“AF ’1“? k: tgh-u2-. -_—?A_; ., ’3fléiigde‘al This is to certify that the dissertation entitled TOWARD A RADICAL HUMAN [SM OF WORK AND LEISURE presented by STANLEY JOSEPH WERNE has been accepted towards fulfillment ofthe requirements for ,7 ’ a 1" ajor professor / Date [0‘015’* 85 MSU is an Alfirmatiw Action/Equal Opportunity Institution 0- 12771 lVflSlJ LIBRARIES m pt RETURNING MATERIALS: Place in book drop to remove this checkout from your record. flfl§§_will be charced if book is returned after the date stamped below. \. 'l‘fi 7' " "" "T <‘ “ ‘ ‘ULI’ ‘-U E‘, W ' s 100 072$ U TOWARD A RADICAL HUMANISM OF WORK AND LEISURE BY Stanley J. Werne A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Philosophy 1985 ABSTRACT TOWARD A RADICAL HUMANISM OF WORK AND LEISURE BY Stanley J. Werne In this dissertation I develop an argument that radical humanism is the best view of work and leisure we have available to us. As a preliminary to the argument, I present a general radical humanist critique of key elements of contemporary American society. I argue that solutions to these problems require a reevaluation of and changes in how we view and practice work and leisure. In light of the need for this reevaluation, I systematize and expound radical humanism according to its intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological perspectives on human being. After showing some implications of this conception of human being for work and leisure, I expound some alternative views of work and leisure that are operative in our common culture. These views are (1) the work ethic as it had taken shape in early nineteenth-century America, (2) modern scientistic materialism, (3) the fatalistic asceticism of the Stoics and Epicureans, (4) the classical view of Aristotle and two modern classicalists, and (5) the communism of Karl Marx. I also critically compare and contrast each of these views with radical humanism. In shifting to a more argumentative mode, I discuss how all these views of work and leisure are ideologies, which help people understand and evaluate social realities, create for them an identity, and motivate them to act in effective and appropriate ways. In light of this understanding of ideology, I set forth and defend thirteen conditions of adequacy for a view of work and leisure. Six conditions of theoretical adequacy are imposed to ensure that a view helps us make sense of the social realities we face. Seven conditions of practical adequacy are imposed to ensure that a view helps us act on the basis of the understanding we reach. To show how radical humanism meets these conditions of adequacy, I provide a more detailed critique of our society. As a result of this critique, I call for developing person-oriented communities, regional food self-reliance, and worker control of the work system. I also argue that these changes would further more desirable patterns of consumption, a science and technology for and by the people, and genuine cultural activity. Finally, I argue that to the extent that radical humanism meets the conditions of adequacy better than the alternative views, it is the best view of work and leisure. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I gratefully acknowledge the assistance given me in this project by the members of my Guidance Committee. I thank Professor Bruce Miller especially for pointing out the dialogue on work in The Greenlander, by Mark Adlard. I thank Professor Richard Peterson for leading me through my first readings of Karl Marx and for his work in developing the readings list for a special topics course in 1981, Philosophy 494, "Society, Technology, and Utopia." I thank Professor Harold Walsh for his courses on Aristotle, for his careful reading of earlier drafts of individual chapters as well as the whole dissertation, for his enthusiastic encouragement of my efforts, and for the personal example he offers of a philosopher whose interests and capacities range far and wide. Last, but certainly not least, I thank Professor Philip Shepard, the director of this dissertation, for introducing me to radical humanism and for all the supportive guidance and constructive criticism he has provided throughout this project. More than once, when I felt as though lost in a maze, he pointed me in the right direction and encouraged me to find the way out. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTIONS............................... Introduction to the Problems...................... Introduction to Solving the Problems.............. Introduction to Radical Humanism.................. The Plan of This Dissertation..................... NoteSOOOOCO...OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CHAPTER 2: A GENERAL RADICAL HUMANIST SOCIAL CRITIQUE.. A Sketch of Daily Life............................ Issues Surrounding Work........................... Issues Surrounding Food........................... Ecological Issues................................. Issues Surrounding Leisure........................ An Objection Considered........................... NoteSOOOO00......IOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CHAPTER 3: RADICAL HUMANISM............................ The Intrapersonal Perspective..................... The Interpersonal Perspective..................... Communitarian Political Activity.................. Communitarian Economics........................... Communitarian Cultural Activity................... The Ecological Perspective........................ A Summary of the Major Claims..................... The Sketch of a Model............................. NoteSOOOOOOO0.0..0.I...0.0.0.0...0.000.000.0000... CHAPTER 4: OTHER VIEWS ABOUT WORK AND LEISURE.......... Fictional Representatives of Alternative Views.... The Work Ethic.................................... Radical Humanism and the Work Ethic............... Modern Scientistic Materialism and Ascetic Fatalism........................ Radical Humanism and the Two Cockaignes........... Aristotle's Classical View........................ Radical Humanism and Aristotle.................... Two Modern C1assicalists.......................... Radical Humanism and the Modern Classicalists..... Karl Marx's View.................................. Radical Humanism and Marx......................... summarYOOOOOO0.0.00.0.0.0...OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NoteSOOOOOOOOO0.000COOCOOOOOOOOOOO00.00.000.000... iii mk‘H‘ 16 18 20 21 23 30 34 36 4O 41 42 49 54 55 61 65 72 80 85 87 89 96 104 109 113 117 119 121 124 128 132 137 CHAPTER 5: CONDITIONS FOR AN ADEQUATE VIEW OF WORK AND LEISURE............................. Ideology as Cultural Symbol-System................ The Conditions of Adequacy........................ Explicit, Coherent Values......................... Evidence.......................................... Past and Present Sources of Problems.............. Interconnections Among Problems................... Conditions of the Possibility of Change........... Reaching People................................... Attainable Changes................................ Realistic Steps for Change........................ Reaching People .................................. Integral Solutions to Problems.................... Guiding Spirited Participation.................... Criteria of Selection............................. Constructive Resolution of Conflict............... Summary Listing of the Conditions................. The Relative Importance of the Conditions......... NoteSOOOOOOOOOOOOOCOOOOCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCOOOOOOO0.. CHAPTER 6: CONDITIONS OF THE POSSIBILITY OF CHANGE..... Community......................................... Communitarian Principles.......................... Food and Agriculture.............................. Food Self-Reliance................................ Nonagricultural Production and Services........... An Objection...................................... The Objection Answered............................ Worker Control of the Work Process................ Consumption....................................... Science and Technology............................ Alternative Technology............................ Culture and Community............................. NoteSoooooo00.00.0000000000000000.000000000000000. CHAPTER 7: RADICAL HUMANIST PROPOSALS FOR ACTION....... Toward Community.................................. Toward Food Self-Reliance......................... Toward Control of Work by Workers................. summaIYOOO...O0..OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCOOOOO...0...... Notes...0.0...OOCCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCO0.000CIIOOOOOO CHAPTER 8: THE ARGUMENT FOR RADICAL HUMANISM........... The Conditions of Theoretical Adequacy............ The Conditions of Practical Adequacy.............. A Summary Review of the Argument.................. Conclusion........................................ NOteSooooooooooooooooooooooooooo0.0000000000000000 BIBLIOGRAPHYOOOOOOO0..OCOOOOOOOOOCOOCOOOOOOO0.000000... BOORSOOOIOO..0.0.00000000000000000000000I...00.... Journal Articles, Essays, and Lyrics.............. iv 144 145 151 152 155 157 158 160 162 164 165 166 167 168 170 172 173 174 179 181 184 188 197 204 207 212 214 218 219 224 226 230 236 241 241 247 255 260 263 268 270 275 284 285 288 289 289 295 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTIONS This dissertation is based on the firm conviction that it is high time for all of us to reevaluate how we work and leisure. I will try to show that work and leisure are the central strands in a knot of contemporary cultural problems that are beginning to take on crisis proportions. I will also try to show that our ways of thinking about work and leisure greatly influence what we do in them. And what we do in work and leisure reflects not only what we consciously think about them, but also what images and feelings we may only semiconsciously have about them. If we bring our thoughts, feelings, and attitudes about work and leisure into full awareness and honestly assess them, we can more easily change how we do our work and use our leisure. Making this assessment and beginning this change are the first steps toward creatively solving the problems we face in ways that help us cultivate a fuller well-being for ourselves and other human beings. Introduction to the Problems The contemporary social situation is revealed in daily news of international tensions and fighting, environmental poisonings, economic difficulties, and crimes against persons and property. Moreover, we are sometimes keenly aware that some things in our personal lives are Just not quite right. Sometimes we can't put our finger on exactly what they are. We have vague feelings that, surely, things 1 2 can be better. Other times, for example, when we've been dealt an injustice by, say, the government or a business, we get a glimpse of what's wrong, but the process of correcting it seems so complicated and drawn out that we feel helpless. In the face of these global and personal problems that seem so elusive and slippery or else so crushingly complex, we understandably don't quite know what to do. So we carry on with business as usual and hope things turn out alright in the end. But business as usual involves ways of doing and looking at things that cause us to split work and leisure radically from each other. This is the big knot in the center of the tangle of problems we face. If we could untie it, I believe we could easily unravel the remaining snarls. We split work and leisure in lots of ways. Many people have to spend eight or more hours a day on the Job, at work, often frustrated by the meaninglessness and repetitiveness of the tasks they are required to do. They are supposed to have leisure in the evenings and on weekends. But then, understandably, leisure usually consists of nothing more than trying to unwind from work. The way work is presently organized and leisure promoted, it is almost impossible for most people to blend work and leisure in a way that helps them develop as human persons. Many other people, mainly women, are at home isolated from other adults while they take care of their children and keep house. While this is not an unimportant thing to do, it also can get oppressively monotonous, in part because it mirrors the single-minded 3 schedule of the people who work at paid employment, in part because of the relative isolation. Under such circumstances one can easily feel like one's life is "on hold." People in this situation, I submit, are caught in a split between what they could do to mix work and leisure in a fruitful way and the way our social organization unduly limits how they can fulfill their duties and responsibilities to others. Still other people find themselves forced into an odd sort of "leisure" because they are unemployed. Unless they are quite lucky, they find themselves without access to forms of work other than paid employment by which they could meet their physical needs. With the consequent concern over how they can make ends meet, it is difficult indeed to engage in leisure in any meaningful sense. Older people and young people also find themselves out off from a more satisfying life that would more fruitfully blend work and leisure. Some older people can't do as much single-track employed work as they once could, so they are asked or required to retire and not to work. They find themselves in an odd sort of forced leisure for which they are not ready because of their lifetime on the single track. Young people are supposed to "get an education," but too often it is doled out in relative isolation from the rest of their lives. Too often too much emphasis is placed on helping them become better wage earners and not enough on helping them become fuller human beings. These are just a few of the more evident ways our culture splits work and leisure. Carrying on with business as usual perpetuates these splits between work and leisure. Without realizing it, each morning we "...get out of bed and put a lot of energy into creating and re-creating the social calamities that oppress, infuriate, and exhaust us."1 We want things to get better, and most people, I believe, really try to do their small part to improve things--and not just in ways that give only themselves advantages. But as long as we continue to isolate work from leisure and leisure from work, many of our actions will continue to result in something different than the improvements we hope to effect. What we intend to do with one hand will be undone by what we do with the other. To make this clearer, consider an example to which we will return in more detail in Chapter 6. Many Americans are concerned about the fact that so many people in the world suffer from famine. To our credit, as a group we are known for our generosity in contributing money to the cause of easing the effects of famine. But this good intention is undone by the way we live every day. Most of us do not grow much, if any, of our own food. We think it's too much work with all the other work we do. At the same time we have eating habits that we associate with ease, leisure, and at least relative wealth. We eat out fairly often, we don't like to or feel like we can't spend much time preparing our own food, and so on. So we plug ourselves into a food system that tries to mold us into profitable consumers. We let the 5 system take care of our food, and in the process we let it influence our tastes and habits. By doing this, we provide multinational agribusiness corporations with a market for kinds of food that can be grown most profitably in places where people need more nutritionally essential food. In countries that suffer famine the international food system often functions so as to perpetuate land-holding patterns which keep ordinary people there from being able to grow the food they need but can't afford to buy. The wealthy elite buy up land and turn it over to the production of crops which will be exported to developed countries like the United States. Those who would use the land for meeting their own needs for food are denied access to it. In this way our everyday actions and attitudes contribute to a state of affairs in which hunger for profits and not a genuine concern for people's nutritional needs determines what kind of food is grown, where it is grown, and who controls its growing and selling. And so our good intentions of trying to alleviate famine are sabotaged from the beginning in part by the social consequences of our habits and attitudes. Only by changing our patterns of work and leisure to eliminate such heavy dependence on a monopolistic food system can we really ease or eradicate the human suffering caused by famine.2 Even if this would not be enough by itself to do away with famine, it is a necessary step that is within our control. Introduction to Solving the Problems A similar situation holds for other contemporary social 6 and personal problems, as I will try to show in Chapter 2. In order to solve these problems, we must stop pushing against ourselves at the same time we're pulling. I intend to show that to bring our actions in line with our intentions, we have to recognize that work and leisure cannot be relegated to separate spheres of life without causing problems. Then we must work out ways of life that weave them into an integrated pattern. To begin to do this, we have to take a long, hard look at what we do, both by commission and omission, in our work and leisure. This will require us to become more aware of some things we pretty much take for granted. It will require us to do some things we're not used to doing. But the reward for these efforts will be an integrity of action and intention and a many-sided well-being so superior to our present situation that we will wonder why we didn't begin sooner. Bringing work and leisure together in our lives requires us to become more knowledgeable about the social organizations and patterns within which we act. We have to find out how they affect, for good or ill, not only ourselves and our immediate surroundings but also other humans, other species, and their surroundings. Without this knowledge we won't know where to direct our efforts for change. For example, suppose we didn't know that some countries who suffer famine export more food than they import because of the workings of international agribusiness.3 In that case we would not see how what food we buy or whether we grow more 7 of our food could make any difference at all in the problem of famine. We must also become more aware of the images and attitudes we borrow from the background of our general cultural heritage. We have to be conscious of how our attitudes toward work and leisure depend on the ideas present in our common culture. We have to be conscious of how our images of what it is to be a human being depend on the various images that have developed in our cultural tradition. We have to recognize that our present ways of working and using leisure assume inadequate conceptions of what it is for us to be humans and to act as humans. After all, our views about what it means to be human do affect our views about work and leisure. To show this in a preliminary fashion by way of examples, we might canvass a few conceptions of human being current in our common culture. One common attitude is that human beings are the rulers of the natural world around us, both of inanimate forces and elements and of nonhuman living things. This attitude has one source in Genesis, in the story of the creation of humans, 1:26-30, and in the story of the Flood, 9:1-7. This attitude is apparent if we reflect on how we feed, shelter, clothe, and transport ourselves. As the religious origins of this doctrine have been secularized, it has become not so much a consciously espoused view of humans as an assumption that we can and should conquer nature. On this assumption, the divinely set constraints on the "ruler blessings” found 8 in Genesis 2:17 and 9:4-6 are tossed aside, and nothing is off limits if it is a question of human ends. Accompanying some versions of the belief that we humans are rulers of the natural world is the belief that we must work by the sweat of our brows for our survival and livelihood. This, again, has one source in Genesis, 3:16-18, in the story of the Fall. Other versions of the ruler doctrine have as a corollary the common belief that science and technology can, will, and should perform many transformations of this world in the service of human good and comfort. It is as though if only we work hard enough and cleverly enough for a time, we will have to work hardly at all once we bring nature under our control, at which time we will have universal leisure. Another, less common View holds that we humans should devote a minimal amount of time and energy to practical affairs and manual work and a maximal amount to leisure. The conception of leisure here amounts to what might be called mental work. The goal is not to sit back and relax but to exert oneself in improving one's mind. This is befitting of human beings because we are, on this view, rational animals. We humans are unique in our intellectual capacities, and our proper action is to develop and actualize these capacities by exercising them as much as possible. The final notion I will present here is perhaps the most common. It is that human beings have little control over the events that shape our lives and that we must carry on as well as we can. We react to what are perceived as the impersonal 9 forces and influences that surround us rather than act with the attitude that our action can make a difference in how we develop our lives and in how we shape the world around us. This conception of humans as being acted upon rather than as being actors, I think, is associated with ambivalent attitudes toward work and leisure. Work is pictured as making a living, providing for the necessities. We humans are constrained from doing as we like by the need to feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves. Thus, we work, and thus, we rebel against work. We see it as undesirable. Surely there is something better, we think. This something better is thought to be leisure. We long for leisure as nonwork, as relaxation from the necessities of life, as escape from the external forces which seem to affect us in ways we cannot control. Yet, and here is the ambivalence, we fear that if we don't work, if our lives are not structured by our work, we will lose control, become bored with life, be somehow less human. The adumbration of a life spent solely in a relaxed leisure is enough to prompt most people to suppose that even a state of affairs requiring rigorous labor to maintain what little one has is preferable to continuous idleness and relaxation. We fluctuate between loathing work and longing for leisure and suspecting leisure and casting our lots with work. We should become aware of images and attitudes like these so that we can reflect on them, reassess them, and develop better ones. We need to sort out the things in our lO cultural stock of ideas that help us flourish from those that make our problems worse. The point of this taking stock of ourselves and our society, of course, is not just knowledge and improved attitudes. The point is that this knowledge and these attitudes should help us change our behavior and the organization of our society. We have to change not only how we think and feel but also how we act. We have to find concrete ways of acting that effectively bring work and leisure together in our lives. And to make these changes in our personal lifestyles socially meaningful and effective, we need at the same time to develop better social institutions, better ways of coordinating our activities. If we limit ourselves only to personal change, the results of our actions will still differ from our intentions, and the personal changes will be hard to sustain. If we don't make these reflections and these changes, there's a good chance we'll just stay in the rut of business as usual and continue to act at cross-purposes. Bringing work and leisure together requires personal and social changes. The prospect of making changes, however, is often a frightening thing. Questions arise: Will we really be better off? Suppose things don't work out; then what? Can we really pull it off? The process of changing is also an unsettling experience. As we try out new ways of viewing and doing things, we don't feel the security offered by the familiar. We're afraid of fumbling and blowing the whole project. In such a frame of mind, the familiar, even if far 11 less than comfortable, seems preferable to an unknown possibility. For these reasons, to make work and leisure complementary parts of more balanced ways of life, we also need to formulate a vision of a more desirable future. This vision can give substance to hope, encourage us when we doubt ourselves, restore our resolve when we feel discouraged and down, and guide us in our efforts to find new and better ways of living. Without a vision of what the future can be, we too easily and too often flounder. The more we flounder, the more discouraged we become. Without this vision, the difficulty of changing ourselves and our society can make us feel that it's just not worth all the trouble. In short, to bring work and leisure together and to solve our problems, we have to develop a different way of looking at the world. Introduction to Radical Humanism I will try to show that a radical humanist view of work and leisure offers us such a way of looking at the world. It helps us understand our present social organizations and patterns of doing things. It indicates how our daily activities of work and leisure contribute to perpetuating our personal and social problems. It proposes ways to change these things. A radical humanist view also helps us become aware of the attitudes toward work and leisure and the conceptions of human nature we borrow from our common culture. It indicates that how we now view work and leisure and how we now act presuppose inadequate conceptions of what it means to be a human being, of what humans are and can be. 12 It develops a sounder conception which we can embrace and enrich as we use it to guide us in action. A radical humanist view of work and leisure also provides a vision of the future that can rekindle our will and motivation to take charge of our lives. It envisions a transformation of our present cultural ground into an enduringly fertile seedbed for the cultivation of flourishing human beings. Since this view of work and leisure offers all these things, it should be clear that it is practical as well as theoretical. It is theoretical in the sense that it provides a framework of ideas which helps us understand how things are and how they got that way. Equally important, it is practical in the sense that it helps us find more effective ways of acting. In a sense to be explained more fully in Chapter 5, this View of work and leisure is an ideology. It provides a way of thinking and a system of symbols that make it possible to find meaning in the complex social situations we currently face and to act purposefully within them.4 Just how a view of work and leisure can be an ideology and empower us to act effectively and meaningfully requires more explanation. I think it is clear that the interrelated contemporary problems which confront us leave us baffled and confused. Many strategies for solution have been tried but found inadequate. Things seem to be getting worse, and we feel powerless to effect any lasting, comprehensive change. I agree with Robert Pirsig when he says, "'We're living in l3 topsy-turvy times, and I think that what causes the topsy- turvy feeling is inadequacy of old forms of thought to deal . . 5 With new exper1ences....'" Old ways of viewing work and leisure are in part responsible for our failure even to identify, much less to solve, our problems and for the consequent feeling of helplessness. In certain historical periods these ways of thinking and their symbolic frameworks seemed adequate because they enabled people to act meaningfully. They helped people understand the structure of the world around them. They helped people judge what was good and to be embraced, and what was bad and to be avoided or condemned. They helped motivate people to do their part in keeping things going. And they fostered in people a sense of identity, a sense of who they were.6 But our actions sabotage our intentions in part because we uncritically borrow from these elements of our common culture. It is partly on the basis of these past ideologies, these ways of thinking and the images and attitudes which accompany them that we have created the problems that oppress and intimidate us. What is needed in part is a different ideology which inspires us to overcome timidity and confusion, which empowers us to persevere in bringing about systemic, long-term solutions to our difficulties. I believe that radical humanism provides us with this better way of viewing the world. Radical humanism takes its name from the tag Erich Fromm attached to the movement he envisioned could humanize modern l4 industrial society.7 Briefly, it has intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological aspects. Its intrapersonal aspect sees human beings as unique persons with needs to understand, define, develop, and express themselves. As persons meet these needs in the living of their lives, they individuate themselves, they grow toward a fuller well-being. Contrary to the rugged individualism so influential in our common culture, radical humanism emphasizes that this personal well-being requires cooperation more than competition and interdependence more than isolated self-sufficiency.8 It requires growing with others rather than trying to get ahead of them. The interpersonal perspective sees our relations with other people as an important part of human well-being. We can help each other act more effectively on our intentions by forming genuine communities and resisting tendencies to become parts of an impersonal mass. The ecological perspective is concerned with maintaining a healthy natural environment and with how humans interact with the natural world. It indicates that since we are natural beings, our health, which is a necessary part of human well-being, depends on the health of the environment. It also stresses that cultivating a respectful relationship with nature can contribute to our growth as persons. Based on these points of view radical humanism insists that both work and leisure should enable us to develop our persons, to form genuine communities, and to respect and enrich our relationship with nature. 15 Radical humanism has its source in many commentators on different aspects of modern society who already form a self- conscious, if loosely knit, social movement. Each of them contributes in different ways to a cluster of themes--the flourishment of human beings, respect for the ecological conditions that make healthy life on Earth possible, famine and malnutrition, international development, the proper relation of science and technology to human well-being, and economic Justice, to mention a few. Many of them address work and leisure specifically. Although these thinkers clearly share a family of insights, principles, and proposals, there have been few published attempts to systematize these ideas into an explicit, consistent, and coherent point of view.9 For this reason one of my main goals in this work is to provide an exposition of radical humanism as a systemic view of work and leisure. The other main goal goes beyond exposition. I believe that radical humanism is a view which can help us become better human beings in the process of solving the complex problems that face us. For this reason I will also try to argue that radical humanism is a more adequate ideology than the main alternatives in our common culture. To achieve these goals, I systematize and codify radical humanist ideas around two themes. One is how they can help us recognize that the split between work and leisure is at the heart of contemporary personal and social problems. Primarily in connection with this theme I identify some of 16 the cultural problems that confront us and suggest how the split of work and leisure is present in them. The other theme is how radical humanists view human nature, what it is and means to be human. I examine radical humanist ideas and proposals and, where they are not explicit, draw out the implicit presuppositions about the nature of human beings. To show better the strengths of this view of work and leisure and of human nature, I expound the main alternative views which I see as options in our common culture and compare them to radical humanism. This comparison leads me to reflect on and lay down conditions that help us Judge the adequacy of a view of work and leisure. I then argue that on the basis of its ability to meet the conditions of adequacy better than other views, radical humanism is the best view of work and leisure. In the course of this argument I will make clear some of the theoretical and practical consequences of adopting radical humanism. Throughout the proJect I consider various objections and doubts raised against radical humanism and suggest how they can be answered. The Plan of This Dissertation The structure of this dissertation reflects my purposes. The next three chapters are mainly expository. They are intended to help the reader understand radical humanism. In Chapter 2, as a way of setting up radical humanism's affirmative claims, I provide a general radical humanist critique of the ways work and leisure are split in contemporary society. Chapter 3 is a more careful and 17 detailed exposition of the main features of a radical humanist view of human being and of work and leisure. Chapter 4 gives an exposition of the main alternative views that are operative in our common culture: a work ethic, modern scientistic materialism, ascetic fatalism, some classical views, and Marxism. I also show the main points of similarity and difference between radical humanism and each of these other views. In Chapter 5 I begin the shift to the argumentative mode. I discuss the sense in which all these views, radical humanism included, are ideologies. In light of this discussion I set forth and defend some conditions of adequacy for a view of work and leisure. In Chapters 6 and 7 I show how radical humanism meets some of the important conditions of adequacy with its proposals for action. Finally, in Chapter 8 I draw together the various elements of my argument to defend the conclusion that radical humanism is the best view of work and leisure. I hope that the reader finds what I say here interesting, informative, and stimulating. I hope it motivates you to try to come to your own understanding and evaluation of what is going on in your life and your society. I hope it provides an informative and reasonable framework around which you can develop this understanding and evaluation. Finally, I hope the radical humanist vision will inspire you to develop a lifestyle and activities of work and leisure that will contribute to your own human well-being and that of others. 18 NOTES Philip Slater, The Pursuit of Loneliness: American Culture at the Breaking Point, rev. ed} (Boston: Beacon Press, 1976), p. 2. Frances Moore Lappé and Joseph Collins, Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity, rev. ed. (Neinork: Ballantine Books, 1978), pp. 17-21, 181-215. Ibid. Clifford Geertz, "Ideology as a Cultural System," in Ideology and Discontent, David E. Apter, ed. (New York: The Free Press, 196A), pp. 60-6A. Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (New York: Bantam Books, 197A), p. 163. David E. Apter, "Ideology and Discontent," in Ideology and Discontent, pp. 18-23; William T. Bluhm, Ideologies and Attitudes: Modern Political Culture (Englewood CIITTS, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 197A), pp. 5-12. Erich Fromm, The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968), p. 136. Slater, The Pursuit of Loneliness, pp. 1-18, 26-37. Erich Fromm, The Revolution of Hope, comes closest to the sort of systematic approach I take here, but he does not use work and leisure as a central theme. Theodore Roszak, Person/Planet: The Creative Disintegration of Industrial Society (Garden City, NY: Anchor BoOks,il979), clearly discusses what I here call the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological aspects of radical humanism. However, he devotes less attention to the conception of human being that is present in them. He does devote a chapter to work. O.W. Markley and Willis W. Harman, ed., Changing Images of Man, The Center for the Study of SocialAPolicy/SRI International (New York: Pergamon Press, 1982), survey many conceptions of human being with an eye toward developing an image that will enable us to overcome "the world macro-problem." However, the goal I have here of systematizing radical humanism as a coherent view of work and leisure is absent in their book. Jeffrey S. Stamps, Holonomy: A Human Systems Theory (Seaside, CA: Intersystems Publications, 1980), also concerns himself with "world views of human beings" and how these affect what we do and can do. He has "undertaken to integrate the viewpoints of general systems theory and humanistic psychology" toward holons, "complex entities, particularly 19 organisms and people, which are simultaneously: (a) whole individuals and (b) participating parts of more encompassing wholes." Although I do use Humanistic psychology to provide insight to radical humanism, I do not make any explicit use of general systems theory. For some introduction to general systems theory see Walter Buckley, Sociology and Modern Systems Theory (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967), and Walter Buckley, ed., Modern Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist (Chicago: Aldihe Publishing Company, 1968). AnniHarriman, The Work/Leisure Trade Off: Reduced Work Time for Managers and Prdféséionals (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1982), examines how the conceptions of time in our common culture affect the way we work, how some managers and professional people have carried out different time patterns for work, and how this affects their lives. She clearly would like to see all people be able to develop alternative working arrangements. While the spirit and goals of her approach are consistent with my approach to radical humanism, she doesn't devote any attention to conceptions of human being or much attention to how work and leisure are the connecting factors between important contemporary problems. More recently, FritJof Capra and Charlene Spretnak, Green Politics (New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1984), report and evaluate the principles and activities of the Greens political party in Europe, especially in West Germany. The Greens base their movement on four principles: ecology, social responsibility, grassroots democracy, and nonviolence. The similarities in spirit and proposals between radical humanism and the Greens is too obvious to overlook. However, in this work Capra and Spretnak focus more narrowly on the Greens as an organized political party. They are concerned less than I am with developing a world view that pays special attention to an adequate conception of what a human being is and to the centrality of work and leisure in many of the issues the Greens address. CHAPTER 2: A GENERAL RADICAL HUMANIST SOCIAL CRITIQUE In Chapter 1 I maintained that many pressing social problems form a nexus around a deep dichotomy between work and leisure. I also claimed that many of us, without realizing it, contribute to the perpetuation of these problems. Though we often have good intentions and sometimes make sincere efforts to help solve some of the problems, we end up acting at cross-purposes. Many aspects of our ways of life, involving as they do the split between work and leisure, undermine our well-meaning efforts. I sketchily indicated how this is exemplified in our responses to the problem of famine. In this chapter I want to show on the basis of a general radical humanist critique, that a similar situation holds for other contemporary social and personal problems. This critique will reveal that there are, like a system of faults in a geological formation, some structural faults not only in American practices of work and leisure, but also in our attitudes toward work and leisure. First, for the sake of clarity, I want to make some prefatory remarks about the intent of this critique. It is general in the sense that at this point I don't pretend to provide detailed evidence for many of the points of criticism. Rather, since we don't yet have in hand the systemic approach and concepts of radical humanism, I aim the critique at a sort of intuitive level. I want the reader to get the feel and flavor of radical humanist criticisms of the way things are presently going. I am aware that some of 20 21 what follows may strike some readers as unsupportable, distorted, or perhaps even outlandish interpretations of our contemporary cultural situation. However, I ask a patient reading. At relevant points I will indicate where in later chapters I provide more discussion, evidence, and argument. A Sketch of Daily Life As a preliminary way of framing the main issues of the critique, consider a sketch that can serve as a cross section of daily life in America. Observe what happens on any typical weekday in any American town or city. If one wandered the streets early in the morning, roughly anywhere from 5:30 to 6:30, one could see lights beginning to dot the windows of houses near and far. People are getting up to go to work. Not long after, processions of cars and trucks wind their way to the factories and warehouses of the town. In bigger cities one can count buses and trains among the movers of workers. By 7:00 the clanging of small bells or the grating of buzzers along with the smooth hum of machinery have signaled the beginning of another day of making a living. While the orchestra of tools and machines inside builds to a crescendo to be maintained until break time, the parade of vehicles continues outside. Those with banker's hours are making their daily pilgrimage from home to post office or coffee shop to The Office. There the clatter of various kinds of electrical and electronic keyboards contributes to the cacophony of work. Meanwhile back at the ranch houses, in the proper season 22 the children are getting ready for school, in some cases alone, in some under the watchful eye and urging voice of mom or dad, who threatens the laggardly with the dire consequences of missing the bus or arriving at school tardily. Having gotten the kids off to school, it might be time for the keeper of the house to hop into the other car to get some groceries at the local supermarket or to make a shopping excursion to the new mall at the edge of town. This task accomplished, after lunch, if one is fortunate, the toddler of the family will take a nap. Then, by midafternoon the school children are returning home. Time to throw together a meal, for quick fixing by batches in the microwave if the evening's schedule looks particularly fragmented by assorted family members' activities. Between A:30 and 6:00 the clogged highways and streets carry the cavalcade of weary workers back home again. Only now can some keepers of the house buy the groceries or prepare the evening meal. If one wanders those streets again after sundown, a bluish glow through windows will pinpoint the locations of television sets in each house. Much later the glow of picture tubes is extinguished, and one can almost feel the darkness envelope everyone in restful preparation for another daily routine. A trip back to the factories and warehouses at this hour might reveal another shift of workers carrying out their roles in an isomorphic pattern on the back side of the day. Unless I am more ignorant of the daily functioning of 23 our society than I suspect, the scenario I have sketched is not atypical, though it admittedly omits many details and leaves untold many variations on the theme. If the representative character of this tale of a day is granted, let's examine it with an eye open for the clusters of cultural faults it reveals. The first cluster of issues in the radical humanist critique surrounds work on the Job. The second set deals with something to which only brief allusion was made: our food system. The third cluster of issues involves the ecological effects of the lifestyles that are exemplified in this scenario. The fourth group relates to leisure, to the after-work hours of the scenario. Issues Surrounding Work Let's turn to the issues involving work on the Job to see how intentions are undermined by actions and how work and leisure are split. Many people have intended to gain more control over their destinies and to live more satisfying lives based on the material benefits of the Jobs at which they work. For many the material benefits are greater than their great-great-grandparents would have imagined possible. However, the more self-directed, more satisfying lives have not followed automatically from them. In fact, the actions and lifestyles required of people for many Jobs severely limit how much they can take charge of their own lives and how satisfying their lives can be. No doubt, the material benefits enJoyed by many under the present social organization of work have made life more 24 secure and satisfying in many ways. With modern systems of heating and cooling many of us enJoy greater comfort in our shelter against the elements than our ancestors did. We store and prepare our food, clean our houses, and generally run our households more conveniently and less laboriously because of modern appliances. In all sorts of pursuits we are less limited by physical distance because of modern forms of transportation and communication. In addition, scientific and technological advances have made work on many Jobs much less physically burdensome and dangerous and much more functionally efficient. Clearly, radical humanists don't claim our present social organization of work is an unmixed curse. However, they strongly disagree with anyone who might be inclined to view it as a nearly unqualified blessing. More importantly, the following criticisms of our system of work challenge the probably more common view: it may not be the best system imaginable, but its advantages far outweigh its disadvantages. First, it is significant that many people's work constrains how much control they have over important parts of their lives. My description above of an ordinary work day reveals that under the present organization of work we typically associate work with paid employment, with a Job, which, implicitly, someone else gives and controls. As I will argue more fully in Chapter 6, many Jobs are controlled by someone other than the workers who perform them. The directors and managers of a company decide what work will be 25 done, when it will be done, and how it will be done. The regimentation alluded to in my sketch above is one aspect of this lack of control by workers over the work they do. More often than not, in industrial production part of the regimentation is gained by the use of the machines which hum in the background or wail in the center of things. Those who perform the work of tending automated machines find that they are responsible in any genuine sense for less and less of the final product. The conception of what is to be done and how it is to be done, as we have already said, is removed from their control. Furthermore, since the machines perform most of