Utopian Novels and the Internet

 I first read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand  a long, long time ago. I can remember being absolutely entranced by the narrative and her under lying, not so subtle critique of society. I can remember being slowly seduced into her desired world of lassie-faire capitalism where people earn their rewards; of a society where neither the state or any individual has any responsibility for people within the society; where there are no handouts to those who are struggling. In spite of the fact that I was actively involved in both my early career of working with young teenage males, many of whom came from economically, socially and emotionally deprived backgrounds, and all of the anti-war protest etc. of the late 1960s and early 1970s, I found myself almost agreeing with her vision of what life could be/should be like. I remember the almost sick feeling I got when I realized that her vision had almost captured me. Her logic was so clear, it was hard to argue with it.

I can also remember even earlier reading A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift. That short essay, written in the early 1700s, is equally as seductive in its suggestion as to how the economy of British run Ireland could become more self sustaining. Of course Swift was being satirical, but to the casual reader his proposal rings true. It is a good plan - just inhumane.  For a number of years I made the assumption that Ayn Rand must have been, had to have been using satire to critique society's inability to support to those who needed support and more importantly to mock those who denied their obligations to do so. Then a few years ago I tried to read Atlas Shrugged again. I could not finish it - it made me just too angry.

By the time of my second reading I was far less naive, far better read and much more aware of the neo-liberal agenda. Atlas Shrugged now sounded like a prescription, a game plan written by a collective of corporations to justify their activities in the world market place. In my darkest days, it sounded like a plan that was in fact being implemented in parts of the world including Canada.

I am pleased to be able to say that I have just finished "reading" another book that is as intriguing as Atlas Shrugged in its ability to make or at least almost make the reader believe in the logic of a new utopia. I spend a large part of my day playing with wool. For at least part of that time I have an audio book, borrowed from the local library, playing on my tablet. Sometime the books are pretty bad and I don't finish them but The Circle by  Dave Eggers kept me working longer than normal as I wanted to see what would happen next. I don't want to suggest that it is as in-depth as Atlas Shrugged  (it is also a lot shorter) or even as well written as A Modest Proposal , but it is well worth reading.

The book portrays a utopian vision of what could evolve if we continue to see social media as the ultimate way of being in touch with each other, if we continue with the belief that how many "likes" we get on Facebook validates our existence, and if we continue with the trend of accepting the accumulation of "followers" as proof that we are completely connected to our world. The ease in which the young, twenty something female protagonist becomes not just immersed into the this world as created by an internet company but in fact fully embraces it, is frightening.  It is frightening because it feels possible.

I suspect some people will read this novel and want to yell out "YES" in the sheer joy and excitement that a world where everyone is connected, where all information on everything and everyone is available to all, where the blending of state and of private companies is so seamless that there is no need for governments to exists is a glorious thought. For the rest of us, it should give us nightmares. There were times as I was listening that I felt myself agreeing that we should all be connected through things like Facebook or Twitter. I would then have that same sinking feeling that I got when I long ago read Atlas Shrugged.

It is entirely possible that I liked this book because it makes comment upon the assumption made by so many people that the internet and all of its related applications makes our life so much easier. So many people are already convinced that everything can be can be and should stored somewhere in the "cloud", and that when it is all connected, many of the world's problems will disappear. Dave Eggers like all of the good Utopian writers of the past starting with Thomas More in the mid 1400s has a few people screaming from the sidelines (and usually seen as being somewhat mentally disturbed) questioning if the new way of doing things is good.

A book worth looking at.

Sounds of Fall Leaving

It is easy to know when summer is here or when old man winter has a firm grasp on our red and runny noses (or any other part of our exposed anatomy), but there are times in the year when we are between season. There are those times when we know spring is coming, but we just can't define exactly when that time has come. It is equally as difficult to isolate the exact moment when one can say, without any doubt, that the fall is done with and we are in winter.

