Player Piano

I just read Player Piano, Kurt Vonnegut‘s first novel. His trademark style is only visible if you squint and hold the book sideways, but it is still a splendid book and worth a read.

There’s a problem with it though, and it’s a problem I see everywhere. It’s not really a criticism of the book or of the author, but of a commonly held idea trodden into the carpet of the society in which it was written.

The story is set in a dystopian America in which tasks originally intended to improve quality of life have become automated. That is, machines take care of almost all manufacturing and service tasks. The only positions occupied by human beings are those in higher-echelon engineering and management, positions reserved for cherry-picked citizens of a certain IQ (and even these function beneath the tactical leadership of a supercomputer called EPIAC). The employed and unemployed seldom socialise. The unemployed majority either join the army or live invisible and aimless lives in an urban reservation called Homestead.

In some ways, the book should have pride of place in the Escapological library. It’s protagonist, Doctor Paul Proteus, wants to escape his tedious career among the managerial caste and bring about something of a proletarian revolution. Great! His solution, though, is to destroy the machine society and to return to a state of employment for everyone. And here lies my problem with it.

It is based upon the idea that to be unemployed is the ultimate disgrace.

It is based upon the romance that primitive graft is the only place to find dignity.

Well, it isn’t. If society were fully automated and human application were no longer required, we would find dignity in the new challenges: finding a way to support a society without mass employment, and ultimately finding something to succeed the consumer society. Given that unemployment in the Western world is increasing (due to automation or other factors) I think it is time we started thinking about it.

Some questions:

Why can’t we be allowed to do nothing? Why is it not decent to be idle?

Do we have the imagination to do something other than prop up a consumer economy? Can we, as a society, say “Good riddance” to grunt work – just as we saw an end to prepubescent chimneysweeps – and get on with something worthwhile, or at the very least, accept our bounteous inheritance as idlers?

Buy Nothing

Thanks to regular reader François for showing us the logo of this year’s Buy Nothing Day. People escaping a barcode!

Equality

Undoubtedly late to the party, I recently read and enjoyed The Spirit Level: why more equal societies almost always do better.

The book is a fascinating body of evidence and a collection of intelligent suggestions about fixing the first-world problems of violence, mental illness, obesity, poor educational performance, teenage pregnancy, and barriers to social mobility. It is put forward that these problems can be tackled by addressing equality.

Using data from twenty-three rich countries and fifty US states, the authors found that such problems are considerably more common in less equal societies. As the most equal, the Scandinavian countries and Japan tend to be at one end of the scale, while the US, UK and Australia are at the shameful other. Social problems, the book shows, increase with inequality.

The political right are not fond of these findings (though David Cameron praised the book and seemed to take it quite seriously in its early days) and so various think tanks have emerged with the sole aim of debunking the thesis. Sensible debate should always be encouraged, but the think tanks don’t seem to engage very well with the evidence and instead focus on sewing seeds of doubt among those on the political right. This is a shame because we need the political right to get on board with this, or it’s a no-starter.

A prominent critic of The Spirit Level called Christopher Snowdon does not believe the claim that the psychological effects on society of income inequality are great enough to cause widespread social ills. He says, “I don’t think people outside the intelligentsia worry about inequality. The working class don’t worry about how much Wayne Rooney is earning.”

Urgh. First off, the working class (and I suppose I count myself in that, even though I don’t actually work) are most definitely bothered by the earnings of celebrity footballers: it’s a popular conversation topic in the pub and the entire of tabloid culture is based upon a complex working-class relationship with such tall poppies. Secondly, whether members of the working class worry about inequality is besides the point: a person doesn’t have to know she’s drinking contaminated water to be made sick by it.

This year’s riots in England were the result of people having no money in tough economic times, while simultaneously having their noses rubbed in the fact that they can’t have the material junk (read as lifestyles) that the rich have.

Escapologists should be interested in social equality because once we’ve freed ourselves from the shackles of work, debt and urban lethargy, we might want to help a few other people to escape too. A Spirit Level-inspired better world would be a truly massive prison break.

So please borrow The Spirit Level from the library, read it, and tell your pals about it too, especially the most Hitlerish of them. If you have blogs or whatever, there are various resources at the authors’ website to help get the word around. It’s the only way to counter the drivel from activists on the right.

Can’t get enough minimalism

A few people emailed us recently to declare a new-found enthusiasm for minimalism. Believe me when I say that if these particular individuals are excited about minimalism now, there’s hope for the whole world yet.