the operations needed to transform the raw material to the finished product, there is an erosion of skills in those who once practiced them. For those who have not yet learned them, there is a repression of the need to develop practical skills in which one can take pride. .A similar situation holds for production which is not automated. More often than not, the work process is divided up into fragmentary tasks which each worker is required to perform repetitively the whole working day. Thus, though the physical rigors and need for competent and complete attention may be diminished, the psychic toll from servitude to the demands of automata or from empty repetition is increased.1 When workers lack control over their work and must submit to such regimentation or lose their means of livelihood, it is impossible for them to approach their work with a genuine sense of responsibility. What is meant here 26 is not the personnel manager's idea of responsibility, which consists of arriving on time, putting in a "fair" day's work for a "fair" day's wages, and not leaving before the buzzer. Rather, the sense of responsibility at issue here goes much deeper. Negatively, it consists of being unwilling to do work which is useless or dishonest, which encourages people to strive after luxuries or frivolities as though they were necessities, or which contributes to ecological damage. Positively, it consists of trying to do well work which fulfills genuine human needs and promotes human excellence. It involves taking legitimate pride in one's work because it is worthwhile and done well.2 It is a sad commentary on our present social organization of work that the closest thing to pride many people can display is a tight-Jawed, clenched-fisted sort of pride that they can "take it" and do what they have to do to earn a living. So that they can have more control over their work and so that it can contribute more to their human flourishment, workers must transform the social organization of work. Another cultural defect is revealed by our story when we observe the patterns of work in the office and the carrying on of daily affairs in the home. Examine your mental picture of the factory and warehouse, of the machinery in gear there. Now examine your image of the office or bank and of the suburban house. I would be willing to bet that it is men who operate the industrial machinery and handle the warehouse stock. It is women who touch the keyboards of typewriters, 27 data processing terminals, and adding machines. But it is men who service and repair these office machines. It is women at the tellers' windows, but men behind the desks in the credit and investment departments at the bank. Women are the keepers of the house, but men sell and repair the appliances and power and communications systems in those houses. There is a reason for your imaginary picture of these spheres of work to be as it is. Our cultural values and practices contain the idea and actuality of "men's work" and "women's work." Besides having gender-specific places of work and kinds of work, the Job-oriented economy of America monetarily rewards women's work less than men's work. In general, the esteem with which different kinds of work are associated is bestowed to a higher degree on men's work. Such divisions among the work done by human beings call for some corrective measures. Fairness would seem to require at least roughly equal pay for roughly equal work. But fairness of this sort is not enough because it would leave untouched all the other faults of the system of work. In particular, people tend to get pigeonholed in our social organization of work. Men are expected to fulfill certain functions, and women others. It usually takes herculean efforts to make possible a greater variety of self-directed activities that could make more work a mutually shared endeavor rather than a role-restricted one. Related to all these faults is one that is harder to 28 describe and document. Despite its less concrete and evident character, from a radical humanist perspective it is too important to ignore. The social organization in which we work and leisure makes it difficult to develop a balanced, integral pattern of living. The demands of employment force many of us to leave our families and places of living for a large part of nearly every day. At least for the greater part of most days of the year, employees and those with whom they live naturally shift into a single-track mode of living that almost exclusively revolves around making money. Even our sense of time is strongly affected. Many of us begin a week on Monday, the proverbially dreaded work day. We end it on Friday, eagerly anticipating the ease or change of pace, or more accurately, the feeling of freedom which marks the leisure time of the weekend. It is Wednesday morning, time to go to work. It is Thursday evening, time to take it easy. It is Saturday afternoon, time to do what we want. It is Sunday evening, no use beginning anything too involved for around the corner is Monday morning. Under these circumstances it is too easy for us to conceive of our lives as so many tenuously related or conflicting activities that we must carry out as best we can. There is precious little time, physical energy, or psychological "room" for taking up and, when appropriate, sharing activities which could allow us to live more integral and balanced lives. Another aspect of this tendency of our economic system to put our lives on a single track is how it affects 29 education. Increasingly education is seen as a stepping stone to a high-paying occupation. What discussion takes place of helping young people to learn to live well far too often equates living well with having a big bank balance or lots of discretionary income. More often than should be the case, rather than being a broadening of outlook which can promote human understanding and cooperation, or if not that, at least tolerance, schooling narrows the field of vision to the Job and how much it pays. Too often students seem to think of good grades and extracurricular activities merely as prerequisites for getting into a good college and being highly sought after future employees. One seldom hears from students that studies and activities are ways of becoming better human beings and of contributing to their communities. When this happens, it becomes clear that we have failed to convey proper values of work and leisure. When college and university students bow down at the altar of the Job, we see that our culture fails them. When university officials speak of marketing a good product in referring to graduating students, it is as though an education is little more than a weeding out of undesirables and a training of new recruits for corporations and government bureaucracies. In such a cultural milieu, it is difficult indeed to hold and live out decent values of work and leisure. To solve these problems, we must develop a different social organization that exhibits and acts on a better view of work and leisure. We must find ways to make work more self-directed and satisfying. We must 30 break out of the rut our system of work has dug so that leisure is less separated from and subordinated to work. Issues Surrounding Food The second set of issues in the radical humanist critique of American society involves agriculture and our food system. Notice that the setting for the scenario of a typical day is nearly any city or town. Notice also that I mentioned only the fixing of a meal and not farming. This is significant because many suppose it a measure of our high degree of economic, agricultural, and cultural development in the United States that only A% of our population provides the rest of us with our food, with enough left over to help feed the starving of the world. Many consider it a social gain that the rest of us are freed from the work and worry of growing our own food in order to be able to carry on other important social tasks. Many consider it a personal gain that we are free to attend to more interesting, less restrictive occupations and pursuits. If we wanted to emphasize the negative aspects of farming, we might describe it as a near slavery to the seasons, the weather, and whatever animals or crops are raised. In addition, the stereotypical image of cultural backwardness and social isolation is the peasant family working the land and barely surviving even at that. How much better we have it. Moreover, we need not slur our own farmers by calling them peasants, for they have the latest in big farm machinery, the best hybrid seeds and stock, and the scientific advantages of 31 chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. Our farms provide the standard by which all other agricultural systems should measure themselves. Or so it is usually thought by many of us. This fact that very few of us work to grow any of our own food has some important implications. The development of an agricultural and food system in which this fact is a matter of course was accompanied by numerous Justifications and intentions. Among them, I have Just suggested, were the intentions to free more people from drudgery for a greater variety of activities and greater wealth and to produce more food. However, if what I have claimed above about work at Jobs is true, many of the forms of work that replace farm life entail Just as much drudgery as farming. Moreover, it could be argued that farmers have more control over the work they do. Again, the intention is undone by the action employed to effect it. While nonagricultural work may have allowed more wealth for more people, consider that our food system is organized in such a way that most of our food comes processed and packaged courtesy of a score or so of food corporations. Although there are good reasons for and undeniable advantages to some ways of mass processing foods, other forms are motivated less by a concern for nutritionally sound variety of diet than by a desire to change habits of food preparation and consumption so that a profit can more easily be made. A selling point of T.V. dinners, for example, is that they are easily prepared in a short amount 32 of time. Of course, another more recent, logical extension of this concern for decreasing the amount of time and effort needed to prepare our food is the fast food chain outlet. We find here an example of a situation in which the quest for leisure as escape from work may soon result in a loss of control over how we fulfill an essential human need. This is bad enough in itself. As we allow food corporations to manipulate our tastes and eating habits, we become more dependent on what they choose to offer.3 I will deal with this more fully in Chapter 6, where I will also return to the claim that international agribusiness corporations and the eating habits of many Americans share a good deal of the blame for much of the suffering that occurs because of famine abroad and malnutrition at home. Ecological Issues The third set of criticisms in the radical humanist critique deals with the ecological damage that our ways of life cause. There is no disputing that many of the material benefits of our present social organization make life easier and more fulfilling for many people in important ways. However, in providing these benefits we are depleting many nonrenewable natural resources and polluting many parts of the natural environment. We are dramatically upsetting many of the ecological conditions upon which life and health depend. If we maintain our present course, many things which were supposed to contribute to people's comfort and well-being will continue to pile up negative consequences 33 that may soon make life miserable. Consider these things. The supply of fossil fuels which heat our homes and run the engines of our power plants and automobiles is not unlimited, although we seem to have begun to act again as though it were. Moreover, the burning of these fuels at the levels we do in both power generation and driving cars contributes greatly to the pollution of the air we breath. The main technological alternative for power generation has been to turn to nuclear power plants, but these have spawned a school of dangerous and complicated problems.“ And notice how, because they allow us to travel farther and faster, cars have made it possible for cities and towns to sprawl, making it ever more difficult to get to where one needs to go without a car.5 In relation to our food system, many of the fertilizers and persistent pesticides used in farming pollute streams and rivers and contribute to the amount of sometimes dangerous chemicals entering the food chain. The presently common practice of large-scale monoculture, i.e., the growing of one crop year after year, makes the soil more susceptible to wind and water erosion. Top-soil is being washed and blown away at alarming rates.6 For a different environmental problem, notice how much paper and plastic is thrown out in fast-food restaurants. This is only one source of a growing waste disposal problem. The disposable character of many convenience items, the fact that they are used once or only a short time and then thrown away, is a maJor contributing 34 factor. To avoid ecological disaster and to make us more sensitive to our ecological connections, we must develop different ways of life. I will be arguing later in Chapters 6 and 7 that this will require us to change our conceptions and practices of work and leisure. Issues Surrounding Leisure For the fourth set of issues in the radical humanist critique, let's examine more closely the after-school and after-work hours of our scenario. This is leisure time under the usual conception of leisure. We are not working on the Job or for anyone now, unless we want to putter around the house or yard a bit. We can do as we wish. Yet, the weariness from the working hours settles into our bodies and minds. We drift in search of some entertainment and relief from exertion and pressure. Many of us drift no farther than the nearest television set. It wouldn't be unusual to spend the rest of the evening in the presence of the talking picture box. We do spend some evenings in other ways, but always breathing down our necks is the work we seek to escape. And so we wander aimlessly into our free time. It seems to me that this drifting into leisure indicates something important. The most we seem to be able to pack into our conception of leisure is nonwork. We think of it in negative or privative terms--as not work. We see it as empty time which we allow to pass, try to pass, seek to fill. On the other hand, we seem to view our work as a process which 35 structures the pace and flow of our lives, even if we don't particularly like that or how it does this. I do not mean to suggest here that leisure should structure our lives. The emphasis is not on structure as opposed to lack of it. Rather, the important thing is the source and kind of structure. Is it a structure which allows a balanced variety of integrated activities and a structure in which we can wholeheartedly participate? Or is it a restrictive, narrow, single-track structure arbitrarily imposed on us by someone or something else? As I suggested earlier, our present social organization of work inclines us to lead restricted, unbalanced lifestyles. We tend to drift along and let the narrow view of leisure as unwinding from work suffice. Sometimes we do look for something more worthwhile to do in our free time, but this often requires going against the cultural grain. Sometimes, wishing only to relax and be entertained, we let whatever is close at hand be sufficient. When we approach leisure with this conception and in this frame of mind, it is easier for the commercializers of leisure to influence us. For example, the television entertains, but it also sells. In our suggestible state, the purveyors of plenty try to persuade us that unimportant things are important, that trivial things are of great consequence, and that for the right price we can have any of them. Among the products on display are fillers or enhancers or givers of leisure. If we buy the correct brand of beer, we can have the seven-day weekend. If we patronize the 36 proper hamburger stand, we will have all the fun we deserve. If we smartly choose the correct cleaners of clothes, dishes, floors, and ourselves, we will either have more free time or somehow enJoy it more. Though we do not always take the hook, neither do we often deny the enticement of the bait. Leisure as the escape from work holds us in its sway. In order to break out of this restrictive mode, we must try to change ourselves, our habits and lifestyles, and, in the process, our social surroundings so that both work and leisure can become activities which enable us to develop and express ourselves as more complete human beings. An ObJection Considered Up to this point I have tried to provide some evidence for the suggestion that as a culture, and thus as individuals, we do not have either a conception or practice of work and leisure which is balanced, which is integral and unfragmented. Though some people might grant this as a reasonably correct statement of an undesirable state of affairs, they might say that there are more important things to worry about. The range of these more important things will vary depending upon who makes the list. However, I will venture to mention a few. Unemployment rates are high, crime is rampant, political apathy is spreading, ecological breakdown is dangerously imminent, famine is destroying many people, social and cultural homogenization is proceeding at a faster pace, and male-dominated, centrist power structures are dragging us all to an early grave, under some not 37 improbable scenarios by means of nuclear war. After we straighten out some of these more pressing problems, the line continues, maybe we can get a little more excited about straightening out our skewed relationship to work and leisure. My response to this concern does not question the urgency of coming to grips with these various social, political, and ecological ills. However, I think it is a false perception of these problems which does not see their connection to the issue of the place of work and leisure in our lives. If we focus narrowly on unemployment or famine or cultural homogenization as isolated problems, we will fail to develop long-term and systemic solutions to them. Instead we need to arrive at an understanding of all these difficulties that sees the deep, implicit connections between them. I have suggested that our work and leisure have such a momentous and pervasive presence in our lives that they connect or relate together nearly everything else we think or do. The catalogue of cultural faults above indicates Just a few of these connections. For this reason I believe that by understanding and correcting what is lacking in our conceptions and practices of work and leisure, we will also be contributing to the rectification of many other cultural and personal disorders. I will be trying to show that radical humanism provides us with the framework of a systemic account of our common culture and social organization. As systemic, radical 38 humanism provides a perspective from which we can see the interconnections among the various, apparently unrelated problems that trouble our lives. It reveals how we often live in ways that undermine our own aspirations. It helps us understand how the defects in our common culture and social organization form a tangled web of interdependent problems, some central strands of which are reflected in how we work and leisure. It helps us see that the point of unraveling the tangles is to transform the web of problems into a lattice for human flourishment. Besides this understanding, radical humanism provides some guidelines and proposals for changing our present attitudes and behavior as well as our present social structures--for bringing about a transformation of our lives. It can empower us to trade self-defeating responses with constructive and hopeful ones. Likewise, it can warn us away from pulling the wrong strands that would would make matters even worse, either by unraveling the whole fabric of our culture or by enmeshing us more tightly in the tangles of new problems. In the next chapter I will expound the main features of radical humanism. I will be paying special attention to radical humanism's conception of human being, which serves as an underpinning for its view of work and leisure. In Chapter A I will expound other views of work and leisure with some attention to the conceptions of human nature presupposed by them. I will also indicate some of the differences and 39 similarities between radical humanism and each of these other views. In the remaining chapters I will argue that radical humanism is the best view of work and leisure on the grounds that it meets, better than these other views, the conditions of adequacy set forth and defended in Chapter 5. A. 40 NOTES Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 197“); Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine, Vol. II: The Pentagon of Power (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1970), pp. 321-352; David Dickson, The Politics of Alternative Technology (New York: Universe Books, 1974), pp. 29-3A, H1-62. Theodore Roszak, Person/Planet: The Creative Disintegration of Industrial Society (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1979), pp. 214-222. Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture (New York: Avon Books, 1977), especially Chapters 2-5, pp. 17-79; Frances Moore Lappé and Joseph Collins, Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity, rev. ed. (New York: Ballantine Books,’l978), pp. 277-35A; Loretta Schwartz-Nobel, Starving in the Shadow of Plenty (New York: S.P. Putnam's Sons, 1981). Amory B. Lovins, Soft Energy Paths: Toward a Durable Peace (New York: Harper Colophon’Books, 1977);’Barry Commoner, The Poverty of Power (New York: Bantam Books, 1976). Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality (New York: Perennial Library/Harper & Row,7PubliShers, 1973), pp. 55-56; Toward a History of Needs (New York: Bantam Books, 1978), pp. A2-A5. See citations in Note 3 above. CHAPTER 3: RADICAL HUMANISM Radical humanists believe that ways can be found to develop long-term solutions to the personal and social problems sketched in the previous chapter. They maintain that these solutions will involve improvising new ways of relating work and leisure. This, however, requires a reexamination of our views of the place of work and leisure in human life. This reappraisal, it seems to me, will necessarily involve ethical and political Judgments, Judgments about how we ought to act individually and collectively. Such Judgments presuppose either explicitly or implicitly some claims about what a human being actually is and potentially can become, what it means to be a human being. Conversely, a given picture or conception of human being provides a standard for ethical and political claims, a set of boundaries within which certain ethical and political claims can coherently be made and acted upon. In short, how we should work and leisure depends in part on what we are, on what our nature is. If I am correct about this, an examination of the maJor elements of a radical humanist conception of human being will reveal and support maJor elements of a radical humanist view of work and leisure. For this reason in this chapter I want to organize an exposition of radical humanism around its conception of human being. Before examining the layers of detail in a radical humanist conception of human being, it will be helpful to notice its skeletal structure. There are intrapersonal, 41 42 interpersonal, and ecological aspects in a radical humanist conception of human being. The intrapersonal aspect focuses on factors of human existence within the person. Its most important insight is that in order to flourish humans must find ways to become more individuated persons. The interpersonal perspective involves the social aspects of human existence that characterize the relations between and among persons, either directly with one another or through social institutions. Its primary organizing theme is that human well-being is best developed and exhibited in balanced, autonomous activity in our relationships to one another and to social structures. The ecological side of radical humanism is concerned with the ways humans interact with the natural world. Its fundamental claim is that since humans are integral parts of nature, our continued existence and flourishment as a species and our individuation as persons require a respectful, nonreductionistic relationship with the rest of nature. To understand how these notions ground a view of work and leisure, we will have to see how this skeleton is fleshed out. The Intrapersonal Perspective Let's begin with the intrapersonal aspect of radical humanism. It claims, as we have Just seen, that human beings have within themselves tendencies toward becoming more complete persons. It claims that individual and social well-being requires each of us to engage in the activity of individuating ourselves, of actualizing these tendencies 43 toward more complete personhood. However, to avoid misunderstanding, as soon as we focus attention on each person and the fulfillment of each person, we have to distinguish these radical humanist claims from a common form of individualism. There are many different formulations of individualism, some more sensible and defensible than others.1 There are also different sorts of practices of individualism, ways that people act individualistically. Implicitly or explicitly, most of these emphasize the supreme and intrinsic value of the individual human being. They also proclaim individual self-development and self-direction or autonomy as ideals.2 There are traces of these elements in the intrapersonal aspect of radical humanism. However, radical humanists regard a peculiarly American form of individualism, and the practices and attitudes related to it, as fundamentally inadequate for furthering human well-being. The individualism at issue here is a variety of economic and political individualism. It praises the American political and economic system as a system that protects and encourages competition because it places much value on free industry and 3 In practice this is free, unfettered opportunity. reflected in the way so many Americans try "to avoid or minimize potentially irksome relationships" in which they must relate to and depend upon other people and in which others depend upon and make demands of them. They "try to minimize, circumvent, or deny the interdependence upon which 44 all human societies are based."14 This tends to make people think of themselves as self-contained entities who establish themselves as individuals by developing their capacities for living independently. This also tends to encourage competition among people in order to get the things that allow them to live more independently. In contrast, radical humanists claim that personal individuation requires us to avoid a false bifurcation between individualism and coilectivism.5 We might understand this in the terms of Carl Rogers when he says, "The aim of life...is...'to be that self which one truly is.'"6 To be the persons we truly are, we must think, feel, and act so that we form and express our characters, our selves. To do this, we must make autonomous choices about which of our capacities we will exercise and develop. As should be plain, there is an element of individualism here. However, radical humanists warn us that restricting attention to ourselves will limit our personal individuation. Part of what we truly are involves our relationships to other people and the world around us. In fact, without the humanness we share with other people, without the nurturance we receive from other people, and without our giving to other people, we would not be true to what we are. Here, then, is an element of "collectivism." However, if we focus all attention on the group and become heteronomous, we act as if we are merely parts of a greater whole rather than whole beings who interrelate with other whole beings to form a social whole. 45 Such a loss of self will also limit personal individuation. Thus, to be the selves we truly are, to exhibit a many-sided human well-being, we must live in ways that avoid embracing extremes of either individualism or collectivism. So far, we have been stressing what the intrapersonal perspective of radical humanism does not claim and only briefly suggesting what it does claim. We turn now to a fuller exposition of its affirmative claims. We have already indicated that it calls for each of us to develop our persons, to aim for the many-sided human well-being of which we are capable, for what has variously been called self-actualization, self-realization, individuation, authenticity. The process of individuation depends on certain conditions of development. Furthermore, this human well-being involves living according to certain values. I would like to identify some of these conditions of development and values by examining Abraham H. Maslow's characterizations of self-actualization and self-actualizing people. Maslow indicates that healthy people exhibit a concern for an ongoing actualization of their capacities and talents, for understanding themselves, and for developing an intrapsychic "synergy" or integration.7 On the basis of clinical experiences with self-actualizing people, Maslow reports that, more than many people, they seem to have more accurate, richer perceptions of reality; they more easily identify with others and accept themselves and others; they are more spontaneous and creative and express richer 46 emotional reactions; they have peak experiences more frequently; they are more autonomous and have an increased sense of detachment and desire for privacy; they have a value system that centers on "values of Being," such as truth, goodness, beauty, wholeness, dichotomy-transcendence, Justice, simplicity, playfulness, and self-sufficiency.8 In another place Maslow provides a definition of self-actualization. We may define it as an episode, or spurt in which the powers of the person come together in a particularly efficient and intensely enJoyable way, and in which he is more integrated and less split, more open for experience,...etc. He becomes in these episodes more truly himself, more perfectly actualizing his potentialities, closer to the core of his Being, more fully human. Such states or episodes can, in theory, come at any time in life to any person. What seems to distinguish those individuals I have called self-actualizing people, is that in them these episodes seem to come far more frequently, and intensely and perfectly than in average people. This makes self-actualization a matter of degree and of frequency gather than an all-or-none affairli O. The intrapersonal conception of human being holds as an ideal something like Maslow's notion of self-actualization. According to this view, we should individuate ourselves by what we do, by how we act and interact with others, by what we think and feel about ourselves, other people, and the world around us, by how we relate to these thoughts and feelings, and by how we express them to others. However, exhortations to actualize or individuate ourselves appear as empty moralizations unless we understand 47 some of the conditions that make individuation possible. Here again I will borrow some of Maslow's ideas. He claims that motivations to self-actualization occur after people have met basic psychological needs for safety, love, self-esteem and so on. In other places Maslow calls the psychological basic needs "deficiency needs" or deficits in the organism which must be filled for the sake of health. ...The main path to health and self-fulfillment is via basic need gratification.... This contrasts with the suppressive regime, the mistrust, the control, the policing that is necessarily implied by the belief inlBasic, instinctive evil in the human depths. We humans have both physiological and psychological basic needs that must be fulfilled sufficiently before we can further our proJect of individuation. If we can't be sure that a sufficient amount of food will be available to sustain our health, it will be difficult indeed to concern ourselves with truth, goodness, beauty, or play. If we constantly feel threatened either physically or psychically, it will be difficult to tend to "higher" affairs. If we are loved insufficiently, it will be difficult to look beyond our own immediate needs. In short, if our basic material, physical needs aren't met, we will be hard pressed to maintain any sustained attention to our own higher, nonmaterial needs and those of others. If our basic psychic needs for such things as safety, self-esteem, and love aren't met, though we may carry on with life, we will be neurotic in some degree or other and will come up short of a full human well-being.11 48 Maslow rightly reminds us that some of the psychological basic needs imply a dependence on other human beings. Such needs as "the needs for safety, belongingness, love relations and for respect can be satisfied only by other people, i.e., only from outside the person."12 Finally, this intrapersonal part of radical humanism sees balanced lifestyles as necessary for full human well-being. A harmonious interconnection of all aspects of human life is required for human flourishment. To use a biological metaphor, radical humanism calls for a mutualistic development of all conditions of our well-being rather than a parasitism of some elements upon others. On this way of looking at the matter we have to develop lifestyles, communities, and social structures that beneficially relate different aspects of our lives rather than isolate our attention on some to the detriment of others. For example, if the kind of work we do has little or no political or cultural relevance and if it absorbs so much of our time and energy that we find it difficult to be politically or culturally active, work is parasitic on the rest of our lives. It will drain our capacities for developing other parts of our persons and make it more difficult to grow to a full well-being. The work we do must mutualistically contribute to and benefit from our other activities. ...In pursuing the daily routine, and even more the whole life course, no one interest will be considered sufficiently cultivated unless it is accompanied by an awareness of the other interests and activities needed to maintain psychological and ecological 49 balance.13 In Chapters 6 and 7 we will critically analyze some important cultural problems and offer some proposals for solving them based on these intrapersonal values. The Interpersonal Perspective While the intrapersonal perspective emphasizes each human's life-long quest for individuation, the interpersonal aspect of radical humanism enlarges the frame of reference and stresses the importance of the interrelations among humans within cultural and social settings. Here the theme which acts as warp to the woof of more specific proposals is that human beings must relate to one another and to collective structures actively rather than passively.ll4 We must grow to be autonomous beings who are sources of activity and who are willing and able to take a share in responsibility for how the social groups of which we are parts act. Here the relationship between the intrapersonal and interpersonal conceptions of human being is particularly close. The more individuated, actualized one is the more one can have integrity as an agent in one's social and cultural surroundings. Conversely, one's ways of being active with respect to these surroundings and of helping and nurturing others so they can act more effectively are means by which one individuates oneself. The main difference becomes a matter of emphasis. In this part of our analysis the emphasis is on the complexity and interdependence of an 50 active involvement of humans with one another and with the social and cultural institutions that mark our circumstances. I want to expound the interpersonal conception of human being by setting forth what might be called necessary conditions for being active, autonomous participants in our cultural and social surroundings. I suggest that the conditions can be drawn from C. Wright Mills' analysis of the differences between what he calls a society of publics and a mass society. I also refer to these, respectively, as a society of communities and a society of impersonal collectives. The differences revolve around how opinions are formed or decisions made and whether they can be effectively realized in action. Mills thinks that at least four dimensions must be considered in order to grasp the differences between the two. The first of these is the ratio of the givers of opinion to the receivers, which according to Mills reveals the social meaning of the formal media of communication. In a public virtually as many people express opinions as receive them. There can be an interactive discussion of issues. In a mass far fewer people express opinions, and the many become an abstract statistical collection of individuals who receive impressions from the mass media. The second factor is the possibility of giving answer to opinions without informal or formal reprisals being taken. In a public communications are organized so that there is a chance to answer immediately and effectively any publicly expressed opinion. In a mass the 51 dominant modes of communication are organized in such a way that this is difficult or impossible. The third consideration is the relation of the formation of opinion to its realization in effective social action. Opinions formed by discussion in a public readily find outlets in effective action, even if this is action against the prevailing system of authority. In a mass the expression of opinion in action is controlled by the authorities who organize and control the channels of such action. The fourth dimension is the degree to which institutional authority, with its sanctions and controls, penetrates social groups. A public is more or less autonomous in its operations, free from intrusions by authoritative institutions. The mass finds itself infiltrated and policed by the agents of authorized institutions. Clearly, there can be societies which exhibit differences of degree that fall between the two extremes of some or all the factors described here.15 In other but definitely related observations Mills distinguishes public and mass ways of belonging to organizations. The way of belonging characterized by a member of a public or genuine community is that one believes in the purposes and leaders of the group in such a way that one is a participant who feels at home in its discussions and activities. To be able to do this is to be able to take into one's conscience, deliberately and freely, the group's rules of conduct and its purposes, which one thus shapes and which in turn shape oneself. Furthermore, the kind of group which 52 can be called a public or community is a voluntary association that provides an effective means for formulating reasonable opinions and undertaking reasonable activities which make a difference in the conduct of the larger society. The member of a mass does not have this way of belonging to this kind of group. Rather, in the mass one finds oneself by accident of demographic characteristics being caught up in impersonal crowds which are the targets of mass media campaigns to manipulate and manage people's responses to the highest degree possible. Because of the structural impersonality of the mass, the fact that people are lumped together on the basis of common self-serving emotions and motives, one is not a participant so much as a particle pushed along in an aggregate. To the extent that the media campaigns are effective, one's opinions are based on manipulated reactions rather than on self-directed consideration of issues.16 Applying this conceptual framework to the radical humanist interpersonal view of humans, we can say that we humans are effective agents, are most active in social realms, when we become members of publics or person-oriented communities and resist tendencies to drift into masses or impersonal collectives. Before proceeding to what this requires according to Mills' formal analysis, it should be noticed that agency is required of humans to form or Join communities and to resist depersonalized collectivization. Here is another point at which the intrapersonal and 53 interpersonal conceptions are interdependent. Only a human who is self-actualized to some degree can actively help form and sustain the communities which are required for more comprehensive activity and greater degrees of self-actualization. Moreover, we must remember that intrapersonal principles complement the formal elements of Mills analysis. Undoubtedly, certain forms or structures of human interrelations are necessary conditions for autonomous activity, but they are not sufficient. Self-initiated activity in cooperation with others also depends upon nurturing of the sort that occurs, or at least should occur, in families and in networks of friends. In these intimate, many-layered relationships humans should receive, for example, the love and personal affirmation that teaches them and makes it possible for them to love and affirm others. These sorts of personal influences must complement the structural elements of community in order to give substance to the form and allow it to contribute to fuller human well-being. Nevertheless, for a more detailed account of the formal aspects of radical humanism's interpersonal claims, we can apply Mills' analysis of what I will now call communitarianism to a somewhat artificial division of the social realm into its political, economic, and cultural parts. In each we will want to see how being part of a community rather than an impersonal collective furthers human activity and minimizes passivity. We will also want to see 54 what is required of humans and our social institutions to make genuine communities possible. Communitarian Political Activity The application of Mills' analysis to political affairs is relatively straightforward because he proposes it primarily in political terms. For our purposes here the different parts of Mills' distinction can be collapsed into three. First, one must Join or help form associations in which the members discuss issues in order to formulate opinions which serve as the basis for effective action on these issues. Such action, depending upon the context, might be either direct or indirect involvement against or within a larger civil effort. Direct involvement against a larger effort might take the form of acts of civil disobedience, while within a larger effort an association might serve as a resource group to which civic bodies might turn for information, opinions, or material help of some sort. An example of indirect action for or against a civil body's proposals or conduct would be the dissemination of information and circulation of petitions to other associations and unaffiliated individuals. Secondly, this association, in order to be a community serving as a base for personal action, must be membered and formally structured so that members can influence its conduct and purposes and be willingly influenced by them. These two conditions require the political and legal rules or constitution of the larger society to allow for the freedoms 55 of association and expression of opinion. Thirdly, the group must allow and facilitate the exchange of opinions among its individual members, who must make the efforts required for formulating and expressing informed opinions. Furthermore, the larger body politic must allow the free exchange of ideas and opinions and take them into account in its actions and policies. If individuals within communities do not take active responsibility for this, if their opinions cannot be publicly expressed without great difficulty, or if they do not develop the power to act effectively, it is more likely that many people will become passive, cease to bother about formulating opinions, cease to be able to have any positive effect on public policy, and be subJect to the opinions of the powerful elite as they are communicated via mass media. In summary, we have in political affairs the claim that personal agency and communitarian agency require what might broadly be called effective participatory democratic structures, processes, and freedoms. Communitarian Economics In the economic sphere radical humanists envision that membership in a society of genuine communities will allow us to develop more balanced ways of life in which both work and leisure fully contribute to our well-being. These ways of life will involve modes of production and consumption different than presently predominant modes, which are more 56 characteristic of the mass or impersonal collective than the public or community. Not only are things produced en masse, but the way they are produced encourages people to drift into a mass. In addition, the system of marketing aims to make a mass for the consumption of what is produced. If people can be induced to think that they are isolated individuals who must get what they want on their own in competition with others, and that this getting forms a large portion of their identities, they can be persuaded to want and buy more things than they otherwise might. In both cases the strategy is to make people passive rather than to allow or encourage them to be autonomously active. It is as though our economic system is designed ...not primarily to satisfy essential human needs with a minimal productive effort, but to multiply the number of needs, factitious or fictitious, and accomodate them to the maximal mechanical capacity to produce profits. More specifically, in production workers cannot usually express themselves in the work they do, nor can they have much voice in the kind of work an organization does or the way it does the work. Rather, the "opinion-givers" on such matters are the board of directors of the company and the managers of the work process. Harry Braverman argues quite persuasively that under monopoly capitalism the acquisition of control by separating the conception of the work process from its execution is the organizing principle for management, that the division of labor, resulting in the detail worker, is the primary means for following the 57 principles of scientific management, and that automated machinery is used by the directors and managers of work to 18 The effect supplement and expand the division of labor. of scientific management is "...to strip the workers of craft knowledge and autonomous control and confront them with a fully thought-out labor process in which they function as "19 cogs and levers, and "...the automation of processes places them under the control of management engineers and destroys the need for knowledge or training."20 Having made these claims, let us be clear that neither Braverman nor radical humanism is railing against automation or mechanization as such. We are not claiming that it would be better to dig ditches by hand or haul dirt by wheelbarrow or even that such activities involve much craft skill. Rather, the issue is more complex. Which work processes are automated or mechanized? Why? By whom? For whose benefit? Braverman's analysis suggests that concern for the whole personal development of workers usually plays almost no part in how these questions are answered under monopoly capitalism.21 Radical humanist principles demand that concern for workers as persons take the central role in answering them. So, if Braverman's analysis is correct, a necessary condition for more people being autonomously active in production is the reversal of this control by managers of work. We will return to these issues in Chapters 6 and 7. The passivity that is encouraged in economic consumption must also be examined. People become passive consumers when 58 they fail to examine consciously what is most important for them in living, what they will adopt as purposes for their lives. Having at most a vague notion of what their lives will express, people have no basis for Judging what they need to use or consume and how this relates to how they can live. Without a standard of Judgment for choosing what they need, people are more suggestible and less Judicious in what they use and buy. As their desire for things and use of things becomes less self-motivated and self-directed, their motivations and standards for what they need and want become, if not directed by others, at least much more influenced by others. Then it is as though people stand back and wait on suggestions for what they need and want rather than make self-consiously responsible choices. Such passivity on the part of consumers is fostered by the planners and managers of corporations which produce and provide goods and services. This passivity can be increased if the needs that people have can be subordinated to the market. Once people turn first to the market for commodities to satisfy their needs or desires before trying to fulfill them themselves, the conditions are in place which make manipulation of these people easier and autonomous activity on their part more difficult. They become dependent on the market of monopoly capitalism. There is no pretense here that this process of becoming passive and dependent on the market is a simple one. A fuller understanding of it would require an historical examination into efforts by production 59 firms with their marketing structures to induce the dependence and into the social and economic conditions whereby people found it easier or necessary to become more passive and dependent.22 I am assuming that consumer passivity and dependency is a significant aspect of our current economy. This seems hard to deny. What is of most interest at this point of our discussion is that the more passive and dependent we become as consumers, the less competence we have for meeting or even accurately recognizing our needs and desires, and the less autonomous action we will be able to exercise in the economic sphere of our lives. To relate this to our present theme, the longer we remain isolated individuals in an impersonal collective and fail to become self-actualizing members of communities, the more difficult it will be to become agents in economic affairs rather than patients. With one emphasis of the interpersonal conception of human being on balanced, self-directed activity, a radical humanist view of work and leisure calls for a change in this state of affairs. Radical humanists advocate what Mumford has called "an economy of plenitude" and what Schumacher has called "Buddhist economics" or "an economics of permanence."23 Mumford indicates that ...the working aim of an economy of plenitude will be...to develop further man's incalculable potentialities for self-actualization and self-transcendence, taking back into himself deliberately many of the activities he has tooZEupinely surrendered to the mechanical system. 