatology doesn’t exists within those ism’s and ideologies…

think about say communism…there is not a real final ending… we simple reach
the classless society and then we live happily ever after…there is no end per se…

or think about that particular modern ism, consumerism… there is no ending imagined…
we just go on buying things until we die… there is no conclusion or ending in
consumerism…the same goes for democracy or progress or socialism…
ism’s without any final option… there is no eschatology in our modern ism’s and
ideologies…

we see in our modern world that there doesn’t seem to be any type of goal or
destination as we act… we are without type of ending or final conclusion in
the modern world… we don’t have an eschatology in the modern world…

now there is talk of the “final man” the one who exists at the end of the final
actions of ism’s or ideologies…one might glibly say, will the last man
at the end of capitalism or democracy, please turn out the lights when he leaves…

but we don’t really hold that to be true… there is no ending here… just a
cessation of motion…in other words, our ism’s and ideologies fall victim to
entropy… our ism’s and ideologies simply stop working because of
entropy… nothing else, just the loss of energy ends our world…

which in a very real sense is what is going to happen…our world dies not with
a bang, but with an whisper and that final whisper word is “Entropy”…the final word
in human history will be “Entropy” as is the final end of every thing,
everything in existence will end because of entropy…that is a fact, jack…

the real human struggle is not a struggle for existence or a Darwinian struggle
for existence, nope, the human struggle is against a force we cannot possible
defeat… entropy…but we human beings are so limited in our thinking that
we cannot understand anything outside of our 4 dimensions… and we still
don’t understand time… so we actually think within the box of 3 dimensions…

part of our failure, part of, is the lack of an eschatology, a study of the “last things”…

those things do exists, we will reach our “last thing” in our own personal
existence… so what does our ''last day" supposed to look like?

and we face the “last days” in relationships, in our business dealings,
in institutions, in events like earthquakes and fires… so we face
the “end times” both personally, death, and in our collective dealings…
a business failure or the lost of a societal institution… take the
Whig party for example… at one time, the Whig party was a powerful
force in our country… it exists today only in name…
and we have seen the end times of religions like the Egyptian or the
Greek Religion…

the autopsy report on the “Pagan” religions of the ancient world is
simply this, “death by entropy” the loss of energy going into that
particular religion…and any loss of energy into any type of system can
be fatal…think of a car with a loss of its energy, gas… it is “fatal” to
a car to run out of gas… it stops…
and the same goes true for political parties, institutions, religions,
the state, social groups, and even culture and society at large…

our current religion, consumerism and materialism, will end, stop once
we put stop putting energy into it… and that is what we must do…
if we are to save our souls, we must end the religion of consumerism…
we must think about ending our modern religions… but not to return to
the old religions, of thinking about going to heaven and avoiding hell
and some sort of engagement with the word of god… for that ship has
sailed… for haven’t you heard… god is dead and we have killed him…

there is no point in putting our energy into something that is dead…
it is dead… we don’t put energy into dead dogs or dead people… they are dead…
and we must put our energy into the living, be it people, ism’s, ideologies,
institutions, or political parties…

but we must become aware of the fact that something will live as long as we
put energy into it… the loss of energy is entropy and enough entropy,
the loss of energy means the death of something… and now we see how god died…
we didn’t kill him with a knife or a gun, we simple withdrew out energy from god…
he died from entropy…the loss of energy… but if we failed to put our energy into god,
then where did we put our energy into? that much is clear, into the new religions
of capitalism/consumerism, into the new religions of politics, into the new religion
of communism…if we withdraw our energy from something, it dies…

and so Kropotkin, do you have a point coming, soon, maybe?

yes, the point is quite simple, we can have ism’s and ideologies,
but we must have an engagement with the goal and destinations
of those ism’s and ideologies…
what is the goal of a particular ism or ideology? that is the new
engagement… what goal are we attempting to reach… what
shall we put our energy into? one of the Kantian/Kropotkin questions
of existence… where shall we engage our energy into?

and what shall we kill when we remove our energy from something?

what are you calling for Kropotkin?

simple this… we must think of existence in terms of how much energy we
want to put into something… we must reevaluate things in terms of
the energy we spend on something…and what goal is worth our
expenditure of energy? for energy is the final arbiter of existence…
not time, not money, not buying things… but energy…

in our renewal of thinking, we begin with a consideration of how much
energy we must put into something to keep it alive…

in other words… we first, last and everything in the middle, we
consider most of all, energy… and then the point or goal of the use
of that energy…is the goal/destination worth spending that much energy
on?

