Were things "Normal" to begin with?

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zacb
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Were things "Normal" to begin with?

Post by zacb »

I mentioned in a previous post about watching The Power of Nightmares. It was kind on interesting to hear about how some at the Pentagon made up half the stuff about the Soviet Union. But back to what I was saying. It seems like our 9-5 culture is not the norm, and because it is not, we are currently getting the results of it. (Not the only reason, but one of the reasons.) But for instance, we thrived after WWII due to the rest of the world being crippled, a lower of the tax rate, and excess spending due to troops coming home. So let me ask you this: are all the tenets we come to believe, such as a 9-5 existence, the innocence of the flag, running our economy on manufacturing, and other things just fiction? Or are there some of those things still true? Is our economy a natural thing, or are patents, copyrights, 9-5 work hours, "foreign enemies", and other things figments of history? I guess my biggest thing is with the 9-5 corporate paradigm. Is it normal? A natural evolution, or an oddity in history?
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Teal Lantern
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Re: Were things "Normal" to begin with?

Post by Teal Lantern »

zacb wrote:I mentioned in a previous post about watching The Power of Nightmares. It was kind on interesting to hear about how some at the Pentagon made up half the stuff about the Soviet Union. But back to what I was saying. It seems like our 9-5 culture is not the norm, and because it is not, we are currently getting the results of it. (Not the only reason, but one of the reasons.) But for instance, we thrived after WWII due to the rest of the world being crippled, a lower of the tax rate, and excess spending due to troops coming home. So let me ask you this: are all the tenets we come to believe, such as a 9-5 existence, the innocence of the flag, running our economy on manufacturing, and other things just fiction? Or are there some of those things still true? Is our economy a natural thing, or are patents, copyrights, 9-5 work hours, "foreign enemies", and other things figments of history? I guess my biggest thing is with the 9-5 corporate paradigm. Is it normal? A natural evolution, or an oddity in history?
Historically, "working hours" ran sun up to sun down, six days a week.... till you died.

Forty hour work-weeks, decent wages, safer work places, pensions, etc. are relatively modern luxuries introduced by the likes of Carnegie and Ford (thought they taught Ford as a religion, in Michigan :wink:) because happy cows live longer and produce more milk.
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Jester
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Re: Were things "Normal" to begin with?

Post by Jester »

Teal Lantern wrote:
zacb wrote:I mentioned in a previous post about watching The Power of Nightmares. It was kind on interesting to hear about how some at the Pentagon made up half the stuff about the Soviet Union. But back to what I was saying. It seems like our 9-5 culture is not the norm, and because it is not, we are currently getting the results of it. (Not the only reason, but one of the reasons.) But for instance, we thrived after WWII due to the rest of the world being crippled, a lower of the tax rate, and excess spending due to troops coming home. So let me ask you this: are all the tenets we come to believe, such as a 9-5 existence, the innocence of the flag, running our economy on manufacturing, and other things just fiction? Or are there some of those things still true? Is our economy a natural thing, or are patents, copyrights, 9-5 work hours, "foreign enemies", and other things figments of history? I guess my biggest thing is with the 9-5 corporate paradigm. Is it normal? A natural evolution, or an oddity in history?
Historically, "working hours" ran sun up to sun down, six days a week.... till you died.

Forty hour work-weeks, decent wages, safer work places, pensions, etc. are relatively modern luxuries introduced by the likes of Carnegie and Ford (thought they taught Ford as a religion, in Michigan :wink:) because happy cows live longer and produce more milk.
So we are told. So I used to believe.

But I have also heard that a more typical workday on family farms was five hours. Harvest season didn't last all year.

I don't mind six days, 12 hours, have often done it in outside sales etc. But six days 12 hours in a cubicle has NEVER been done by anyone for a whole career. Beginning CPA's and lawyers in big firms may do it, but always in their minds it is a period of suffering "until". It is not a state that is sustainable long-term. We are men, not machines.

Farm work, hunting, etc had other benefits besides monetary gain. Outoors, nature, exercise, autonomy, visible results. To the extent that modern work keeps you out of nature, doing eye-work, mind-work etc divorced from nature and exercise, that same modern work OWES you time and money to go to the gym, pool, yoga class, whatever.