60 The mechanical system to which Mumford refers includes many of the structures and processes which tend to make people passive in ways Just described. An important part of developing an economy of plenitude would be developing communities that allow people to share and help one another in self-directed work and leisure. Furthermore, a keystone of this economy of plenitude and permanence would be a proper recognition of the relation between work and leisure. A presently common view of the relation sees leisure as escape from work, as play, entertainment, and relaxation. This common view fails to see that "...work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process...[which] cannot be separated without destroying the Joy of work and the bliss of leisure."25 Perhaps Mumford overstates the point somewhat when he claims that leisure should be viewed as "...not freedom from work..., but freedom within "26 work.... However, he is on the mark when he states that only when work and leisure ...form part of an organic cultural whole...can the many-sided requirements for full human growth be satisfied. Without serious responsible work, man progressively loses his grip on reality. Instead of liberation from work being the chief contribution..., I would suggest that liberation Egg work, for more educative, mind-forming, self-rewarding work, on a voluntary basis, may become the most salutary contributio§7of a life-centered technology. We will take up some specific radical humanist proposals related to these ideas also in Chapters 6 and 7. 61 Communitarian Cultural Activity Finally, we want to examine how communities or publics allow and encourage a more balanced and active relation of individuals to culture, while an impersonal collective or mass results in passivity. Here the questions of the degree of free exchange of opinion and effective action based on opinion translate into the degree of creative participation in genuine culture. I follow Edward Sapir in identifying what makes a culture genuine. The genuine culture is not of necessity either high or low; it is merely inherently harmonious, balanced,.... It is the expression of a richly varied and yet somehow unified and consistent attitude toward life, an attitude which sees the significance of any one element of civilization in its relation to all others. It is, ideally speaking, a culture in which nothing is spiritually meaningless, in which no important part of the general functioning brings with it a sense of frustration, of misdirected or unsympathetic effort. It is not a spiritual hybrid of contradictory patches, of water-tight compartments of consciousness that avoid28 participation in a harmonious synthesis. This characterization of genuine culture clearly suggests that the political and economic spheres of social life are also important parts of culture. But here, in our admittedly artificial division of social life into politics, economics, and culture, we will restrict ourselves to those aspects of culture often more commonly associated with the term--art, music, and literature. This restriction is not totally unwarranted or arbitrary because in the art, music, and literature of a genuine culture we find expressions of attitudes toward life, of the significance of the elements of 62 social life, and of the character of people's spiritual consciousness. We do not, however, mean Just the art, music, and literature of so-called high culture, although that too is part of a culture. We mean also the fine arts, the music, and the language and stories identified with the ordinary folk of a culture. Consistent with its claims in other realms of our social existence, the radical humanist interpersonal conception of human being stresses that cultural activity is vitally important for humans. It also claims that a community is more likely than a mass to have a genuine culture and, what amounts to nearly the same thing, that people in community will be more capable of self-motivated participation in the art, music, and literature of the community. Conversely, genuine cultural activity suffers in an impersonal collective. It is not enough that the ends of activities be socially satisfactory, that each member of the community feel in some dim way that he is doing his bit toward the attainment of a social benefit. This is all very well as far as it goes, but a genuine culture refuses to consider the individual as a mere cog, as an entity whose sole raison d'etre lies in his subservience to a collective purpose that he is not conscious of or that has only a remote relevance to his interests and strivings. The maJor activities of the individual must directly satisfy his own creative and emotional impulssg, must always be more than means to an end. Moreover, in the radical humanist call for genuine cultures there is also an interdependence between the intrapersonal and interpersonal conceptions of human being. A human cannot 63 be genuinely culturally active in isolation or in an impersonal collective. There will be times, of course, when an individual must work alone in order to contribute to culture, e.g., when one reads, writes, or sculpts. However, if the fruits of this work are not shared with others, one is not genuinely contributing to culture. Thus, an authentic culture requires active, individuating humans who are willing to share with one another the results of their activity. A healthy...culture is never a passively accepted heritage from the past, but implies the creative participation of the members of the community; implies, in other words, the presence of cultured individuals. An automatic perpetuation of standardized values, not subJect to the constant remodeling of individuals willing to put some part of themselves into the forms they receive from their predecessors, leads to the dominance of impersonal formulas. ...The culture becomes a manner rath§6 than a way of life, it ceases to be genuine. Radical humanists see such present American social structures as the entertainment industry as making genuine cultural activity very difficult. Furthermore, the collective character of our social mania for economic growth and expansion threatens autonomous cultural activity in all parts of the globe. Some observations made by Ivan Illich provide examples of the kind of deactivation of humans in question. Beyond a certain threshold, the multiplication of commodities induces impotence, the incapacity to grow food, to sing, to build. ...When Kennedy launched the Alliance for Progress, Acatzingo, like most Mexican villages of its size, had four groups of musicians who...served the population of eight hundred. Today, records and radios, hooked up 64 to loudspeakers, drown out local talent. Occasionally, in an act of nostalgia, a collection is taken up to bring a band of dropouts from the university to3iing the old songs for some special holiday. Note well: the claim here is not that no one should listen to the radios or records. Indeed, these media make it possible for people, who may not otherwise have the chance, to hear varieties of music that can contribute to their own musical expression or appreciation. Examples of excellence in any human endeavor can inspire, even when such examples come from cultures other than one's own. However, if listening to records displaces attempts to express or appreciate music, culture will suffer. If the radio plays only this week's forty top-selling songs interspersed with advertising, cultural expression will suffer. Not only in music and art and language are there trends toward an homogenization of cultures, a cultural flattening, but even in so simple but significant a thing as one's mode of offering hospitality. Some years ago I watched workmen putting up a sixty-foot Coca Cola sign on a desert plain in the Mexquital. A serious drought and famine had Just swept over the Mexican highland. My host, a poor Indian in Ixmiquilpan, had Just offered his visitors a tiny tgguila glass of the costly black sugar-water. Such crowding out of the genuine cultures of the world by the forces of economic expansion must be reversed. So must the tendencies toward passive spectating many of us Americans exhibit with respect to our own culture. Like the tasks called for in the political and economic spheres, these 65 cultural tasks have implications for a view about work and leisure. We will return to them briefly in Chapter 6. The Ecological Perspective Finally, we turn to the ecological aspect of a radical humanist conception of human being. Here the focus is on human interaction with the natural world. One central idea of this perspective is that genuine, long-term human flourishment is possible only if we try to understand our environment and make every effort to live respectfully within the ecologically necessary conditions for healthy human life. The other key insight is that the ways we humans relate ourselves to nature have a significant effect on the kinds of persons we are. A proper relation to nature is an important contribution to growth toward full human well-being, while an improper relation makes us less than we could be, diminishes us as human persons. It is easier to get relatively clear about the first of these ideas. Radical humanists, rightly so I believe, perceive humans as an integral part of nature. We are natural beings at least to the extent that we depend on the cycles of inanimate nature and share an ecological interdependence with many other kinds of living beings. A severe enough disruption of some of these ecological conditions could make human survival impossible. Short of that, we might find ourselves unable to devote enough attention and effort to activities that promote our 66 flourishment because we would have to devote too much to merely staying alive. We shouldn't knowingly cause or allow such ecological disruptions. Moreover, we should try to understand our environment, if for no other reason, so that we don't cause or allow them to happen out of ignorance. Finally, in cases where we lack sufficient understanding, it seems reasonable to exercise great caution and restraint in allowing interference with natural ecological conditions. The burden of Justification should be on those who wish to rearrange the conditions. They would have to show how the benefits that might be gained Justify the risks that would be taken. In addition, they would have to demonstrate that any mistakes on their part would not result in any dangerous ecological consequences. The second idea connected with an ecological perspective, i.e., that people's relations to nature can either further or inhibit their individuation, is a little more difficult to ground. This is due, in part, to the lack of a relatively concrete, easily identifiable minimum standard for Judgment, such as survival, which is available in connection with the first part of the ecological perspective. Nevertheless, I think the radical humanist insight is important. It's significance and Justification could be expressed in several ways. One possible way to ground the insight is through the notion of kinship. Since we humans are an integral part of nature, as suggested earlier, we share an ecological 67 interdependence with other living beings as well as a common ecological dependence on the cycles of inanimate nature. For this reason we could think of ourselves in a kinship relation with the rest of nature. One's treatment of kin surely affects, for good or ill, the kind of person one 18.33 However, when one tries to get specific about the source and content of this kinship or the requirements it imposes, too many difficulties arise. A sample question can indicate one kind of difficulty: In what meaningful sense am I kin to salmonella bacteria? Another way of expressing the importance of humans' relationships to nature can be formulated using a notion analogous to noblesse oblige. Traditionally, noblesse oblige--nobility obligates--is an expression that captures part of the feudal relationship between lord and vassal, and later between nobility and commoner. For this reason, it has certain peJorative or negative connotations in a more democratically individualistic time such as ours. Certainly there were abuses throughout history of the relationship on the part of the aristocracy. We would certainly wonder about the motivations of anyone who might call for a restoration of the feudal system of privilege and responsibility. Our suspicion would be that they have in mind an emphasis on privilege and a corresponding dispensing with responsibility. However, there was probably something true and worthwhile in the notion that nobility obligates. L.T. Hobhouse, who also points out some of the virtues and vices of other aspects of 68 an aristocratic order, has this to say about it. Ethically the traditional noblesse oblige might itself have taught that the greatest duty of the superior, if such he is, is not to wrap himself up in his superiority but to share his best with all the world, and for this purpose 93 must feel himself at one with the world.... Noblesse oblige reveals some interesting things when we apply it to human relationships with nature. Implicit in the intrapersonal and interpersonal perspectives is the value of the individual human. It can be claimed without distortion that our rational and emotional capacities make us the nobility of nature, even though we don't always act nobly. If Hobhouse is right about noblesse oblige, we would fail our noble standing if we were to strut our superiority and use it, as many are inclined to do, as an excuse for reckless disregard of any nonhuman elements of nature. Our all-around well-being would be diminished by actions based on such an attitude. On the other hand, if we share our best with nature and use our capacities for understanding and emotional response in respectful cooperation with nature, our actions and relationship with nature contribute to our flourishment. Still, one wonders whether we have obligations to nature. It seems more accurate to say simply that we humans have obligations regarding nature which reveal something about us, depending on whether we fulfill them or not. If this latter way of expressing the matter is more conceptually accurate, then the analogy with noblesse oblige begins to break down. 69 A more adequate account of how we humans should relate ourselves to nature requires a cluster of ideas. Certainly we must recognize, if we are to attain any significant understanding of ourselves, that we are part of nature. To pretend that we are not is to deny a part of what we are. All the same, that we are rational, emotional, and cultural beings puts us in a unique position in nature. While we must use parts of the natural world to survive and to fashion cultural obJects vital to our humanity, we must be aware of how significantly this can change nature for present and long-term human good or ill. Each of us must develop in understanding and action the notion of "kindly use," which depends in part upon intimate knowledge, sensitive responsiveness of skill, and responsibility. It has as its standards the health of living humans, the present users, the health of nature, the used, and the future health of those future generations of humans who will become the users.35 In this sense, we who live and use nature now are stewards for those who will follow us. As stewards who must use nature kindly, we will also have to preserve some parts of nature that we leave wild and do not use. Such preserves can stand as reminders that our biological and cultural roots are in nature. They can teach us a kind of humility, a recognition of our place in nature. That is, they can remind us that, while we certainly work profound changes on nature, nature can also have important influences on us. They can remind us that the variety and resilience which are displayed 70 by nature are also important values for human communities and cultures.36 In summary, we must develop an honest understanding that we are parts of nature with special capacities, a kindly use of nature, a sense of stewardship for our descendants, and a willingness to learn from the diversity displayed by wild, unused nature. All these ways of relating to nature will serve not only the collective survival of human beings, but also the physical health and full well-being of individuating persons. Since radical humanists see such connections between intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological values, they warn that we must not let the prevailing technocracies change their approach to ecological issues on their own terms. If we do, although we may have a physically healthier environment, we will have done nothing to change the institutions of power which attempt to mold us unobtrusively into a passive, satisfied mass. Unless we strive for institutional arrangements that make possible and encourage firsthand participation in ecologically sound activity within person-oriented communities, we will be stuck at best with a "suave technocracy" which dictates how social benefits and burdens will be distributed in order to maintain its grip on power.37 Our voluntary stewardship of nature for our descendants would be rendered into service to an undesirable social system that inhibits human flourishment under the pretense of making possible a suitable environment for it." 71 We must not allow this to happen. We will return to these issues in Chapters 6 and 7. A Summary of the MaJor Claims Before we examine other views, we should summarize the main points of the radical humanist conception of human being which will serve as the basis for our deliberations and proposals. We have identified three aspects of this conception, namely, its intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological perspectives. The intrapersonal perspective emphasizes the dignity of individual human beings and the capacities each of us has for what we have called growth toward full well-being, self-actualization, and individuation. Radical humanists call on us to activate and exercise our capacities and to individuate ourselves. To make this possible, we must fulfill our basic physiological and psychological needs. Among the psychological needs are safety, belongingness, respect, love, and self-esteem. It is significant that some of the basic psychological needs which must be fulfilled before we can grow toward higher degrees of individuation must be satisfied for us by other human beings. The interpersonal perspective of radical humanism stresses the importance for human flourishment of our interrelations with one another personally and in the context of social structures. Here radical humanists hold up balanced, self-directed activity as a goal. They claim that a necessary condition for such agency is the formation of 72 genuine communities in which we can nurture each other to carry on political, economic, and cultural tasks in ways that develop our full human well-being. If we fail to do this, contemporary social forces will mold us into a passive, impersonal mass in which the nurturance of autonomous activity is inhibited and some aspects of life become parasitic on others. Finally, from the ecological perspective radical humanists remind us that as parts of nature our very existence and our physical health depend on a respect for its ecological processes. They also challenge us to take seriously our stewardship of nature for our descendants. We must use nature kindly and try to learn from the diversity exemplified by those parts of nature we do not use. Radical humanists claim that the understanding, sensitivities, and skills needed to honor this stewardship will help us meet some conditions not only of healthy human survival but also of growth toward fuller individuation. The Sketch of a Model To conclude this exposition of a radical humanist conception of human being, perhaps we can provide a more concrete sketch of some of the characteristics of ways of life envisioned in this conception. The lines of this sketch parallel "primitive culture" as it is understood and explained by Stanley Diamond.38 Diamond states that "the search for the primitive is the attempt to define a primary human potential," an attempt to develop a vision of human 73 being which can help us realistically evaluate contemporary culture and guide us in our efforts to solve its problems.39 He conceives of primitive culture as having ten significant interrelated characteristics. The first characteristic of primitive societies cited by Diamond is that they rest on a communalistic economic base. This means that the material means required for the survival of the individual or the group are actively held in common or else are openly and easily accessible to all. This does not mean that there is no private property. However, those things which are owned privately are not essential to the survival of the group, are easily duplicated by any individual, or are of so personal a nature that they cannot be owned communally. Because the economic base is geared to the benefit of the group and not to the benefit of some individuals at the expense of others, the economic exploitation of some members of the group by others is not a feature of primitive cultures. Even if exploitation develops to a degree, it rarely results in the economic ruination of one group or individual by another. One important result, to which radical humanists would draw attention, is that production is for use or pleasure rather than for individual profit or for money.)40 Second, the maJor functions and roles of leadership are communal and traditional, not political or secular. Although he does not explicitly clarify this distinction, it seems relatively clear from other things he says that a 74 nonpolitical, nonsecular leadership means that the functions and roles are not imposed by a state or constitutional authority. Rather, they grow out of the needs of the group and out of tradition. The respect accorded leaders on this view is a sign of respect for one's tradition, and thus of self-respect, a recognition of a special skill held by the leaders of particular activities, or a function of a generalized status attached to any member of the group who reaches a certain age or undergoes certain common experiences. This is one respect in which primitive cultures are democratic and involve all to some extent in important decisions which affect the group and the individuals comprising it."l Third, primitive societies do not have codified laws, special legal functionaries, or an exclusively legal apparatus. Rather, primitive groups operate on the basis of custom and well-understood informal sanctions. For this reason, there is no alienating division between "we," the citizens, and "they," the constituted public authority, as so easily occurs in modern states.”2 Another characteristic is that primitive societies tend to be conservative and change relatively slowly. For this reason they do not experience the internal turbulence which is so common in civilized societies. This conservatism is explained partly on the ground that sanctions are customary and not legalistic and partly on the ground that primitive societies tend to be systems in equilibrium, having cultural, 75 symbolic structures allowing for a wide range of human expression, including expressions of institutional and personal conflict."3 A fifth characteristic is both partly a function of and partly a contributing factor to the cultural mechanisms for expressions of conflict. This is the high degree of integration among the various maJor aspects of culture. Between religion and social structure, social structure and economic organization, economic organization and technology, the magical and the pragmatic, there areufintricate and harmonious correlations. For this reason it is easier for the individual to act within the group as an integrated person. His society is neither compartmentalized nor fragmented, and none of its parts is in fatal conflict with the others.... He does not perceive himself as divided into homo economicus, homo religioggs, homo politicus, and so ort . This cultural holism is an ideal which radical humanists find particularly important for us to incorporate into our communities and common life. Diamond cites a characteristic closely related to this cultural holism as a separate one. The ordinary person in primitive society can and does participate more in a wider range of social activities than the ordinary person in civilized society. The average primitive...is more accomplished, ...participates more fully and directly in the cultural possibilities open to him, not as a consumer and not vicariously but a§6an actively engaged, complete person. Diamond claims that a maJor reason for this functional 76 integrity is the primitive's mastery of the processes of production. It seems more accurate to say that this mastery of the processes of production is one aspect of this general integrity, which results in large part from the cultural holism cited above. Because the maJor aspects of the culture form an interrelated piece, there is no detailed division of labor and a less exacting social division of labor. Such a culture would require of an individual a more general mastery of many social activities. Another aspect of primitive holism, the seventh characteristic, is that all meaningful social, economic, and ideological relations have a kin or transfigured kin character. Primitive society is thus personalistic. This personalism...is the most historically significant feature of primitive life, and extends from the family outward, to the society at large, and ultimately to nature itself. It seems to underlie all other distinctive qualities of primitive thought and behavior. Primitive people live in a personal, corporate world, a world that tends to be a "thou" to the subJective "I," rather than an "it" impinging upon an obJectively separate, and divided, self. To put this in slightly different terms, all important aspects of primitive cultures, their work, their art, their family or group relations, their rituals, are perceived as sacred, are sacralized. They are sacred not in the narrow sense of being turned into a religion or obJects of religion, but in the sense that they are recognized as needing to be approached with a special respect. Eighth, primitive ways of thinking and speaking are substantially concrete rather than tending to abstractions. 77 This does not mean that primitives have no capacity for abstraction. All language, culture, and thought requires some degree of abstracting from discrete particulars. Diamond cites Boas to make clearer his meaning. Primitive man, when conversing with his fellow man, is not in the habit of discussing abstract ideas.... Discourses on qualities without connection with the obJect to which the qualities belong, or of activities or states disconnected from the idea of the actor or the subJect being in a certain state, will hardly occur in primitive speech. Thus the Indian will not speak of goodness as such, although he may very W811 speak of the goodness of a person. This is relevant to the radical humanist insistence on the importance of changing oneself and society in the process of acting within concrete contexts and situations. Abstract proposals for change or an attempted reliance on detailed blueprints miss this concreteness and for this reason too easily result in no change at all. We will return to this several times. The ninth characteristic of primitive societies is the central place of ritual drama in making the experiences of life culturally meaningful. Rituals are cathartic in that they allow symbolically rich and culturally molded expressions of ambivalent feelings about various aspects of society, such as the authority structure. They are also creative in that they dramatically and symbolically elaborate the cultural meanings of individuals' maturation and experiences. Birth, death, puberty, marriage, divorce, illness--generally speaking, the assumption of 78 new roles, responsibilities, and psychological states, as these are socially defined and naturally indpged--serve as the occasions for ritual drama. Ritual drama allows for recognizing ambivalence, doubt, or distress rather than repressing them. It affirms individuals' belongingness to the group by making their experiences meaningful. Finally, Diamond concludes his study by claiming that primitive cultures were more successful than modern ones in helping the human person delineate the self and fulfill the self "within a social, natural, and supernatural (transcendent) setting." He terms this human self-realization, self-fulfillment, or self-transcendence "individuation," to distinguish it from the isolating separation of persons from each other which occurs in modern individualization. In the civil or collective groups of which the civilized individual is a part, the individual is always in danger of becoming a mere obJect, of being nothing more than the functions one serves or the status one has. On the other hand, the primitive individual is a subJective incarnation of the group. The primitive participates wholly in a wide range of social activities and takes in the character, the culture of the group, and then expresses it in a personal way. The primitive society is a community, springing from common origins, composed of reciprocating persons, and growing from within. It is not a collective; collectives emerge in civilization; they are functional to specialized ends and they generate a sense of being imposed from without. They are 79 obJectively perceived,58bJectifying, and estranging structures. Radical humanists hold the best of primitive culture as a model for a conversion to ways of life, communities, and societies based on the insights of the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological perspectives on human nature. On the other hand, there are no appeals for simple primitivism, no appeals for us to return to some human condition in a state of nature. Mumford also cites primitive communities as the best examples of plenitude. However, he rightly recognizes that primitive communities were no Gardens of Eden. The gifts of nature are too uncertain, the margin too narrow, the balance too delicate. Hence primitive cultures, in order to be sure of continuity, tend to be restrictive and parsimonious, unready to welcome innovations or take risks, even reluctant to profit by the existence of their neighbors. ...Plenitude on such a solitary, meager, unadventurous basis too easily sings into torpid penury and stupefication. Although a primitive culture allows and nurtures the individuation of human beings, historically this has been bounded by physical limitations beyond which we can now safely and sensibly advance. Part of the task of radical humanism is to show that conversion to new ways of living consistent with intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological principles is possible without such severe physical and psychic limitations. It is to show by example that we can set forth on a more bountiful path to individuation rather than slide back to an individuation that must constantly elude indigence. 80 NOTES A.D. Lindsay, "Individualism," in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. VII, Edwin R.A. Seligman, ed. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1932), PP. 674-680. Steven Lukes, ”Types of Individualism," in Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas, Vol. II, Philip P. Wiener, ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973), pp. 594-604. Lukes, "Types of Individualism," pp. 597-598. Ibid., pp. 596, 601-602. Philip Slater, The Pursuit of Loneliness: American Culture at the Breaking Point, rev. ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1976), pp. l7, 13; 9-37. Theodore Roszak, Person/Planet: The Creative Disintegration of Industial Society (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1979), Ch. 4, pp. 101-128. Carl Rogers, ”To Be That Self Which One Truly Is," in 92 Becoming a Person (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1961). P. 166. He quotes Soren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941), p. 29. The reader should be aware that I am not pretending to explain what Kierkegaard meant by this phrase nor even what Rogers means by his employment of Kierkegaard. Rather, this strikes me as a rhetorically effective way to explain what is at stake here. By the way, however, I do not think Rogers would object to what I say here. Abraham H. Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being, 2nd ed. (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1968), p. 25. A brief explanation of the technical term "synergy” might be helpful here. In another place Maslow credits Ruth Benedict for defining the concept in the context of trying to provide a basis for a comparative anthropology or sociology. There he reports her use of the term. Societies with high synergy have social institutions that insure that individual undertakings serve the individual's own advantage and that of the group at the same time. Societies with low synergy have institutions which entail that the advantage of one individual becomes a victory over others and that these nonvictorious others must fend for themselves as best they can. Maslow extends the concept to intrapersonal psychodynamics. High synergy, then, is indicated by integration within the person, and low synergy by intrapsychic dissociations, by one's being torn and set against oneself. See Abraham H. Maslow, The 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 81 Farther Reaches of Human Nature (New York: Penguin Books, 1971), PP. 191-202. Maslow, Psychology of Being, pp. 25-26; also p. 157. For the values of Being, which he also calls B-values, intrinsic values, or ultimate values, see p. 83 and Farther Reaches, pp. 128-129, 305-309. Maslow, Psychology of Being, p. 97. Ibid., p. 199. Maslow, Psychology of Being, p. 153; see also pp. 21-23, 28, 33-34, 172-173, 199-200, and Farther Reaches, pp. 289-290, 311-312. Ibid., p. 34. See also pp. 22-23. Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine, Vol. II: The Pentagon_of Power (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1970), p. 405. I was reminded of the fundamental importance of this idea by Erich Fromm, The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968), PP. 98-99. C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), pp. 302-304. The page numbers are for the 1973 reprint of the 1959 paperback edition. Ibid., pp. 306-323. Mumford, The Pentagon of Power, p. 328. Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974), Chapters 2, 3, 4, 9, 20. Ibid., p. 136. Ibid., p. 225. Braverman explicitly states, ”...As I reread these pages I find in them a sense not only of social outrage, which was intended, but also perhaps of personal affront. If this is so, it is, as I say, unintended, but I do not think it does any harm. However, I repeat that I hope no one draws from this the conclusion that my views are shaped by nostalgia for an age that cannot be recaptured. Rather, my views about work are governed by nostalgia for an age that has not yet come into being, in which, for the worker, the craft satisfaction that arises from conscious and purposeful mastery of the labor process will be 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 82 combined with the marvels of science and the ingenuity of engineering, an age in which everyone will be able to benefit, in some degree, from this combination." Labor and Monopoly Capital, pp. 6-7. Braverman's own experiences of work include coppersmithing in a naval shipyard as well as pipefitting, sheetmetal work, and layout in a railroad repair shop, in sheetmetal shops, and in two steel fabrication plants (p. 5). For some accounts of consumer passivity and its significance: Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital, pp. 262-269, 271-283; John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State, 2nd edition (New York: Mentor7New American Library, 1971), especially Chapters 18, 19, 20; Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1973), PP. 54-61, and Toward a History of Needs (New York: Bantam Books, 1977), PP. 1-62; Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of Ameriga: Culture 8 Agriculture (New York: Avon Books, 1977), pp. 112-116. Mumford, The‘Pentagon of Power, p. 395. E.F. Schumacher, "Buddhist Economics," p. 50, and "Peace and Permanence," p. 30, in Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if_People Mattered (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1973). Mumford, The Pentagon of Power, p. 395. Schumacher, ”Buddhist Economics," p. 52. Mumford, The Pentagon of Power, p. 138. Emphasis in the text. Lewis Mumford, "Technics and the Nature of Man," in Knowledge Among Men, Paul H. Oehser, ed. (New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1966), p. 140. (This essay is reprinted among other places in Philosophy and Technology, Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey, ed. (New York: The Free Press, 1972), PP. 77-85.) Edward Sapir, "Culture, Genuine and Spurious," Th3 American Journal of Sociology 29: 4(Jan. 1924): 410. (This essay is reprinted in Edward Sapir: Culture, Language and Personality, David G. Mendelbaum, ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949), PP. 78-119.) Ibid., p. 411. Ibid., pp. 417-418. Illich, History of Needs, p. 10. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 83 Ibid., p. 71. In an earlier draft of this section I relied almost exclusively on the notion of kinship, taking inspiration in part from Joseph Epes Brown, ”The Spiritual Legacy of the American Indian," in Sources, Theodore Roszak, ed. (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1972), PP. 341-353. L.T. Hobhouse, "Aristocracy," in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. II, Edwin R.A. Seligman, ed. