You see a lot of pining nowadays for the glorious days of full employment. I get it. Believe me, I really get it! But it’s not coming back….ever. You can only be the 1940’s roughly 70 years ago, and a lot of cliches about water have gone under cliched bridges since. Let me stress two things though: It wasn’t that hot back then (you’re a woman who wants to be a CEO and not a mom? Tough rocks for you!), but more importantly, we’re in the unbelievably great position of creating a whole new future, for ourselves, our children, the world. Somewhere in my Nietzsche corpus he has a beautiful aphorism about “we” are in the most enviable position in history, even greater than the Greeks of Homer. (Nietzschean breathern help me out!)
Where ever we end up, we’ve got greater control of our fate than we realize.
The End of Work 
Where ever we end up, we’ve got greater control of our fate than we realize.
I’ve got one burning Western capitol that says you’re wrong. Hell, I’ve got one totally f*cked life of my own that says you’re wrong. The maelstrom devours all….
Ron,
Perhaps, like Nietzsche’s madman in his famous parable, you come to soon…for me at least. I’m just not ready to hear about the end of work–it sounds like “Work is Dead.”
If I gave up on work, it would destroy my marriage and family. I’m just not seeing any “let’s celibrate what work we have left” here.
I am sorry, Ron, but that’s how I see it.
“Could it be possible? This old saint in the forest has not yet heard anything of this, that God is dead?”
I’m not asking anyone to give up work; I certainly don’t want to destroy any ones marriage or family. I’m trying to do the opposite, give you and your children a positive future to look forward to. Holding on to the old ideas may be worse than you realize. And if I’m all wet…well, we’ll find that out and I’ll own that too.
I came from a Detroit that thought it was going to be 1955 forever…and they sat….and sat…and sat….until it became the Detroit it is now. And, hey, maybe there’s a future for even Detroit! But while I doubt that it happen with ‘green jobs’, it ain’t gonna happen putting ’59 Caddy tail fins on things either!
There’s no reason we can’t celebrate what we now have while we think and plan for other things….that seems to define what Henry Ford did 100 years ago, a man still in love with agrarian culture while building the very thing that was going to blow it up.
If thinking of Nietzsche is too high-falutin’, then think of me as John Belushi at the end of Animal House….fighting the Germans who attacked Pearl Harbor!
Bluto: What? Over? Did you say “over”? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Otter: [to Boon] Germans?
Boon: Forget it, he’s rolling.
In all its glory….
Even those still fortunate enough to have “work” in the old-fashioned sense (and they are fortunate indeed, since they are the ones employers are fighting over — no one seems to want to employ the unemployed, however skilled) need to be thinking about what the rest of the world is going to do when there isn’t enough such “work” to go around (which is already now, and bound to get worse) — because otherwise what they’re going to do is make war on or rob those who do have it.
Perhaps you’re looking for this:
The most successful, most beautiful, most envied people, those with the most encouraging style of life so far—the Greeks?
Or perhaps:
What does the tragic myth mean precisely for the Greeks of the best, strongest, and bravest age?
Both quotes from The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music
no, it’s the one about crossing Homer’s “wine-dark sea”….Gay Science?
[Ron continues to look]
Dude, you’re on your own.
In the future, white collar workers won’t have steady jobs. We’ll just go from place to place “solving problems” anywhere from 2 hours to 2 years. A merry little band of roving problem-solvers.
In the future? How’s about in the RIGHT NOW!
Once you have adequate income, how much do you care about “employment”? Some people have hobbies which they will cheerfully devote lots more time to — or can develop them. They are the lucky ones.
The unlucky one are the people for whom their job defines who they are. (“Job,” for this purpose, includes such unpaid work as “full time mom.”) Without that, they are adrift, and feel like they have no worth. Those are the ones that the rest of us will struggle to find a solution for. And it will be a matter of finding a solution for them. Because, from what I have seen and read, not having that job usually leaves them so adrift that they can’t even think about anything else.
Wj, you’re seeing where I’m going! Brava!