a Good Patch

     This that follows in an introduction to two essays, connected   by subject that summarize some of the less obviously material of the past year or so.    Like much science one gos in expecting one thing and comes out with something else. I went in to the first essay ready for the standard muckraking class warfare diatribe and came out realizing that the foolish things of the past decades, the wars, the refusals to accept governmental responsibilities hurt the upper middle class more then anyone else    and it was they who were looking most eagerly for gain    This group I have labeled "The Forgotten Generation."

        The  second essay probably should be called the meta myth of technology.  For many years, as is fairly standard, i regarded the city as the initial technological achievement of man kind and yet , like most, I refused to see that it, itself was an instigator of mythical processes.

              The use of hypnotism to control the masses is called the hypnocracy and ths this second essay is called the Principia Hypnotica   - It suggest that the dichotomy between rural and aurban life is a false on even as it seem so real in the red and blue states

                              Paul McCartney once referred to the process of songwriting as more or less a consistent thing wherein every once in a while “You run into a good patch.” Essay writing is not that different. I suppose I should be grateful I am not a mathematician or physicist, since their explorations, contingent greatly upon mental power alone, often recedes at the grand old age of thirty.

Something of the wonders of prodigy does of course remain. Freud regarded the discovery of the unconscious as his life's primary achievement. The years spend in consideration of “the technological effect” might in some ways be comparable it that the discoveries were of a general nature. To some extent they mirror my very very earliest work, which concerned itself with the effects of recessions on criminal activity.

The best way to understand was as a “rolling” effect. Immediately upon the onset of recession petty crimes, crimes of opportunity and such survival endeavors, and only after several years did the frustrations of poverty lead to the violent crimes. Fortunately in the US recessions did not, in thepast, last that long, and as well there was always the option of moving somewhere where conditions were better.

As regarding the net boom and the crash of 2000 essentially we can suggest that technology empowers a few at the outset and then, eventually the rest of society catches up. For instance the advent of radio empowered the propaganda of the third reich, but as to whether that could happen again (also subsequent to ww1)is not at all certain. Again we see evidence of one of the prime characteristics of conditioning, namely the effect of temporal repetition.

The two essays to follow also seem valid. One may suggest that the quality and quantity distinction is foolish because one way of determining the qualtiy of something is the number of relations it has to other things.

And the kicker, immediately, in these essays is they explain current happenings in ways that are not currently en vogue. I jest that I wish I could draw them out over ten or twenty essays and maybe that's the secret of getting paid because I am certain the essays to follow will not be as pertainent.

Be that as it may be firstly there is a great deal of discussion about the class war, about racial conflict we seem less eager to discuss, As my mentor Albert Jesson , used to say, “something happened.” Rather then seeking the causality of what we believe has happened it might do us better to seek the effect. I refer to those who actually have seen their actual lives negatively impacted.

As a would be class warrior I am a little saddened to see that the average person making a hundred thousand a year will pay seventeen hundred dollars more in social security and hardly anyone is noticing. The irony, though I'll certainly week no tears is although the effect of whatever happened since 1980 has been to lower taxes the upper middle class did not get a good deal.

Like the indians of Manhatten the wise guys in the upper brackets got a little something – but they gave up a great deal, and what is worse for them is not that the situation has gotten out of hand they will pay even more. As the con artist says “You can't cheat an honest man”

And even for those among that group who like to think of themselves as at least vaguely ethical they found themselves taken along for the ride.

These are the one's who believed that the standard of living would raise forever. I call them the forgotten generation. I've had a good deal of experience in recent years, in food kitchens, and library and have seen them in great numbers – people who make a good impression, people with good hair and teeth who believed that would carry them through – and they are lost.

The second realization is right before our eyes but we don't see it. I didn't see it for fifteen years yet the facts were before me constantly.

Like Mumford and others for me the advent of the polis was the defining moment of technos. Somewhat foolishly I allowed a duality to linger in my mind where there was no justification. In short myth explains the city to the country and the country to the city.

                  The myth of Elvis is the clean cut country boy, not too smart,, but real polite and heterosexual, as opposed to all those harlots, them dancing girls exposing their bodies on the street for money and engaging in fornication.

                          That Jefferson died broke and fathered a half dozen bastards does change our admiration for him. Hamilton on the other hand is a footnote.

The mind my friends, like love, is strange.and the interplay of the ethos of country and city show this. IT can be taken further even, eventually we are speaking of the individual and society and the individual, realizing that society doesn't recognize it's omniscience feels pain in the presence of society.

I am not speaking philosophically here – I am speaking of the biological organism

How sweet to be a cloud - yes, yes, yes

                     All the other stuff, the class conflict, the sexual and racial conflicts, immigration – you name it – are all  quite possibly  subterfuges and until that which is hidden from ourselves is revealed we shall suffer from a seemingly causeless alienation from ourselves.