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1931), p. 189. Berry, The Unsettling of America, pp. 27-33. Ibid., pp. 100-101, 130-131, 173-193. For an interesting survey of some historical developments of human attitudes toward nature, see Clarence J. Glacken, ”Environment and Culture," in Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas, Vol. II, Philip P. Weiner, ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973), PP. 127-134. This point, or a very similar one, is made by many radical humanists, often in colorful language. Theodore Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends: Politics and Transcendence in Postindustrial Society (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1973), p. 39, uses the term "suave technocracy" and discusses the phenomenon on pp. 26-67. He calls the rule by a benign technocracy "Pax Technocratica," p. 64. See also Illich, Tools for Conviviality, pp. 108-119, and Toward a History of Needs, pp. 13-17, 49-51; David Dickson, The Politics of Alternative Technology (New York: Universe Books, 1974), p. 13; Amory Lovins, Soft Energy Paths: Toward a Durable Peace (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1977), PP. 57-59, discussing the rule by technocrats, borrows the phrase "friendly fascism" from a Stanford Research Institute group which quoted Bertram Gross. Stanley Diamond, "The Search for the Primitive," in In Search of the Primitive: A Critique of Civilization (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1974): PP. 116- 175. This is a revision of an essay by the same title which first appeared in Man's Image in Medicine and Anthropology, Iago Galdston, ed., Institute of Social and Historical Medicine, Monograph IV (New York: International Universities Press, Inc., 1963), PP. 62-115. Ibid., p. 119. See also p. 130, where Diamond indicates that "primitive" is the term he uses to describe ”a model, a construct, which limits and helps define the range of variations on a level of organization termed primitive." Since he cites specific historical instances of the characteristics he lists and since he conceives of his 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 84 model as an historical one, it is difficult for me to determine whether Diamond himself avoids confusing the actual, historical, chronological primitive with his theoretical construct. All the same, although getting quite clear about this distinction might be crucial in some contexts, since my main concern here is to present a concise account of a radical humanist vision of lifestyle, community, and culture, I will not address or try to resolve this possbile source of ambiguity. Ibid., pp. 131-134. Ibid., pp. 135-136. Ibid., pp. 136-137. Ibig., pp. 137-138. Ibid., p. 138. Exemplification and further discussion of this characteristic is on pp. 138-142. Ibid., p. 142. Ibid., p. 143. The general discussion occurs on pp. 142-144. Ibid., p. 145. The general discussion occurs on pp. 144-146. Franz Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1938), p. 216-219, as quoted by Diamond, "The Search for the Primitive," p. 147. Diamond's general discussion of this characteristic is on pp. 146-150. Diamond, "The Search for the Primitive," p. 152. Examples and further discussion occurs on pp. 150-159. Ibid., p. 167. The whole discussion is on pp. 159-168. Mumford, The Pentagon of Power, p. 401. CHAPTER 4: OTHER VIEWS ABOUT WORK AND LEISURE It would be helpful and worthwhile at this point to draw out of the radical humanist conception of human being some of the ideas that make up its conceptions of work and leisure and their place in the good life. Work is understood as activity by which we provide for our physical and social existence. For example, the activity we engage in to acquire and prepare food is work. So is the activity of raising children or caring for the sick. Work allows human beings to exercise and develop their faculties and sometimes to join with other people in a common task. Such joining with others can draw people out of a preoccupation with themselves or with unenjoyable things that might be associated with the work. Leisure is understood as activity by which we actualize our tendencies toward more complete humanness. For example, activity in which we develop friendship with others is leisure. So is study. So is reflection on how we should handle various emotions we have. These understandings of work and leisure leave open the possibility that a particular activity can have elements both of work and leisure. Work and leisure are not polar opposites, but are complementary parts of the process of living humanly. Radical humanists conceive of the good life for humans as a life that meets intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological requirements. Not the least of these is the need to establish a balance between self-maintenance and growth, between activity and recuperation, between one's identity as 85 86 an individual and as a member of communities. These principles also require that humans prudently and responsibly use the material resources on which they depend in order to live and to flourish. Radical humanists think these general requirements of human nature oblige human beings to work and leisure differently than most people in Western cultures do now. As we will see in Chapters 6 and 7, these principles imply that we ought to do more of some kinds of work ourselves instead of searching for mechanical ways to do it or expecting others to do it for us. We ought to strive for a greater variety of activities than most of us do now in work or leisure. We ought to try to establish more ties with other people during our work and our leisure in order to develop communities that provide cultural conditions under which we can more easily flourish. We ought to do only responsible work, work which helps fulfill human needs and promotes human balance and wholeness. We ought to recognize that responsible work and responsible leisure are important for our individual and common welfare. We ought to engage in activities of work and leisure which have a benign, or even better, a regenerative effect on our ecological surroundings. We ought to do work and leisure which are consistent with other humans and creatures having reasonable access to the material resources of our planet. We ought to recognize that as finite beings we must live within certain limits and that to go beyond them or to attempt to go beyond 87 them indicates not human grandeur but human greed and vanity. When stated this way, these moral and political requirements and the conceptual structures from which they are derived seem very attractive and compelling. Who could quarrel with them? The fact of the matter, however, is that we have been and are living under a different conceptual picture of reality and under some different ideals. We have different ideas of the place of work and leisure in human life, and thus different ideas of what is important for human beings and of what kind of beings humans are. Fictional Representatives of Alternative Views Chapter X of Mark Adlard's novel The Greenlander1 contains an interesting and succinct narration of some ideas about work and leisure different than the radical humanist conception. The scene is the officers' cabin of a fishing ship ready to set sail for the Greenland Sea. Captain Stapleton is relaxing with three of his senior officers--Mr. Beaufort, the First Mate, Mr. Dryden, the Second Mate, and Mr. McCabe, the Surgeon. The conversation turns to the reasons they have for "going to the fishery,” for working. Mr. Dryden has the opportunity to express his views first. He takes an optimistic view of the Genesis story and believes that since God commanded humans to work for their bread when he sent Adam and Eve from paradise, work provides us with a purpose in life. The Second Mate is glad that this is so because he knows that when he is working he is fulfilling his purpose, and that when he is working well he 88 is more completely fulfilling his purpose. He recognizes that we need to rest, but there is the Lord's Day for that, and six days remain to make up for the day off. Mr. Beaufort is flabbergasted by these ideas and counters with the more traditional view that work is a curse, not a blessing. He asserts that he works for the money to do other things and, showing his nonreligious stripe, if idleness and shoddy work could yield it, he would gladly get his money that way. If we had no need for money, thinks the First Mate, we would all prefer leisure to work. Mr. McCabe, being the youngest member of the group, waits to express his opinion until Captain Stapleton asks for it. The Surgeon then expounds his belief that all humans desire to understand things and that, since humans are by nature lazy, it is a good thing that necessity compels us to work. It is good because working provides us with one way by which we come to know part of the mystery of things around us. Even the most menial work opens a path to some knowledge. Finally, Captain Stapleton, enjoying the progess of the conversation, reflectively reveals his thoughts on the matter. Without work, he supposes, life would be barbaric and chaotic. He thinks that work is an outward sign of something essential in humans. We need each other because we need to work, but we need each other anyway. Working together might help us recognize this and accustom us to it. Above all, work teaches us that belonging to a true community 89 is better than living as isolated individuals. This fictional exchange of opinions seems to me to portray opinions held by real people in the real world, opinions which are quite different from the radical humanist position. Many of us probably hold views similar to one of the four just expressed. In fact, Adlard has the first three speakers claim that there is much in common experience that suggests the correctness of each of their beliefs, while he has the captain declare that his opinion is one not often entertained. This seems to me an accurate judgment. Perhaps we even hold a different one of these four views at different times, depending upon the circumstances of our lives at any given time. Since this fictional rendition of positions on work and leisure represents some actual positions with which radical humanists must contend, in the rest of this chapter I will articualte more fully some positions which parallel each of the four fictional ones. I will also critically compare and contrast each view with radical humanism. The Work Ethic Mr. Dryden's view that work is a blessing and provides human beings with a purpose clearly betokens a work ethic. We variously refer to the work ethic as the Protestant work ethic, the Puritan work ethic, the traditional work ethic, among other designations. If I were ambitious enough, I might try to critically expound the different kinds of work ethics that have made their values felt in Western civilization. After all, I have been addressing what I see 90 as defects in Western cultural ideas about work and leisure. However, since such an exposition would take us far beyond what is required for my purposes here, I will explain only one version of the work ethic and try to see how it challenges the radical humanist conception of work and leisure. This is the work ethic of the northern middle class in early nineteenth-century America. All subsequent references to the work ethic will have this version as their object. Essentially, as Daniel T. Rodgers explains, the work ethic affirms work as the core of the moral life, the good life if you wish.2 However, Rodgers sensibly indicates that to leave the explanation at this level can be misleading because the work ethic "was not a single conviction but a complex of ideas with roots and branches."3 Rodgers identifies a taproot which gave off two important lateral roots and two major branches of the work ethic. The taproot was the Protestant Reformation with its .universalizing of the obligation to work and its methodizing of time. Central to the Protestant view of work was the doctrine of the calling. This doctrine taught that "God had called everyone to some productive vocation, to toil there for the common good and His greater glory." Work at an occupation in the secular world was not viewed as an act of penance and mortification, but as a form of prayer. This was true no matter what one's occupation was. "Protestantism extended and spiritualized toil and turned usefulness into a 91 sacrament." Alongside the doctrine of the calling was a methodicalness most clearly exemplified by the English Puritans. They reorganized the calendar, with its irregular carnival of saints' days, into a system of weekly Sabbaths for rest. They also preached of the dangers of idleness and misspent time and called on true believers to improve themselves and the world in each passing moment. This set of doctrines "demanded not only that all men work but that they work in a profoundly new way: regularly, conscientiously, and diligently."4 Although it was the historical and conceptual central root of the early nineteenth-century American work ethic, the Protestant legacy was gradually secularized. This process resulted in the growth of two major lateral roots of the work ethic. One was the ideal of civic or national usefulness. Moralists exhorted people to work hard and work well so that the nation could grow and advance. Furthermore, when the Victorian concern with scarcity made its impact in America, the common good was understood to involve not the traditional notion of a healthy political order but the economic notion of material plenty. "Where Puritans had been called to their vocations, nineteenth-century Americans were told that in a world of pressing material demands it was one's social duty to produce." To relax or to take leisure was to open oneself and the entire nation to the possibility of poverty and 5 decay. The other important influence of the Protestant ethic was a continued concern with the ascetic value of work. 92 Even though the theological doctrine of Puritanism had faded, there was a nervous concern with idleness on the part of mid-nineteenth-century moralists. Idleness was thought to invite temptations to give in to sexual passions, animal instincts toward violence, and political radicalism. Attending constantly to one's work could save one from such destruction, ”in part by character-building, by ingraining habits of fortitude, self-control, and perseverance, and in part by systematic exhaustion."6 In addition to the Protestant influences on the early nineteenth-century American work ethic, there were two other important branches of ideas, one more influential and widespread than the other. The more common one was the widely held conviction that America was a nation of self-made men and that ”work was the highroad to independence, wealth, and status." It was believed that hard work, self-control, and persistence would lead to success. This code was held despite the booms and busts that occurred in the American economy of the time. "By his labor a man worked out the position he deserved on the economic ladder; it was the key to success in the business of living."7 The weaker work ideal expressed the faith that work was a creative act, a means by which human beings could make a mark on the material world. ”Craft traditions, the legacy of the Renaissance artist-craftsmen, and Romanticism all converged on the theme...." The writings of those who advocated this aspect of work indicate a distinction between drudgery or blind, 93 thoughtless toil and work. The criterion of demarcation was whether there was room for employment of the mind. In work, mind and spirit transformed labor into an act of skill; drudgery allowed no such creative or skillful self-expression.8 Rodgers addresses the fact that there were tensions and logical incoherences in the set of ideas that made up the work ethic in the form it had taken by the middle of the nineteenth century. Work was at once an ascetic exercise which suppressed one's natural tendencies and a creative, self-expressive act. It was held forth as a social duty, yet one's contribution was measured by individual success. There was the appeal to the dignity of all labor, yet the advice to work one's way out of manual toil. Concerning the latter, Rodgers reports that manual workers complained often of the discrepancy between the rhetorical homage paid their occupations and the low esteem which they received in practice.9 What was it that enabled such a mixture of ideas to jell and have the force and influence that the work ethic had? This can be explained in part by the phenomenon that rarely do articles of popular faith let the requirements of logic stand in the way of their application. (In fairness to Rodgers it should be made clear that this is my idea and not his.) This phenomenon is exemplified by the response that is often made to the ever resourceful child who wonders why he must perform some action or why she must do something in a certain way. "Just because,” is the reply. Or, "This 94 is just the way it's done." The challenged adult falls back on an article of faith without considering whether the child has not after all seen through the logical incoherence of the task demanded and some oft-repeated maxims of daily living. Rodgers offers another explanation of how the work ethic, though in some ways incoherent, managed to offer the attraction it did. He thinks the strength of the work ethic was the way it blended in with the economy of the antebellum North.10 This was an economy in the earliest stages of industrialization--expansive yet simple--and it went hand in hand with the intellectual legacies to fashion the mid-nineteenth-century work ethic. The economic matrix reinforced old assumptions about work, stirred up new ones, and held them all together in a way logic could not. Expansion fueled the command to be up and doing and helped turn the ideal of usefulness out of the religious and political spheres and make it an economic obligation.... Expansion likewise took the hope of upward mobility and screwed it to a new pitch. In a world that seemed to have jumped the old restraining ruts...the dream of success was hardly to be escaped. ...If growth fueled dreams of success, the sudden collapses and paralyses ingrained the lessons of scarcity, heightened anxieties over the disorders of commercial and urban life, and added to the Victorian nervousness. In all it was a paradoxical society.... On all counts, even in its contradictions, it helped reinforce the primacy of work. Finally, the economy of the antebellum North was one in which a certain measure of independence and creativity could be taken for granted. No one directly supervised home workers or farmers, and in the shops and small mills supervision was rarely exacting. ...In general the hand processes of manufacture, the flexible rhythms of labor, and the absence of strict discipline made it possible for most workers to impress some of their idiosyncrasies on their toil, if not always to 95 love it.11 Rodgers goes on in the rest of his book to argue that although the speed and success of industrialization could in part be attributed to the ideals of the work ethic, the process radically changed the cultural context in which the ethic developed and caused many of the ideals to be eroded. However, Rodgers also indicates that the moralists of the time clung more tightly to the work ethic as the times and work changed. It was as though repeating the ideals often enough would make reality conform to them. So, he does not claim that the work ethic had died. Even if he did, he would be wrong. There are still shades of many elements of the work ethic in modern middle and working class values and thinking about work. Our grandparents raised their families during the Great Depression, and our parents have vivid memories of growing up in those times of scarcity, in those times when one was thought lucky if there was gainful work at hand. Many of us have also heard or thought that there is dignity in work no matter how menial, and yet our colleges and universities are full of people who want good-paying white collar jobs, who want to escape the manual labor of the factories or farms. I doubt that I am alone in remembering as a youngster hearing the local self-made millionaire proclaim the success that could easily follow hard work and serious intentions. We have recently heard economists bemoaning the fact that the productivity of the American 96 worker is down and urging that if only we would work harder and more diligently, the American economy would boom again. We admire handcrafted items, and there has been a resurging of sentiment on the part of many for a self-sufficient, back-to-the-country lifestyle. In short, many ideals of the work ethic are alive and well today. Therefore, it will be important for radical humanists to respond to this work ethic. Radical Humanism and the Work Ethic Before expounding a radical humanist critique of it, a brief summary of salient points of the work ethic will be helpful. Central to this view, as we saw, was the Protestant legacy which elevated useful work to a form of prayer and demanded that all people should work regularly, diligently, and conscientiously. As the main ideas suppporting this view of work and its place in the good life were gradually secularized, the ideal of civic or national usefulness and a trust in the ascetic value of work as a form of character building became prominent. In addition to these notions this work ethic included the conviction that hard work was the means to material success, and, an important correlative for many moralists, the belief that true work, as opposed to mere toil, is a creative act because it allows for skillful, mindful self-expression. Radical humanists criticize several aspects of this work ethic which are inadequate guides for living and working. The ideas that individuals should work hard so as to 97 contribute to national economic prosperity and prestige, that work has primarily an ascetic value in character formation, and that hard work is the way to attain the desirable goal of personal material wealth and prestige are particularly troubling. First, to suppose that national prosperity and prestige is a primary good is to misunderstand the proper relationship between individual and community. As we have argued, part of the project of humans individuating themselves consists in relating themselves to others in communities. Thus, a healthy community is a necessary prerequisite for healthy individuals. A sufficient base of material goods for contributing to the good of its members is one characteristic of a healthy community. However, it is a mistake to regard economic wealth, power, and prestige as the most important such characteristic. This is the mistake made by the moralists of the work ethic and their contemporary offspring. That the United States as nation or state is made richer and more powerful by its citizens working more or harder does not entail that individual Americans are richer, more powerful, or somehow better persons. The failure to understand that state or national wealth and prestige is a concern subordinate to the personal well-being of individuals in community can easily lead to what Lewis Mumford has called "partisanism." Instead of beginning with a whole man interacting in a whole community, we are likely to consider only a partial man in a partial community, and by a mental sleight of 98 hand, before we knowlit, we have let the part stand for the whole. The result of such partisanism, as Mumford indicates, is that it ...tends to limit the world with which we may have commerce and so impoverishes the personality.... By fastening attention upon a segment of the world, the partisan creates a segment of a personality. It is these segments or sects that any movement which aims at a general good in the community must contend against. So long as work for the common welfare meets with irrelevant partisanisms, so long will we lack the means of creating whole men and women; and so long will the main3concerns of civilization be sidetracked. By contrast, radical humanism intends to offer us the conceptual and symbolic tools and some concrete proposals by means of which we can further the process of making ourselves into whole persons and helping others do likewise. It recognizes the importance of the common good, the good of a community of people, but it also understands that the good of a community is ultimately measured by how much and how well it contributes to the many-sided human well-being of its members. Secondly, radical humanism disagrees with the work ethic's emphasis on the ascetic value of work and with the conception of human beings that lies behind this emphasis. Even if not explicitly in its theoretical statements, the work ethic, by condemning any forms of idleness and by extolling the power of work to purify the character, seemed in practice to be telling people that they were basically bad beings and that they must take care to suppress the evils 99 that lurked within themselves. Furthermore, this general picture of character or personality formation places too much emphasis on isolated individual effort while failing to grant sufficient importance to the role of the social environment in which people live. Radical humanism maintains neither that humans are naturally evil nor that we are naturally good. Rather, we must activate and exercise our capacities for goodness and confront and overcome our capacities for badness. Moreover, the interpersonal perspective of radical humanism insists that we recognize that an integral part of activating our capacities for good consists in contributing to the good of the communities in which we live. In addition, we must recognize that the people who compose these communities can provide each other the mutual support and sense of belongingness that make it easier consistently to choose to behave in ways that contribute to human well-being in ourselves and others. The work we do individually or together can be and should be one way in which people in community cultivate this supportive environment. The same is true of leisure. While work can sometimes have the air of ascetic exercise about it, this is not one of its primary values. Thirdly, radical humanism denies that the goal of personal material wealth and economic prestige held forth by the nineteenth-century work ethic is a goal worthy of human beings. To advocate hard work for the sake of merely 100 individual gain and merely material gain is to propound another variety of partisanism. There is much human experience indicating that focussing one's attention on individual material wealth and prestige impoverishes rather than enriches the all-around well-being of the human person. Having properly recognized that material gain is not the goal of humans, we can easily see that hard work alone is not the way to achieve full personhood. Work of varying intensity is only one part of the full range of activities by which we actualize ourselves. Surely, the work ethic is wrong in failing to see or to emphasize this. Radical humanism provides a reasonable alternative view. At this point we should indicate that despite these clear differences, the work ethic and radical humanism do have some common elements. The Protestant background to the work ethic maintained that useful work is a form of prayer, a way to answer God's calling to contribute to the common good and his greater glory. A brief discussion of the implications of this claim will show that it is closely related to the radical humanist claim that one's work should provide one with an important avenue to fuller self- actualization. It is not that the radical humanism we have been expounding and propounding in any way requires that one be a theist, although I do think that there could be a coherent theistic version of radical humanism. Rather, as we will see, one's proper relation to God has a primary place in a theist's understanding of a full human life. If one's work 101 is understood to affect one's relationship to God, then one's work has a vitally important role in one's life. Since the Protestant legacy in the work ethic is a Christian legacy, it is most sensible to limit our discussion to Christian understandings of God and of prayer. Among other things, common to various Christian faiths are a belief in the providence of God and a general conception of prayer. Human work can hold an important place in both. A belief in the providence of God is a belief that he maintains the world in existence and orders the events of the world, that he provides for his creation so that each part can make its proper contribution to the good of the whole. The general conception of prayer common to Christians is that by it we adore God, thank him for his gift of creation, express our contrition for failing to fulfill his will, and ask him to fill our needs.14 It is often held by Christians that part of the specialness of humans is that God allows us to share in his providence. We provide for each other and have an enormous impact on how other creatures live and how inanimate creation is used. If we follow God's will in this, it is supposed, our actions will contribute to the good of the whole world order. Our work is surely one way in which we provide the means of life for one another and in which we use our rationality to change inanimate things as well as ourselves and other living things. If we approach our work, no matter how exalted or menial, in the spirit that it is not just for ourselves that we do it, but because it is our 102 contribution to God's plan for the universe, it is done in a prayerful spirit. It can express adoration, thanksgiving, and submission to God's will all at once. Recognizing and accepting our place in the world in this way is held to be an important part of the process of relating ourselves to God, and thus the process of becoming fully human. In some such way the work ethic calls for work to be a form of prayer, to be an integral part of human development. Radical humanism is a latter-day cousin to this much of the work ethic: it retains the insight that our work should be of such a character that it contributes to our self- actualization, not to our degradation. As we have seen, it calls for us to develop ways of working with and for each other that allow and encourage actualization of persons, formation of communities, and respect for our connections with nature. Although this does not require one to be a Christian, the radical humanism we propose agrees with Theodore Roszak's assessment that success at this development requires a rekindling of respect for mystical or spiritual consciousness, an "apocatastasis." In the Gnostic myth, the apocatastasis is the illumination in the abyss by which the lost soul, after much tribulation, learns to tell the divine light from its nether reflection. ...For us this means an awakening from ”single vision and Newton's sleep," where we have dreamt that only matter and history are real. This has been the bad, mad ontology of our culture, and from it derives that myth of objective consciousness which has densified the transcendent symbols and persuaded us to believe in the reality of nothing that cannot be weighed and measured--not even our own soul, which is after all a subtle dancer. So 103 long as that myth rules the mind, not even the most humanely intentioned among us will find any course to follow but roads that lead deeper into the wasteland. But the mind freed of that myth may begin to find a project as vast as repealing the urban-industrial 15 domlnance not only feas1ble but necessary. Radical humanism calls on us to develop ways of living and social patterns that enable us to preserve and benefit from the spiritual content of work. Part of this idea is also contained in the work ethic's minor theme that genuine work is a means to creative self- expression because it allows the application of mind to one's work activity. Thus, genuine work is to be distinguished from mere toil, in which this creative element is missing. Radical humanism agrees that creative self-expression in work is an important value. It proposes that we act to bring about the conditions under which each of us can express ourselves not only in work, but also in leisure. At the same time, radical humanism cautions us not to pretend that we are above some work that is not obviously creative. Since self-actualization presupposes a knowledge of self and an honest recognition of what one is, it requires us to realize that the kind of work Hannah Arendt calls "labor" is an important part of human existence. Labor, for Arendt, is human "activity which corresponds to the biological process of the human body."16 It has a double task: to produce what is necesary for human bodily subsistence and to protect and preserve the ”world," the human artifice, against the natural processes of growth and decay that threaten to render 104 it unfit for human use.17 If we hold ourselves above this sort of work, radical humanism claims, we are trying to deny an integral part of human existence. Rather than following the temptation to do this, we must try to find a proper balance between how much of our activity we devote to labor and how much to creative work and leisure. It is difficult to specify what a proper balance is. No doubt, it varies somewhat from individual to individual. But for most people under normal conditions it would be inappropriate to do only labor, thus failing to do other important human activities, or to do little or no labor, thus requiring others to do it for one. I submit that the radical humanist proposals for change which we will treat in Chapters 6 and 7 make the finding and execution of this balance much easier. Modern Scientistic Materialism and Ascetic Fatalism We now turn to the exposition of some views of work which parallel the sentiments expressed by the First Mate, Mr. Beaufort. Recall that he perceived work as a curse. We do it only because it gives us what is most desirable in life, the money that lets us live in ease, comfort, and enjoyment. Mr. Beaufort and the rest of us, when we desire the easy life, would be quite at home in the fictional land of Cockaigne as it is described by Sebastian de Grazia. There's a far land, I'm told, where cigarette trees and lemonade springs abound; the hens lay soft-boiled eggs; the trees are full of fruit, and hay overflows the barns. In this fair and bright country there's a lake of stew and whiskey, too. "You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe." There ain't no 105 short-handled shovels, no axes, saws or picks. It's a place to stay, where you sleep all day, "where they hung the jerk that invented work." It's called the Big Rock Candy Mountain, bug lts anClent name is the land of Cockaigne. Surely none of us believes that such a land exists or even that this state of living is really desirable. However, we continue to have the dream, perhaps laughing at ourselves all the while. On the other hand, the dream arises out of real wishes. There are at least two such wishes that I want to examine here as representing ideas with which radical humanism must deal. The first amounts to the work ethic's wish for success without needing to do the work which is supposed to bring it one's way. We realize, of course, that some effort, some work must be expended. However, if work is a curse, we want to work as little as possible and still have as much comfort and abundance as possible. To work as little as possible means here to spend as little time as possible and to expend as little effort as possible in getting a task accomplished. De Grazia believes that through making so-called laborsaving devices widely available, "the industrial world has been able to keep alive the sense of being almost within Cockaigne's 19 If not the promise of Cockaigne, what can borders." explain the attraction of an electric can opener? What else can account for the advertisers' attempts in current television commercials and consumers' response to their attempts to associate their cleansers, their appliances, their food vendors with getting work done quickly and easily, 106 or better yet, with having it done by someone or something else? This promise or this attempt to reach Cockaigne is no recent phenomenon. At the beginning of the seventeenth century Francis Bacon proposed that any worthwhile knowledge should contribute to practical results for making human life easier. In his New Atlantis Bacon intended to portray a utopia at the center of which was Solomon's House, a college whose purpose he held to be most high. The End of our Foundation is the knowledge of Causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of Human Empigfi, to the effecting of all things possible. Bacon claimed that in his experience people try to learn things and achieve knowledge for the wrong reasons. To seek knowledge out of simple curiosity, boredom, vanity, or greed is to forget that learning should be "for the glory of the 21 Creator and the relief of man's estate." Particular emphasis is placed on the latter goal. As both heaven and earth do conspire and contribute to the use and benefit of man, so the end ought to be, from both philosophies [moral and natural] to separate and reject vain speculations and whatsoever is empty and void, and to preserve andzaugment whatsoever is solid and fruitful.... The effecting of all things possible, the relief of man's estate, the augmentation of solid and fruitful knowledge, "depend wholly on the arts and sciences,” Bacon maintains in another place.23 Science and technology can expand the borders of human limits until they reach Cockaigne. Bacon has become so associated with this set of ideas that he has 107 been called the Philosopher of Industrial Science.24 Cockaigne is sometimes only part of the reason for turning to mechanical ways of doing a task. As mentioned before, manual labor is something to be avoided by many currently popular standards. Thus, as de Grazia indicates, if one has a machine between one's hands in performing a task, it raises one's own estimation of oneself to another kind of being, a nonmanual worker.25 One has put the magic of modern science and technology to work. Still, isn't this often an appeal straight out of Cockaigne? "Look how easily the task gets done! I'm not even really working! Now I've got lots of leisure!" The second idea is nearly an inversion of the first. If we cannot have all our desires for ease, abundance, and escape from work in a land of effortless plenty, then we can be happy by disciplining ourselves until we are satisfied with what is available. This is what is common to the good life as it is pictured by the Epicureans and the Stoics. Epicurus thought that humans should try to achieve peace of mind as the highest good. He held that peace of mind could be achieved best by understanding the atomistic nature of the world and by living a simple life. To desire for more than one has or to desire for things to be different than they are is to upset the balance that allows peace of mind. Epictetus is one of the most important sources for our knowledge of Stoicism. He too claims that peace of mind is the highest good. It can be achieved in a deterministic world by 108 disciplining the will to live a natural life, to accept whatever comes one's way.26 Admittedly, on the surface these claims are quite different from the dream of Cockaigne. However, I think there is a pronounced similarity in the motives of the two. Cockaigne, in the form held out by modern scientistic materialism, is one instantiation of the desire to avoid undue exertion, to avoid work, to be at ease, to have abundance. The Epicureans and Stoics also wanted humans to be at ease, to be satisfied, to avoid undue exertion. They, however, see the absurdity of the literal promise of Cockaigne and so seek a land of plenty in the internal life. If one desires no more than one has, one has a kind of abundance and ease. I think that this cultural heritage reverberated at least a little in some of the calls to return to nature that were made in the countercultural movements of the 1960's. A caricature of this idea that still captures the heart of the message can be found in the soundtrack of Walt Disney's version of Rudyard Kipling's “Mowgli" stories, The Jungle Book. Baloo, the bear, assures Bagheera, the panther who is taking Mowgli back to the Man Village, that he can teach Mowgli to take care of himself in the jungle. His advice to Mowgli takes the form of a song, "The Bare Necessities." Look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities. Forget about your worries and your strife. I mean the bare necessities, all Mother Nature's recipes That bring the bare necessities of life. 109 Look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities. Forget abbut your worries and your strife. I mean the bare necessities, that's why a bear can rest at ease With just the bare necessities of life. And don't spend your time looking around For something you want that can't be found. When you find out you can live without it And go along not thinking about it, I'll tell you something true, The bare necessitieszgf life will come to you. They'll come to you. Being satisfied with what is at hand in nature is supposed to bring peace of mind. Radical Humanism and the Two Cockaignes The radical humanist critique of modern scientistic materialism's attempts at bringing Cockaigne alive can be summarized briefly by pointing to the implications of its intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological perspectives. We indicated some of these in the previous chapter and will return to them in Chapters 6 and 7. Most of the proposals we offer are made with a view to correcting the excesses of the modern age. Many of these excesses can be traced to tendencies in the program of scientistic materialism. We call for action to correct an excessive dichotomy between work and leisure, an excessive individualism, an excessive concern with wealth and material plenty, an excessive exploitation of natural resources, and an excessive confidence in the ability of science and technology to correct problems too often thought to be of a character that does not require any significant change in our attitudes, 110 behavior, and lifestyles. We have called for people to individuate themselves, to build vibrant communities, to reestablish connections with nature. As means to these ends, we have proposed that people join together to do more of their own work, to develop self-motivated rather than commercially motivated activities in leisure, and to renounce habitual reliance on short-term, quick technological fixes for problems that arise. Many of these proposals, as we will see later, involve activity that to modern habits and lifestyles seems difficult, perhaps onerous. They also assume an attitude toward scientific and technological achievements that to modern eyes seems regressive. This being the case, we are bombarded with a host of questions and objections from those who espouse modern scientistic materialism. Lewis Mumford anticipates these questions and formulates them well. Are not refrigerators, private motor cars and planes, automatic heating systems, telephones and television sets, electrically driven washing machines worth having? And what of the drudgery-eliminating achievements of the bulldozer, the conveyor belt, and a thousand other serviceable inventions? What of the appalling mental burdens in bookkeeping that have been lifted by the computer? What of the exquisite arts of the surgeon and the dentist? Are these not colossal gains? Why weep if some of the old goods and enjoyments have fallen through this electro-mechanical mesh? Does any sensible person mourn the passing of the old Stone Age? If all these goods are in themselves sound and individually desirable, on what grounds can we condemn the system that totalizes Egem? So say the official spokesmen. The list of questions could go on and on from the advantages 111 of sweet corn in January to irrigation in July. Our answer is Mumford's answer. Yes: if one examines separately only the immediate products of megatechnics, these claims, these promises are valid, and these achievements are genuine. The separate benefits, if detached from the long-term human purposes and a meaningful pattern of life, are indisputable. None of the megatechnics' efficient modes of organization, none of its labor-saving devices, none of its new products, however daring in their departures from old forms, should be arbitrarily disparaged or neglected, still less rejected out of hand. Only one proviso must be made, which the apologists for the power complex studiously have failed to recognize. All these goods remain valuable only if more important hggan concerns are not overlooked or eradicated. Our contention has been that the more important concerns of opportunities for self-actualization for all people, the development of person-oriented communities, and the cultivation of responsible relationships to nature have been overlooked or have been the object of attempts at eradication. We need to preserve and promote these human goods. If this requires limiting the extension of lifestyles and social practices advocated by scientistic materialism, we must find alternative ways of doing things. We believe that radical humanism offers some reasonable guidelines for the preservation and promotion of these more important human concerns. If many of the main tendencies of scientistic materialism have been toward giving a sense that we almost inhabit the land of Cockaigne, the land of physical ease and plenty, the inversion, the turning inward, of this sense of 112 ease is called for by the fatalistic asceticism of the Stoics and Epicureans. They advise us to discipline ourselves until we are satisfied with what is available. Since everything must be as it is, they claim, the only way to achieve peace of mind is to reconcile ourselves to what is. Although we have not explicitly pointed this out, it should be clear that radical humanism is not fatalistic. Far from encouraging us to accept things as they are, radical humanists try to motivate us to change ourselves, to grow toward fuller self-actualization, and to change those parts of our social foundations and surroundings which inhibit the flourishment of persons who mutually support each other in sustaining communities. This is the most striking difference between fatalistic asceticsim and radical humanism. Nonetheless, radical humanism does involve a recognition that growth toward fuller individuation sometimes requires a good deal of self-discipline. There is no pretense that everything would turn out for the better if human beings would only relax and follow their immediate inclinations. There is too much human experience as evidence that this would be counterproductive. Only in well-ordered humans is it likely that following a "natural" bent would contribute to the goods of individuation, communitarian sharing, and a kindly use of nature. In our present social circumstances such well-ordered humans are exceptional indeed. In the transformation that radical humanism encourages us to effect, most of us must overcome old habits, lifestyles, and social 113 patterns that militate against autonomous work and leisure and gravitate toward passive leisure as a relief from empty work. In the transition period, doing more of our own work and becoming self-directedly active in leisure will seem unnatural and ascetic. But as we grow as persons, as we become more well-ordered, activities that further flourishment will become more enjoyable, will seem more natural, will be activities we want to do. Thus, while the asceticism of the Stoics and Epicureans becomes too easily an empty form, a stultifying psychic satisfaction with no basis in reality, it can serve as a reminder that sometimes we must restrict our wants in order to satisfy our higher needs. Radical humanism recognizes this without going to the extremes of fatalistic asceticism. Aristotle's Classical View Up to this point we have seen how radical humanists confront the claims and themes of the work ethic, the advertisements for the modern Cockaigne, and the ascetic fatalism exemplified by the Epicureans and Stoics. Among Adlard's fictional representatives of ideas about work and leisure we have dealt with Mr. Dryden's and Mr. Beaufort's. We now turn to expound some nonfictional proponents of views similar to those of Mr. McCabe. Mr. McCabe, remember, was the ship's physician and believed that work, no matter how menial, is good because it provides us humans with one way of fulfilling our natural desire to understand things. He expressed no view about leisure, but presumably he would have 114 held that it too should provide opportunities to acquire knowledge. Since we have already found that the early nineteenth- century work ethic proclaimed the dignity or goodness of even menial work, it is not this part of McCabe's opinion that I want to discuss. Rather, it is the notion that the good in life is the acquirement of knowledge or understanding and that work and leisure provide means for achieving this good. The expression of this idea must surely make us think of Aristotle's views about the good life, work, and leisure. After all, it is Aristotle who first said, "All men by nature desire to know."30 Aristotle's ethical theory has had a pervading influence on Western cultural ideals about work and leisure and their place in the good life. When a college student proclaims to be seeking knowledge for its own sake, it is an echo of the tradition of Aristotle. When recent thinkers like Josef Pieper and Sebastian de Grazia define leisure as the state or condition of being free of everyday necessity and claim, respectively, that leisure is the basis of culture and that 31 we hear Aristotle's leisure is the highest of ideals, ideas reverberate in our own times. Since Aristotle is a very live philosopher in the sense that he continues to influence our culture, it is important to understand his position and to give a radical humanist response to it. Aristotle thinks that the good life or the best of all goods achievable by action is happiness or eudaimonia.32 115 He argues that since the active exercise of the virtues of rational faculties is peculiarly human and since wisdom combined with scientific knowledge is the best of these virtues, human happiness in its highest form consists in contemplative activity.33 Furthermore, he claims that "happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in 34 This is as it should be, Aristotle thinks, peace.” because peace and leisure allow one to do more than just what is necessary and useful for staying alive; they allow honorable actions.3S Furthermore, to have leisure one must be free from the excess constraints put on one's body, energy, mind, and attention by the need to look after the things necessary or useful for life. Thus, an absorption with one's work to the exclusion of other interests or the engagement in work which makes one unfit for the development of moral and intellectual virtues and the performance of political duties precludes the leisure that allows human happiness.36 So Aristotle, contrary to Mumford, thinks that leisure is freedom from work. On the other hand, he does not denigrate the place of work in human life. His concern is that the kind and amount of work one does leave one with a healthy body and free mind and enough time and energy to engage in philosophic contemplation and to practice the moral virtues. The person who desires leisure, says Aristotle, will not need many things or great things and will recognize that moderation in one's desires and the means to 116 37 fulfill them is important. Similarly, leisure spent totally in amusements or too much leisure spent in intellectual activity or in philosophic contemplation can lead to damage of mind, body, and property.38 Although everything we have explained so far applies mainly to personal ethics, how individual people should conduct their lives, Aristotle thinks a concern with the individual is insufficient. He remarks that people join together to form communities first for meeting their needs for subsistence, but then for the sake of living good lives.39 Attempts to build communities which provide the social conditions for right living are important. For even if the end is the same for a single man and for a state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete whether to attain or to preserve; though it is worth while to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to assain it for a nation or for city-states. Finally, we should point out that Aristotle recognizes that the contemplative ideal is a goal not all will reach. Those who do, however, he claims will be taken beyond themselves. ...It is not in so far as he is man that he will live so, but in so far as something divine is present in him; and by so much as this is superior to our composite nature is its activity superior to that which is the exercise of the other kind of virtue. If reason is divine, then in comparison with man, the life according to it is divine in comparison with human life. But we must not follow those who advise us, being men, to think of human things, and being mortal, of mortal things, but must so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to 117 livilin accordance with the best thing in us. Radical Humanism and Aristotle While Aristotle's emphasis on a balance in human activity is clear enough to block any criticism that he denigrates work in order to recommend only leisure, we do believe to the extent he holds philosophic contemplation as the highest or most important human good he errs. The full individuation of humans does require us, as one part of our intrapersonal development, to engage in intellectual contemplation to the extent we are able, but it equally requires us to contribute to the good of the communities to which we belong and to develop a proper relationship to nature. Radical