Player Piano

What do you do when you are stuck in a meaningless job and a meaningless existence in Technopoly? Like Paul Proteus, manager of the Ilium Works, you get first get the proper perspective (from Player Piano):

Farming--now there was a magic word. Like so many words with little magic from the past still clinging to them, the word "farming" was a reminder of what rugged stock the present generation had come from, of how tough a thing a human being could be if it had to. The word had little meaning in the present. There were no longer farmers, but only agricultural engineers. In the rich Iroquois Valley in Ilium County, thousands of settlers had once made their living from the soil. Now Doctor Ormand van Curler managed the farming of the whole county with a hundred men and several million dollars' worth of machinery.

Then you have to accept the reality that everyone already knows--the value of those titles bookending the business cards of Dr. Paul Proteus, Ph.D., and all his peers:

"Well, I'll be going back to work. Long as this here is going to be your farm, you might's well fix the pump. Needs a new packing."

"Afraid I don't know how," said Paul.

"Maybe," said Mr. Haycox walking away, "maybe if you'd gone to college another ten or twenty years, somebody would of gotten around to showing you how, Doctor."

That, of course, is the sentiment of the farmhand. Not so surprising, the sentiment is shared by Doctor Francis Eldgrin Gelhorne, National Industrial, Commercial, Communications, Foodstuffs, and Resources Director (Gelhorne lecturing Proteus):

"Nobody's so damn well educated that you can't learn ninety per cent of what he knows in six weeks. The other ten per cent is decoration."

"Yes, sir."

"Show me a specialist, and I'll show you a man who's so scared he's dug a hole for himself to hide in."

The government of Technopoly would be wise to enact antisabotage laws similar to those governing Ilium, strictly forbidding the publication of any books with an antimachine theme; reading this one makes me want to become a farmer even more.

Potty-mouthed and Proud

Sometime ago this post on homeschooling appeared on the internet:

Aaron (doing his spelling): "Mom, what is a four-letter word that begins with Sh?"

Me: "Shit"

Aaron: "Can I really write that down?"

More noteworthy to me is this response:

If we men stand any chance of getting to heaven, it will be because we were privileged to be married to women like this.

I know that I am a bit of a prude when it comes to those popular four letter words, but this seems to be stretching the desire to be Catholic and keep your cultural relevance. Of course, my aversion to such language stems from the most anti-catholic of teachers, brother Malcolm X, who said that people curse when they do not have any better words in their vocabulary to use. (the actual quote is better, I just don't have it handy.) I do have this one by Mr. X though:

"[Bimbi the prison philosopher's discussions] ended my vicious cursing attacks. My approach sounded so weak alongside his, and he never used a foul word."

And, to keep disseminating wisdom from Vonnegut (this time from Bluebeard):

Circe Berman argues that the inclusion of once-taboo words into ordinary conversations is a good thing, since women and children are now free to discuss their bodies without shame, and so to take car of themselves more intelligently.

I said to her, "Maybe so. But don't you think all this frankness has also caused a collapse of eloquence?" I reminded her of the cook's daughter's habit of referring to anybody she didn't like for whatever reason as "an asshole." I said: "Never did I hear Celeste give a thoughtful explanation of what it was that such a person might have done to earn that protological sobriquet."

Then again, Vonnegut was a foul-mouthed S.O.B., so take it for what it is worth. . .

In the end, it is inconsequential. The swearing doesn't really bother me, but I don't see the need to praise it as the realism that will get us to heaven. Maybe that makes me culturally irrelevant. Mostly, I just don't want to have to adjust the way I speak in front of my mother.

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And just so you know that I am not too uptight - the first link's headline and subheadline:

June Cleaver After A Six-Pack
Warning... Alcohol may cause pregnancy. Who knew?

Now that is funny!

This sums it up pretty well

As stated by Mrs. Jack Graham, shopping-bag lady and majority shareholder in The RAMJAC corporation, in Vonnegut's Jailbird:

"I find this magazine called People in garbage cans," she said, "but it isn't about people. Its about crap."

Well put, Mrs. Jack Graham.