Technocrat

(rage against the machine)

On Tuesday, December 9 a representative from the Radio College of Canada came to speak to the physics classes of the Woodlands. His message was clear: Without a technical education we would fail miserably in our lives and suffer from continual unemployment. It seemed obvious to this dude that the ticket to riches was computer programming and electronics. It never occurred to the man that being a corporate robot, a tool as it were, may prohibit actual enjoyment of any riches gained (i.e. blondes don’t have more fun they just have more sex). If you are expected to work 60 hour weeks in a non-unionized software firm while being proactive and shifting your paradigms on a regular basis your mind will atrophy. The man’s view of the world was that corporations knew what was best for us and that we should all get a technical education so we can help our friends in industry rule the world. Their end goal is to usurp the democratically elected governments which vainly try to save the last remnants of independent thought. If you are merely a victim of this power grab then you are homeless or clinging by your fingernails to your livelihood. Anyone taking the “If I can’t beat em join em attitude” is a collaborator and their technical education is their initiation to becoming a card carrying mindless drone.

The pride the man demonstrated in saying that the curriculum was dictated by large corporations was laughable and meant one of two things; either his naivete about corporate intentions was crippling his capacity to think or he had lost the capacity to think long ago when he started down the path of technical education. He explained to the class that his nephew had taken a B.A. in History and was now unemployed and looking for work as a waiter. The thought never having occurred to him that poverty and freedom may be more valuable to educated people than wage labour and slavery. Marx identified the problem in the 1800s where the population submitted their freedom and bodies to a capitalist in order to survive. The situation here is no different and far more subtle. You may suggest that you can quit at any time, but where will you go? To another corporation, likely owned by the same conglomerate as the last one, where you will do the same type of work all due to the limitations of your technical education The video the dude presented was a perfect example of the homogenization of the workforce where 10 different people were asked what they liked about their technical jobs and the response, like their minds, was uniform, “I like it because its challenging and technology is always changing”. What kind of mentally crippled response is this? The fact that everyone of them said exactly the same thing further degrades the value of this statement and their existence. I have no more use for these corporate robots than I do for the collection of metal that shall replace them.

And now your response is: Well then, booklearner, what do you propose we do? You like technology as much as the next guy. I suggest a return to cottage industry, independent production. Take the means of production away from the technocrats and put them in the hands of the proletariat. Individuals forming collectives to create software and technology aided by democratically elected governments who have their interests, rather than those of the conglomerates, at heart. Socialism on a mass scale coupled with political and social education which shall precede and take precedence over technical education. I am by no means suggesting an end to technical education. Only an end to it as it exists now. We will give the proletariat the tools required to throw off the yoke of technical slavery and provide for themselves the staples of postmodern life.