humanism insists on this multiplicity of foundational human goods. If we try to rank these goods we risk missing necessary aspects of full human individuation. It is true that Aristotle does not deny that humans must contribute to the good of their communities. In addition, if it had been an issue of importance in his time, I think he would also have called for a proper relationship to nature. But if my reading of Aristotle is correct, he believes these sorts of activities are less important or less worthwhile than contemplation. It should be noted that some Aristotelian scholars disagree with my interpretation of Aristotle's position on contemplation. J.L. Ackrill argues that Aristotle can be understood as claiming that eudaimonia consists in a complete human virtue, of which theoretical contemplation is 118 a very important part.42 A.O. Rorty agrees for the most part and suggests that to the extent contemplation can have as its object the whole specifically human energeai, or actualization of essentially human potentialities, it can be understood as a completing aspect of a comprehensive practical life. She argues that Aristotle's treatise on friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics sheds light on this 43 way of looking at the matter. If these readings of Aristotle are truer to his thought, I would retract my criticism. I would then be inclined to claim that radical humanists and Aristotle express differently with different emphases some similar insights into human well-being. Even so, the apparent indecision on Aristotle's part is not present in radical humanism. Radical humanism unequivocally holds that self-actualization, community, and a proper relation to nature are equally important human goods and that there are many ways of life which express and develop these goods. In light of some of the claims of the intrapersonal perspective of radical humanism, one might be tempted to accuse Aristotle of ignoring the importance of our emotions, how we relate to them, and how we express them to others. For example, this seems to be part of William Barrett's criticism. At the end of the century and a half in which Plato and Aristotle lived, this ideal sage [whom Barrett earlier calls a visionary and seer in whom reason is not isolated or distinguished from feeling and intuition] had been transformed into the man of pure 119 intellect, whose highest embodiment was to be found in the rational philosopher and the theoretical sc1entlst. However, this would not be a just criticism of Aristotle, even if some later followers thought they were being true to their master by trying to isolate thinking from feeling. L.A. Kosman argues that it would be accurate to view Aristotle's moral theory "as a theory not only of how to 45 Aristotle's act well but also of how to feel well.” understanding of virtue includes not only right action, but also right feeling and emotion, rather than unfeeling, strictly rational action, whatever that might be. Two Modern Classicalists Earlier I mentioned Josef Pieper and Sebastian de Grazia as belonging within the Aristotelian tradition. Now I would like to draw attention to claims each makes which are quite different from the radical humanist position. Pieper expounds his views on work and leisure in response to the flurry of activity that prevailed in the years of rebuilding after World War II. He confronts the View that hard work is what is good, disagrees with it, and calls for the deproletarianization of people who have become mere functionaries at the service of the State. People become proletarians, he thinks, when they are so involved in the "process of work..., the all-embracing process in which "46 that things are used for the sake of the public need..., their lives are wholly consumed in it. This undesirable state of affairs can be corrected by making available to the 120 proletarian a field of significant activity which is not work, which does not limit its view to social usefulness, i.e., by making available the sphere of leisure. Leisure will allow the proletarian to avoid total absorption into the utilitarian process of work and to retain the ability both to see the world as a whole and to develop potentialities for wholeness.47 Note that Pieper, like radical humanists, makes a call for developing wholeness, but, unlike radical humanists, thinks it can be attained by separating the spheres of work and leisure. De Grazia disagrees with both radical humanists and Pieper on the latter claim. Leisure cannot be found within work, and alternating work and leisure will not allow the 48 . . He conceives of leisure as "a development of wholeness. state of being free of everyday necessity, and the activities of leisure are those one would engage in for their own sake."49 Only relatively few people are capable of having leisure according to de Grazia. Furthermore, and this is the claim I want to highlight for later evaluation, he thinks that leisure and its benefits--creativeness, truth, freedom, a politics of peace, and the religious discovery of one's self and one's place in the universe--are incompatible with democracy.50 In particular we should notice his argument for this claim. We have seen at least two good reasons why people might not take leisure though the opportunity existed: first, there may be no strong tradition of leisure; second, in its absence, forces opposed to leisure, unless stopped, may intervene to bring not a new 121 tradition but a follow-the-piper, day-to-day pattern for work, free time, and money-spending. There is a third reason: leisure may be beyond the capacity of most people. If history shows no people in any quantity ever enjoying its delights, perhaps we are dealing with sogething that only a few can enjoy in any case. Radical Humanism and the Modern Classicalists We believe that both Pieper and de Grazia fail to recognize the fundamental importance of work to the development of human beings. They denigrate the importance of work by granting it only a functional role at the service of leisure. Our radical humanism agrees with the analysis of the importance of work made by Marx and Engels in The German Ideology. They describe how in the very providing for material needs in labor, human beings develop further needs as well as the material forces and social relations required to meet these developed needs.52 Thus, work has not only a derivative importance as activity that makes life and leisure physically possible. It also has a constitutive importance; it is an activity by which we human beings develop ourselves. Pieper and de Grazia fail to acknowledge this constitutive importance of work. Pieper, as we have said, also thinks that the alienating conditions and effects of work as it is presently organized can be kept separate from the other spheres of life. While he holds out leisure as the means by which the worker as functionary can develop a wholeness in the self, he does not make clear at all how, if the functional character of the 122 work process has such a total grasp on the worker, one would be able to maintain the spirit and attitude of leisure in any meaningful sense. On this score Pieper is utopian in Engels' pejorative sense.53 De Grazia agrees with us in our criticism of Pieper's claim that human wholeness can be attained by separating work and leisure. Indeed, he devotes much attention to the way in which the modern organization of the work process in some of its aspects causes the impingement of the requirements of the work sphere into the rest of life.54 However, de Grazia holds a separation thesis in a different form. He moves the frame of reference from the separation of work and leisure in the lives of individual people to its separation in social classses. He claims that work is the lot of one class in society and leisure is the privilege of another class. While the separation of the alienation of work from the attitude of leisure is not normally possible for individuals, it is possible for a society if members of one class, the great majority, attend to the work and members of another class, the leisure kind, "touch everything with the play of thought."55 In the exposition of our radical humanist position we indicated that how most people act in work and leisure must be understood in the context of the larger institutional and social framework which is presently predominant. We argued that monopoly capitalism imposes structural barriers against people's exercise of autonomous action in work and leisure 123 and contributes to a passivity that inhibits growth toward fuller human well-being. In light of this it is easier to understand why more people do not take the opportunity for leisure as de Grazia understands it. It could be objected in defense of de Grazia that he does see these institutional, structural issues as contributing factors in the dissolution of true leisure into free time, non-working time.56 However, he takes the sting out of his criticism of the existing social state of affairs by saying, in effect, that it does not really matter since most people are not capable of taking leisure, since leisure is incompatible with democracy. He tries to support this proposition with an appeal to an historical claim that there never has been a great number of people enjoying leisure, even when basic needs were met without undue effort.57 We answer that what has been the case under certain historical conditions and what is the case under present conditions do not settle the question of alternative possibilities, do not amount to what must be the case for the future. Perhaps more or most people would adopt a more meaningful leisure if they tried to develop lifestyles and bring about social organizations which would make the exercise of autonomy easier. Among such necessary changes, as we have argued, is the alteration of the existing organization of work so that workers have control of the whole work process. De Grazia unjustifiably argues from a lack of autonomous exercise of capacities for leisure to the 124 lack of the capacities themselves. To this extent, his View of work and leisure is distorted. Given these defects of the classical view of work and leisure as expounded by its modern proponents Pieper and de Grazia, we reaffirm that radical humanism can be regarded as a live and reasonable alternative view of work and leisure. Karl Marx's View Finally, in this correlation of opinions of the ship's officers in the novel The Greenlander with views on work and leisure which are influential in our modern culture, we turn to Captain Stapleton. Recall that he viewed work as a practical reminder to us humans that we depend on one another and that it is better to live in a true community than to live as isolated individuals. Although this view might be a part of many different conceptions of work and leisure, I want to connect it with Karl Marx's ideas about work and leisure and their place in human life. The connection is not altogether arbitrary because Marx does say much about the social character of human existence. However, more importantly, the influence of Marx's views in recent social thought requires any contemporary thinkers proposing an alternative way of thinking about work and leisure to examine them carefully. For Marx work, or labor, plays an immensely important role in the lives of human beings. He thinks that human beings distinguish themselves from animals by the act of working, the act of producing their means of subsistence.58 125 Furthermore, this production in work is one way in which 59 human beings express themselves. In addition, by working, by producing the means by which they can satisfy their basic material needs, human beings engage in creative activity. Not only does the activity create the means of subsistence, it also creates changes in human beings. The satisfaction of basic needs and the means of providing this satisfaction create in the humans themselves new needs, bring 60 out new qualities, produce new powers and ideas. Thus what human beings are depends upon their labor, their production, and the conditions in which they perform it. As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with 223 they produce. The nature of individuals thus depends on the material cogditions determining their production. It is also important to recognize Marx's emphasis on the social character of human existence and work. The human being is in the most literal sense a [zoon politikon], not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society. Production by an isolated individual outside society...is as much an absurdity as is the development of language without individualseliving together and talking to each other. Therefore, when Marx speaks of production, he means ”production at a definite stage of social development-- production by social individuals."63 Given this importance of work for the development of humans and this social character of work, Marx thinks that in 126 any stage of human history a certain set of forces or means of production is combined with a certain set of relations of production. The forces of production include such things as the material being used or processed, the tools or machinery used to fashion or to manipulate the material, the skills of the workers themselves, and the modes of cooperation in work. The relations of production are the social relationships among members of a social group that organize and delineate the structure of power which determines control of the conditions and materials of work, the products of work, and the ways work is done. Marx indicates that the relations of production are expressed in property relations. He thinks it important to notice that since the forces of production in part depend on and in part are social relationships, they are shaped by and respond to the relations of production. Conversely, the relations of production are also shaped by and respond to the forces of production.64 Marx makes use of this distinction between the forces of production and the relations of production to explain the alienation of workers under capitalism and to propose the means for overcoming this alienation. Two prominent aspects of the relations of production in capitalism are private property and the social division of labor. Since capitalists own and control the means of production, workers must sell their labor power in order to get a wage to buy what they need to live. There is no production to satisfy needs directly. Labor, which should be 127 a form of self-activity, becomes activity which is performed for and controlled by another. Thus, the creative power of work is viewed by workers as an alien power, and the product of the workers' labor, which should sustain their lives and satisfy their needs, is now an alien product, someone else's product. In addition, with the social division of labor the intellectual and material activities of work devolve on different individuals. The capitalists control the conception of the work process, and the workers must carry it out. This actual performance of the work is also controlled by capitalists by developing a detailed division of labor within the work process, i.e., by dividing the workers' operations into more and more mechanical bits. Eventually, a machine can take the workers' places. This use of knowledge, science, and technology also makes the knowledge involved in the work process alien to workers. Under these conditions workers and work itself are degraded.65 Marx thinks that two things must happen in order to overcome capitalism and the alienation of workers it causes. First, the alienation must become intolerable to people. They must recognize that although there is great wealth and culture at hand in part as the result of their labor, they have essentially no access to it. Second, the forces of production must be sufficiently developed so that the revolution does not simply create general destitution.66 Marx indicates that capitalism by its very nature pushes toward a development of the forces of production, but it does 128 so under a social organization of work, under relations of production which will bring its own downfall, which create crises that provide occasions for a transformation that can 67 When workers be carried through by political activity. combine to form new relations of production and seize and further develop the existing forces of production toward new forces of production based on the overthrow of the old divisions of labor, they develop the totality of their human capacities, transform labor into self-activity, and make available the time and material means for full human development.68 Marx paints an almost idyllic picture of what communism makes possible in contrast to the narrowness of capitalism. Under the division of labor in capitalism each human being is forced into a role. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic. He sees work restored to its most attractive form and yet restricted enough so that leisure is also possible. Radical Humanism and Marx It should be evident that there are some important similarities between radical humanism and Marx's views on work and leisure, especially in our discussion of economic 129 issues. Our radical humanism borrows much of the foundations of its criticism of the predominant economic system of our society from Marx and some modern Marxists. We have cited monopoly capitalism as the source of many depersonalizing tendencies in our society. We have also called for the development of person-oriented communities in which people can support one another in activating all the capacities we have for becoming fuller human beings. Many of Marx's descriptions of how he visualizes a communist society are very similar to and consistent with what we envision.70 In these he always emphasizes the development of each human person in cooperation with other humans. Thus, we radical humanists are allied with Marx in some aspects of our interpersonal perspective. However, there is a fairly common interpretation of Marx's call for communism that understands him to claim that the mere seizure of ownership of the forces of production as they presently exist will solve the problems and difficulties of workers. It is this that not only will make destitution and dissatisfaction with work disappear, but also will make possible the full development of human creative capacities. This interpretation of Marx also understands him to mean, when he claims that further development of the forces of production is desirable, that it is desirable to increase the complexity and comprehensiveness of the present technology of 71 production. In each case textual support is available. If this interpretation of Marx is correct, we disagree 130 with him. We argued earlier that some kinds of modern, highly technological means of production are necessarily accompanied by a division of labor which dehumanizes people, which degrades work and the people who do it. The interpretation of Marx we are now considering might View him as claiming against our argument that it is a form of technological determinism, and that technological determinism is false. It is not the technology which causes the disutilities, this Marx would claim, but rather the patterns of ownership. This, in turn, can be interpreted as technological neutralism. But this neutralism also seems false. It is highly unlikely that the mere fact of ownership can change the effects of a specific piece of technology and the way it is used in production. If workers on a production line must do repetitious, monotonous, unskilled work to allow more efficient use of machines, those workers are no less stunted by their work if they own the production plant than if capitalists own it. Furthermore, if we are right in agreeing with Braverman and Gorz that the present division of labor and machinery of production entail the separation of the conception of work from its execution, further development of the present state of affairs in production would not help develop the capacities of workers. Only a further degradation of work and the people who do it would occur. Thus, what is required is not a further development of the forces of production along present lines but development of different ways to produce what we require, 131 ways which encourage and contribute to our individuation rather than inhibit it.72 All of this is not to say that the interpretation of Marx outlined above is a correct interpretation. We mean only to indicate that it is not an uncommon interpretation and that we disagree with this form of Marxism. A different interpretation of Marx understands him to mean that in appropriating the forces of production, workers would not only own them but control them and change them so that work is no longer alienating. So he need not be interpreted as holding a form of technological neutralism. Furthermore, he can be understood to mean by the development of the forces of production something other than simply the furthering of the application and complexity of present forms of production technology. Perhaps it is the myopia of those who follow him or distrust him that limits Marx's vision to a change in the relations of production with a furthering of the status quo in the forces of production. A more clear-sighted view understands him to be calling for the development of the whole range of human capacities in people so that we can develop different, nonalienating ways of producing what we need and want.73 Part of our radical humanism is very closely related to this latter interpretation of Marx. However, we offer a genuine alternative in the sense that we explicitly resolve the ambiguity in Marx just cited. Furthermore, we develop our View of work and leisure with a sensitivity to the 132 requirement of ecological integrity not found very explicitly, if at all, in Marx. We emphasize the need to respect the ecological conditions which make healthy human survival possible and the need to learn from the variety displayed by nature. In addition, though this sort of claim is difficult to support by citing texts with which I am familiar, the spirit and feel of Marx's communism seems to me to denigrate and to dismiss too easily and lightly what I called above, with Roszak, our need to develop a respect for spiritual consciousness. Finally, while Marx claims that necessary social change will take the form of class conflict and that revolutionaries should be prepared to use violence,74 radical humanism believes that this form and method of change will only end up supporting a system of power over persons rather than developing a system that empowers persons.75 Radical humanists insist that social change requires, simultaneously, intrapersonal changes. Any lasting changes in our social order will begin with the power of example, on the part of both individuals and communities, 76 We will return to these not with the power of violence. ideas on change in Chapters 6 and 7. Though we are fully aware of our debt to him, we find our radical humanism an improvement over Marx in these respects. Summary For the sake of keeping our place in this work, we should briefly review what we have just done. We have expounded some views about work, leisure, and their place in 133 the good life which were suggested by the opinions of the four officers in Adlard's fictional fishing vessel. We have also explained the main similarities and dissimilarities between each of these views and radical humanism. First, we examined the work ethic as it took shape in America by the middle of the nineteenth century. We saw that the Protestant legacy in this ethic universalized the obligation to work, methodized time for work, and considered work a form of prayer. With the thinning of this theological paint, the emphasis shifted to the obligation to work in order to be patriotically useful and in order to build character. In addition, the work ethic contained the faith that to work was to walk the path toward material success and incorporated the idea that work is a creative act. We saw that radical humanism objects to the partisanism of the work ethic which sets up national economic prosperity and prestige as a more important purpose for work than the personal well-being of individual humans. Radical humanism also disagrees with the work ethic's emphasis on the ascetic value of work and the negative conception of human beings that is presupposed by this emphasis. Furthermore, the work ethic wrongly advocated hard work as the main path to individual success. It fails to emphasize that human well-being, which is more important than merely individual material success, is developed through a wide range of activities, not just through work. Finally, we saw that radical humanism retains the work ethic's insights that work 134 should be an important part of the process of becoming fully human and that at least some of our work should be an avenue of creative self-expression. Second, we briefly examined two versions of the ethic of Cockaigne. Modern scientistic materialism tries to make real the fantastic daydream that the good life is the life of ease, comfort, plenty, and no work. The inverse of this form of Cockaigne is the attempt to reach a life of internal ease by following the Epicurean and Stoic call for ascetic acceptance of what is at hand. We pointed out that the main radical humanist criticism of modern scientistic materialism is its tendency toward all sorts of excess. While we do not deny the benefits of some of its achievements, we believe that they are attained at the cost of overlooking, rejecting, or suppressing aspects of human well-being which are emphasized in the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological perspectives of radical humanism. On the other side, radical humanism denies the fatalism of the Epicureans and Stoics. In addition, it recognizes the importance of self-discipline without retreating from the world in the way ascetic fatalism does. Third, we turned to Aristotle and two modern proponents of Aristotle's idea that leisure is the way to the good life. We saw that Aristotle thinks that the activity of philosophic contemplation is the most important human good and that leisure as freedom from certain kinds and amounts of work is necessary to achieve this good. He holds this contemplation 135 to be a means of self-transcendence and believes that it is important to try to make it possible for all humans to go as far as they can toward this good. Josef Pieper maintains that the human wholeness that is the goal of the contemplative activity is possible if we separate the spheres of work and leisure. Sebastian de Grazia argues that leisure is incompatible with democracy and certainly cannot be found within work. Radical humanism endorses Aristotle's call for balance among a variety of activities in both work and leisure as a way of developing and expressing human good. However, we disagree with Aristotle in his holding philosophic contemplation as the most important human good. From our point of View, this deemphasizes the importance of the other foundational goods revealed by the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological perspectives. We did note that some scholarly readers of Aristotle do not interpret his discussion of human well-being as invovling the claim that contemplation is Egg most important good. We also found that Aristotle cannot be justly criticized for failing to take account of the important place of feelings and emotions in human flourishment. Turning to the modern Classicalists, radical humanists criticize Pieper and de Grazia for failing to recognize the constitutive importance of work to human well-being. We concur with Pieper's call for developing human wholeness, but disagree that this can be attained by separating the spheres 136 of work and leisure. Likewise, we criticize de Grazia's thesis of the class separation of work and leisure. We also find de Grazia unjustifiably antidemocratic, since he argues from many people's failure to autonomously exercise capacities for leisure to the lack of the capacities themselves. Finally, we observed Karl Marx's View that labor is fundamental for human development. We also examined his analysis of the alienation of workers under capitalism and his claim that communism can overcome this alienation and restore the benefits of work. After indicating that radical humanism borrows much of its criticism of contemporary monopoly capitalism from Marx, we suggested that Marx can be interpreted as holding a form of technological neutralism. We disagree with this neutralism, but indicated that Marx can also be read as calling for change in the technological aspects of work as well as in its social organization. We find ourselves more in accord with this interpretation of Marx. Nevertheless, radical humanism emphasizes the requirements of ecological integrity in ways Marx does not and rejects his apparent dismissal of the importance of spiritual consciousness. Finally, we disagree with Marx's call for the use of violence to effect social change. Rather we call for the use of personal and communitarian example. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 137 NOTES Mark Adlard, The Greenlander (New York: Summit Books, 1978), PP. 74-79. I must thank Professor Bruce Miller of Michigan State University for bringing this novel to my attention. Daniel T. Rodgers, The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 1850-1920 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. xi. Ibid., p. 7. Ibid., pp. 8-9. Ibid., pp. 9-11. gy;g., pp. 11-12. Ibid., pp. 12-13. Ibid., p. 13. Ibid., pp. 13-14. Ibid., pp. 17-21. Ibid., pp. 21-22. Lewis Mumford, The Story of Utopias (New York: The Viking Press, 1962), p. 239. Ibid., p. 261. James M. Campbell, The Place of Prayer in the Christian Religion (New York: The Methodist Book Concern, 1915), pp. 13-17, 250-253, 284-290. Perry LeFevre, Understandings of Praygg (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981), Ch. 2: ”Karl Barth-- Neo-Orthodoxy," pp. 28-45, and Ch. 6: "C.S. Lewis-- Orthodox Apologetics," pp. 96-115. Theodore Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends: Politics and Transcendence in_Postindustrial Society (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1973), PP. 421-422. See also pp. 91-98, 349-427. Roszak's plea is akin to the claim made by many theorists of natural law ethics that a basic human good is "religion.“ See Germain Grisez and Russell Shaw, Beyond the New Morality: The Responsibilities of Freedom, revised ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980), pp. 72-73, and John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), PP. 89-90. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 138 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 7. Arendt distinguishes labor, work, and action as three importantly different kinds of human activity. In this project we have been using "work" in its more general sense, a sense that can incorporate each of these three kinds of activity. Likewise, we have been maintaining that leisure is not incompatible with doing any of these activities. Ibid., pp. 96-108. Sebastian de Grazia, Of Time, Work, and Leisure (New York: The Twentieth Century Fund, 1962), p. 381. Ibid., p. 384. Francis Bacon, New Atlantis, in The Works of Francis Bacon, Vol. III, James Spedding, Robert Ellis, and Douglas Heath, ed. (London: Longman and Co., 1859), p. 156. Francis Bacon, Proficience and Advancement of Learning Divine and Human, in The Works, Vol. III, p. 294. Ibid., pp. 294-295. Francis Bacon, The New Organon, in The New Organon and Related Writings, Fulton H. Anderson, ed. (New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1960), PP. 118-119. This is a reprint of the standard translation in The Works, Vol. VIII, Spedding, et al., ed. (Boston: Taggard and Thompson, 1863). Benjamin Farrington, Francis Bacon: Philosopher of Industrial Science (New York: Henry Schuman, 1949). de Grazia, Of Time, Work, and Leisure, p. 385. This is an oversimplification of the moral philosophy of Epicurus. However, the point here is not to understand the whole of Epicurus' philosophy but to see it as an example of the notion that if we cannot have Cockaigne, we should bring our desires in accord with what is available. The same point applies to my reference to Stoic philosophy. For Epicurean and Stoic texts see Whitney J. Oates, ed., The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers (New York: The Modern Library/Random House, Inc., 1940). "The Bare Necessities," Terry Gilkyson, The Jungle Book, Walt Disney Productions, Disneyland Records Storyteller 3948, 1978. Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine, Vol. II: The Pentagon of Power (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 139 Inc., 1970), P. 333. Ibid. Aristotle, Metaphysics I,4: 980a 20. Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture, Alexander Dru, trans. (New York: A Mentor Book/New American Library, 1963). For Pieper's understanding of leisure, pp. 51-57. For one statement of his claim that culture depends on leisure, pp. 17-18. Sebastian de Grazia, Of Time, Work, 3nd Leisure. For de Grazia's definition of leisure, pp. 7-8, 246-247, 327, 348. The whole of this work tries to argue in part that leisure is the highest ideal, although the Introduction, pp. 3-9, and Chapter X, pp. 381-437, express this best. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1095a 15-20. Ibid., 1177a 12-19, 1097b 23-1098a 17, 1102a 26-1103a 10, 1141a 17-27. It is important to note that Aristotle divides the sciences into theoretical, practical, and productive. He has theoretical science in mind here. Among the theoretical sciences he counts physics, or natural science in our terms, mathematics, and first philosophy or metaphysics or theology, as he variously refers to it. I have presented a fuller and more textually sensitive exposition of Aristotle's arguments in an unpublished paper, "Aristotle on Work and Leisure.“ This was submitted to Professor Harold T. Walsh in fulfillment of requirements for the course Philosophy 412, "Aristotle's Ethics and Politics," at Michigan State University, 1980. Ibid., 1177b 5-6. Aristotle, Politics, 1333a 30-1333b 4; 1328b 39-1329a 2. The argument can be constructed from the following texts: Nicomachean Ethics, 1096a 5-7, and III,6; Politics, 1328b 39-1329a 2, 1337b 5-14, 1318b 12-17, and 1292b 25-29; and Economics, 1343b 2-5. Nicomachean Ethics, 1178b 33-1179a 8; Politics, 1334a 16-39. Nicomachean Ethics, 1176b 9-11, 1148a 22-1148b 4, 1177b 26-31, and Politics, 1337b 15-17. Politics, 1252b 27-30. Nicomachean Ethics, 1094b 8-10. Ibid., 1177b 26-35. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 140 J.L. Ackrill, ”Aristotle on Eudaimonia" in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), PP. 15-33. First published in the Proceedings of the British Academy 60 (1974): 339-359. Ackrill stress the importance of Nicomachean Ethics, 1100a 4, 1101a 14-16, and 1144a 4-5, where Aristotle says, respectively, that happiness requires "not only complete virtue but also a complete life," that "he is happy who is active in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods...through a complete life," and that "philosophic wisdom also produces happiness; for, being a part of virtue entire, by being possessed and by actualizing itself it makes a man happy." Partly in light of these, he reads Aristotle at 1098a 17, to mean that if activity in accord with more than one virtue makes up human good, it is activity in accord with complete or total virtue. I have read this to mean that there is among these virtues a best and most complete one. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, "The Place of Contemplation in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics," in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, Rorty, ed., pp. 377-394. This is a revision of an essay first published in Mind 87 (1978): 343-358. Thomas Nagel, "Aristotle on Eudaimonia”, in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, pp. 7-14. First published in Phronesis 17 (1972): 252-259. Nagel takes a position close to the one I present. See also John M. Cooper, Reason and Human Good in Arigtotle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), Ch. 3, "Intellectualism in the Nicomachean Ethics,” pp. 144-180. William Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1962), p. 82. L.A. Kosman, "Being Properly Affected: Virtues and Feelings in Aristotle's Ethics," in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, Rorty, ed., p. 105. Pieper, Leisure, p. 64. Ibid., pp. 29-71. de Grazia, Of Time, Work, and Leisure. That leisure cannot be had within work, Chapters 3 and 4 and pp. 246-248. That alternating work and leisure is not sufficient, p. 432. de Grazia defines "leisure” as ”the state of being free of everyday necessity. The man in that state is at leisure and whatever he does is done leisurely” (p. 246). Again, "Leisure is a state of being free of everyday necessity, and the activities of leisure are those one would engage in for their own sake" (p. 327). He defines "work" as "effort or exertion done 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 141 typically to make a living or keep a house" (p. 246). "If someone has to work it means he has to do something not for its own sake but for money or something else. Therefore it is not leisure" (p. 348). Thus, by definition, there cannot be leisure within work. The proposal to alternate work and leisure, de Grazia thinks, "splits up time, thus again becoming the wrong formula for leisure" (p. 432). The splitting of time which de Grazia claims would result from alternating work and leisure involves a conception of time as clock time, a quantitative conception of time which revolves around work and its requirements (pp. 303-328). Ipid., p. 327. Ibid., pp. 351-380, 412-434. Ibid., pp. 369-370. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology: Part I, W. Lough, et al., trans., C.J. Arthur, ed. (New York: International Publishers, 1970): PP. 48-51. Frederick Engels, Socialism: Utopian_and Scientific (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1975), p. 141. de Grazia, Of Time, Work, and Leisure, Chapters 3 & 4, for example. Ibid., p. 377. Ibid., Ch. 6 s 7. Ibid., p. 370. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, pp. 42, 52, 82-86. Ibid.; Karl Marx, Grundrisse, Martin Nicolaus, trans. (New York: Vintage Books, 1973); originally published as Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Okonomie (Germany: Rohentwurf, 1939), PP. 610-614. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, pp. 47, 49; Marx, Grundrisse, pp. 493-496. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, p. 42. All italics are in the text unless otherwise noted. Marx, Grundrisse, p. 84. Zoon politikon is Greek for "political animal." (See Aristotle, Politics, 1253a 8.) Ibid., p. 85. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 142 Some texts in which Marx makes use of the distinction between the forces and relations of production: The German Ideology, pp. 42- -57, 91- 93; Grundrisse, pp. —96, 109, 159, 162, 495-496, 540-542, 649-652, 699- -700, 706, 831-833. I owe part of my understanding of this distinction to lectures by Professor Richard Peterson delivered on April 16 and 21, 1981, in Philosophy 494, "Society, Technology, and Utopia,” at Michigan State University. See also Bertell Ollman, Alienation, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), pp. 157-165. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology. PP. 52-53, 56, 92-93; Marx, Grundrisse, pp. 307, 458, 462, 541-542, 674, 692-695; 699-704. For Marx's earlier ideas of the results of alienated work see Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Martin Milligan, trans., Dirk J. Struik, ed. (New York: International Publishers, 1964); originally published in Marx-Engels, Gesamtausgabe, Abt. I, Bd. 3 (Berlin: The Marx-Engels Institute, 1932), pp. 108-116. For an excellent modern Marxist analysis of the effect of modern capitalism on workers and work see Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974). Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, p. 56; Marx, Grundrisse, pp. 706- 708. Marx, Grundrisse, pp. 325, 409-410, 540-542, 701. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, pp. 92-93; Marx, Grundrisse, pp. 325, 488, 705- -706, 708, 712; Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. III, David Fernbach, trans. (New York: Vintage Books, 1981), pp. 958-959. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, p. 53. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, pp. 53, 92- -93; Marx, Manuscripts of 1844, p. 144; Grundrisse, pp. 325, 488, 705- -706, 708, 712; Capital, Vol. III, pp. 958-959. For the first part of the interpretation, see, for example, The German Ideology, p. 92. For the second part, see, for example, Grundrisse, pp. 325, 541, 701. See Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital, especially Chapters 1 & 9; André Gorz, Ecology as Politics, Patsy Vigderman and Jonathan Cloud, trans. (Boston: South End Press, 1980); originally published as Ecologie et politique (Paris: Editions Galilée, 1977), pp. 18- -20, 34- 40. 73. 74. 75. 76. 143 This interpretation also has textual support. See Marx and Engels, The German_Idgplogy, pp. 52-53, 92-93, and Marx, Grundrisse, pp. 704-705, 822-823. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, pp. 65-66, 93-95; The Manifesto of the Communist Party, in The Essential Left: Four Classic Texts on the Principles of Socialism TNew York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1961): Pp. 9-47, but especially pp. 26 and 47; Karl Marx, Address of the Central Authority to the Communist League, April, 1850, in Capital and Other Writings of Karl Marx, Max Eastman, ed. (New York: The Modern Library, Inc., 1932), PP. 360-363. Mumford, The Pentagon of Power, p. 408. Ibid., pp. 402-404, 408-409, 433-435; Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends, pp. 386-387, 400-401. CHAPTER 5: CONDITIONS FOR AN ADEQUATE VIEW OF WORK AND LEISURE In Chapter 1 I claimed that many contemporary personal and social problems involve the way we work and leisure and that solutions to these problems depend on changing how we do our work and use our leisure. I also indicated that this process of change requires us to reassess the views about human nature, work, and leisure present in our common culture and to develop a new view. In Chapter 2 I related a general radical humanist critique of modern society based on how our splitting work and leisure results in a nexus of personal and social problems. In Chapter 3 I expounded a radical humanist view of human being and the general view of work and leisure that is developed on its basis. In Chapter 4 I expounded other views of work and leisure, views I take to be active in our common culture, with an eye on the ideas of human nature that accompany them. I also compared and contrasted elements of these views with radical humanism. I believe that radical humanism offers a view of work and leisure which can support and guide us in our efforts to solve the problems I have cited in ways the other views cannot. Remember, to show this is the central goal of this project. So far, however, I have not indicated in any explicit, systematic way the standards by which I make this judgment. The task of this chapter is to set forth necessary conditions of adequacy for a view of work and leisure. This means that a View of work and leisure must meet these conditions in order to be an adequate view. 144 145 To the extent it does not meet them, it is an inadequate view. Ideology as Cultural Symbol-System In Chapter 1 I suggested that a radical humanist view of work and leisure is an ideology and briefly indicated what I meant by this. To avoid misunderstanding and to set up my approach to the conditions of adequacy, I think it would be helpful to provide a brief history of the word "ideology" and a classification of some theories about the development and function of ideologies. The English word "ideology" comes from the French ideologie, a word coined by Destutt de Tracy in 1796. French Enlightenment thinkers, of whom de Tracy was one, believing that social friction and misery were the product of the prejudices and inexact reasoning of common sense, hoped that their "science of ideas" would enable them to analyze and reconstruct the concepts of commonsense discourse in order to employ them in production of a sure plan for political well-being. Thus, originally the word had positive connotations. But its more common pejorative import was not long in coming. De Tracy and his colleagues were criticized by Napoleon Bonaparte and others who ridiculed them as naive, simplistic iconoclasts. ...The word "ideology” came to stand for a naive logical construct notable for its abstract neatness but lacking a genuine understanding of the complex givens of human nature and of historical reality. It meant also a dangerous and destructive doctrine, inimical to good political and social 146 order.l Karl Marx adopted a pejorative connotation of "ideology" but meant by it ...the conscious or unconscious rationalization of class interests, a weapon with which to dupe the unwilling into supporting those interests and to give a color of legitimacy to what are basically politically imposed values. Until quite recently "ideology" has most commonly been understood in one or the other of these pejorative senses However, radical humanism is an ideology in a more neutral, descriptive sense. To grasp this understanding of "ideology," it will be helpful to relate William Bluhm's classification of theories of the development and function of ideologies. Bluhm divides these theories into four kinds: the interest theory, the truth theory, the social strain theory, and the cultural strain theory. According to the interest theory an ideology arises in the psyches of the people who propound it. Since on this view humans are held to be mainly a bundle of subrational drives for status, income, and power, and since reason is held to be the mere helpmate and not the governor of these drives, ideology is merely a rationalization of nonrational interests. Ideology makes these interests or the actions performed in pursuit of their fulfillment more palatable either to those who succeed in meeting these interests or to those at whose expense the interests are met or both.3 Bluhm ascribes the truth theory of ideology to Hannah Arendt, who criticizes the interest theory on grounds that, 147 in regarding ideology as only a weapon in a struggle for power, it views our social life as essentially a mere conflict of interests. This view of ideology, she claims, disregards ”the truth-revealing quality of speech." Just as other speech can be an instrument for communicating about reality, political speech must also be allowed to be a means for seeking and stating the truth about things. If we do not recognize this aspect of ideology, we reduce the political arena to a mere battleground of passionate forces. Rightly regarded, ideology is grounded in the rational desire to know the truth. To the degree it succeeds in helping us reach truth, it motivates social and political change aimed at conforming social reality to truth.4 While Bluhm describes the interest and truth theories as seeing ideology as a product of self-conscious motivation, the social strain theory finds the origins of ideology mainly in the unconscious. The social strain theory claims that ideology is a symptom of, and to some degree a remedy for, the emotional disturbances created by the social strains which result from the discontinuous role-demands of modern society. Ideology provides a symbolic outlet for these emotional tensions. Social strain theorists claim that it can serve this end in four ways. Sometimes ideology performs a cathartic function by displacing emotional tension onto symbolic enemies. Sometimes it performs a morale function by emotionally reaffirming the rationale for the existing system. Thirdly, it may perform a solidarity function by its 148 capacity to give a threatened group of people the cohesion they need to perform in the face of strain. Finally, an ideology may perform an advocatory function by calling public attention to the social strains in which it has its origins and from which its proponents seek relief.S Bluhm reports that critics of the interest, truth, and social strain theories argue that these theories fail to show how or why ideologies transform sentiment into significance. He cites Clifford Geertz as a proponent of the cultural strain theory of ideology, which addresses itself to the problem of the connection between sentiment and meaning. Geertz bases the cultural strain theory of ideology on an extrinsic theory of the nature of human thought in which thought consists of the construction and manipulation of culturally conditioned symbol-systems which are employed as models of what a human wants to understand. These symbol-systems, which operate in the cognitive aspect of human mentality, also apply to its affective aspect. Consequently, cultural symbol-systems help human beings make sense of reality. These symbol-systems help humans relate themselves to reality on the levels of cognition, behavior, and feeling. Through the construction of ideologies as schematic images of social order, humans relate themselves to political processes.6 According to this conception of ideology, in any given cultural setting, humans map out, among other things, their political realities. They have a model of such things as the 149 structures of authority and power, how they fit into this structure, and what is required of both governors and governed under various circumstances. This model helps people reach an understanding of their political lives. It gives them an identity in the political sphere. It provides an evaluative structure in terms of which they can make sense of their feelings of loyalty or disloyalty, belongingness or disconnectedness. It provides standards for appropriate and responsible behavior, what they must do, what others must do and what responses are justified if someone fails to meet these standards. When the model fits the wider social setting and things are running smoothly, ideology is hardly noticed at all. But when either the wider social setting or the political relationships within it change enough so that the model no longer helps people know how they should feel and act, people are more explicitly aware of ideology. To borrow a distinction from Bluhm, we might say that during more settled times, when the available symbol-systems are adequate for people to comprehend their political realities, ideology is latent. On the other hand, forensic ideology is developed during times of strain.7 When a society's latent ideologies fail to provide an adequate image of political process, forensic ideologies begin to become crucial as sources of sociopolitical meanings and attitudes. In a sense, this...is but another way of saying that [forensic] ideology is a response to strain. But now we are including cultural as well as social and psychological strain. It is a loss of orientation that most directly gives rise to [forensic] 150 ideological activity, an inability, for lack of usable models, to comprehend the universe of civic rights and responsibilities in which one finds oneself located. The development of a differentiated polity (or of greater internal differentiation within such a polity) may and commonly does bring with it severe social dislocation and psychological tension. But it also brings with it conceptual confusion, as the established images of political order fade into irrelevance or are driven into disrepute.... It is a confluence of sociopsychological strain and an absence of cultural resources by means of which to make...sense of that strain, each exacerbating the other, that sets the stage for the rise of systematic...