While it has generally been a great fall (although it has been pretty bloody cold at 6:00 AM while setting up my booth at the Saturday Peterborough Market), we all know that one day - probably fairly soon - we (at least those in central Canada) will wake up and realize that fall has faded away and winter is here. For most of us, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly when that transition occurs.  Here are some early warning signs that it is about to happen.

Street cleaning: the street on which I live in Peterborough has a lot of big old maples. In fact ,many of the older streets in this city are lined with these majestic trees. As beautiful as they are to look at in all seasons of the year, they do tend to lose most of their leaves within a short period of time. If the leaves are left to  line the sides of the roads, they block up the storm sewers, thereby guaranteeing that at some point next spring when the snow melts, there will be floods. While I suspect that there may be other solutions, Peterborough has decided to employ legions of large mechanical street sweepers. I first become aware of these strange super sweeper/vacuum machines when I lived just across the road from the city's works department. Every morning, sometime around 5:00 AM, these damnable machines were started so that they and their drivers could be ready to clean the streets. It was not the engine noise that caused me to curse the internal combustion engine, it was the constant beep-beep-beep of the audible back-up signal as the infernal machines manoeuvred around the yard. It is truly amazing how annoying that little noise, designed to keep people safe, can be morning after morning. It grates upon one's early morning consciousness like fingernails on chalkboard.

The job of getting rid of the leaves is made more difficult because there is little  convenient off street parking in the older part of town. People therefore use the streets to park at night. The street sweepers need to go around the parked cars, thereby meaning that they need to make a number of sweeps down the streets over a week to make sure they have gotten most of the leaves. Peterborough strikes me as being somewhat overly diligent in its pursuit of leaves. I have a friend visiting me once who had her back car bumper scratched by the large brushes of a sweeper. Clearly the drive had gotten too close. On the other hand, the two year old across the street from me (as I suspect most pre-schoolers) are endlessly fascinated by these machines.

The second sound of fall leaving is the dreaded noise of someone else, forced to leave earlier than me, scraping the frost off of their car window. It can turn out to be a glorious sunny days with the temperature in the low double digits - but when you hear that scraping noise - you know. There is no turnign back, there is no way to avoid it - fall is about to leave and winter is coming.

I have heard both the noises in the past few days - I guess I need to find my winter gloves, boots and hat.

Banks and Service - an Oxymoron??

In perusing the CBC and the Globe and Mail online sites I noted that two Canadian banks (Toronto-Dominion and CIBC) are laying of hundreds of Canadian employees. Why? Because the banks need to reduce costs. Not because they are losing money but rather because they are not making enough. Apparently their record profit this year (and in at least the five years previously) is not large enough. As I am sure I have mentioned before, the concept of a record year implies that it has been an exceptional year; that profits have been well beyond expectation. It should not ever be assumed that a company can have a record year every year. Or at least we never use to assume that. Now stockholders demand that profits rise every year and if they don't, then senior management is at fault. Those managers are then are fired/resign with a huge termination bonus, or hundreds of employees are fired with usually very limited termination payouts. It would seem that the large stockholders want to invest money in a risk free environment or rather that if there are risks that they are born by other people.

I suspect that if some people within the banking system had their way, one would never see a real body. It is their clear preference that people should do all of their banking on-line or at an ATM machine. I am sure that they would prefer to not have to pay tellers to assist people in managing their money. If everyone did their banking without talking to a bank employee, the bank would make the same amount of money on the transaction but would not have to pay anyone's salary. Good deal for the bank.

Of course banks are not the only "service" corporations who want us to serve ourselves without reducing our cost. There was a time when someone - usually a young kid, filled our gas tanks. It was a service that gas stations provided to their customers. As the gas was being pumped, oil could be checked and the windows washed. There might even be a conversation. Then gas stations started to offer a choice. One could pump your own gas and save money or have someone do it for  you at the regular price. Now not only does one have to fill your own gas tank (except I think in Saskatchewan) but you can save time and use your bank card to pay at the pump. Any bets on how long before there are gas stations with no attendants? Again - the company makes the same profit without having to pay employees.