There often comes a point when a fringe activity becomes adopted by the mainstream; a point when a living practice is no longer seen as eccentric. Recycling is a good example. In the 80s, my family seemed fairly alone in separating our garbage into plastic, paper, glass, and organic waste. We weren’t exactly hippies, which suggests the tipping point was already on the horizon, but our activity was certainly seen as odd by our friends and neighbours. In the 90s, recycling became seen as a responsibility, but it was still fashionable to shirk it. Today, the infrastructure to support recycling is convenient and ubiquitous, and recycling has become a matter of civic pride. What do you mean you don’t recycle?

I think minimalism (or ‘Reduction’ if you remember the most rejected of ‘The Three Rs’) is in a similar place to where recycling was in the 90s: people are becoming aware of the advantages, to stop reacting so violently to the suggestion that they voluntarily curb their consumer privileges, and to appreciate the minimalist aesthetic. Tablet computing is already encouraging a post-materialist attitude in some areas of consumption, and cloud computing promotes a certain distance between you and your stuff.

I think we’re on the brink of a third wave in terms of our attitudes to stuff. The new cycle will concern itself with empty space and quietness as the new luxury goods. Why a third wave? Peak Oil: the idea that we’ve already reached the point in time when the global production of oil reached its maximum rate, after which total global production gradually declines. We have to get used to not being able to buy cheap, disposable, largely-plastic products. We have to get used to inaccessibility due to products not being so readily and cheaply shipped.

Technology will partway solve the problem. Oil can be replaced by renewable energy resources. But to really solve the problem, we have to adjust to a new relationship between humans and stuff. It’s not a greenie fantasy anymore, but a cold necessity. Out goes the cheap and disposable, in comes the expensive and durable. Out goes lots of pointless stuff, in comes maximum utility and beauty. Out goes the idea that high-tech will save everything, in comes the balance of Brave New and Brave Old Worlds.

Space and quiet will be the new luxury goods. You’ll see. Buy shares in the quiet industries.

An Escapologist’s Diary. Part 30.

Blimey. It has been a very busy few weeks. I’d have had a far more relaxing life if I’d only kept my office job. Just kidding. I’d be doing less, but I’d also be having a horrible time. I hate computer solitaire.

After a successful meeting in Cardiff about my writing a [non-escapological] book, I went travelling in Eastern Europe. A friend and I explored Zagreb, Ljubljana, Budapest, and Bratislava. We visited a Turkish bath house, went to the ballet, spotted a voodoo chicken claw, ate too much pickled cheese, and enjoyed a demonstration of a Tesla cage.

I was perhaps inordinately excited to see Budapest because of its inclusion in the Ray Bradbury quote in the first ever New Escapologist:

See Istanbul, Port Said, Nairobi, Budapest. Write a book. Smoke too many cigarettes. Fall off a cliff but get caught in a tree halfway down. Get shot at a few times in a dark alley on a Moroccan Midnight. Love a beautiful woman.

Working on the rest of that one now. Not sure I fancy falling off a cliff though, if I’m honest.

(By the way, that quote has shown up in a LOT of self-helpy contexts since we put it in New Escapologist! I know for a fact New Escapologist is the source of its proliferation because it almost always includes my very own typo!)

After the Eastern European leg of my recent journey, I stopped briefly in Scotland to say goodbye to Glasgow for a while and to perform at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre before flying out to Montreal, where I am today.

I started this diary as a way of qualitatively answering the frequently-asked question “what do you do if you don’t have a job?” and I think my activities of the past few weeks demonstrate some of the best things about the post-escape life. In short, you probably do what you like.

Of course, what daring escape stories often fail to mention is the maddening paperwork that comes with super-mobility. I spent many hours this week trying to get the Internet working at our new Montreal apartment; recovering from jet-lag, and applying for local services like Social Insurance, Medicare, Tax Credit, mandatory French classes and so on. All I really want to do at this point is sit down and write my book, but these annoying things have to be fixed first. It must be possible to escape admin completely, but I’ve not found a comfortable way yet. Such an escape would almost certainly involve some kind of shack and a woodland grove. Not completely unthinkable, of course.

Tired of the everyday grind? Buy the latest New Escapologist at the shop.

New Escapologist Newsletter #6

Welcome to the sixth New Escapologist occasional email newsletter. This time, we’d like to tell you about the sixth issue of our magazine, and about a few past and future events.