[forensic] ideologies. And it is, in turn, the attempt of ideologies to render otherwise incomprehensible social situations meaningful, to so construe them as to make it possible to act purposefully within them, that accounts both for the ideologies' highly figurative nature and for the inteasity with which, once accepted, they are held. Geertz's cultural strain conception of ideology seems to me to capture better than the other conceptions the important aspects of what an ideology is, its genesis, and its functions. It helps us understand what ideologies are, whether properly disparaged or not, whether latent or forensic. It identifies the ways in which ideologies are partly descriptions of reality, how ideologies describe the way things are and how they explain why things are that way. It also accounts for how ideologies are partly evaluative of reality, how they help us judge what is good or bad about things as they are. In addition, it indicates how ideologies partially define our social existence, create for us an identity in terms of which we relate to the way things are, and motivate us to act in effective and appropriate ways. It is in this descriptive sense, rather than in a 151 pejorative sense, that radical humanism is an ideology, a set or structure of explanatory, evaluative, motivational, and identity-establishing symbols. Of course, in this sense other views of work and leisure, including scientistic materialism, are also ideologies, though more latent and less forensic. So to call a view on work and leisure ideological in this sense is not to criticize it. On the other hand, this does not mean that every ideology is as good as any other. We should try to judge the relative adequacy of competing ideologies, all the more so if the ideologies are latent. If we do not, we risk being strongly influenced by ideas or symbol-systems which, if consciously examined, we might want to disavow. If we fail to scrutinize the ideologies that are or attempt to be operative in our lives, we may be controlled by them rather than being able to take charge of our own lives. In light of this I suggest that we judge ideologies of work and leisure by what we here call conditions of adequacy for a view of work and leisure. Doing so will help us to decide more consciously and responsibly how we should relate to the people, things, and events around US. The Conditions of Adequacy This analysis of what an ideology is in the descriptive sense can guide us in our formulation of conditions of adequacy. An adequate View of work and leisure has at least a double function: to help us to understand the events, institutions, and social trends that affect our lives and to 152 empower us to act effectively and meaningfully on the basis of this understanding. For this reason I divide the standards for a view of work and leisure into conditions of theoretical adequacy and conditions of practical adequacy. The division here is not altogether neat and mutually exclusive, however. This is evident if we keep in mind the point of examining common cultural views of work and leisure and the point of developing a new view. We are searching for ways to solve creatively the personal and social problems that press in on us from all sides. With this aim we are seeking understanding, not primarily for its own sake, but for the sake of action. Thus, our enterprise is not purely theoretical, even if we grasp some things along the way that have no practical import. Neither is it purely practical, for I believe that, even if we could not act on our knowledge, it is better for human beings to know and understand, to find the truth about our situations, than to be ignorant or confused. Because of this interplay between our desire to understand and our desire to act effectively, some of the conditions of adequacy classified as theoretical may seem to have a practical side to them, and vice versa. But this does not have to be a big concern. The main point is that we try to formulate conditions that let us make good judgments about a view of work and leisure. Explicit, Coherent Values Let's begin with the conditions of theoretical adequacy. Meeting these, a View of work and leisure will enable us to 153 understand and make sense of the states of affairs within which we find ourselves. First of all, a view of work and leisure should explicitly affirm coherent values that act as guidelines for choosing the aspects of our personal and social lives to which we should direct our attention. We can make an indefinite number of descriptions and analyses of human affairs. Many of these, however, would not be very interesting or enlightening about the relative importance of different sides of our life situations. Random listings or descriptions of things that exist and happen would not help us make sense of what is going on around us. To understand our experiences we need to organize them. This first condition of theoretical adequacy indicates that values serve as themes for the organization of experiences. However, it does more than simply underscore the importance of values for understanding our experience. Since it requires explicit affirmation of coherent values, it calls for us to clarify our values to see how they fit together. If a view of work and leisure fails to make its values clear and explicit, the task of identifying the more central elements of our personal experiences and social institutions becomes much more difficult. Furthermore, if the values are not coherent, if they do not fit together to form some reasonably unified point of view, they serve less as themes of organization than sources of confusion and perplexity. These difficulties would also spill over into a more practical concern. Without sufficiently explicit and 154 coherent values we would be unable to recognize or develop more desirable alternative lifestyles and institutions. We would reach no understanding of the inadequacies of our present situation that would enable us to set goals for action to correct them. Notice that I have framed part of the argument for this condition of adequacy with relative terms like ”sufficiently explicit and coherent" and "reasonably unified." I do this intentionally to indicate that there can be degrees of success in meeting this and the other conditions of adequacy. In searching for an adequate view of work and leisure we should probably not expect to find one that completely meets every condition to the satisfaction of everyone. In matters of human understanding and practice in concrete, particular situations, it is unlikely that we would find such perfection. In the absence of perfection we can reasonably settle for the best available alternative as a starting point. Consider, for example, that the values upheld by a view of work and leisure can be more or less explicitly stated and more or less coherent. It is doubtful that a collection of values could even be recognized as a view if none of them are coherently related. On the other hand, it is doubtful that a view of work and leisure could maintain perfectly coherent values. In light of all the things such a view must do and the complex human situations it must address, it is likely that every view will confront some situations that reveal some degree of incoherency. 155 Nevertheless, some views of work and leisure express more explicitly values that cohere more than those of other views. Similar claims could be made with respect to the other conditions of adequacy. Unless we are prepared to give up all standards of reasonableness in understanding and action, we will choose the most adequate view and try to develop it further. Evidence The fundamental importance of values is one reason I have paid so much attention to the conceptions of human being involved in the various views of work and leisure. What one thinks it is or means to be a human and, correspondingly, how humans should act makes a great deal of difference in how one makes sense of our personal and social states of affairs. Because of different understandings of human nature, there will be disagreements among views of work and leisure about the relative significance and desirability of various features of our experience. Some analyses will present certain parts of our current situation as quite significant, while other analyses will present the same parts as peripheral matters. To take extreme examples, the fatalistic asceticism described earlier maintains that economic affairs are peripheral in human life and should be treated that way, while scientistic materialism emphasizes the importance of paying close attention to economics. Similarly, different analyses will present different aspects of the current situation as desirable or not. 156 On the basis of its set of values and images, a view of work and leisure invites us to examine our lifestyles and social institutions from a perspective we might not usually take. It asks us to consider whether we have been blinded to their significance and their negative or positive aspects by their very ordinariness. Eventually, a judgment must be made about whether the view helps us accurately describe, analyze, and evaluate the state of affairs. The primary way to judge this is to examine the evidence for the descriptions, analyses, and evaluations. This need to examine evidence requires us to lay down a second condition of adequacy: the descriptions, analyses, and evaluations of human affairs based on a view of work and leisure must take account of all the available relevant evidence concerning those affairs. If a View of work and leisure tends to lead one to overlook relevant evidence or to miss the significance of some evidence, it is in that respect a less adequate view. For example, suppose a view of work and leisure leads one to notice only or primarily the positive, beneficial things about our current food system. Such a view will too easily miss the important evidence that famine is a result more of socioeconomic institutions than of natural conditions. The view then presents an incomplete and, to that degree, inaccurate account of famine and how we must act to eliminate it. On this score, that view of work and leisure is inadequate. 157 Past and Present Sources of Problems While it is important and useful to describe, analyze, and evaluate a cultural state of affairs, especially if many people have not noticed it or its significance, this clearly is not enough for an adequate view of work and leisure. It is certainly not enough for a view of work and leisure which intends to provide the grounds and motives for developing solutions to our current difficulties. It is easier to change our attitudes, behavior, and institutions when, besides seeing the errors in continuing business as usual, we also can understand the forces contributing to the genesis and perpetuation of the reigning social order. If we understand how things started and keep going, we can more easily direct our energies toward changing those parts of the nexus of common culture, individual lifestyles, and social circumstances most likely to bring about the desired improvements. Thus, we want a View of work and leisure to make it possible for us to explain how the cultural flaws it describes arose and became embodied in the routines of the culture. We can formulate this requirement into a third condition of adequacy: a view of work and leisure must enable us to give an account of the genesis and perpetuation of the aspects of culture it has identified as significant in contributing to our problems. Under this condition of adequacy a view of work and leisure which indicates no explanations of how things came to be and persist as they are is an inadequate view. Again, we would want all the relevant 158 available evidence to be taken into account in the explanations. Interconnections Among Problems The next condition of adequacy is closely related to the previous three. In order for us to recommend realistic means to reach the goals we set on the basis of a view of work and leisure, we must have a clear and realistic understanding of the problems to be solved and obstacles to be overcome. However, an attempt to understand what is going on in contemporary culture is bound to fail by being incomplete if it does not recognize that culture is systemic. Thus, a fourth condition of adequacy: a view of work and leisure must enable us to identify, explain, and evaluate all dimensions of cultural problems in ways that respect their systemic interconnections. Culture, as we have been using the term, is comprised of the personal values, concepts, and symbols shared by individual human beings in conjunction with the social arrangements by which humans structure their interaction with each other and their environment. Culture is systemic in the sense that its various elements are interconnected to varying degrees. Culture is systemic in much the same way that an organism is systemic. Some organs of an organism are functionally dependent on one another to the extent that something affecting one system of organs affects another system of organs. Consider the human circulatory and respiratory systems. In an analogous way, some elements of 159 culture are interdependent. Consider, for example, how religion functions in American culture. People's religious beliefs affect their views of themselves, other people, and other components of their environment. Religious beliefs can affect the social lives of people, i.e., with whom they associate, how they associate with them, and so on. Religious beliefs can affect people's political views. If they belong to a large or vocal religious organization, people's religion can have a strong impact on the effect of politics in other people's lives. People's religious beliefs can affect how they act in economic affairs, how they approach their jobs, what they think is important when they are not working on their jobs, and so on. Even if some people claim not to have a religion, the religious beliefs of others can make a difference in how they think they should act personally and socially. So, religion has some strong organic interconnections with other elements of culture. It is true that some elements of culture are less central than religion is. However, such looser connections are not counterexamples to our claim of systemic interrelations. My fingers are systemically related to the rest of my body, but I can still live without my fingers. Fingers are systemically less central to my existence than my heart. Similarly, for example, elementary school athletics are less central to an account of culture than its political organization. Nonetheless, elementary school athletics are 160 interconnected with other parts of culture. Our fourth condition of adequacy is set forth so that a view of work and leisure does not overlook the connections that may hold among the elements of culture it tries to explain and evaluate. If a cultural fault is strongly connected with others, any understanding of it or attempt to correct it will be inadequate unless we take account of these systemic connections. If we attempt to isolate such problems from those to which they are related, apparent solutions will be just that--apparent and not real. A View of work and leisure is adequate, therefore, only if it enables us to recognize and diagnose the degree to which cultural problems are systemically connected with one another. Conditions of the Possibility of Change So far, we have called for a view of work and leisure to explicitly affirm coherent values, to take account of relevant evidence, to explain how cultural problems developed and how they are perpetuated, and to recognize the degree of interconnectedness among various problems. If it fails to do these things, a View of work and leisure will not enable us to understand how we now live and how we can improve how we live. In order to change and improve how we live, we must also have a realistic understanding of how change is possible. For this reason, we set forth a fifth condition of adequacy: a view of work and leisure must enable us to give an account of the conditions which make change possible. Unless a view can do this, the proposals for action it gives 161 will likely be random and unrealistic, and, so, ineffective. How a view of work and leisure can help us identify the conditions of change is suggested by the ideas of Denis Goulet, who addresses the dynamics of value change in attempts to bring development to traditional societies.9 Goulet's ideas are relevant because we are addressing the issue of how to make possible a change of values, as well as a change of behavior. He develops his thesis around the concept of "existence rationality.” An existence rationality is the strategy devised by a society for obtaining its goals with regard to survival, esteem, and freedom from needless determinisms, given the constraints within which it exists.10 It is worth noting here, parenthetically, that Goulet's notion of existence rationality has many of the connotations of "ideology” as we have been using the term in this chapter. Goulet maintains that chances for inducing change are greatly inhibited if the reigning existence rationality is too strongly challenged by the rationality required for change. This inhibition of or resistance to change can be greatly reduced or eliminated by respecting the core values or inner limits of the reigning existence rationality while concentrating efforts for change on its 11 outer margins or outer boundaries. The inner limits or core values are those indispensible values and aspirations ...without which a society lacks cohesiveness and individuals lose minimum cultural identification with the group. Outer boundaries, in turn, are broad zones of attitude and behavior in which depaffiures from normal social demands are possible. 162 Any strategy for inducing change must stimulate the potential for change in marginal values so that innovation can be grafted onto a present existence rationality. It is crucial to this process that the people who are asked to change become fully conscious of the value implications inherent in proposed innovations. People will accept and implement change only if they see that their core values are not threatened by change.13 If Goulet's thinking is sound, there are important implications for any view of work and leisure which proposes cultural change. Its recommendations for action can be realistic and effective only if the values which guide the recommendations are consistent with the core values of the present existence rationality. Thus, a view of work and leisure, in meeting the fifth condition of adequacy must make clear not only its own values, but also the central values held by the people it addresses in its calls for change. It must then help us understand whether the values are consistent or not. Reaching People The sixth and final condition of theoretical adequacy we are imposing deals less with the object of understanding, or what is being understood, and more with the subject of understanding, or who is trying to understand. The descriptions, explanations, evaluations, and prescriptions put forth on the basis of a view of work and leisure must be translatable into terms which can be understood by a person of ordinary intelligence. If the conceptual constructs and 163 images of a view cannot be generally understood or cannot be translated into generally understandable terms, the view will be ideological in a pejorative sense. It will be a set of abstract ideas which do not affect the people who are supposed to be motivated by it. If people cannot make sense of the view of work and leisure, they cannot use it to help make sense of the realities of their lives. If they don't understand what actions it calls for or why it calls for those actions, people cannot make the view a ground and motive for meaningful action. Such a view of work and leisure will be ignored. No view which meets this fate is adequate. It might be said that it is enough that the theoreticians understand. They can bribe, force, or simply invite people to follow their lead. After all, in my very efforts toward constructing a systematic, coherent radical humanist view of work and leisure, I am assuming that ideas which can be the fruit of thinking that is specialized within certain boundaries can exert important influences on the ebb and flow of cultural change. For this reason it is cognitively or intellectually important to reach a clear, reasonably complete, nuanced understanding of the place of work and leisure in good living. However, if people are to maintain a sense of personal integrity and dignity and feel that they are not being used as pawns in some struggle beyond their comprehension, they must be able to make some meaningful sense of the view of work and leisure that calls 164 for them to change. They must be able to make it their own, even if they do not completely comprehend every technical detail. If a view of work and leisure cannot be made generally understandable so that this is possible, it is inadequate. These six conditions of theoretical adequacy have been set forth and defended to try to ensure that a View of work and leisure helps us understand or make sense of what is going on in our lives and how it is possible for us to change. We still need some conditions of practical adequacy which check whether a view of work and leisure helps us act effectively on the basis of our understanding. Attainable Changes The first condition of practical adequacy is imposed in order to underscore the need to answer an objection. I have claimed that if we change our views about work and leisure, if we work and leisure in different ways, and if we reorganize some of our social arrangements that deal with work and leisure, we will be able to live better lives. I have claimed that radical humanism will help us envision and bring about this new and more satisfying culture. A common objection against this sort of project goes something like this. ”You are quite right that things could be better than they are in our culture, and the new cultural order which your view prompts you to propose is quite interesting. But what is the use of asking people to create an impossible utOpia? If it is not possible to bring about a new order, it 165 is an empty academic or literary exercise to make a call for changed behavior." It seems to me that those who object to impossible utopias in this way are quite right to do so. If something is morally expected or demanded of us, the expectation or demand is reasonable and morally binding only if it is possible for us to meet it. We need a condition of adequacy against asking the impossible. The first condition of practical adequacy should do this: a view of work and leisure must provide the grounds for advocating improved cultural ideas and practices which are attainable. A view which does not meet this requirement, which prompts us to set unreachable goals, is an inadequate view. Realistic Steps for Change This condition has a corollary which we can formulate as the second condition of practical adequacy: a view of work and leisure must recommend realistic paths of action that will allow us to reach the goals it advocates. Perhaps we can argue for this condition best if we frame its concerns negatively first. Suppose, with a view of work and leisure as our guide, we paint the outlines and some details of new conceptions and practices of work and leisure which are reachable. Suppose also, however, that we have no concrete suggestions about how people could begin to bring about the changes. People are left hanging, perhaps too confused about what to do next or too frightened to set out blindly. In either case, no changes are made. The setting of goals turns 166 out to be a dead end. A view of work and leisure which can do no more than set goals, then, is inadequate. To state the matter affirmatively, an adequate View of work and leisure must show likely paths we can take to get from where we are to where we need to be. This can be achieved in part by keeping one eye on the fifth condition of theoretical adequacy. If people recognize that new attitudes and patterns of living are more effective expressions of core values they hold, they will be less frightened by change and more willing to try it. Confusion can also be avoided if we advocate concrete measures that people can incorporate into their daily lives little by little. An adequate view of work and leisure must not only set reachable goals for change, but also point to things people can do to reach the goals. In addition to helping envision better ways of life, it must help us actually translate the visions into practice. ReachinggPeople Another important practical requirement is closely related to this one. We've been dealing with how a view of work and leisure can enable people to act. In laying down the first two conditions, we've demanded that changes called for by a View be both possible and realistic. We've suggested that changes will be more likely if they are made on the basis of values and images that people already hold to some degree. That is, if people can make sense of the changes on the basis of their fit with some values and images they already hold, it will be easier for them to change. In 167 addition, if the steps proposed for reaching goals are concrete and fairly specific, people will not flounder aimlessly. More is required, however. It is one thing to point out a likely path for solving a problem. It is yet another to actually motivate people to follow the path, i.e., to resurrect or enkindle people's will to take charge of their lives in ways that improve both themselves and their culture. For this reason, a third condition of practical adequacy is needed: a view of work and leisure must be translatable into persuasive language and images. If a view of work and leisure cannot be expressed in ways that activate people's capacities for action, it is inadequate. With this condition, as well as with the sixth theoretical condition, we are requiring a view of work and leisure to be rhetorically effective. The holder of a view of work and leisure not only must be concerned to provide accurate analyses and realistic proposals but also must connect them with people's real feelings and motives. Integral Solutions to Problems The fourth condition of practical adequacy is also related to a condition of theoretical adequacy. In the fourth condition above we indicated that a proper understanding of culture recognizes that culture is systemic, i.e., it sees how culture's various elements are interrelated. Isolating some central elements without due regard for how they fit in with other elements will lead one to misunderstand culture. A similar thing holds on the side 168 of proposals for action. An adequate view of work and leisure must provide reasons and motivations for integrally and enduringly solving cultural problems which are interrelated. This condition is trying to prevent a view of work and leisure from masquerading as adequate if it offers only or primarily piecemeal measures for dealing with interconnected cultural problems. If we are right that most of the central cultural problems we face are interdependent, patchwork proposals can effect only a temporary improvement at best and could make things worse in the long run. We need a view of work and leisure that helps us advance new ideas, changed lifestyles, and altered social arrangements which will solve our problems integrally and enduringly. It will do little good in the long run to focus only on the symptoms of contemporary problems and merely to try to patch them over one by one. We must find and carry out actions that effect solutions to interrelated problems. Guiding Spirited Participation Fifth on the practical side, a view of work and leisure must offer guidelines for change without insisting that people follow detailed proposals for all particular contingencies. In order to defend this condition, I should state the objection which it hopes to turn aside. It might be said that these calls for change and the ideas behind them are fine and good. But how, continues the line of thought, can we hope to achieve the goals without a detailed plan of action? Surely, change will be impossible if we do not know 169 exactly what we need to accomplish and the means we are to employ to accomplish it. A possible response to this reasoning, which I do not endorse completely, could take the following tack. It could be pointed out that the objection fails to take into account the interrelationships among the problems with which we are concerned. If we are right that the elements of culture are systemically interconnected, a plan which tries to spell out in detail what the improved culture would look like and each step we should take toward reaching this goal is almost sure to fail. First of all, the complexity of culture makes it virtually impossible to predict the future in a way that could give the details of an improved culture. Secondly, it could be added, to require a set of step-by-step instructions for what to do is to fail to recognize that in human affairs how individuals participate is essential. The spirit with which people do things and the process of doing are often as important as what is done. What is needed, then, it might be said, is not a detailed plan but a trust in people changing their own lives as they incorporate the values contained in the view of work and leisure. This response is quite right in pointing out the difficulties of providing a detailed depiction of an improved culture and a detailed plan of the action required to realize the ideal. It indicates that a preoccupation with the minutiae of the content of a plan is liable to render the plan ineffective anyway because of the importance of spirit, 170 attitude, or motivation in human action. On the other hand, to put total trust in people's instincts for feeling out proper paths of conduct in the process of enacting change, as our hypothetical respondent is wont to do, is to go too far in the other direction. Spirit or motivation must sometimes be tempered and informed by well thought-out ideas. If we do not have our bearings at the right junctures, a short-lived, if intense, enthusiasm can turn into despair when insufficient progress is made toward reaching a goal. An adequate view of work and leisure will provide the conceptual and ethical framework for guidelines or signposts which can give direction to self-motivated people without unduly constraining them. Criteria of Selection The sixth condition of practical adequacy is closely related to the previous conditions: a view of work and leisure must contain values which provide reasonable yet flexible criteria of selection for key cultural strategies, practices, and structures. If a View of work and leisure is to help us persuasively recommend realistic action, recognize the degree to which problems are interconnected, prescribe genuinely corrective activity, and avoid overdependence on plans or spirit, it must provide criteria which guide our judgments about the acceptability of various proposals that arise in the process of changing our culture. What kinds of goods should be produced and services provided? How should we produce and provide them? What kinds of technology should 171 we employ in production, transportation, and communication? How large should our communities be? What are the most desirable compositions of communities? What kinds of work and leisure should be encouraged? What kinds discouraged? A view of work and leisure must enable us to formulate some criteria which would provide at least rules of thumb for answering such questions. We can freely admit that it is not likely that we could answer such questions in great detail. In light of the previous condition, it is probably undesirable to attempt to do so. However, we must be able to provide some more or less consistent approaches that can be guided and refined by good judgment and cumulative personal and social experience. Unless we can do this, we risk condemning some proposals which should be allowed to germinate and bear fruit or cultivating some which would better be left to die out. If I am right that some important elements of culture are systemically interdependent, we are most likely to make cultural improvements by allowing a diversity of strategies, actions, and social arrangements. We must be elastic enough to allow diversity yet firm enough to recognize situations that prevent or reverse cultural improvement. The values in an adequate view of work and leisure and the criteria of selection drawn from them can provide this firmness without inducing undue rigidity. 172 Constructive Resolution of Conflict A pragmatic objection to this tolerance, even nurturance of pluralism prompts us to set forth and defend a seventh and last condition of practical adequacy: a view of work and leisure must promote values, practices, and social institutions which encourage a constructive resolution of central conflicts between and within cultural groups. The question which motivates the imposition of this condition results from a fear or distrust of pluralism. How can we, the question runs, prevent the degeneration of pluralism into ethical relativism, personal disorientation, and destructive social chaos? First of all, it should be pointed out that pluralism does not necessarily degenerate into the evils the questioner fears. From the fact that people hold diverse ideas and live a variety of lifestyles it does not follow that there must be conflict to the extent that there is a war of all against all. On the other hand, it would be unrealistic to suppose that all conflict between groups and between individuals within groups can be avoided. Honest recognition of this is a first step. Discovering ways to allow and encourage open and constructive confrontation and resolution of conflict is the next. That such ways can be found is indicated by some primitive rituals, cited by Diamond, which served the cathartic function of allowing expression of ambivalent feelings about tradition, authority, or almost any other source of internal or external 14 conflict. The challenge for us is to find equivalent 173 methods of dealing with conflict. An adequate view of work and leisure must be helpful in guiding this search. Summary Listing of the Conditions of Adequacy In summary, I have laid down six conditions of theoretical adequacy and seven conditions of practical adequacy. On the theoretical side I expect a view of work and leisure to help us make sense of what is going on in our lives by helping us (1) organize our experiences around explicitly stated, coherent values, (2) consider all the available, relevant evidence for our analyses of our experiences, (3) give an account of how our culture came to be and continues to be as it is, (4) recognize that some central elements of culture are closely interrelated, (5) give an account of how change is possible, and (6) make our claims, arguments, and evaluations understandable to people of ordinary intelligence. On the practical side I expect a View of work and leisure to help us (1) advocate changes that are attainable, (2) indicate likely paths for carrying out these changes, (3) motivate people to take these paths, (4) propose and carry out changes that work integrally and enduringly to solve interdependent problems, (5) provide guidelines for action without smothering self-motivated participation under a blanket of detailed instructions, (6) establish firm but flexible guidelines for judging key alternative strategies, practices, and structures, and (7) search for constructive confrontation and resolution of central conflicts that arise. 174 The Relative Importance of the Conditions Before closing this chapter, we must address another issue relevant to judging the relative adequacy of different views of work and leisure. Earlier, in conjunction with our discussion of the first condition, we pointed out that different views will be more or less successful than others in meeting each condition of adequacy. Now we must recognize the possiblity that one view of work and leisure could meet several conditions better than other views, but a second view could meet other conditions better than the first. Even if this occurred, I do not think we would be in the position of deciding for a view on the basis of personal preferences or some other relatively arbitrary ground. We wouldn't be in that position because I think we can make a reasonable, if rough, ranking of sets of the conditions of adequacy. If I am right about this, then if one view meets the more important conditions better than the alternative views, it is a more adequate view, even if other views meet less important conditions better than it. It seems to me that the conditions of theoretical adequacy are more important and fundamental than the conditions of practical adequacy. Unless proponents of a view of work leisure have reached an understanding of their cultural situation, their proposals for action are likely to be hit-and-miss at best and self-defeating at worst. Unless proponents of a view have made sense of their society in the way the conditions of theoretical adequacy require, they 175 would seem to have little basis for their practical program. My insistence that understanding in these matters is primarily for the sake of action does not undermine this judgment. Although action is the ultimate goal, it is action based on adequate understanding that will be most effective. If our understanding is inadequate, our action is more likely to be misdirected. Neither is this judgment compromised by my claims in Chapter 6 that we need not wait on detailed theory to engage in action and that action and theory can and should develop along with each other. To see what changes are required and to propose and participate in effective action to bring them about, we must have some standards of judgment. These standards depend on our understanding of the way things are, even if this understanding is modified somewhat as a result of action. On the basis of these considerations, a view of work and leisure which meets the conditions of theoretical adequacy better than another view is the more adequate view. Among the conditions of theoretical adequacy, the first and second are most important. I do not distinguish among them because, on the one hand, a view with coherent values that fails to take account of evidence would seem to offer little help for effective action. It would have no grounding in reality, and it would resemble a fantasy more than a view with ideals. On the other hand, a view cannot recognize, much less organize available evidence without a structure of coherent values. We would not be able to get beyond the 176 immediacy of particulars unless we had some way of seeing how the particulars are related. These two are more important than the other theoretical conditions because, unless we meet them, we could not give an account of how our culture came to be and continues to be as it is, recognize which elements of our culture are closely interrelated, or give an account of how change is possible. Without the organization of evidence around coherent values, we simply could not get a handle on the historical trends and contemporary forces that shape our experience. Nor could we recognize why change is desirable and how change could be effected. Of the remaining four theoretical conditions, the third, fourth, and fifth are more important than the sixth. If a view meets the middle three conditions, it gives us a substantive understanding of our cultural situation. Having met them, we would see the historical development of various aspects of our culture, the forces that sustain them, the interrelations that hold among them, and how they could be changed. Without this substantive understanding to relate to anyone, the sixth condition dealing with rhetorical adequacy becomes an empty requirement. If we have nothing of substance to say, there is nothing to be made intelligible to people. In light of these considerations, a view of work and leisure which meets the first two conditions of theoretical adequacy better than another view which seems to meet other conditions better is the more adequate view. I say "seems to 177 meet other conditions better” for good reason. If I am right that an adequate meeting of the three middle conditions depends on an adequate meeting of the first two, and if it could be determined that view A meets the first two conditions better than view B, then B only apparently meets the other conditions better than A. Closer examination of B would show that it has some important failings, or else fuller development of A would show that it does in fact meet the middle conditions better than B. Among the conditions of practical adequacy, it is harder for me to judge whether there is a reasonable ordering of importance. They seem to me to be interdependent enough that if a view has a serious failing with regard to one or more of these conditions, it will also fail in meeting others. For example, we might suggest that the first condition requiring proposal of attainable changes is the most important. If a view fails to meet this condition, it is difficult to see how it could indicate likely ways to bring about the changes, motivate people to try those ways of changing, or help us work on important interdependent problems. On the other hand, if, for example, a view fails to propose changes that begin solving the central interdependent problems we face, then it is difficult to see the point of advocating other attainable changes. Similar considerations would seem to hold among the other conditions. I would be more concerned about this indecision regarding the relative importance of the conditions of 178 practical adequacy if I did not think that radical humanism meets the conditions of theoretical adequacy better than the alternative views. In the next two chapters I will be trying to establish important premises for the argument that radical humanism is the best view of work and leisure. In Chapter 8 I will draw together all the elements of the argument which I have developed up to that point. 10. 11. 12. 179 NOTES William T. Bluhm, Ideologies and Attitudes: Modern Political Culture (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1974): PP. 1-2. See also David Braybrooke, ”Ideology," in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. IV, Paul Edwards, ed. (New York: The Macmillan Company & The Free Press, 1967), PP. 124-125. Bluhm, p. 3; Braybrooke, pp. 125-126. Bluhm, pp. 12-13. Bluhm, pp. 13-14. Clifford Geertz, though not holding the truth theory, also criticizes the interest theory for viewing social action as fundamentally an unending struggle for power and thus missing the less dramatic social functions ideologies perform. See "Ideology as a Cultural System," in Ideology and Discontent, David E. Apter, ed. (New York: The Free Press, 1964), p. 53. Geertz also points to the insufficiently sophisticated psychology of motivation presumed by the interest theory. Bluhm, pp. 14-15; Geertz, pp. 53-55. Geertz, pp. 60-63; Bluhm, pp. 15-16. Bluhm, p. 10. Geertz, p. 64. For related accounts of what ideologies are, see Bluhm, pp. 5-12, where he calls ideologies of this sort "political culture"; Douglas Ashford, Ideolo and Participation (Sage Library of Social Research, Vol. 3; Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1972), PP. 13-31, 60-61, 65-69, 95-109, 115-133, 147-155; Alisdair MacIntyre, Against the Self-Images of the Age: Essays on Ideology and Philosophy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1971), pp. 5-6; Edward Shils, "Ideology: The Concept and Function of Ideology,” in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. VII, David L. Sills, ed. (New York: The Macmillan Company & The Free Press, 1968), PP- 66-76. Denis Goulet, The Cruel Choice: A New Conceppin the Theory of Development (New York: Athenum, 1971). Ibid., pp. 188, 191. Ibid., p. 189. Ibid., p. 191. 