The great striving of
our time: division of labour benefits the species but sentences the individual
to death.
August Strindberg - The Red Room (1879)
A chilling quote. If any shred of optimism is to survive,
one is compelled to dismiss it and hope for the best. Or perhaps we will adapt
to life without individuality. After all, it seems to be what globalisation has
in store for us. Not all of us of course.
It is not only division of labour, but the concomitant rise
of process and process-driven people who devote their lives to chipping away at
what we like to think is our individuality. Standards are not necessarily our friends.
Yet the world is evolving a maniacal preference for the standard, for people as reasonably
well-defined economic and political entities living lives which are reasonably
well-defined economic and political processes. It doesn’t feel exciting
somehow. If feels like... yes Strindberg was right... it feels like death.
2 comments:
When you can divide labour to a sufficient degree then you can mechanise it. Are we all becoming mechanised as well?
Demetrius - more machine-like in what we do, yes.
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