Work, Leisure and Full Engagement

I just finished this blog 5 minutes ago, but it deleted it so this will be a little condensed.

I found that his section on community got me really excited, but let me down when it didn't really go in as much depth as I would have liked. I found his story of the mortgage broker to sound as if it would be very unfulfilling and it would be a never ending circle of feeling trapped in the cycle. The months spent working to earn money would become very frustrating knowing the freedom you would like to have. The other extreme is that your work is your leisure, but the problem with this is that your leisure becomes cheapened because of money. I feel like there has got to be some way out of these unfulfilling lifestyles, but being young and without much work experience I don't really have much of an answer and haven't been able to find one in Crawford's book, hopefully I'll figure it out soon to find out what to do with my life.

I am a disembodied brain in a jar.

After reading this chapter in Crawford, I can't help but relate to the feeling that I am being treated like a man in a box cut off from the outside world getting instructions and being expected to follow along and spit out some paper. I'm merely regurgitating much of what I've been "taught", but I don't really know how much of it I have taken in or have understood. It seems as though the education seems to work both ways where professors are treated with the same sort of robotic functions. I wonder what sort of learning environment would be created if students and teachers could learn how to interact with each other as if they were normal human beings and not just another face of a careless institution looking for our money.

I would have appreciated if Crawford hit more on how relationships affect learning and doing, because it seems to me that there is something more than individuals being treated like machines. I would like to hear some suggestions with sound reasoning for a different way for things to be done rather than just more concerns about the current way of society.

Cubicle Contradiction

This book continues to be like the scratching of fingernails against a chalkboard, the dissonance hard to take. There is this continuing contradiction that the academic author is telling us to not get so caught up in academics. The abstractive thought is creating contradictions in many people's lives that can continue because the contradictory thought justifying their actions is in disjuncture with reality.

Crawford's analysis of college degrees is very interesting as we have already discussed similar issues in class where we feel like we're just getting a piece of paper that doesn't really mean anything besides status. I get the general feeling that society pushes towards having degrees in a manner that is disenfranchising the poor and minority groups. The white privileged people have more access to a college degree to secure their spot in society while minorities have a much more difficult time because of the on going cycle of poverty. Degrees are a large part of what decides class in the United States, a way of disguising or abstracting the racism that exists within the system.

The Further Education of a Gearhead

I really appreciated this chapter for the bluntness in which Crawford criticizes the academic world and the colorful language toward the end of the chapter. I personally find it very difficult to take people in higher education very seriously when I see little connection between thought and their actual existence. Crawford portrays the realm of academics as being influenced by the capitalist motivations of the corporations in power and this also makes me even more skeptical of scholars. If I was in Crawford's position once he took the high paying job I would not have been able to last more than a few days. I had a similar experience while working at a church in Colorado this past summer where much of the motivation and reasoning behind what they did seemed to counteract what I had learned about Christ. I made it through the summer in hopes of being able to help the kids in the youth group I was working with, but had it not been for the kid's need for good mentors in their lives I would have left.

Today this makes me question what I plan to do when I graduate in 5 weeks and how I will be making decisions for my life. Currently it's leading me to live off of a bike and the kindness of strangers and I hope that it will not be so affected by money and the necessities of life.

To Be Master of One's Own Stuff

This chapter was very interesting as there were parts I could totally connect with and other parts I had no idea what was going on. When he gets to talking about cars and motorcycles I have no idea what he's talking about and I found it a lot harder to pay much attention. I found his section about the faucet without a handle to be very interesting, the notion of infantilization seems to be something I can see nearly everywhere. We have been made into a generation of consumers rather than producers making us pretty boring. The example he provides about the musician is enlightening and something that Tom loved. People in society today simply prefer easy things over something requiring time and dedication, the satisfaction found in writing and playing a song cannot compare to just plugging an iPod. Overall I have really enjoyed Crawford, but I get lost every time he starts talking mechanics.

Also in response to the seminar Monday I struggled in trying to understand the separation the presenter had with the state from the government. I personally believe that if somebody is participating in anything from the government they are dependent on a system that needs the use of violence and manipulation to stay in existence.

Living Under Occupation

This chapter is interesting in how Wilson-Hartgrove tells the story about Pat, because it is something I can understand having been in a similar place when the Iraq war started. I'm embarrassed but when the invasion took place I thought it was a good idea and justified. Years later I now realize not only that violence is wrong, but according to Just-War tradition this war could just be justified anyway. After taking Just-War for my dialogue II class I began wondering why even Christians who believe in any form of Just-War theory (which is dumb in itself) could even justify Iraq or Afghanistan. I also agree with Wilson-Hartgrove's connection between economy, government and violence.

I still struggle with Wilson-Hartgrove's ideas as they still seem to be leaning on the weak side, which sort of makes sense understanding the audience of this book, but I feel much stronger than Wilson-Hartgrove. I have also been reading Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You and the book is known as the central work dealing with Christian anarchy. In his book, Tolstoy uses very strong language that no resistance to government, which will inevitably always use war to stay in existence, is wrong for a Christian who instead must be much more decisive with their practice (although this resistance was still non-violent). I think Wilson-Hartgrove's book is very solid and good for an audience entering into the economy of God, but by reading Wendell Berry and Leo Tolstoy at the same time with this book I feel even more strongly radical about these topics.

The Separation of Thinking from Doing

This chapter was very interesting because it brings up something that I find in my life to be extremely frustrating. Over the past century there has been a shift where jobs have moved (in America) to a post-industrialized race of white collar cubicle jockeys. The problem I often have with this is that I see a huge disconnect, not only in society but myself, between thought and action. Sometimes I think a lot of great things, but I find it very hard to actually act on that thinking and make something tangible from that. I feel that much of this mindset has permeated into the Church as well where thinking the right thing is more important that doing the right thing.