Long days of hard work and and accomplishment and self-improvement -- YES.
Being a human fetus enmeshed in the Matrix -- NO.
Jester
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Re: Were things "Normal" to begin with?

Post by Jester »

zacb wrote:I mentioned in a previous post about watching The Power of Nightmares. It was kind on interesting to hear about how some at the Pentagon made up half the stuff about the Soviet Union. But back to what I was saying. It seems like our 9-5 culture is not the norm, and because it is not, we are currently getting the results of it. (Not the only reason, but one of the reasons.) But for instance, we thrived after WWII due to the rest of the world being crippled, a lower of the tax rate, and excess spending due to troops coming home. So let me ask you this: are all the tenets we come to believe, such as a 9-5 existence, the innocence of the flag, running our economy on manufacturing, and other things just fiction? Or are there some of those things still true? Is our economy a natural thing, or are patents, copyrights, 9-5 work hours, "foreign enemies", and other things figments of history? I guess my biggest thing is with the 9-5 corporate paradigm. Is it normal? A natural evolution, or an oddity in history?
Excellent idea for a thread.
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Cornfed
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Re: Were things "Normal" to begin with?

Post by Cornfed »

Teal Lantern wrote:Historically, "working hours" ran sun up to sun down, six days a week.... till you died.

Forty hour work-weeks, decent wages, safer work places, pensions, etc. are relatively modern luxuries introduced by the likes of Carnegie and Ford (thought they taught Ford as a religion, in Michigan :wink:) because happy cows live longer and produce more milk.
Not true actually. During the middle ages the average man worked less than now. Pre-industrial agricultural laborers had to work very hard during certain times of the year, but at other times there was not much to do, so they had a lot of holidays and religious festivals. It is thought that hunter-gatherers did activities we would construe as work for about two hours a day on average. They mostly had no concept of work. Leading a timetable existence, where you have to perform certain actions at certain times of the day when a bell rings or whatever, is highly unnatural. It was phased in over hundreds of years and resisted at every point. The first thing people did during various European uprisings was shoot out the public clocks.
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Cornfed
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Post by Cornfed »

Also, being an atomized individual working for large whorporations in order to purchase products from other large whorporations in a world devoid of non-financial relationships is obviously not normal. Indeed this dystopia has only reached its nightmarish conclusion in the last few years.
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Post by momopi »

The life and workday of a farmer varies greatly depending on your crops and farm animals. If you're Amish, you'd get up at sunrise to feed the animals, then do various farm work until sundown. Once, I asked my grandfather why he invested in an apple orchid in Nantou (Taiwan). He pointed to the rice farmer neighbors knee-deep in the mud down hill and commented that one should not speak ill of those who harvested the rice on your table, but he's simply too old to bend over in a field, and that he'd prefer to sleep in.

Unfortunately, when the import taxes on American apples were removed, we lost the farm because it was no longer profitable.
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Post by ethan_sg »

Well said cornfed.

Staring at a computer screen for the majority of one's waking hours can't be 'normal'.

Even many so called couples seem to have 'finances' as the basis of their relationships these days Many so called friends only keep in touch if they think you'll be a useful contact or will financially benefit them in future.

Interesting article on so called working hours for hunter-gatherers - http://primitivism.com/original-affluent.htm
Cornfed wrote:Also, being an atomized individual working for large whorporations in order to purchase products from other large whorporations in a world devoid of non-financial relationships is obviously not normal. Indeed this dystopia has only reached its nightmarish conclusion in the last few years.
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Teal Lantern
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Post by Teal Lantern »

momopi wrote:The life and workday of a farmer varies greatly depending on your crops and farm animals. If you're Amish, you'd get up at sunrise to feed the animals, then do various farm work until sundown. Once, I asked my grandfather why he invested in an apple orchid in Nantou (Taiwan). He pointed to the rice farmer neighbors knee-deep in the mud down hill and commented that one should not speak ill of those who harvested the rice on your table, but he's simply too old to bend over in a field, and that he'd prefer to sleep in.

Unfortunately, when the import taxes on American apples were removed, we lost the farm because it was no longer profitable.
Yeah, in my reply I was thinking of the times & places of harsh work conditions.

The idea of working to a fixed age, then retiring and collecting money is (historically) recent, a few centuries old.
http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/b ... tory3.html
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