10,611. RUDIMENTS, pt. 248

RUDIMENTS, pt. 248

Making Cars

I guess I took society in,

whole-hand and wholeheartedly,

without much even knowing

what I was doing. There's always

been a certain mystery to the

things I do  -  half the time

even I don't know where things

come from; the urges, the words,

the way I have of annoying or

alienating others. It's nothing

I can control; really  -  and I've

tried. A solitary life doesn't

always share very well; and

if mine isn't 'exactly' solitary,

for me it's close enough. Most

likely it's about knowing

when to stop.

-

The world is a squalid place,

which is one of the reasons I

cannot get involved, or stay

involved. There are a hundred

thousand 'Big Head Todds' out

there so full of it that they make

me ill. Like this guy in Metuchen,

all agog over their pathetic new

town-appearance of a Whole

Foods (the compact version, not

a huge one). On and on he raged,

like a girl, until the arrival of the

opening day, when he became

like the forever chief-cheerleader

for a new retail hole-in-one. No

criticism of this glorious day

was brooked. He response to any

at all in that vein was: 'There's

always haters. Let the haters hate.'

Hey buddy boy, chopper town

fresh-food fanatic; better check

yourself. There's a factory in

China, called Foxconn, in fact

IN Foxconn City, its name goes.

It employs 400,000 people. They

make sleek and expensive

gadgets like Apple's IPhone.

A spate of worker suicides there

caught the world's attention : the

early 20th century 'factory'

show-places of the USA, each

a behemoth, were publicly

showcased as marvels of

ingenuity and industry, but these

new factories keep much of

their work hidden. Foxconn

City is a hidden horror, yet the

efficiency is praised  -  like the

efficient mechanism of worship

of places like Whole Foods here.

The merciless and degrading

environment at Foxconn was

causing people to plunge to their

deaths. No one stopped using

its production, or cancelled

orders. Demand for Apple's

sublime products never went

down. Instead of substantially

changing its production techniques,

Foxconn surrounded its factory

buildings with yellow netting

to catch despairing workers

before they hit the ground.

-

In Russia and eastern Europe,

the large industrial factories

(for all their talk, once, of

'worker-paradises'), criminalized

absenteeism, tardiness, and

'quitting without permission.'

That last one shows perfectly

the mindset of the sorts of fools

who claim that 'haters hate,'

when faced with cogent criticism :

twisted, fruitless logic bowing

down at the altar of consumer

goods and happy cherries,

peanuts, and apples to bring

up to the loving kiddies at

home. (In some of these New

England factories, for instance,

children as young as 4 were

(forcibly?) employed. Now

we just send them off (forcibly)

to school to be baby-sat while

mommy and daddy or maybe

daddy and daddy or mommy

and mommy stretch out at

their techno-clean office jobs).

In the old days, we had Tass,

Pravda, Reuters, and UPI.

Now we just have zoomers.

-

Which brings me to the next

point (yes, I had one). The 'dark,

Satanic mills,' of William Blake

were powered by steam and coal,

like the railroads, boilers that

belched out soot and smoke. 70

hour workweeks were common,

and male workers chafed at the

constant supervision on the

factory floor. Owners preferred

not to employ men anyway. Today,

in the United States, factories are

associated with masculinity, but

in their early days they were spaces

largely occupied by women and

children. We're so much softer

now. Those railing now are

house-daddies drooling at the bit

for a supermarket faction of clean,

but hidden, brutality. (Think 4 legs).

William Blake railed constantly

against the harsh conditions, the

dark, foul smogs and coal-stinks

of the dark London skies. 'Dark

Satanic mills' is his own concept.

It lives forever. The decrepit

monsters, foremen and enforcers

who once roamed factory floors

shouting in the grim dark, are

now replaced by remediators and

actuaries, and even 'efficiency

managers' who rule over all this, 

new, soft matter, making Twinkies

and bowling pins. It's the only

sort of stuff people know today.

Gamer knotheads hiding away,

well, that's another story, and

that's why places like Whole Foods

will entice with rows of finger

food, snacks, cherries and drinks.

It's a mad world, just differently mad.
These are massive undertakings,

maybe not 'dark and Satanic' in the 
smog and smoke sense, but just the
same in a spiritual sense. Only a
fool would not see that. 
-

The manufacturing age came upon

us with true disruption; tearing up

old, agrarian economies which had

just gotten settled. 'Nostalgia' for

that agrarian past quickly became

a growth industry. Had Walt Disney

been alive then, he'd still have made

his millions. In both New England

textile mills AND factory areas of

Britain, like Manchester, which

employed great numbers and had

them living in squalor - "Streets

so covered with refuse and

excrementious matter as to be

almost impassable from depth

of mud, and intolerable from

stench."

-

Face it, I never saw any of that.

I read about it, I learned from

Blake and others all I know of

those conditions and that era  - 

the knowledge passed on through

schooling is proficiently dismal

enough as to tell children's

minds nothing of the real

material of living. The ethics of

William Blake far surpass the

grubby nanosphere ethics of

this Metuchen guy, for instance,

yet he and others with him

manage to finagle their way

into being 'exemplars' of what

they call their progressive outlooks,

boosters of school and teaching.

While their own kids are in it,

of course  -  once their children

are done, these sorts drop their

treacle in  a minute and revert to

no-tax types and 'why-should-I

pay-for-others' schooling' types.

It's a shoo in, and they're all

idiots. As Bob Dylan said of

critics  -  they can all rot in Hell.

-

It seems that people today just

want to be handled politely. Little

care is given to WHAT the are

being handled for and/or towards,

like these ultra-gracious supermarkets

and their kin, it's all in the handling, 

the manner, the faux-gentility idea 

of 'our dead meat was always handled

properly.' You enter through a greet-way,

see offers and details, get absorbed into 

the fantasyland constructed, and are

supposed to immediately put out of 

your mind any aspect of its 

industrialized, people-squeezing, 

factory-manufacture essence. Karen
Halo will greet you, with a squirt of her
new, all-natural cleanser in a dispenser.
'You have to but it, please.' comes first.

'No  don't get grubby, go get my 

hubby,' I heard a lady say. He was 

deep in the wine aisle, probably

hating the sommelier. You

can beat anyone with a stick,

if you do it nicely.