1. Issue Six

The sixth issue of New Escapologist is out now. It is titled ‘Against the Grain’ and features Reggie Chamberlain-King’s essay about the unconventional career of naturalist Leonard Dubkin (nicely illustrated by Landis Blair); several escape stories; an interview with Leo Babauta; Aislínn Clarke on unorthodox funereal practices; poetry to commemorate office life by Graham Fulton; lavatorial fun with Jon Ransom; and plenty more. It enjoyed a splendid launch at the Edinburgh Festival earlier this year.

The new issue is now available to order at the shop.

2. Issue Seven

Issue Seven is due for release in the new year. It will be titled “On The Lam” and will explore the idea that Escapology is sometimes akin to a state of constant flight. Even when you leave the system amicably, it still does all it can to pull you back in. The issue will feature personal escape stories; practical articles on how to evade Agent Smith; and real-life profiles of interesting fugatives, vagabonds, duckers, divers, and prison breakers.

3. Expozine 2011

There will be a New Escapologist stall at Montreal’s Expozine independent media fair this year. The dates are 26th and 27th November.

4. New ordering system

You may have noticed some small changes at our online shop. This is because we’ve changed the way we distribute the magazine. In the old days, we would store all printed editions at New Escapologist HQ in Glasgow and ship every single copy by hand. This was getting a bit much to handle, so we essentially outsourced the process to our printers, Lulu.com.

Your ordering via Lulu has the added advantages of secure shipping, better packaging, occasional discount coupons, discounts on batch orders, and cheaper shipping for most international readers. The disadvantage, however, is that New Escapologist loses a money in the processs, so the jury is still out on whether the new system is good for us.

I’d like to hear any feedback you have about the new Lulu ordering system. Drop me a line by replying to this email if you especially love or hate the new system.

5. The Salon

I recently spoke at a now critically-acclaimed and completely sold out performance art event called The Salon, by Unitled Projects, at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. It was a brilliant experience and I’d like to extend thanks to the organisers for inviting me along. I presented a diatribe called The Escapological Eutopia: Five Dodgy Prophecies to paint a portrait of a future friendly to Escapologists. I’ll post something about this to the blog soon.

6. New Escapologist on the Web

As ever, there are a number of ways to engage with New Escapologist online. In addition to our website and active blog, we have accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and an RSS Feed to which you can subscribe. We get especially excited about your subscription to the latter. We are the Borg.

Thank you for the continued support. Enjoy the latest issue!

Robert Wringham
Editor, New Escapologist

Issue Six: completely and utterly available

Copies of Issue Six are wending their way to our beloved subscribers.

Rest assured, we’ve taken every step in motivating the postal workers of the world. The Postmaster Generals of every nation are currently being held in the New Escapologist oubliette and won’t be freed until all copies have been safely received.

Apologies are due for the ridiculous gap between launch and distribution. A lucky few of you will have your copies already but this week sees the main wave of subscriber distribution.

If you’ve not yet done so, you can order a copy at the shop. It’s no longer a pre-order. The stock is now ready to go.

This issue—Against the Grain—celebrates everything in the vein of our mascot, Jean des Esseintes. Featuring Reggie Chamberlain-King on Leonard Dubkin; Aislínn Clarke on unorthodox funereal practices; poetry to commemorate office life by Graham Fulton; and lavatorial fun with Jon Ransom.

The End-of-Life Statistical Debriefing

I sometimes fantasize about a rather square afterlife: a dataporn epilogue in which I’m given a wealth of terminal data about my life. It’s a kind of existential debriefing.

Sometimes I visualise this afterlife as an austere 1970s science lab, with ranges of analogue counting wheels, each halted eternally at their final numbers. Other times I imagine it as a live TV event: an enthusiastic presenter delivers a piece-to-camera from the top of Telecom Tower, finger pressed to her earpiece and declaring that, “Yes, the results are in!”

Every metric has been recorded: the number of times I went to the bathroom, the number of hours I slept, the number of good or bad decisions made, the number of moral victories or ethical betrayals.

Some of the metrics won’t really matter. Number of blinks or heartbeats are beyond my control and do not mean much either way. But some of the metrics in this databank in the sky will be causes of pride or shame.