so let us put this into practical terms… should we spend money… which is just
another form of energy, should we put our money/energy into large tax cuts for
the wealthy? no, because that type of energy/money expenditure isn’t worth the
effort to make… it doesn’t create enough energy for us to use to make it worthwhile…
to create a tax cut must mean we must create more energy in that action to make it
worthwhile… in other words, a tax cut must create more energy in its use or it
has no value… if we give the middle class or the working poor an tax cut, that
will create more energy then we spent on creating that tax cut…

we must rethink our actions in terms of, how much energy does this action create?

we must create more energy in our solutions then our solutions spent…

so we must create more energy then our solutions use up…so that gives
us a course of action… for example, we can create far more energy
boosting an infrastructure plan then we can with a tax cut…
we have studies that show for every dollar we spend on infrastructure,
we earn back $2.22 cents and when we give out tax cuts, we earn back
88 cents… in other words, we get back more energy/money by a dollar
worth of infrastructure work then we do by tax cuts…now there isn’t
a goal or destination in our ongoing infrastructure work, but we do save
money in our attempts to boast the infrastructure because for every
bridge that fails because we failed to improve it before it failed,
we saved time, energy, money by doing so ahead of time…

so we rethink how we do things by an understanding of our initial energy
expenditure and how much energy we get back by our actions…

energy becomes the tool by which we act upon… how much
and what do we get in return…

and we understand our goals and destinations also by the use of energy
and the return of energy from that action…

energy becomes the fact by which we act and understand the world…

Kropotkin

now I have brought up two separate and distinct idea’s…
one is energy and the other is Autonomy…
how do we connect these two separate idea’s?

let us rethink what we think about ism’s and ideologies?

perhaps we might think of our allegiance to ism’s and ideologies as
another form of groupthink… we use ism’s and ideologies to
avoid our own autonomy in thinking about matters… in other words,
we groupthink when we think about our values in terms of such ism’s
and ideologies as communism or capitalism…when the defense of
capitalism arises, the idea is that the society has benefited from
capitalism… we don’t think in terms of the individual when we
defend capitalism…we groupthink it in terms of how everyone
has benefited from capitalism…

but in terms of being Autonomous, we no longer depend on such groupthink
as thinking of capitalism as being a benefactor of society at large…

in being autonomous, we no longer groupthink in terms of ism’s or
ideologies…we look at society or the culture in terms of
what it means to human without any reference to capitalism…

and in being Autonomous, we can now judge such ism’s and ideologies
in their own terms of energy spent and energy that is returned…
and we can see that in terms of energy spent and energy returned,
capitalism, we expend a great deal of energy without an equal or greater
return of energy… in other words, capitalism doesn’t return the same amount
of energy we spend on it…it is an energy waster… it requires more energy
then it returns to us…thus we must reject capitalism as a waste of energy…

and we can only achieve this thought once we no longer engage in
the groupthink of capitalism…

but where does that leave us?

what ism or ideology brings back more energy then it expends?

I hold that a form of communism does just that…as capitalism only
benefits those at the top and not the entire society, it is a waste of
energy… whereas if we are able to benefit all of the society, then
that expenditure of energy is worth it… the initial cost,
brings back a greater amount of energy then the initial expenditure,
and that makes it worth while… and I see communism/socialism
as bringing back a greater benefit to society, in terms of energy spent
vs energy returned…

let us look at business and the all might pursuit of profits…
we can see we spend a great deal of energy in this pursuit
of profits… but does this expenditure of energy bring back an
equal amount of energy to the largest group of people… the workers…
nope, the money/energy gained by this pursuit of profits is going to
those who own the stocks, or upper management… it doesn’t benefit
the ones who have expended their energy in the pursuit of profits…
the workers don’t get enough return on their energy to make
capitalism worth it as a worker… as a small number of upper management
and stockholders the energy expenditure is worth it, but for the vast
number of workers who actually do the work and expend energy on it,
no… not at all… capitalism doesn’t bring back enough energy to
justify it…but once again it comes back to the goal… what is the goal/
destination for us workers? to be able to work 40 plus years and then retire
for maybe 10 years, is that the ratio of work and reward worth the 40 years
of work? no, not at all…capitalism only becomes worth it if, if we
work for about 20 or 25 years and be able to retire before age 60…
then the energy spent and energy reward becomes worth it… otherwise,
no… as workers, we don’t get enough reward from spending our lives
creating wealth for others to spend our lives working… the reward
of energy spend as oppose to energy gained is not worth it in capitalism…
as a worker… now as an owner or a stockholder, then yes, the energy
expenditure is worth it…or as upper management, yes, the energy spent
is worth it as oppose to the return of energy to one… we see that
in terms of the salaries of upper management… when a CEO can make
millions for a short time at work, when a worker can barely keep
one step ahead of poverty or even starvation… while spending
a great deal of energy in just holding one’s head above water…

