Work. Business. Technology. As everyone knows, these are three extremely important matters. Indeed, I can well imagine not a few zealous (and by no means unintelligent) Twenty-first-Century souls saying - or rather shrieking:
"Considering how much we've discovered we DEPEND on them - for EVERYthing - can they ever be important ENOUGH???"
Which is exactly my point. Sometimes it takes an awfully long time, in human-history terms, for Life's really critical and determinative factors to come into their own, to be seen as more than just nerdy sidelines, to be at last recognized for their true significance and essentialness and sacredness and whatnot. To be lauded, in short, as the factors, in relation to which everything else in human affairs - family, local community, love, religion, literature, art, politics, etc - is pretty much downstream. Just get the Operation(alism) right, and everything else will follow.
And so it's come to pass that in a Kind of Fullness of Time - the past twenty-five years or so - we humans have managed to award these Three Most Essential Factors something like the respect they deserve. And naturally adjusted our own behaviors and ideals accordingly. We have succeeded, possibly beyond anyone's wildest hopes, in making Work, Business and Technology into three of the most grimly unrelaxed, uptight, unforgiving bullets anyone ever dreaded having to bite. To say nothing of the actual surgery. And not just for workers, supervisors and and managers, but sometimes, I'd swear - in a weird sort of way? - even for customers. Sort of a "Get with the program - or BE programmed!" ultimatum, as I've bemoaned in other places (unprogressive soul that I am).
I call it the Capitalism of Sacrifice.
And then, as if that weren't enough Progress for two earths, we now have even bolder souls yet further raising the bar of perfection. Just these past ten years, give or take, America has succeeded in injecting that same Spirit of Urgency into other, equally life-and-death, salvation-and-damnation areas of human life. Like politics. And political allegiance (both yours and mine). And even the Politics of Disease Control. And Social Justice. And Law Enforcement. After all, can one ever get too unrelaxed, or too uptight, or - for that matter - too angry, about anything really important? I mean, you really do CARE about people, don't you?
"Not counting the cost?" you say? Frankly I'm wondering: Is anyone even tallying the gains anymore?
And then, as if that weren't enough Progress for two earths, we now have even bolder souls yet further raising the bar of perfection. Just these past ten years, give or take, America has succeeded in injecting that same Spirit of Urgency into other, equally life-and-death, salvation-and-damnation areas of human life. Like politics. And political allegiance (both yours and mine). And even the Politics of Disease Control. And Social Justice. And Law Enforcement. After all, can one ever get too unrelaxed, or too uptight, or - for that matter - too angry, about anything really important? I mean, you really do CARE about people, don't you?
"Not counting the cost?" you say? Frankly I'm wondering: Is anyone even tallying the gains anymore?
(Edited.)
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