Home Depot and Loblaw are two other companies that regularly encourage people to use their self checkout lines. Of course governments love the concept of self-serve. They would much rather have people on hold on the telephone than standing in line where they can see them.

I understand the convenience of not having to talk to anyone, of not having to wait in line while other people waste the clerk's time by having meaningless two sentence conversations about the weather. I know that people have busy lives and if one does not have to get to the bank during business hours, or to walk to the gas station clerk's little hut to pay the bill, life is so much easier. But every time we decide to use a "person-free" kiosk, every time we decide to interact with a machine rather than a person, there is a cost. That cost is very real to those entry level clerks who need those jobs but who are deemed to be a threat to the profit line of large, multi-national companies. Every time we use a self checkout line not only do we take away a little bit of an employee's job, but we provide justification for those large companies to continue decreasing service while maximizing profits. Every time we chose not to interact with a person - we provide confirmation to that company that we value convenience over service.

I regularly refuse to use self service. I like interacting with people - I think the act of providing a good service is an art that should be encouraged and not reduced to an irrelevant line on an accountant's spreadsheet.

Election...... Finally!

I know that I am not the only Canadian who is slightly bleary eyed this morning. I, like many others, stayed up until 1:00 AM so that I could watch both the winning and the losing leaders make their speeches to either congratulate themselves and their workers or to commiserate with them. I was glad I did.

I was surprised at both Mulcair's and Harper's speeches. While they did congratulate Trudeau and the Liberal party, I found both of the losing leaders' comments to be a touch arrogant and at time a bit disingenuous.  They lost. They lost badly. Although I think it could be argued that the NDP lost more than the Conservatives, neither party lived up to their own dreams or definition of success. They should have said so. Both Harper and Mulcair needed to admit, in public, that they had misread the will of the people, that they had made significant mistakes. While I appreciate that looking depressed, sad or even angry because you lost may not be politically correct, it would at least show the voters that you are human and that you are capable of accepting responsibility. The parties would be stronger for such acknowledgements, no matter how unpalatable it would be for the leader to say. Even Harper's comment about being responsible for the loss came across as some arrogant claim to fame, or some pro forma comment a losing leader is suppose to say. As well, Harper, who by the time he made his speech to the Canadian public, had already resigned as the leader of the Conservative Party, lacked the - whatever the right word is - perhaps courage or dignity or honesty - to say so to the people in that hotel room in Calgary and to the Canadians who were watching across the country.

Trudeau's speech was long. I don't find him a particularly exciting speaker in terms of delivery (although the fact that his voice was clearly worn out may have detracted from his natural style) but there is no doubt that the content was crafted to excite, to stimulate and to create a sense of hope that politics can be and will be different from now on. Most unusually when he thanked the people who helped him get to where he was, he mentioned the names of his two top advisors. He also gave the credit for his rather stunning victory ( and come back from being a party many had written off) to the people who voted for him. A nice touch.  While it is perhaps easier to be humble when one is victorious, it was a pleasant change from the arrogant responses of the two losing politicians who could only brag about what they had accomplished, or what they would do in the distant future. I think he believes what he says, I think he believes that he can do what he says- perhaps not so much in  terms of the hundreds of policy decisions and bills that should be reversed but at least in the tone he wants to set. Time will tell if he can deliver on those promises.

After an election of this magnitude the amateur political junkies and pundits will spend energy asking the "what if" questions. My favourites in that fantasy category are: what would have happened if Harper had not raised the niqab issue; if he had not tried to turn Quebecers away from the NDP; if he had not weakened that party so that the polls started to suggest a shift. If Harper had let the Liberals and NDP fight it out, the vote might have remained more split between the NDP and the Liberals and Harper would have won once again by going up the middle.

And secondly, what would have happened if Mulcair had not assumed that he had a better shot of winning than normal, if he had not played it safe, if he had shown off that fiery debated style, the passion he is capable of. What would have happened if he had if stayed true to the Socialist roots of the party as opposed to veering somewhere off to the right of the political spectrum?