it isn’t worth our energy to work in a capitalistic society…
the rewards aren’t worth the energy expenditure…
we spend more energy, far more energy then we get in return from
capitalism…

remove yourself from the groupthink of capitalism and think for yourself,
is the energy you expend worth the reward you get back from capitalism?

that is what Autonomy means… thinking for oneself about what matters…
not as a member of groupthink, but as an individual member of society…

is modern society worth the expenditure?

not from a worker standpoint… we expend more energy then we get back
and that makes capitalism a bad deal… a very bad deal…

so what is next? don’t groupthink it, be an individual, be autonomous…
and think about what is worth the expenditure of energy and what
one gains back in energy… that is the goal to attempt for…

that is the point of being autonomous… to think about what it means
to exists and the Kantian questions of existence… “what am I to do?”

and think about that Kantian question in light of energy spent and the
reward of energy returned…

Kropotkin

What have we understood today, Kropotkin?

K: that you are not very intelligent at all…

Kropotkin

in thinking about Modernity and the ARTS… I was thinking of the formation
of the ART form that is Literature…the Novel specifically…
and I was trying to work out/understand the novel and what it means
to be Autonomous…is there a connection and what is it?

The period of the Enlightenment has been debated…some list it being from
1750 to the French Revolution… others such as Jonathan Israel, suggests that
the Enlightenment began as early as 1685 and lasted until 1715 or perhaps as late
as 1750… let us take the figure of 1700, split the baby as it were, to say 1750…
so the Enlightenment began in 1700… and what is the driving idea behind the
Enlightenment? To become Autonomous human beings… to be free of the
superstitions and mythology of the church…the Catholic church to be exact…
and what was the motto of the Enlightenment?

Sapere aude… “dare to know” or loosely translated, “dare to know things”
or even more loosely, “dare to be wise”…

this Enlightenment pursuit of being Autonomous lasted for centuries…

now let us think back to the ART form of Literature… the Novel…

What we might see as the first Novel is of course, Don Quixote…
and the first part was published in 1605… but when did the ART form of
the Novel began to really develop? For example, Defoe Novel,
“Robinson Crusoe” was published in 1719…and other novels such
as Tristram Shandy…was published in 1759… and once again we might
hold that the ART form of the Novel was created during the age of
the Enlightenment…the question arises, is there a connection
between the rise of the Novel and the age of Enlightenment?

I hold yes, that there is a connection between the two…
I hold that the ART form of the Novel rose because of the
Enlightenment belief in the pursuit of being Autonomous…

so how does this work? I believe that the ART form of the novel is
an attempt to show us how to become Autonomous people via fiction…
Novels are attempts to be examples of what an Autonomous person might
look like in this situation or that situation…

and we can see this attempt to be autonomous via the Novel even
as late as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky… the “Brothers Karamozov” is
one long rumination on what it means to be an Autonomous person…
as is “Crime and Punishment” and of course, “Notes from the Underground”…

so for over a 100 years the Novel was a stand in for a consideration of
what being Autonomous meant…but think about the novels of the 20th
and 21st century have been…as the novel is a fictionalized version of
what it means to be Autonomous, what does the 20th and 21st century Novel
tell us?

that the list of "Great novels’’ begins with Ulysses written by James Joyce
published in 1922…think of Bloom’s journey around Dublin… it is an Autonomous
journey, but a rather pointless one… what is gained by Bloom being Autonomous?
Nothing, he wanders about Dublin with no plan in mind and events just sort of
occur to him…he never achieves anything or reaches anything like a
understanding of what that day meant or achieved…
one day in the life of Leopold Bloom… and even the other main character,
Stephen Dedalus, never seems to achieve any type of understanding of what
that day or any other day means in or to his life…

just like our days, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”

and in the end, where Molly seems to answer “yes” yes, to the question of
accepting this life of ours that doesn’t seem to have any type of point
or meaning…yes, we can be Autonomous and yet it doesn’t lead us
to any understanding of what it means to be human…

the point of being Autonomous is that it allows us to achieve some
understanding of what it means to be human… we are free to give
our lives meaning…but the question arises that of all the great novels
of the 20 century, none of them has been written in the last 50 years?