180 13. Ibid., pp. 192, 344. 14. Stanley Diamond, ”The Search for the Primitive," in In Search of the Primitive: A Critique of Civilization (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1974), pp. 150-154. CHAPTER 6: CONDITIONS OF THE POSSIBILITY OF CHANGE In Chapter 5 I explained the descriptive sense in which radical humanism and other views of work and leisure can be called ideologies. I also indicated that this does not entail a sort of ideological nihilism by which one ideology is as good as any other. I formulated and defended the conditions of adequacy for a view of work and leisure as standards for judging the relative adequacy of these ideologies. Finally, I claimed that radical humanism can be shown to be the best view. In this chapter I will show how radical humanism meets the fifth condition of theoretical adequacy. Remember that this condition calls for an adequate View of work and leisure to give an account of the conditions which make changes for the better possible. I am focussing on this condition of adequacy here because I think it is the most critical one at this stage of my argument. There are several reasons for this. First, I believe I have already shown how radical humanism meets some of the other theoretical conditions. For example, in my exposition of radical humanism in Chapter 3, I have already made clear the central values by which radical humanists organize their understanding and evaluations of the contemporary cultural situation. Other values are evident in the radical humanist criticisms of some of the values proclaimed by alternative views. Second, in the process of showing its account of conditions that make change possible, I will be showing how radical humanism meets some of the other conditions of 181 182 theoretical adequacy and some of the conditions of practical adequacy. For example, much of the persuasiveness of my discussion of conditions that make change possible will depend on the degree to which I meet the second condition of theoretical adequacy. My preliminary critique of the way things are must take account of relevant evidence. More about this in a moment.. Moreover, in each section I advocate change toward a general, realistic goal, the achieving of which would overcome problems noted in the critique. In advocating such goals, radical humanists also meet the first condition of practical adequacy. Finally, in the next chapter, in dealing with radical humanist proposals for action, I will be showing more directly how radical humanism meets the other conditions of practical adequacy. For these reasons, it is now crucial that I discuss the fifth condition of theoretical adequacy, which calls for an account of the conditions of the possibility of change. In order to understand why change is even desirable and then how it is possible, we have to understand and evaluate things as they stand now. If I fail to make clear radical humanist judgments about our present situation, I risk two misunderstandings. First, it may seem that radical humanists advocate change merely for the sake of change. Second, the account of how change is possible is liable to seem arbitrary and unrealistic. In short, unless we see the problems with where we are, we may see neither the point of moving nor the destination nor how we could get to the destination. For 183 these reasons, as a partial defense of a radical humanist account of the conditions that make it possible for us to change in central aspects of our contemporary cultural situation, I will expound a radical humanist critique of each aspect, a critique which is more detailed than that provided in Chapter 2. I intend to argue for conditions of the possibility of change in community, food and agriculture, and nonagricultural production and services. I will argue that the development of communities is a prerequisite for changes in consumption patterns, in the social role of science and technology, and in cultural activity. Radical humanists regard these aspects of our culture as particularly important. Attempts to correct problems we face in them involve appeals to the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological values expressed in Chapters 3 and 4. Furthermore, as we will see more clearly in the next chapter, correcting these problems requires changes in how we think about and practice our work and leisure. Before turning to particular conditions of how change is possible in these central aspects of our culture, however, I want to expound the general pattern of a radical humanist account of how change is possible. This pattern extrapolates Maslow's account of the conditions for intrapersonal growth toward self-actualization to the conditions for social change. Maslow argues that every person has tendencies, on one side, toward growth, wholeness, and full functioning of 184 capacities and, on the other side, toward safety, the tried and true, the familiar. He also argues that intrapersonal growth will not happen unless the attractions of growth and the risks of seeking safety are greater than the risks of growth and the attractions of safety.1 Extending these claims to social change, radical humanists argue that people will not choose to change unless they can be assured that the benefits of developing different lifestyles and institutions and the disadvantages of business as usual outweigh the risks of changing and the advantages of staying within present routines. In light of the critique of each of the aspects of culture which we examine, I will identify the changes radical humanists think are needed. In addition, I will try to elucidate some of the issues that must be confronted, proximate goals that must be met, and principles that must be followed in order to make these changes possible. I will try to argue that in confronting the issues, meeting the goals, and following the principles, people will recognize that making the changes is more beneficial and less risky than maintaining the status quo. People will realize that the goals for change which radical humanists urge us to adopt are not mere utopian schemes about which we can dream, but achievable goals that promise more satisfying and fulfilling lives. Community Radical humanists recognize that humans "do not live by bread alone." As we indicated in Chapter 3, besides the 185 physiologically necessary conditions for human well-being, there are also psychological needs at various levels that must be met. We also said that each of us should try to individuate ourselves to the extent and in the ways we are able, that we should be what we truly are. We indicated that part of what we truly are involves our relationships to others. We have been and are nurtured by other people, and we in turn should help others individuate themselves. Some people, of course, who are perfect strangers to us, have no strong claim to our help: nor may we force our "help” on them. We have a sort negative relationship--we must not prevent them from trying to actualize themselves. Although this may often be weighty enough, the claims of significant others for our help seem more momentous for a view of work and leisure. Anyone who has ever helped a friend through an emotionally trying period or any parent who is raising young children can easily understand this. The need for protection, security, love, respect, and approval can be great. In the case of infants and young children it can seem chronic. Sometimes, it is true, fulfilling these needs for others can have the character of leisure. One may want very much to help, have the time and energy to do so eagerly, have no relatively pressing needs of one's own, and get some immediate satisfaction in one's ability to help. At other times, however, when trying to fulfill this responsibility seems more than one can do, it has the character of dreary toil. When at the same time the children are whining about 186 some real or imagined difficulty, one is having a serious quarrel with one's spouse, one has a deadline to meet and feels quite inadequate and worthless, then one grudgingly metes out meager amounts of comfort, approval, or respect, if even that. At such times one does well not to lash out at others and reject them. Radical humanists do not pretend that the implementation of our proposals will eliminate such difficulties and make helping others an unmixed joy. Trying situations seem to be part of the human condition, and successfully coping with them can be a contributing factor in growth toward fuller self-actualization. This presupposes, of course, that the problems are not so overwhelming or do not happen so frequently as to be practically insoluble or unbearable. What radical humanism proposes is that by joining together in community we can make it more likely that there will be loyal and dependable others to whom we can turn when we need help and to whom those who depend on us can turn when we are unable to give them as much as they need. The conditions of change for the better will be conditions for developing communities. The old saying which advocates sharing with others so that we can multiply our joys and divide our sorrows offers sound advice. However, the fact that this advice takes the form of an old saying indicates that the general proposal here is not something new or original with radical humanism. Yet we seem to have made little progress toward constructing, 187 or salvaging from modern forces of disintegration, forms of community which contribute to greater flourishment for significant numbers of people. This indicates to radical humanists that there are some psychosocial barriers to a more widespread communitarianism. Among these barriers are an economic system that fosters an overwhelming concern with individual gain and a set of cultural symbols that constantly acclaim the perceived benefits and freedoms of individualism while forgetting or deliberately downplaying the importance of human community. I doubt that there is a simple causal connection in either direction between the economic system and the set of cultural symbols. It seems more likely that there is a sort of mutual reinforcement between the two. At any rate, these obstacles have made it seem easier or safer or more advantageous to many people to conform to the norms of individualism and not to try to build communities. Others, no doubt, have made efforts toward communitarianism but have been frustrated by the barriers.2 In either case our confidence in our competencies to nurture meaningful community is undermined. If this analysis is reasonably accurate, the first general condition for the possibility of change is that we must find ways to break down the psychosocial barriers against the cultivation of communities. In the next chapter we will make some specific proposals for trying to overcome various aspects of economic and cultural individualism and its outgrowths. Ways of reversing the individualistic 188 cultural symbols and images are harder to identify because of their more diffuse sources and means of continuation. But this does not mean that we can only stand by, wringing our hands and letting our competencies atrophy through disuse. We must try to reactivate them. A regeneration of communitarian spirit and practice is the second general condition for the possibility of change for better ways of life. The best way to reactivate diminished capacities is to exercise them in gradually increasing amounts. By taking the initiative to try to establish and reestablish communitarian ties with others, perhaps we can not only improve ourselves but also inspire others to become active. Eventually, perhaps we can put in motion a reinforcing set of individuating communitarian practices and structures that would supplant individualistic ones. Communitarian Principles How might we do this? These general conditions for change for better social relationships suggest some more particular ones that we might formulate in the form of some principles which should be followed in moving toward communitarianism. The first principle is that action must be taken even if there are no assurances that one's action will make the right kind of difference in the world. The idea is that it is more important for one to involve oneself actively in some sort of communitarian efforts than to worry too much about whether one has found a "perfect” community. Radical humanists do not want to develop a detailed theory of 189‘ community as a precondition to action, as a blueprint that must be followed slavishly. Rather they propose that practice or activity provides a source and guidance for the development of theory, which in turn provides insight to develop or refine activity. To wait on detailed theory would be to allow further atrophication of the personal capacities and social conditions that make action in genuine communities the ordinary, expected thing rather than the extraordinary, unusual thing to do.3 Although activity in community must be undertaken, not just any social group counts as a genuine, person-oriented community. An impersonal collective brought together by a megalomaniac is also a social group, but groups patterned on such collectives are certainly not advocated by radical humanists. To make clear that this sort of distinction is made, there are some general guidelines we might formulate as further principles for action toward communitarianism. Some of these guidelines concern ideals toward which communities should be striving, and others deal with some things individuals need to bring with them in their search for community. The intrapersonal aspect of radical humanism's conception of human being requires for one thing that genuine communities try to develop a synergy between what have been called Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft aspects of a social group. Kanter explains the distinction. Gemeinschaft relations include the nonrational, affective, emotional, 190 traditional, and expressive components of social action, as in a family: Gesellschaft relations comprise the rational, contractual, instrumental, and task-oriented actions, as in a business corporation.... ...The Gemeinschaft aspects...consist of those mutually expressive, supportive, value-oriented, emotion-laden, personally- directed, loving social relations often called "community." They include mutual recognition of the values, temperament, character, and human needs of group members. ...In contrast, the Gesellschaft elements...consist of those relations that are functional for dealing with environments, whether physical, social, or supernatural; for ”getting the job done”: for acquiring things the group needs from its environment: for maximizing feedback and exchange with other systems in the form of information, resources, or acceptance.... Gesellschaft systems organize group relations around the demands of tasks. Kanter goes on to indicate that the kinds of organization efficient for Gesellschaft aspects of a group may conflict with the kinds of organization and activities by which members become committed to each other and to the values of the group.5 As we have seen from our critique of contemporary American society, we presently find Gesellschaft aspects of social life being emphasized to the detriment of Gemeinschaft aspects. In our search for community we must salvage and develop our capacities for Gemeinschaft relations so that we can more easily tend to each other's psychological and emotional needs while carrying out the tasks for meeting our physiological needs. We can learn from members of some intentional communities who imagined all else would follow from well-ordered Gemeinschaft relations. Such groups have tended to be very short-lived and unstable.6 As persons trying to become more self-actualized, we must do what we can 191 to cultivate a synergy between the two types of relations in the groups of which we are parts. Again, however, in our present historical circumstances this salvaging of vestiges of community and transforming them into fully functioning communities will be an experimental affair. It will be experimental not in the sense of more or less controlled scientific experiments in the manipulation of people's sense of community. Rather, it will be exploratory social action in which we put ourselves on the line, in which we offer commitments to others based on a high regard for them in the hope that they will respond with high regard and commitment. Such action is experimental in the sense that there are risks and no guarantees of success. However, we must be willing to take these exploratory, risky steps toward commitment. If we take the apparently safe path of waiting for a "perfect” community to sprout up, we withhold the kind of commitment that must eventually be risked if community is to be possible. This fact that we must act in an experimental mode indicates yet another guiding principle for radical humanist communities. It is desirable that there be a plurality of communities with a variety of forms of organization and a variety of goals to be achieved on the way to helping their members flourish as humans. While there is a distinction between genuine communities and impersonal collectives, we should not expect ideological unanimity among or even within communities which are person-oriented. Different people at 192 different levels of individuation require different levels of structure in life, different sorts of relationships to others, different sorts of activities, and different interpretive frameworks for situating themselves in life. If there are many communities with a variety of ways of being communities, it is more likely that more people will be motivated to join with others in mutual assistance on the way to a fuller well-being. Next, we formulate a condition of the possibility of change for developing communities that is related to the necessity of breaking down psychosocial barriers. Since the cultivation of communities requires cooperation between and among people, it depends upon people's willingness to get to know each other somewhat and to make commitments to one another in common projects. In order to make commitments of varying degrees to the different communities to which we belong, we must confront issues of settlement and mobility. In general, Americans are known as people on the go. It is not unusual for people to move from place to place with some frequency. While such mobility can have the merits of broadening our experience and getting us in touch with a wider group of people, it can also have a depersonalizing effect. If one moves too often or if members of groups move too often, it can become tempting to be concerned only with one's own affairs, to refrain from expending the effort of making more than superficial and impersonal contacts with others. If the temptation is followed, mobility becomes an 193 isolating experience rather than a broadening one. On the other hand, while settling in one place can provide stability and familiarity, it does not guarantee community. Proximity to others and frequent contacts can be mistaken for the commitment that community requires. Indeed, the comfort of the familiar can lead people to resent the vitality and resist the enrichening that can be offered by strangers who try to initiate relations of genuine commitment. This resistance can turn settlement into an insulating phenomenon that results in desiccated substitutes for genuine communities. Whether isolationism results from mobility or settlement, it provides an optimal breeding ground for the kind of passivity characteristic of a mass society or impersonal collectives. Thus, to develop communities, we must find ways to set down the roots of commitment even as we move. We must find ways to keep our commitments vital and rich even as we settle down. Finally, we formulate a principle that focusses more directly on individuals trying to form a community. They must bring with them what might be called a communitarian spirit that involves their fundamental orientation toward others and toward themselves. Genuine communities require people to have an ”I-Thou" orientation toward each other, a willingness to love, respect, and help others, even when this is not the easiest or most convenient thing to do. If we join together with an attitude that we will remain with each other only so long as we serve each other's purposes, it is 194 easier to treat each other impersonally. If we use each other, we fail to form a community. Only if each treats others as ends-in-themselves, in a sense, as sacred, as persons in association with whom all in the group can develop a fuller well-being, only then do we form a genuine community.7 With regard to ourselves, community requires us to be willing to undergo a transformation. We must recognize that our encultured and individuated identity contains not only the basis for further self-actualization, but also the basis for continued individualism and insensitivity to others. These negative aspects of the person must be either weeded out or transformed by being grafted to more positive aspects. To imagine that a full human well-being in community with others allows us to remain basically as we are is mistakenly to imagine that we are now as good and fully human as we can become.8 With these principles radical humanists call our attention to some important conditions that must be met in order to make fundamental social changes possible. We believe that the development of person-oriented communities can help us meet some important intrapersonal and interpersonal needs. We have also briefly indicated some structural aspects of our present ways of relating to one another that make it difficult for us to fulfill these needs. In these ways we have tried to show the advantages of changing and the disadvantages of continuing our present course. However, especially with the last principle, which 195 challenges us to change our attitudes and behavior toward others in ways that may require us to see ourselves in a different light, we recognize some of the risks of change and motivations for maintaining the status quo. The risks of change can be rendered less intimidating by indicating how the radical humanist values and guidelines connect up with values many people hold already. For example, many people already recognize some the benefits that communities can provide. By experiences in neighborhoods, church groups, or recreation clubs, they see how forming Gemeinschaft relations can help them grow as human beings while giving them opportunities to help others grow. They see the value in forming significant relationships with others as well as the irritations and conflicts that can develop and be resolved along the way. Radical humanists are proposing that people build on these protocommunitarian values and experiences and try to carry them out in other aspects of their lives. Knowing that a variety of kinds of communities is a good thing can also lessen the risks of change. People can have some confidence that they won't be forced into situations that overwhelm their capacities, with no alternatives other than individualistic ones. Despite these cushions against risks, it would be difficult to prove by argument that the benefits of changing and the frustrations associated with our present patterns are greater than the risks of changing and the satisfactions of continuing as we are. Indeed, it seems to me that we could 196 make this judgment only on the basis of experience. Thus the principle emphasizing the importance of practice. But what about those disinclined to risk even small steps until more evidence is in? The understandable hesitancy of such people poses a challenge to serious radical humanists that will arise not only in relation to community but also in relation to other aspects of our present situation. It is a challenge to show that change will be worth the effort and risk. This challenge can be met, I think, only by the power of example. Authentic radical humanists must lead the way in making personal changes and in joining together to show how social changes can be effected. They must serve as examples so that others can gain the courage and confidence to begin their own processes of change toward better ways of life. Radical humanists must accept responsibility for meeting this condition of change, which will be a constant among the variable conditions of change in different aspects of our contemporary situation. To summarize our treatment of conditions for the possibility of change for community development, we have argued that there are two general conditions. First, we must find ways to overcome the psychosocial barriers to the development of communities. Second, we must reactivate the capacities we have for joining with others in person-oriented communities. We indicated that these general conditions imply some more specific ones that we formulated in terms of five principles: (1) risk practice even if theory lagS‘ 197 behind: (2) develop a synergy between Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft; (3) encourage variety within and among person-oriented communities; (4) consider how mobility and settlement affect commitments; (5) develop a communitarian spirit. After we examine some concrete proposals for meeting these conditions in Chapter 7, we will return to them in Chapter 8 in order to see how they, along with the proposals, meet the conditions of adequacy set forth in Chapter 5 better than those of alternative views. Food and Agriculture In Chapter 3 in the discussion of the intrapersonal aspect of a radical humanist conception of human being, we claimed that we humans must be able to satisfy our basic physiological needs before we can advance very far to higher degrees of self-actualization. This is not a very controversial affirmation. To be able to develop, one must first be able to live. To be able to live, one must eat, drink, and be protected from the elements among other basic things. The noncontroversial nature of the claim, however, does not lessen its importance for work and leisure. A good deal of the work we do is for the sake of being able to meet these physiological needs. . Some important issues in a radical humanist view of work and leisure revolve around the satisfaction of physiological needs. It seems necessary to give more than a superficial treatment to these issues so that we can see how they relate to work, leisure, and other aspects of our lives and society. 198 For this reason I would like to restrict our discussion here to one area and use it as an example. I want to examine how we satisfy our hunger. The food we eat is important to a radical humanist view of work and leisure not only because we must eat in order to live and in order to be able to individuate ourselves. It is also important because of the social and ecological issues at stake in the ways in which we meet our needs for food. It should be noted, first of all, that while most Americans have more than enough food to meet their requirements for living and growing, many Americans and even more people in less developed countries do not have enough food to live well enough to begin to approach full well-being. Many people die and suffer each year from starvation and from physical ailments related to undernourishment. At the same time many Americans suffer from the effects of malnutrition due to excesses. That we average Americans, as well as average western Europeans and elites in other countries, have more food than we need while many others do not have enough is an unjust state of affairs. If all humans are called to self-actualization to the degree our natural capacities allow and if sufficient food is a minimal prerequisite for this, we must ameliorate these inequities in the distribution of food. Because these inequities in part involve the prevailing means of producing food, we should also examine this aspect of the problem. The standard way of introducing us to the production of 199 food in the American agricultural system is to cite figures about how few farmers produce so much for so many. As recently as 1850 farmers made up 64 percent of the labor force in the 0.8. Today, in contrast only 3.1 percent of American workers are engaged in agriculture, yet they grow enough to meet the needs of the entire country, often with a large surplus for export. In 1850 the average farm worker supplied food and fiber for four pegple; now each farmer provides for 78 people. Mechanization of farming, broadly understood, is given much of the credit for this productive capability. In agriculture mechanization can be taken to include not only the introduction of devices such as plows and reapers but also the development of improved crop plants, fertilizers and pesticides, the construction of irrigation works, the growth of a transportation network for the distribution of farm produce and the extension of electric power to rural areas. What is not often noted in such odes to American agriculture is the ecological damage that results from modern mechanized farming. We are led to believe that an abundance of food requires use of pesticides. For example, insecticides are thought by some to be crucial for good yields. However, Lappé and Collins report that in case after case of insecticide use there has been a regular pattern of events. For the first few years insecticides are used, insects are controlled at a reasonable cost, and yields go up. But after some years of exposure to insecticides, pest species develop resistant strains. In the meantime, it is not unusual for the predators and parasites of the pest species to have been 200 reduced in number too. Since initially there are usually fewer numbers of individuals in predator and parasite species compared to pest species, there is a statistically less likelihood that they will develop resistant strains. So, as resistant pests increase in number, there are relatively fewer predators and parasites. Yields decrease, so new and stronger insecticides are tried, and the cycle begins again. Moreover, ten to twenty percent of insecticides used on fruits and vegetables are aimed at insects which affect only the cosmetic appearance of the food. While pesticides are less crucial to food production than one might think, persistent pesticides enter the food chain and wind up in human tissue. The health of workers who produce and apply these chemicals and who toil in the fields where they are applied is more directly and severely affected.11 The highly touted fertilizers of modern farming are also not without their negative effects. Chemical fertilizers can increase yields but they cannot maintain or enhance the soil's organic matter. Organic matter, however, is the ultimate key to fertility: it maintains the porous soil structure, providing superior waterholding capacity (critical during droughts) and allowing oxygen to penetrate for use by soil organisms that break down manure, crop residues, and other organic matter. Relying primarily on chemical fertilizers can be self-defeating in the long run. Not only are the chemical fertilizers destructive of soil structures and organisms: they also drive up food costs as the chemicals and minerals out of which they are manufactured become scarcer and more expensive. Thus, people can expect 201 to pay more for food in the future, even though there are many who cannot now buy enough to live or to stay healthy.13 Similarly, the increased use of irrigation and of hybrid plant varieties have important negative consequences that are often ignored. Center-pivot irrigation systems are using up underground aquifers at an alarming rate and at the same time are making intensive use of marginal land economically attractive at least in the short run.14 The genetic uniformity of hybrid plants has made them increasingly vulnerable to insect and disease damage. In addition, much of the world's food-producing germ plasm is in private ownership, no small part of it in the hands of seed companies who must worry as much about making a profit as preserving genetic diversity.15 The potential for trouble is great if the pattern of subordinating food to profits continues to intensify. It is often objected against such criticisms of American agribusiness that although some of its practices are less than ideal, we do not have much choice. Millions would starve otherwise. America, after all, is the world's breadbasket. However, this objection overlooks three important facts reported by Lappé and Collins. First, what food we 92 export on an aid basis...is only a fraction of our commercial exports (6 percent in 1975). Second, less than 30 percent of our agricultural exports go to what the USDA terms the "less developed countries." Third, although it is true we are the world's leading food exporter, we age also one of the world's top food importers. 202 Also, when numbers and expertise are invoked to support the idea that the American agricultural system and agribusiness corporations provide a formula for successful farming in supposedly backward countries,l7 Lappé and Collins properly remind us to ask some important questions. Which crops are offered by multinational agribusiness corporations? For the most part they are luxury, nonessential items such as asparagus, cucumbers, strawberries, tomatoes, pineapples, mangoes, grain-fed beef and chicken, and flowers. For whom are these crops grown? They are grown for the local and foreign elites, among which are many, many American consumers. With what production model are the crops grown? They are grown under contract farming, by which corporations persuade local producers "to sign a contract committing them to use certain inputs to produce a stipulated amount of specified products with the date of delivery to the corporation and the price fixed." Lappé and Collins report that contract farming has been "perhaps the very worst experience of American farmers with agribusiness." For whose benefit are the crops and the ways to produce them exported to developing countries? Certainly not for the majority of people in the developing countries who actually find their ability to feed themselves deteriorating because of the convenience and variety promised to American consumers by agribusiness. As the market for exporting cash crops expands, large landholders in developing countries find it advantageous to continue to buy out the small plots of 203 peasants who might still manage to own land. When this occurs, the peasants can no longer grow their own food, and they find their fate linked to a commodity market system that works in the favor of those who already have more than they need. Nor do most Americans benefit in the long run. As multinational corporations expand into the underdeveloped world, American consumers are rapidly being made dependent on a whole range of imported agricultural products. Once this shift is made, there will no longer be hundreds of thousands of farms in the United States supplying the vegetables, meat, and even flowers Americans buy. The food needs of American consumers will be made dependent on the active maintenance of a distorted land use system in underdeveloped countries. We will be forced to translate our own legitimate food requirements into opposition to those of countries where hundreds of millions go hungry. Agribusiness, by putting American consumers at odds with the interests of the world's hungry, creates a typfaof interdependence no one needs. Thus, if Lappé and Collins are right, many Americans are permitting themselves to be made passive in the way they procure their food at the same time many hungry people are being denied the opportunity to grow food they could eat, i.e., being denied the active role they have traditionally played in their own food production. We have just described some difficulties with our present pattern for growing and distributing food. This pattern is inadequate in some way or other across all values contained in a radical humanist conception of human being. Inequities in food distribution and consumption make it impossible for many people to individuate themselves. Furthermore, these inequities are connected with a system of 204 food production which displays an irresponsible disregard for the ecological conditions required for the growing of healthy, affordable food in the future and which extends a paralyzing influence on the agency that people could exercise in meeting their needs for food. As a radical humanist proposal to reverse these inequities and tendencies, we advocate along with Lappé and Collins that people of every country should aim for food self-reliance, which can be measured by how close a country is to achieving sound nutrition for all by means of a reliable, resilient, self-contained agricultural system.19 Such a system would exhibit renewability, because it would make use of many sources of agricultural fertility that are now wasted: diversity, because it would not rely on monoculture; flexibility, because it would aim to develop a variety of responses to natural conditions rather than an imaginary complete control over nature: and an integrity based on the standards of healthy people and healthy soil.20 We must examine the conditions of the possibility of change toward self-reliance in food production. Food Self-Reliance Lappé and Collins identify some of these conditions. They believe that the development of long-term food self-reliance requires the allocation of control over agricultural resources to local units which have been democratically organized on the initiative of the people in 205 these units. It also requires a coordinated social planning that can result only from a decentralization of authority that would allow the regional working out of ways to meet 21 Although these two conditions apply to any common goals. country's attempts to reach food self-reliance, Lappé and Collins discuss them mainly in terms of developing countries where famine is more often a problem. They propose three other conditions that apply more directly to Americans and other people who do not suffer from a shortage of food. First, we must work to remove obstacles that make it difficult for people to become food self-reliant, especially obstacles that originate from sources in our country. Second, we must support groups of people who are resisting food dependency and trying to build self-reliant societies in which food production is democratically controlled by people. Third, we must work to develop a democratically controlled, self-reliant economy in our own country.22 In the next chapter we will make some concrete proposals for action that can help us meet these conditions for the possibility of change. Here we have tried to develop a case, on the one hand, that there is much to be gained by changing our present manner of meeting our needs for food and less risk than many might think. We also think, on the other hand, that the disadvantages of continuing our present food habits are more significant than many people realize, while some of the advantages are gained at the expense of other people. With the proper changes toward food self-reliance, 206 we could improve rather than wear out and wash away the soil, depend less on chemical pesticides and fertilizers, withdraw our indirect financial support of unjust patterns of food production and distribution, and improve the prospects of our own agricultural economy. Here again many of the values involved in the call for food self-reliance are already held by many people. I noted before the willingness of many Americans to help financially in famine aid. If they were aware how they could help turn around the social forces that contribute to the causes of famine, I believe they would. For example, many people, with the right kind of encouragement and support, would be willing to exercise more discretion in the kinds of food products they buy. In addition, many people already garden on a very small scale as a kind of recreation. If they were aware of the social as well as personal benefits of expanding this scale and were given communitarian support and encouragement, they would perhaps take bigger steps toward food self-reliance. What objections could there be to changes that promise these good results for intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological well-being? Here we will consider one objection that is sometimes raised when critics of the established agricultural order speak of the need for coordinated social planning. It is claimed by some defenders of the status quo that the specter of socialism and communism and a lack of personal liberty are thereby raised. It is suggested against the critics that there seems to be an inevitable opposition 207 between freedom and ending hunger. If we wish to be food self-reliant, it will be at the cost of denying personal rights and liberties. Lappé and Collins argue quite rightly that the formula "food versus freedom" distorts an immensely complex set of issues. Such a distortion frightens people and prevents them from acting and from reasonably discussing the issues. Clearly, every society places limits upon the individual's choices. The real issues, then, are these: How can those restrictions be made fairly? Are these restrictions imposed by an elite for their own benefit or by the community for the good all? Is the goal to achieve a society in which the individual's legitimate self-interest and the community's needs are more and more complementary? Freedom for critical expression is also a pivotal concern. ...Critical thinking must be encouragegs thinking that can speak out and be heard.... We will make no improvements on the present state of affairs if we fall back on rhetorical invocations that oversimplify and limit discussion of alternative ways of proceeding. Other objections will be considered when we explain radical humanist proposals for meeting the conditions of change. As in the other areas, in Chapter 8 we will return both to these conditions of change and to the proposals for action to show that they help radical humanism meet the conditions of adequacy better than the other views. Nonagricultural Production and Services In Chapter 3 we expressed the judgment that human well-being depends in part on balanced, autonomous activity 208 in our relationships to one another personally and through social structures. We indicated that one important element of the social structure within which we act is our economic system. We have just examined changes for which we can work in the agricultural sphere of the economic system. Here we turn to nonagricultural work that is done to produce things and provide services. Under our present economic system most people could not accurately describe their activity as balanced. Rather, many find themselves in the position of expending a good deal of daily time and energy at their jobs, separated from their families, homes, and neighborhoods. Other things they might like to do to develop themselves and their relationships with others are relegated to times when they are not working their jobs. Furthermore, most people are not permitted to engage in self-directed activity in their jobs. Indeed, as we will see, some central elements of our present economic system have developed in ways that severely limit self-direction. This economic system has been labelled by many as monopoly capitalism. It is different from an earlier variety of capitalism in which firms were owned and overseen by an individual owner, a family, or a small group of partners, and in which production in each industry was spread out among a relatively large number of firms. Monopoly capitalism...embraces the increase of monopolistic organizations within each capitalist country, the internationalization of capital, the international division of labor, imperialism, the world market and the world movement of capital, and changes in the 209 structure of state power.24 Since we want to examine how people have been made passive in production in order to suggest some conditions which will make reversing this situation possible, two major aspects of monopoly capital to be addressed are scientific management and the scientific-technical revolution.25 We will be following Harry Braverman's investigation into the degradation of work and workers under monopoly capital in order to understand what the conditions of change are. Braverman's analysis is organized around the notion of control over the work process. He begins with an analysis of the distinctive character of human work as purposive action which is guided by the power of conceptual thought and by which humans produce the means of life in their confrontation 26 with nature. He indicates that the specific difference of capitalist production from historically earlier forms such as feudalism is the purchase and sale of labor power.27 This social relation between buyer and seller of labor, between capitalist and worker, introduces at least two historic changes into the character of work. First, work and the surplus of labor now not only allow humans to live and develop in a social as well as physical sense, but also allow the capitalist to increase his capital. The distinctive capacity of human labor...is its intelligent and purposive character, which gives it infinite adaptability and which produces the social and cultural conditions for enlarging its own productivity, so that its surplus product may be continuously enlarged. From the point of view of the capitalist, this many-sided potentiality of 210 humans in society is the basis upon which is built the enlargement of his capital. He therefore takes up every means of increasing the output of the labor power he has purchased when he sets it to work as labor. The second change follows directly from the first. Having been forced to sell their labor power to another, the workers also surrender their interest in the labor process, which has now been "alienated." The labor process has become the Egsponsibility of the capitalist. 