Recently, while lying awake in the early hours, (something that seems to be the norm as you get older), I was thinking about how much had changed in the world of communication, since I was a boy. In those days, we had the wireless, newspapers, and the telegram: a high speed communication, delivered by hand, and always in an unmistakable mustard-coloured envelope. In my youth we got a few; and I think I am right in saying, that the sight of them as they were handed over, left the adults wondering, who was dead - or dying. Later, when I was about ten, we had television, or put more accurately, the owner of the local hardware store had one in the window: a large magic eye, that like a magnet gathered us together on our way home from school, and left us wondering who, in our small town, could afford to buy it. And there was of course the telephone, just one, housed for the whole population in a kiosk outside the Post Office. It was one of those famed red boxes, much lamented, that have been transported around the world as items of nostalgia. And I have my own special memory of them, of the door in particular, that had such an inbuilt level of resistance, that it seemed designed to keep you out, or in, depending on your whereabouts.
Now if you have been reading my blogs, you will know, that I grew up in a large house: a guesthouse by the sea; and during the dreary months of winter, when the wind was whining underneath the door, or the back boiler was "smoking", it would sometime happen that our mother would get a fillip: as if from nowhere, a letter, that in all probability was written by someone as depressed as ourselves; a polite few words, wanting to know if they might book a holiday for "the Easter weekend", or for a week or two in summer. Later, we had our own telephone, and a number, (which I can still remember), that was published in the tourist literature, with our mother, for the first time, having a public profile, as, "Mrs K. G. McCloskey", Proprietress".
Less prestigious was the installation: in a cupboard under the stairs; a telephone that was literally the innards of the public telephone box. Mounted on the wall, on a back-plate, it came with button "A" and button "B". And possibly, more importantly in our case, with a key to the inbuilt safe deposit box. Inserting a coin, or coins, you would wait until the sound of ringing turned to rapid pips, the signal to press, with the same degree of urgency, button "A". At that, the money would drop, and you were through. If on the other hand, no one answered, and you pressed button "B", you had the satisfaction of hearing your money clatter into an easily accessible recovery slot; while the button, making a sophisticated clicking sound, that might have been laughter, worked its way back to its starting point.
Now from the perspective of a man with an addictive personality, a bonus in having a telephone was, that it allowed our father to place a bet, whether or not he had the money to pay for it. And the beauty of the key, was, that from time to time, it enabled him to dip into the takings, either in whole, or in part, according to his needs.
Well, if that was how it was then, it is all very different now. Never have the possibilities for communication been greater, and never, I fear, have the risks been higher. For the easier it has become to communicate, it seems, that vast amounts of time, are being devoted to quantity, rather than quality. So much so, that I can't help but ask, What of substance from the plethora of today's texts, is going to be added to the body of knowledge for future generations? What will inspire or challenge them, I wonder, when the going gets tough? And more importantly, perhaps, Will anyone care, let alone know how to use what has been left to posterity?
Questions such as these, I know, leave me open to the charge of being a snob, or of viewing the world from a too narrow perspective. So let me assure you that I am not unaware of the considerable benefits both practical and intellectual, that have come from the latest methods of communication. How could I be unaware, given my websites? But I am conscious also, that much of what we have in abundance, is archive from the past; which at best will always be there, and at worst, will be of ever declining interest to future generations. For what, in this regard, bothers me, is encapsulated in the latest fad, the fashion, promoted by celebrities, for "twittering": a process, it seems, that requires even less of an attention span than anything that has gone before. So I can't help but return to these questions; and here, by way of a practical example, is why it matters.
At the moment I am reading a collection of essays by the French philosopher, political activist, and mystic, Simone Weil; works that are published under the title Oppression and Liberty. In the first of these, "Are we heading for the Proletarian Revolution?" I was struck by the incisiveness of her writing, and from one so young; she was 24. And in my notes I have highlighted two passages as exceptional: for what they imply, as well as for what is said. The first I labelled, "her manifesto", and the second, "her rallying cry". But before I quote them, let me put them, as best I can, in context.
When Simone Weil was writing, in 1933, it was the darkest of times, when people in Europe, as elsewhere, were living in the teeth of an economic depression: the aftermath of the Wall St. Crash. Hitler had come to power; and from Russia, reports of oppression of the workers at the hands of a supposedly model workers State, were finding their way back into French working-class politics, where, international politics aside, there was concern about the conditions of work in the factories. There, through a process of mechanization and fragmentation of tasks, work for the individual, whose pay depended on piece rates, was devoid of skill, or any sense of the total process. It was in this context, that Simone Weil was writing, and seeking to understand how a revolution of the proletariat might take place in France, without driving the workers into the hands of fascists, and almost certainly to defeat. For her, there was no place for anarchists. Instead, if Revolution was to happen, and have a chance of success, natural leaders, (whom she believe were there), would have to emerge from within the working-class. Once having accepted this, Simone Weil accepted also, that her task was, not to ferment revolution, but to wait, to continue to educate and inform workmen, and join the Revolution, if and when it came.
Here then, is the first of those passages, "her manifesto", in which, every word counts, and where, if you break it into its constituent parts, there is almost unlimited food for thought. And it is worth noting also, that she begins by making it clear, that her commitment is to the individual, and not to the collective:
"...Let us not forget that we want to make the individual, and not the collectivity, the supreme value. We want to form whole men by doing away with the specialization which cripples us all. We want to give to manual labour the dignity which belongs to it of right, by giving the workman full understanding of technical processes instead of a mere mechanical training; and to provide the understanding with its proper object, by placing it in contact with the world through the medium of labour. We want to make absolutely clear the true relationship between man and nature - those relationships that are concealed, in every society based on exploitation, by "the degrading division of labour into intellectual and manual labour." We want to give back to man, that is to say the individual, the power which it is the proper function to exercise over nature, over tools, over society itself, to re-establish the importance of the workers as compared with the material conditions of work; and, instead of doing away with private property, "to turn individual property into something real, by transferring the means of production...which at present serve above all to enslave and exploit labour, into mere instrument of labour freely and co-operatively performed.""
In this second passage, labelled, "her rallying cry", Simone Weil, (from a moral and philosophical standpoint), is considering the very real prospect of defeat. For me, and going beyond what is explicitly stated, to what is implied, what makes this passage remarkable, is the strength of her desire for truth. Or, put another way, not to be deceived, but to know what is real:
"...It is only too possible we are to perish, let us see to it that we do not perish without having existed. The powerful forces that we have to fight are preparing to crush us; and it is true that they can prevent us from existing fully; that is to say from stamping the world with the seal of our will. But there is one sphere in which they are powerless. They cannot stop us from working towards a clear comprehension of the object of our efforts, so that, if we cannot accomplish that which we will, we may at least have willed it; and not just have blindly wished for it; and indeed our weakness may prevent us from winning, but not from comprehending the force by which we are crushed. Nothing in the world can prevent us from thinking clearly."
© Cormac McCloskey
Oppression and Liberty
Simone Weil. [1909-1943]
Translated by, Arthur Wills and John Petrie
Publisher: Routeledge , London and New York. 2001
ISBN (Various) 13: 978-0-415-25407-6
The quotations used by Simone Weil: Marx
Note: This blog, "Yesterday, today and tomorrow", was first published on Windows Live Spaces, by me, on 26th March 2009
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