in a list of ''great"" novels of the 20th century, the latest one written was
“Catch 22” published in 1961… 60 years ago…and in that book examines
the concept of being Autonomous… there is no autonomous actions in this
book because it is about a monolithic structure like the Air Force…
and the term, “Catch 22” is about a no-win situation… which is nothing if
not a great description of the modern age…

today’s novel is no longer about being Autonomous…and thus has lost
its power to change and move us…

we cannot be Autonomous in our modern age, thus the novels written
in this age cannot be about being autonomous… like the novels that
were written for 200 years…

our ism’s and ideologies are oppose to and actively fight being autonomous…
think of capitalism… there is nothing in capitalism that suggests that one
should be autonomous… in fact, the major possibility of our “modern” man is
to be a “good” citizen, to be someone who is “economic producer” one who creates
profits… for that is the highest ideal in our modern capitalistic society…
not to be autonomous, but to be a “team player” that is the highest ideal…

thus the point of the novel for 200 years has been lost to an ism that is about
conformity, obedience, submission to the greater good… be it the ism of
capitalism or the ism of communism or the ism of catholicism… the individual
is less then the whole, be it about the ism of communism or capitalism…
we can only find our self worth in submission to the false ideals of capitalism
or communism…the pursuit of wealth or power or fame can heal the wound
of modernism…we are torn asunder, made fragmented or we are fractured
by the rise of the the ism’s of our modern world… and to be whole again, all
one has to do is the follow the easy path of consumerism and buy one’s
happiness with goods, materials… the new method of being autonomous is
buying goods and materials…the new message of being autonomous lies
buying new trucks… look at a new truck commercial… its message is, own this
truck and become autonomous… look at where our trucks can take you where you
can be autonomous… but the message/commercial leaves out the fact that
by the very virtue of buying a new truck, you are no longer autonomous…
you must work in a capitalistic system to be able to afford a new truck…

the entire point of the modern ism’s and ideologies is the loss of any
possibility of being or becoming autonomous…that is why our current novels no
longer bring out an engagement with being autonomous… it is no longer possible…

so the question is, how are we to become autonomous beings?

the answer is, we can’t…so now what?

Kropotkin

let us connect the possibility of being autonomous with a novel like
“Rabbit run” by John Updike…Angstrom, the novel’s protagonist,
tries to be autonomous while trapped in a loveless marriage and
a boring sales job…his attempts to become autonomous lies in
cheating on his wife, drinking too much, and avoidance of responsibility…
the modern curse is the burden of responsibility of marriage, work,
church, being a “good” citizen and being a person who is an “productive”
person, I.E. one who is a creator of profits… the highest goal of modern
society…and Updike shows us a person who attempts to become
autonomous in our modern world… and that attempt is a failed one…
because given the burdens of the modern world, we cannot achieve
autonomy…we are too heavily burden with the responsibilities of
being a good “citizen” of being a creator of profits, of driving the
the “GDP”, of being married, of living the “good” life in the “burbs” with
a house with a white picket fence, two kids and a dog name Rover…
and the cost of owning that house and a dog name Rover… the loss
of being autonomous… we are no longer free to become who we are…
we must become a “good provider”, a “good citizen”… a creator of
profits or we don’t have any value in modern society…

our current novels reflect the fact that becoming autonomous is no longer
achievable or even desirable… we must become a cog in the machine to
find our worth… and being a cog in the machine is no longer being autonomous…

and this being a cog in the machine is true of capitalism, of communism,
of the state’s ideology and of religions like catholicism… becoming simple cogs in
the machine is the modern goal of ism’s and ideologies…

we have no need for novels that spell out what it means to be autonomous…
for that is so “old school”…and unnecessary for the modern world has no need for
people to be autonomous… because becoming autonomous cuts down on profits
and national “Gross Domestic Product”… all hail the GDP and bow our heads and pray…

Kropotkin