A statistic for which I, the editor of New Escapologist, would take pride in being high would be number of days in flight. Every day spent living freely is a victory. If the celestial auditors are indeed watching, I hope they’re able to record that the total number of these victories outweighs the number of days spent serving forces other than my moral will.

A statistic I would like to keep low is Number of intentions unrealised. It’s very acceptable to abandon something deliberately, or to reform a plan partway through. But I hate it when things fall to the wayside, are forgotten about, or are simply never taken seriously as a possibility.

Alas, there is probably no afterlife and we’ll never be given such a cache of perfect data (and if we are, it’ll be largely pointless once our lives are over). If we want to collect data about our living patterns, we must simply resolve to document more. A longhand journal will provide qualitative data. A tally against certain metrics will provide the quantitative. At the end of a given period, we can analyse it all; draw conclusions, make predictions, and make changes to our habits.

To measure my “unrealised intentions” and to keep this statistic small, I have started maintaining a “Maybe Someday” list. Any ideas I have, whether big or small, go onto this list. I will later incorporate them into my plans or decisively obliterate them from my ambitions once and for all.

I’m also trying to reconnect with things I enjoyed in childhood: dinosaurs, chemistry, puppets, astronomy, fossils, wildlife. Maybe this way I can identify some early ambitions never acted upon, and have them scored from my shameful tally of forgotten plans.

There is something vaguely perverse about analyzing such water under the bridge. It’s like making notches on a bedpost, or examining the fresh contents of a handkerchief. But so what? A toilet that analyses your turds for nutritional excesses and deficiencies would be genius.

Relax and let the robots take over

I am afraid to even ask this, but since when is unemployment really a problem? I understand we all want paychecks — or at least money. We want food, shelter, clothing, and all the things that money buys us. But do we all really want jobs?

Isn’t this what all this technology was for in the first place? The question we have to begin to ask ourselves is not how do we employ all the people who are rendered obsolete by technology, but how can we organize a society around something other than employment?

Why play computer solitaire all day when a robot can do it for you?

This is an amazing column by techno-theorist Douglas Rushkoff. It’s incredible that an idea this optimistic, rational and outside-the-box can appear in a mainstream channel like CNN. Maybe it’s not so outside-the-box anymore. The tide is turning.

Gifts and Recommendations

Gifts are a problem for minimalists. A well-meaning gesture can leave you stranded with an unsolicited material object: another slight infringement upon your space and liberty.

The oft-cited solution is to encourage consumable gifts, like meals, booze, tickets, charity donations, experiences, and fruit. This largely removes the material problem without having to cancel Christmas.

Today (and this will seem like a digression, but there is a point to this) I spent several hours reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. I find this author’s work utterly absorbing; and, assuming I do not die before finishing this latest book, I’ll have read every one of his published works. The one I am reading now isn’t even released until next month, but I was able to acquire a rare pre-publication proof. That is how much I love this author.

I learned about Murakami from Laura. Her recommendation was a superb non-material gift. It cost no money and did not involve a material object, yet it had a profoundly personal affect and has been received with gratitude. Who knows how long it would have taken me to find this author otherwise? Perhaps when I found him of my own volition, it would have been too late. You have to come to some things at the right time.

Can recommendations be the true post-materialist alternative to gift-giving? A thoughtful recommendation can enrich a friend’s life in a similar way to a properly thoughtful gift without adding weight to their inventory.

Recommendations (of books, films, techniques, experiences, places) are strikingly similar things to gifts and, unfortunately, they come with precisely the same challenges. Just as a gift must be utilised or ornamented for a socially-acceptable period of time, there’s also an obligation to engage to some extent with a person’s recommendation.

In the past, I have found recommendations frustrating. They derail trains of thought, snag at attention spans, add items to to-do lists, increase expectational debt and anxiety. In 2010, I rather eccentrically planned my year’s reading in advance. Part of the reason was that I’d have an excuse not to accept people’s recommendations and to quickly change the subject: “Sorry, I can’t read that book. I’m doing this crazy reading experiment. Let me tell you about it…”

So recommendations don’t remove the social problem of gift-giving, but they can replace the material problem. Let’s try it. Have a pact with a friend to exchange recommendations (tailor-made for the particular individual) on birthdays instead of gifts. You’ve got a year to come up with the perfect recommendation so it shouldn’t be too trying. I imagine it will help you get to know your pals better and see how well they know you. If you want a material embodiment of this ‘gift’, you could write a library shelf-mark in a nice card.