Reflection
In the Guardian is a piece about a chap who has written a book about why we should 'downshift' our office-based careers and take up manual work instead. I can sort of see what he's saying, firstly because I'm middle class and thus this kind of 'simple life' longing is practically genetic.. And also because i've had plenty of manual jobs, some of which were genuinely satisfying and enjoyable. I have felt more satisfaction from building and finishing a stone wall than I ever have in an office job. Anyway, this chap said something interesting about futurism and ideas, things which readers of this blog will know I am interested in. Turns out my interest in these things may be a manifestation of narcissism:
'Our physical surroundings no longer hold our attention, and we start to succumb to what Crawford calls "virtualism" – "a vision of the future in which we somehow take leave of material reality and glide about in a pure information economy." This is the vision peddled by numerous commentators on the future of the internet: an ethereal, anchorless world in which all we do is exchange ideas, where everything is funded by advertisements for everything else, and in which all that matters is the production of knowledge – not the sewers and electricity networks and kitchen tables and washing machines on which the knowledge-producers will still presumably rely.This is turning us into narcissists, Crawford claims: we believe that reality is what we make it.
Confronting the material world brings us back to the realisation that there is an undeniable reality, and grappling with it requires us to get over our self-absorption.'
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