We will never know.

Election #2

Tomorrow, October 19,  is the Canadian federal election. I, like so many Canadians, am more than a little bit tired of all of the commercials either bragging about the various parties' platforms or far too often tearing down someone else's capacity to lead. I am looking forward with great anticipation to being able watch the three national channels analysis of who is winning where. Because I no longer work - I can stay up as late as I want to so that I can absorb every nuance of the coverage. A political junkie's dream!

Unless all of the polls are wrong, it appears to be fairly obvious that Harper and the Conservatives will not do as well as they did last time. While there seems to still be a possibility that that they will get the most seats, it is equally as clear that the two other mainstream parties will refuse to support the Conservatives when Parliament first sits. Knowing Mr. Harper, I think it is more than likely that if the Conservatives win the most seats - he will not re-call parliament for some time in the hopes that the other two parties lose energy and focus in their determination unseat him. In other words, like other times he will run and hide rather than face the consequences of his action.

When the election was first called, it appeared as if the NDP had a reasonable chance of at least becoming the minority government. Mulcair had performed well in the House as the leader of the opposition. He spoke well, with passion and a sense that he knew what was needed to get Canada back on track. However in his desire to become more mainstream and therefore potentially more attractive to more Canadians, the NDP may have lost connection to their roots and their core group of supporters. Mulcair frequently makes the connection between Tommy Douglas (a former leader of the NDP and the acknowledged "father of Medicare"). He should quite frankly be ashamed to do so. The values and policies that shape the current NDP platform have far more in common with Conservative leader Diefenbaker than with Tommy Douglas. In fact one could suggest with some justification that the policies of Conservative leaders Joe Clark or Stanfield (both from the 70's) were far more left of center than those of Mulcair.

The NDP need to "win" in Quebec. In a particularly dastardly (there is no better word for it) political move, Harper raised the issues of the niqab and whether or not we should be concerned that two women, two out of the thousands and thousands of women who have wanted to become Canadian citizens, wanted, because of their religious faith, to have their faces covered during the actual ceremony. Harper raised this concern in Quebec which already had been struggling with this issue. Harper probably did enough damage to the NDP's aspirations in Quebec that the election was lost for the NDP. What should have happened was that other Canadians who are less afraid of their culture being destroyed by another culture needed to stand up and cheer that our politicians were defending our right to be different. That did not happen. The polls reported a slide in popularity for the NDP - particularly in Quebec.

The reality appears to be that if the pundits seem to think that there is a possibility that a party is sliding in the polls, that enough people start to believe that the pundits are right and the slide becomes the truth. We all want to be on the side of the winner.

On the other hand Trudeau and his fellow liberals were almost completely written off four years ago. They became the third party in Parliament and were seen at best, as being ineffective. They, within a ten year period, went through a couple of leaders fairly quickly, each easily succumbing to the Conservatives smear tactics. There was little reason to believe that the young son of a former prime minister, while he might be charming, would suffer any better fate. The fact is that Trudeau didn't get overwhelmed by the negative commercials; he did create a platform that seems to have been developed with some logic and consistency and he has made the promise of change seem like something that can be delivered.

Of course there is the ever present danger that Trudeau might be as politically naive as was Obama. Promising change while still immersed and dependent upon the political system that raised you up ( and the Liberals while they may have changed leaders - are still connected and supported by the same corporate interests as before) is not only fraught with dangers - it is a path almost guaranteed to lead to disappointment and frustration. We all want change - we just want someone else to pay for it. I am not sure if Trudeau knows that or not.

With many Canadians feeling as if something needs to be changed, and the Liberals being a familiar brand (no matter how poor the record may or may not be), it appears as if voting for change - even if it means voting for the devil you know, is more comfortable than voting for the un-tried. I therefore predict that the Liberals will win the most seats in tomorrow's election. It is entirely likely that they may even win a small majority.