Distrust of corporate gigantism has remained strong through the decades.
One thing that hasn’t changed in any significant way between my generation and the new Underground is an antipathy toward the culture of corporate gigantism. The focus of the antagonism has merely shifted a bit. Thus, today’s protesters are somewhat more concerned with environmental issues than we were, but we weren’t exactly slouches when it came to that subject. And although today’s dissenters are a bit more vocal abouit exploitation of Third World labor than we were, we certainly had things to say regarding the treatment of, say, Mexican grape and lettuce pickers in the fields of California. Seen with a measure of critical distance, though, some of the criticisms of both eras now have a way of seeming contrived—and possibly being latched onto mainly because of their ability to make “The Establishment” squirm, rather than because of their ability to offer real alternatives After all, it’s hard to imagine a way to have the widespread industrialization needed to support a modern lifestyle without in some way leaving a substantial footprint on the environment. Likewise, it’s hard to foresee eliminating all the various forms of guilt that animal rights activists work to inculcate, without totally overhauling our diet and food culture, our methods of medical research, even our notions about the place of a dog in a happy family. One particularly recurrent theme is the criticism of work in the modern era for not being “meaningful.” Generation Xers going from temp McJob to McJob without health benefits or vacation time certainly have good reason to complain about the meaningfulness of their own employment. In my own young adulthood, the criticisms tended to have more to do with the fit between employment and ideology. In the logic of those times, running a few goats and raising vegetables on a scrubby piece of land dubbed a “commune” was considered highly meaningful, but it was hard for more mainstream work, of the kind that most people could actually do for a living, to gain this imprimatur. I remember pursuing the possibility of a career in automotive design—something that, on the face of it, most people in other times would probably consider creative, interesting, and satisfying work—and feeling that I had to somehow apologize for it, explaining that I was interested in things like eliminating the ecological travesty of the large American luxo-cruiser—in order not to feel shallow in the presence of somebody who held a part-time job and raised goats. Later, when an extended period of otherwise encouraging interaction with one of the Big Three car companies didn’t end up producing a job offer, I visited an employment agency to get an idea of what my other options might be. The experience was one that I’ll never forget. After I’d seen the kinds of things the agency might be able to help me get a job doing, I stepped outside into an urban plaza, looked up at all the windows of the office towers looming on all sides around me, and thought, “My God, these people are like cattle on a hillside. They spend their days just foraging for feed!” What rendered this moment especially shattering, I now realize, was the expectations The Movement had instilled in me for work to be meaningful. Then as now, considerations of what’s right or moral or high-minded continued to make the prospect of doing something that could lead to becoming comfortably ensconced in the status quo feel, in some sense, unworthy.
(c) COPYRIGHT 2000 ROBERT WINTER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
