I choose to be the unquestioned and irresponsible master of my hands, during the hours that they labour for me. But those hours past, our relation ceases; and then comes in the same respect for their independence that I myself exact. --Mr. Thornton, manufacturer, from North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, 1854Times have changed since these words by a fictitious industrial era capitalist in mid-nineteenth century. No doubt such sentiments have been expressed before and after, not just in literature. However, today this older business norm seems to have little relevance.
When off the job, and even before one is hired for a job, one's "character" is surveilled for fit, to wit whether or not there are words, deeds, images and/or affiliations unacceptable; and if any deemed (small) transgression gray or black in all available records be found, there is no job secure, nor forgiveness. This is the new turn in discrimination--making legal distinctions of difference in order to homogenize.
Electronic information and communications technologies, as well as increasing public surveillance, prevent assessment of one's total worth as individual and productive socioeconomic asset. We now discriminate using personal/social flaws. Capitalism has brought us this: Business and the body politic have such unwavering and arbitrary standards, often not transparent, that the all-too-human individual has no chance to reach, some would say survive, without conformity to some something set by the lucky, entitled elite in charge.
So it seems the Mr. Thornton, objectionable enough as irresponsible master, must surrender today to investigations exceeding the limits of whether or not the most qualified and able to perform is chosen, and in spite of experience and relevant qualifications, advancement goes to the most acceptable candidate. Mr. Thornton's irresponsibility would trap today.
We must have the least objectionable in our employ to avoid incident where our benefactors and buyers can raise any qualm--relevant or not--to our goods/services proffered. "They'll make a fuss." Profitable (conformist) relationships with the market and society trump* all other factors.
And there are plenty of ways to make a fuss. Too many, God forbid. No, heaven forbid. No, Mammon forbid, or his duly, self-appointed representatives here in society, data-driven sentries at the gates of where individuals aspire to be.
No, no, that won't work. We are slaves to Mammon and the systems he devises to exact the most for the least from those who are paid to do a job in a way that analytics and the controls informed by them. . . . you get the picture.
Am I correct in the assessment? Of course not. We live also in a contentious age where the loudest opinion rules, and each is entitled to have an opinion (uninformed idea or belief deemed good, true, beautiful, applicable to everyone (else)). The human values and humanist tendencies of earlier times, as well as scientific sweat and tireless efforts by the more knowledgeable and skilled to establish what reality is in any given case, have been suppressed or silenced and, sadly, not even inculcated in the young as a part of a set of civil society skills with which to guide the self and the collective forward. Sound bytes, in place of informed and thoughtful discourse, stand today for insight and ethics and depth of understanding.
Ah, age brings out the complainers, doesn't it? The more one experiences, the more one sees the ironies, inconsistencies, deceptions, hypocrisies, and of course other flaws, which like summer flies are impossible to chase away much less get rid of. Old guys always say they can't believe what the world has come to. And because this is an old saw, no one pays much attention to what the elders offer. And other fogies nod in agreement and sit back and doze. There is no saving them; why bother?
All of which leaves me reading nineteenth century novels from gutenberg.org and wondering if the times today are at once the same and very different as for those who came before.
No, no. Our age holds the greatest challenges at which it appears we are failing miserably to meet and manage for the betterment of man-, er, humankind.
(Old men. Grumblers yesterday. Same today.)
I ask in sincerity, though, is it such this time for the first time, because in profit-driven societies have we created something quite peculiar in history? Have we complexified ourselves . . . or maybe simplified, that is reduced, our notion of human nature to a degree that we are lost beyond repair, beyond individual agency, beyond the respect for each other's independence albeit with flaws, a standard I myself still insist for me?
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* Except it seems in the case of the individual with the same name as the one who holds the "the suit declared to rank above all other suits for the duration of the hand"--CONFORMITY writ large, thankfully or hopefully just for a limited time.