7 Thus, rather than being under the control of the workers, the labor process is under the control Of the capitalist. Braverman goes on to argue that the notion of control is the organizing principle for management and that the division of labor, resulting in the detail worker, is the primary means for following Frederick Taylor's principles of scientific management, which collectively result in the managers' nearly complete control of the labor process.30 The first principle, ”the dissociation of the labor process from the skills of the workers,“ allows management to discover and enforce faster, "more efficient" ways of carrying out work tasks. The second principle, ”the separation of conception from execution," calls for management to perform the conceptual aspect of the work process, the fashioning of the purpose and design of the work, and for labor to execute this design. This not only increases management's control, but also increases the yield of the workers' labor and decreases the training required to develop skills for the work. The third principle calls for management to plan the work process in such a way that the 211 time and effort required to carry out each of its elements can be calculated and controlled.31 Thus, if the first principle is the gathering and development of knowledge of labor processes, and the second is the concentration of this knowledge as the exclusive province of management--together with its essential converse, the absence of such knowledge among the workers--then the third is the use of this monopoly over knowledge to control each step of the labgg process and its mode of execution. Such drastic control of the labor process by others is the primary reason that workers are alienated from their work. The essentially human element of work, the conception of purpose and design, is absent for those who carry it out. The productive activity of workers under this structure is thus anything but autonomous and anything but integral with the rest of their lives. Workers are rendered incapable of autonomous activity under monopoly capitalism not only by being subsumed under scientific management but also by management's unilateral application of scientific and technical knowledge to the work process. Braverman argues on historical grounds that before and during the Industrial Revolution, which covered the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the technical knowledge passed on and developed by masters of crafts and trades provided a prerequisite basis for much scientific knowledge. The scientific-technical revolution in industry began during the last decades of the nineteenth century as theoretical scientific research in electricity, steel, coal—petroleum, and the internal combustion engine 212 demonstrated to large corporations the usefulness of scientific knowledge. In time, management began the process of submitting every element of the work process to scientific and engineering analysis in order "to dissolve the labor process as a process conducted by the worker and reconstitute it as a process conducted by management."33 As part of this scheme only those machines are developed which can be paced and controlled according to management's decisions. This deprives workers of opportunities to acquire knowledge, develop skills, and exercise meaningful control over the work process.34 Guided by the principles of scientific management, the managers of work, probably unwittingly, magnify the effectiveness of application of those principles by unilaterally utilizing scientific knowledge and engineering techniques to induce and maintain a passivity in workers. This passivity not only affects the conditions under which work is done, but also inhibits the growth of workers toward fuller individuation. An Objection Before we indicate how it is possible to change this unacceptable state of affairs, we should confront a commonly heard claim that might seem to vitiate the force of our criticisms by pointing to some evidence we have not yet considered. The claim is that science and technology have made our time at work less demanding and more productive and that they change the character of work from a physically 213 degrading activity to a mentally challenging, and thus more satisfying activity. Daniel Bell is among those who argue that automation or cybernation, the combination of the computer with automated self-regulating machines, will help us members of "post-industrial society" to become thinking workers. First, a word about his concept ”post-industrial society," because it is important for understanding his argument. Unlike an industrial society which primarily fabricates goods and is based on machine technology, a post-industrial society is one that primarily processes information and is shaped by intellectual technology. Two of the important components of the concept of post—industrial society are the change from a goods-producing to a service economy and the emergence to preeminence of the professional and technical class.35 Bell argues that the character of work has already changed greatly for the better and will continue to do so as we move toward becoming a completely post-industrial society. A post-industrial society is based on services. Hence, it is a game between persons. What counts is not raw muscle power, or energy, but information. The central person is the professional, for he is equipped, by his education and training, to provide the kinds of skills which are increasiggly demanded in the post-industrial soc1ety. Bell includes many tables of statistics to support his claim that these developments in work are really occurring. Based on them he makes the following remarks. 214 The changeover to a post-industrial society is signified not only by the change in sector distribution--the places where people work-—but in the pattern of occupations, the kind of work they do.... The United States has become a white-collar society. Bell makes his meaning here more specific when he cites and comments on the question posed in the late nineteenth century by Alfred Marshall whether economic and social progress would result in every man being a gentleman at least by occupation. Marshall's criterion for a gentleman...meant that heavy, excessive, and soul-destroying labor would vanish, and the worker would then begin to value education and leisure. Apart from any qualitative assessment of contemporary culture, it is clear that Marshall's question is well on the way to being answered. The manual and unskilled worker class is shrinking in the society, while at the other end of the continuum the class of knowledge workers is becoming predominant. Thus, Bell moves from premises about the change from production to services and about the increase of professional-technical workers to the conclusion that the character of work has changed in very desirable ways. The Objection Answered Braverman provides some good reasons for challenging the premises of Bell's argument. The conclusion of the argument is what Braverman calls the "upgrading thesis," i.e., the idea that the changing conditions of the economy require and produce a better-trained, better-educated, upgraded working 39 population. As we have seen, Bell relies on the trend of an increased number of workers in the service sector as part 215 of his evidence. After showing how revisions of census classifications of workers in industry and farming mystify the levels of skills of a great majority of laborers, Braverman makes some enlightening remarks about service occupations. He indicates that beginning with the 1950 census the classification schema was altered by the introduction of the new category "nonhousehold service workers." Since Bell and others who propound the upgrading thesis seem to assume that service workers are more valuable than common laborers, an upgrading of the work force was brought about by ”nomenclatural exercise." He also briefly calls attention to an appearance of an upgrading of skills which is based upon appeals to the rapid growth of clerical and sales occupations. The claim that there has been an upgrading has a semblance of reality only because of the assumption by Bell that white-collar work requires more skill 40 and training than blue-collar work. Braverman backs his conclusions with an extensive analysis of the conditions of clerical workers and workers in service occupations and 41 retail trade. He harshly criticizes the upgrading thesis at the end of this analysis. ...The heralded ”service economy”...is supposed to free workers from the tyranny of industry, call into existence a "higher order” of educated labor, and transform the condition of the average man. ...This picture...is given a semblance of reality by reference to professional occupations. When numbers are required to lend mass to the conception, the categories of clerical, sales and service workers are called upon. But these workers are not asked to show their diplomas, their 216 pay stubs, or their labor processes.42 In addition, Braverman cites James R. Bright's study of the effects of automation on the skills of workers. Bright's research provides an analytical framework of seventeen levels of mechanization applied to thirteen of the most advanced production systems in operation at the time of the study (1958). In general, as one moves up the scale of levels of mechanization and automation, there is an increasing amount of skill required until level four, and then a decreasing amount until at the highest levels of mechanization every indicator of skill used by Bright is evaluated as decreasing-nil or nil.43 Although Bright's conclusions seem to apply only to production work and not to service or professional-technical occupations, Paul Blumberg cites studies of automated offices which also indicate evidence against the upgrading thesis in these forms of work.44 One wonders how the intellectual technology which Bell indicates as increasingly important will affect the skills and abilities of those who operate them and depend upon them for information. The codification of theoretical knowledge and the creation of new intellectual technology, both of which are significant elements of post-industrial society according to Bell,45 seem to follow the pattern of capitalist management in which the conception of the work process is separated from its execution, labor is rationalized and divided, and duties are simplified so that less pay can be justified and more control over the work 217 process can be kept in the hands of management. Braverman tries to show that these are some of the effects of capitalist management and technology on engineers, clerical workers, and technical-professional people at the middle 46 Thus, it seems that the character levels of management. of work in America has improved far less than Bell and others would have us believe. While it is true and laudable that, in general, excessively heavy, body-destroying labor is the exception rather than the rule, workers still are not able to exercise meaningful control over the work they do. They are rendered a passive mass in the present economic structure, engaged in work which is alienating and impersonalizing to the extent it makes fuller individuation more difficult than it need be. In order to be able to make productive work an integral part of self-actualizing ways of life, workers must take the first step toward fuller autonomy by gaining control over the work process. Paul Blumberg relates some of the positive effects felt by workers when they do have some control over the work they perform. He interprets the Relay Assembly Test Room experiment that was undertaken as part of the Hawthorne Studies as indicating that the increase in productivity and level of morale of the workers in the test room was due in large part to the element of worker self-determination that was unwittingly introduced into the design of the 47 experiment. He relates in some detail the significant changes for the better in the attitudes of the workers toward 218 their jobs, toward each other as work associates, and toward the plant authority figures that occurred during the first half of the experiment.48 His thesis, that participative management can alleviate much that is alienating about modern work, seems all the more convincing when he describes the negative reactions of the workers to the unplanned restriction of their participation in decision-making processes during the second half of the experiment.49 While it is true that the workers in the experiment had a limited amount of control over their work situation, something Blumberg freely admits, he thinks that the improvements associated with this limited autonomy indicate the potential good that could follow even greater worker participation in control of the work process. Worker Control of the Work Process The conditions that make change possible, then, in nonagricultural production and services are the conditions by which workers can gain control over how they perform their work, the conditions of what some have called a democracy of the workplace. However, radical humanists agree with Braverman's criticism of a certain conception of this idea. They also think his criticism identifies the conditions of change for worker control of the work process. The conception of a democracy in the workplace based simply upon the imposition of a formal structure of parliamentarism...upon the existing organization of production is delusory. Without the return of requisite technical knowledge to the mass of workers and 219 the reshaping of the organization of labor..., balloting within factories and offices does not alter the fact that workers remain as dependent as before upon "experts," and can only choose among them, or vote for alternatives presented by them. Thus genuine workers' control has as its prerequisite the demystifying of technology and the 50 reorganization of the mode of production. The proposals for action in Chapter 7 will be proposals for how workers can demystify technology by gaining knowledge of its principles and operations and how we all can contribute to the reorganization of our economic system. With this analysis of some central features of our present organization of work we have shown many of the negative aspects of this organization that can be ameliorated and some of the positive gains that can be expected. It is not clear that argument can make these motives for change be felt more strongly by people than the inertial tendencies that inhibit change and the undeniable risks of attempting change. Here again the power of example is likely to be more persuasive than any amount of theoretically grounded argument or rhetoric. It will be the responsibility of radical humanists to set up ”pilot projects" that exemplify how these conditions of change can be met so that others can see that the effort and risk are worth the rewards. Consumption To further human well-being, the radical humanist ideals of a balance among our various activities and self-directedness in how we carry them out should be realized 220 not only in production but also in consumption. In Chapter 3 we indicated that consumer passivity and dependency is also a significant feature of our current economic system. We suggested that the more passive and dependent we become as consumers, the less competence we have for meeting or even accurately recognizing our needs and desires and the less autonomous activity we will be able to exercise in our lives. While we have admitted that the process of becoming passive and dependent on the market for meeting most of our needs is a complex one, one contributing factor is the competitive and materialistic individualism that has been and continues to be encouraged by corporations that stand to profit from it. An unreflective, acquisitive sort of individualism is encouraged on several levels in several ways. On a very general level, the sheer number of advertisements for the panoply of products the corporations are trying to sell results in a continuous appeal for our attention. Nearly everywhere we turn, we are asked to notice a product or service for sale. Billboards, radio spots, television commercials, newspaper and magazine ads all try to remind us that we are missing something if we don't use or have the thing for sale. Even on this fairly obvious level in our physical surroundings consumerism is widely proclaimed. Unless we consciously resist, we find our vision and attention easily focussed on what we would like to buy. Furthermore, even if we consciously resist sales pitches, still the jingles, slogans, and symbols of corporate 221 advertising less obviously encroach on our subconscious. Many of the images and symbols we carry around with us are images and symbols repetitively suggested by commercial advertising. These images and symbols collectively result not so much in attractions to specific products as in tendencies to view ourselves as needing certain things we don't yet have so that we can get a closer fit between our lifestyles and the lifestyles idealized by corporate advertisers. To deny that this makes a difference in the kind of people we are would be analogous to denying that the cathedrals and religious art of the middle ages made a difference in the kind of people medievals were. Finally, if Wilson Bryan Key is correct in at least some of his claims, advertisers can and do evoke subconscious responses to specific products with techniques of subliminal advertising such as the embedding of images and words in the picture displays of ads.51 If Mander is right, such techniques can be even more effective on television, the favorite vehicle of large corporations for advertising, because viewers get set up neurophysiologically for the subconscious appeals just by watching television. Mander argues that when we watch television, a tunneling of our attention, a dulling of our mental and physical responses takes place which makes all sorts of appeals to our subconscious easier.52 Thus, individuals are induced to expand their desires and to try to fulfill them by turning to the marketplace provided by these corporations. They are discouraged from self-consciously 222 examining their needs in order to reduce them and from relying on themselves and people near them for meeting those needs. Here, as elsewhere, radical humanists prescribe the building up of person-oriented communities. One condition of making change possible is that we join with others in reciprocative, personal relations rather than isolate ourselves in competitive, impersonal ones. In doing so we might more easily recognize that human flourishment lies, to use Schumacher's words, "not in a multiplication of wants but 53 If we act more in the purification of human character." often to help each other in personal ways, we may find that we are becoming more individuated and that furthering this process in cooperation with others is more worthwhile than accumulating material things. We would more easily be able to establish a balance in our ways of life and in the arrangements of our communities that is not now encouraged. Another condition of the possibility of change addresses our personal responsibilities for how we now recognize and meet our own needs and wants. We must now, even before better communitarian structures are in place, begin to take stock of what we really need and want. We must begin now to form habits that enable us to resist the excesses that are encouraged under our present economic system. Wendell Berry relates the point well in saying that people greatly increase their capacities as persons and increase their effectiveness in influencing others by the force of example when they try 223 to become responsible consumers. A responsible consumer would be a critical consumer, would refuse to purchase the less good. And he would be a moderate consumer: he would know his needs and would not purchase what he did not need: he would sort among his needs and study to reduce them.... ...The responsible consumer must also be in some way a producer. Out of his own resources and skills, he must be equal to some of his own needs.... The responsible consumer thus escapes the limits of his own dissatisfaction. He can choose, and exert the influence of his choosing because he has given himself choices... By making himself responsibly free, a person changes both his life and his surroundings. ...The responsible consumer slips out of the consumer category altogether. He is a...consumer incidentally, almost inadvertently; he is a responsible cggsumer because he lives a responsible life. From this point of view communities are necessary aids for responsible living. They link us personally with people who have resources and skills we do not. In reciprocal activities we can help each other be equal to more of our needs. Communities offer us a wider range of examples of how to live freely and responsibly. They provide these and other supports for personal flourishment, but they cannot relieve us of our personal responsibilities to take realistic account of our needs and wants, to be as active as we can in fulfilling those important for fuller individuation, and to refrain from fulfilling those which are not. Here again radical humanists must stand as examples of how the benefits of change and disadvantages of continuing consumption as usual outweigh the sacrifices of change and the attractions 224 of the status quo. Science and Technology We have just seen in the section on nonagricultural production and services some ways in which science and technology have been used to make people passive. We also indicated in the section on food and agriculture that orthodox scientific research and technological deve10pment related to agriculture more often than not end up contributing to further mechanization and to concentration of control over the food system in the hands of fewer 55 people. This also has brought about and encouraged an undesirable passivity in people. Other examples could be found. It is significant that the use of science and technology in this process of human deactivation has been defended as value-free, politically neutral. Based on our examples we have seen that this is a myth. David Dickson explains what this means. The substance of the 'technology is politically neutral' myth is that the outcome of any particular act involving the application of an element of technology is determined entirely by the motives behind that act. The technology utilized is held to be entirely independent of such motives. It claims that we first select a particular task that we wish to carry out, and then select the appropriate machine which will enable us to perform this task. Although the choice of the task may, according to this notion, be consciously or unconsciously determined by political factors, the subsequent choice of machine or technique to achieve the task is claimed to remagg a politically neutral, technical task. 225 Acceptance of the myth has some important negative consequences. First, it leads us to accept as natural or inevitable the contemporary social use of technology "by attempting to take it out of the realm of political debate." Second, it is an essential part of a more general outlook on social development as equivalent to industrialization, modernization, and economic growth. Third, it supports an interpretation of technological innovation "that presents any particular innovation as being the '1ogical' response to a given objectively-defined situation."57 The acceptance of this myth is buttressed by a scientistic view of science. The basic message of scientism is that an apparently 'scientific' approach to any problem or situation is both necessary and sufficient to indicate how its objective, politically-neutral resolution can be achieved. Such an attitude toward science tends to regard scientific knowledge as identical with human knowledge rather than as one form of human knowledge. Once this reduction is made, it is all too easy to believe that we need only make the scientific and technological advances, and we will know how and when to employ them. Such a trust in the power of science was prefigured by Francis Bacon. If the debasement of arts and sciences to purposes of wickedness, luxury, and the like, be made a ground of objection, let no one be moved thereby. For the same may be said of all earthly goods: of wit, courage, strength, beauty, wealth, light itself, and the rest. Only let the human race recover that right over nature which belongs to it by divine bequest, and let power be given it; the 226 exercise thereof will be ggverned by sound reason and true religion. Although references to divine bequest and true religion would probably be deleted by most modern holders of scientism, the claim remains recognizably the same. Make the technical and scientific progress, and surely we will know how we should act. Alternative Technology To reverse the negative effects of conventional technological development based on the myth of political neutrality, radical humanists argue that we must develop what has variously been referred to as intermediate technology, alternative technology, convivial technology, and soft technology.6o Conditions of the possibility of change, then, are conditions that make possible the development of alternative technology. One necessary fundamental task is to debunk the myth of the political neutrality of technology. We must study the history of technology and the origins of our present stock of technology to see what values, political and otherwise, have guided technological development. We must also make the results of these studies known to people. Another task is to confront the claims of scientism. More about this below. Finally, other conditions that make possible the development of alternative technology involve the changes in other aspects of our social situation. To make alternative technology more than just a fringe phenomenon, people must discover technology which can help 227 make them food self-reliant, which can help them gain control over their work, which can help them unplug themselves from the consumerist system. The sorting out and development of technology requires political discussion by the people who will use it and will be affected by it. Such discussion can be translated into realistic and effective action in the settings of person-oriented communities. As for scientism, radical humanists criticize its claim that scientific method leads to objective, value-free results. For by attempting to set up a system of rationality that is apparently 22223 man, it distracts attention from the way that such a rationality can be used to obscurglthe nature of the relationships between men. Now, I understand some of the motivation for trying to develop an objective method. If we could succeed in finding such a method, we could avoid being fooled by ourselves and by others. Sometimes, as we all know, we so strongly wish for something to be a certain way that we think it is that way. Sometimes we are sloppy or careless when we want to find out about something. These are just two ways we can fool ourselves. If we could adopt an objective method, we could be more sure of facing up to reality. Likewise, we could make reality reveal for what they are any people who would try to control us on the basis of claims to some special knowledge. The use of such a method would also seem to contribute to such social virtues as impartiality, a willingness to find relevant facts and to form reasoned 228 judgments about affairs based on them, and the avoidance of undue influence by superstition or personal desire. However, without denying that objective methods sometimes provide some real and important help to inquirers, we do deny that employment of such methods guarantees conclusions that are free of moral or political values. The proponent of scientism seems to think that life can be made more bearable if we would all abandon our moral and political "prejudices” and submit to the results of scientific inquiry into human affairs. But then the proponent of scientism wrongly supposes that with science at our side we can flourish without clearly and self-consciously relating ourselves to others in matters of both morals and politics. Attempts to impersonalize the process of human flourishment by subordinating it to a supposedly objective method of inquiry miss a constitutive part of this flourishment--we must face one another as persons. But, then it appears that the proponent of scientism, as Roszak suggests, "confuses the impersonality of scientific objectivity with the simple virtue of unselfishness."51 Knowledge impersonally sought and discovered can more easily be used by the finder in ways that undermine relationships between people. Knowledge unselfishly sought and discovered much less so. This leads to another radical humanist criticism of scientism. Knowledge, to be used really humanly, must be pursued within a cultural context that integrally involves virtues. Scientism, however, seems to hold that knowledge 229 can be pursued as a thing apart from wisdom.62 According to scientism we must increase our knowledge, science does this for us, and it is left to us to use it well. Recall the quote from Bacon above. However, the scientific search for knowledge proceeds at such a maddening pace that little is left for an earnest development of wisdom. So, radical humanists call for science to be restricted to a subordinate role within a complete cultural understanding of reality and removed from its scientistically proclaimed status as sole standard for human knowledge. Lewis Mumford treats the point well. He recognizes that science can be studied and advanced for its own sake as one way humans try to contemplate reality. On this way of looking at the matter, its ”dominant interest is an esthetic 63 But when this one, the joy of pure perception." contemplative side of science is allowed to be developed on its own terms, its practitioners tend to lose sight of the everyday communal realities which make scientific values meaningful. Those who claim that science is value-free and must be allowed to continue to develop in its own way fail to recognize that all sorts of human values, both base and noble, have been integrally bound up with the historical development of science. They also seem to overlook the fact that when science is not guided by a balanced sense of human values, it tends to work "toward a complete dehumanization of the social order,” as some of its applications in war and 64 industry clearly indicate. Once it is recognized that 230 science is not value-free, the main issue for discussion becomes the values which it should serve. The intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological values we have been defending are the obvious candidates for Mumford and other radical humanists. Service to these values requires, according to Mumford, a shift of emphasis for scientific inquiry. If the sciences are to be cultivated anew with respect to a definite hierarchy of human values..., the sciences must be focussed again upon particular local communities, and the problems which they offer for solution. He offers the Regional Survey movement in Great Britain in the first quarter of this century as an example of this science for and by the people. He characterizes the surveys as attempts at "a local synthesis of all the specialist 'knowledges'." Such a focus for scientific inquiry offers chances for mutual contacts at many levels and mutual enrichment between science and local communities.66 Here again, as elsewhere, radical humanists emphasize the importance and indispensability of cultivating communities which encourage and make possible the development of this role for science. Culture and Community Earlier we followed Sapir in defining a genuine culture as the expression of a richly varied, yet unified and consistent attitude toward life, an attitude which sees the interrelationships among various elements of a civilization. We claimed that people in a community are more likely to have a genuine culture and that genuine cultural activity suffers 231 in impersonal collectives. We claimed that such present American social features as the entertainment industry and the mania for economic growth and expansion make genuine cultural activity difficult and contribute to a homogenization and flattening of cultures. In light of these claims, we have advocated that people form communities which help them actively contribute to the development of a genuine culture. The formation of communities which incorporate radical humanist principles and proposals will help activate us culturally by reversing tendencies toward passivity and homogeneity as well as by providing an environment more conducive to genuine culture. Passivity and homogeneity are encouraged by monopoly capitalism, as we have noted in the preceding discussion of production and consumption. Most people do not control the work they do and find themselves dependent on impersonal commodity relations for what they consume. Thus, the market dominates many aspects of life and encourages in the place of cooperative self-reliant activity a host of passive amusements and isolating entertainments. As we have argued, acquisition of control over their work by people in communities and reciprocal reliance on each other for meeting needs important for fuller self-actualization will enable people to break the paralyzing grip of the market. This in turn will make possible the development and exercise of capacities for genuine cultural activity. This is a significant way person-oriented communities can reverse 232 continuation of tendencies toward the passivity and homogenization that mark spurious culture. In addition, communities offer a structural feature more conducive to genuine culture than those of the large, impersonal collectives that dominate contemporary societies. As Sapir points out, "an oft-noted peculiarity of the development of culture is the fact that it reaches its greatest heights in comparatively small, autonomous groups."67 Everything we have said about person-oriented communities entails that they be comparatively small, autonomous groups. In Sapir's judgment genuine culture finds its most fertile growing medium in ...a group between the members of which there can be said to be something like direct intensive spiritual contact. This direct contact is enriched by the common cultural heritage on which the minds of all are fed: it is rendered swift and pregnant by the thousands of feelings and ideas that are tacitly assumed6§nd that constantly glimmer in the background. It is hoped that the members of the communities we have called for will develop direct personal contacts. The foundations for such contacts are well laid if the people actively share in meeting the social requirements for person-oriented communities and support each other in meeting requirements for ways of life that contribute to greater self-actualization. Communities of the proper size and organization to allow the accomplishment of these missions will also be able "to incorporate the individuality that is 69 to culture as the very breath of life." After all, 233 trying to provide the conditions for the fullest individuation possible for each of its members is a defining mark of a genuine community. Moreover, we should point out that, while community is an enabling condition for genuine cultural activity, the converse is also true. Engaging in genuine cultural activity can give people who might otherwise not have much to do with each other a common ground on which to begin wider ranging relationships. Performing together or sharing an appreciation of some cultural performance can be an enabling condition for developing communities. Again, however, we reach a point where personal responsibilities must be addressed. In our earlier characterization of culture we said that the fine arts, the music, the language and stories of a genuine culture are expressions of people's attitudes toward life, of the significance for them of the elements of social life, and of the character of people's spiritual consciousness. Communities encourage and enable us to execute these expressions, but in the end each of us must act to the extent we can ”to relate 925 lives, 92; intuitions, 93; passing moods to forms of expression that carry conviction to others and make us live again in these others...."l70 Living in a community can make it easier for us to learn to play musical instruments and to join others in making music rather than to turn passively to the radio or stereo. But we must do the learning and the playing. Living in a community can make it easier for us to write a poem or tell a story 234 than to sit in front of the television set. But we must do the writing or storytelling. Living in a community can make it easier for us to dance, to carve or sculpt, to paint or sketch. But only we can express ourselves to others in these activities. We have to avoid falling into the trap of thinking that since we cannot match the standards of media-created "greats," we had better not express ourselves at all. While the results of our efforts at cultural expression may not be as polished, sophisticated, original, or numerous as the works of those who develop their native ability in art, literature, or music to a degree higher than most, they will be the results of 925 efforts. To the extent we discover more about ourselves and the human situation in trying to express ourselves or appreciate the expressions of others, we contribute to our fuller individuation. Furthermore, if we succeed in expressing ourselves to others, we may inspire them to cultural activity and contribute to their fuller individuation. If people actively participate in cultural expressions and appreciate those of others, they can set in motion a crescendo of cultural activity that enhances personal connections within community at the same time that culture develops further from these connections. Clearly, the cultivation of genuine communities is not limited to ecological, political, and economic action. It also requires cultural action. Radical humanists share Sapir's judgment and hope. Sooner or later we shall have to get down to the humble task of exploring the depths of our 235 consciousness and dragging to the light what sincere bits of reflected experience we can find. These bits will not always be beautiful, they will not always be pleasing, but they will be genuine. And then we can build. In time, in plenty of time--for we must have patience--a genuine culture—-better yet, a series of linked autonomous cultures--will grace our lives. A series of linked autonomous cultures based in a series of linked person-oriented communities will contribute greatly to the self-actualization of each human being who belongs to one of these communities. 236 NOTES 1. Abraham H. Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being, 2nd ed. (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1968), PP. 44-59. 2. For an interesting and informative discussion of contemporary and nineteenth-century American intentional communities, particularly their ways of dealing with the commitment of members, see Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Commitment and Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociologigal Perspective (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972). 3. Theodore Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends: Politics and Transcendence in_Postindustrial Sgciety (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1973), Chapter 12, "The Visionary Commonwealth,” especially pp. 395-401. 4. Kanter, Commitment and Community, pp. 148-149. See also Ferdinand Toennies, Community and Society, Charles P. Loomis, trans. (East Lansing, MI: The Michigan State University Press, 1957). A reprint edition was published in 1963 by Harper Torchbooks, Harper & Row, Publishers. 5. Kanter, Commitment and Community, pp. 149-161. 6. Ibid., pp. 165-2370 7. This principle of communitarian spirit was suggested to me by Benjamin Zablocki's discussion in The Joyful Community (Baltimore: Penguin Books, Inc., 1971), PP. 286-326, of whether the Bruderhof can serve as a model for other communities. He cites Buber on the ”I-Thou" terminology. Martin Buber, I and Thou, 2nd ed., Ronald Gregor Smith, trans. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958). See also Martin Buber, "Dialogue," in Between Man and Man, Ronald Gregor Smith, trans. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1965), especially pp. 30-33. It will be clear to many readers that I have also couched this acknowledgement of others as persons in Kantian terminology. Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, Thomas K. Abbott, trans. (Indianapolis, IN: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1949), pp. 45-53. 8. Zablocki, The Joyful Community, pp. 318-323, indicates that the Bruderhof interpret this change as a dying to the old self to make room for the birth of the new self. 9. Wayne D. Rasmussen, "The Mechanization of Agriculture," Scientific American 247: 3(Sept. 1982): 77. 10. Ibid. ll. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. l7. l8. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 237 Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins, Food First: Beyond the Myth of Sgarcity, rev. ed. (New York: Ballantine Books, 1978), pp. 59-75. See also Loretta Schwartz-Nobel, Starving in the Shadow of Plenty (New York: S.P. Putnam's Sons, 1981), PP. 181-192. Lappé and Collins, Food First, p. 163. Ibid., pp. 161-162: Schwartz-Nobel, Starving. Barry Commoner, The Poverty of Power (New York: Bantam Books, 1976), pp. 149-164. Carol Keough, "The Coming Food Crunch,” Organic Gardening 27: 5(May 1980): 90-93. Lappé and Collins, Food First, pp. 253-254. Schwartz-Nobel, Starving, pp. 115-119, 175-177. For a generally favorable report on center-pivot irrigation systems which does acknowledge some of the dangers, see William E. Splinter, ”Center-Pivot Irrigation," Scientific American 234: 6(June 1976): 90-99. Lappé and Collins, Food First, pp. 157-160. Robert Rodale, "Germ Plasm--Two Words You Need to Know," Organic Gardening 27: 2(Feb. 1980): 28-36. Anthony DeCrosta, ”The Real Scoop on the Plant Patent Controversy," Organic Gardening 27: 5(May 1980): 108-114. Lappé and Collins, Food First, p. 237. Earl O. Heady, "The Agriculture of the U.S.," Scientific American 235: 3(Sept. 1976): 107. Lappé and Collins, Food First, p. 354. For the list of questions just asked and the short answers given see pp. 355-356. For the definition of contract farming see p. 300. For a fuller explanation and documentation of these claims see pp. 277-354. See also Martin Carnoy and Derek Shearer, Economic Democracy: The Challenge of the 1980s (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1980), pp. 210-221. Lappe and Collins, Food First, pp. 457-458, 164-165. Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of Ameriga: Culture and Agriculture (New York: Avon Books, 1977), pp. 179-184, 188, 204, 222. Robert Rodale, ”Mother Nature Bats Last," Organic Gardening 28: 10(Oct. 1981): 27. Lappé and Collins, Food First, pp. 458-472. Ibid., pp. 493-4940 Ibid., p. 490. See also pp. 488—491. Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York: 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 238 Monthly Review Press, 1974): PP. 46-51. Ibid., pp. 251-256. See also John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State, 2nd ed. (New York: Mentor/New American Library, 1971), Chapters 1-9, pp. 21-118. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital, pp. 46-51. Ibid., p. 52. Ibid., p. 56. Ibid., p. 57. Emphasis in the text. Ibid., Chapters 2-4, pp. 59-123. On this and the following points about scientific management see also Judith A. Merkle, Management and Ideology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). Ibid., pp. 112-120. Ibid., p. 119. Ibid., p. 170. Ibid., Chapters 7-9, pp. 155-235. See also David Dickson, The Politics of_Alternative Technology (New York: Universe Books, 1974): PP. 63-95, and Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine, Vol. II: The Pentagon of Power (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1970), pp. 130-159. Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1973), PP. xvi-xvii, 14-18, 343-344. This edition contains Bell's 1976 Foreword. Ibid., p. 127. Ibig., p. 134. Ibid., p. 343. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital, pp. 424-425. Ibid., pp. 426-435. Ibid., Chapters 15 & 16, pp. 293-374. Ibig,, p. 373. Ibid., pp. 213-223. Paul Blumberg, Industrial Democracy: The Sociology of 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 239 Participation (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), PP. 61-64. Bell, Post-Industrial Society, pp. xvi, 18-26, 27-30, for example. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital, Chapters 10, 15, 18: PP. 236-248, 293-358, 403-409. Blumberg, Industrial Democracy, Chapters 2 & 3, pp. 14-46. Ibid., pp. 21-27. Ibid., pp. 35-40. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital, p. 4452. See also Carnoy and Shearer, Economic Democracy, pp. 125-194. Wilson Bryan Key, Subliminal Seduction (New York: Signet Books, 1974), Media Sexploitation (New York: Signet Books, 1976), and The Clam-Plate Orgy (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice- -Hall, Inc., 1980). See also Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders (New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1957), and the citations listed in note 21, Chapter 3 above. Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (New York: Quill, 1978). See also Stuart and Elizabeth Ewen, Channels of Desire (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1982). E. F. Schumacher, "Buddhist Economics," in Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if Pegple Mattered (New York: Perennial Library, 1973), p. 55. Berry, The Unsettling of America, pp. 24-25. Ibid., Chapters 4, 5, and 8: Lappe and Collins, Food FirSt, pp. 121-180. Dickson, The Politics of Alternative Technology, pp. 183-184. Ibid., pp. 184-185. Ibid., PP. 185-186. Francis Bacon, The New Organon, as in The New Organon and Related Writings, Fulton H. Anderson, ed. (New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1960), P. 119. These tags for a new form of technology are associated 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 240 with the following people: "intermediate technology," E.P. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful; "alternative technology,” Dickson, The Politics_of Alternative Technology; "convivial technology,” Ivan Illich, Tools for Conyiviality (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1973): "soft technology," Amory Lovins, Soft Energy Paths: Towgrd a Durable Peace (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1977). Dickson, The Politics of Alternative Technology, p. 190. Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends, p. 215. Lewis Mumford, The Story gf Utopias (New York: The Viking Press, 1962), p. 274. Ibid., pp. 276-277. Ibid., p. 277. Ibid., pp. 279-281. The identification of this type of science as science for and by the people is discussed by Dickson, The Politics of Alternative Technology, pp. 197-204. Edward Sapir, "Culture, Genuine and Spurious," The American Journal of Sociology 29: 4(Jan. 1924): 425. Ibid., p. 426. Ibid., p. 428. Ibid., p. 425. Emphasis in the text. Ibid., p. 429. CHAPTER 7: RADICAL HUMANIST PROPOSALS FOR ACTION In this chapter we will examine radical humanist proposals for bringing about some changes in our ways of life and our social institutions that will help solve our cultural problems. These proposals suggest things we can do to meet the conditions of change outlined in Chapter 6. Moreover, we will show how these proposals meet most of the conditions of practical adequacy which we have not already shown to have been met by radical humanism. Following the organization of Chapter 6, we will discuss radical humanist programmatics in community, food and agriculture, and nonagricultural production and services. We will also indicate how the actions and programs advocated in these areas can affect patterns of consumption, the role of science and technology, and our relationship with nature. Toward Community In Chapter 6 we saw how radical humanists criticize some aspects of presently predominant patterns of social interaction. These patterns make it difficult for people to fulfill some important intrapersonal and interpersonal needs. Radical humanists argue that we need to change these patterns of social interaction to make easier the formation of person-oriented communities. We defended some principles of change that provide guidelines for action to overcome obstacles to the cultivation of communities and to exercise already existing capacities for community. Here we will see 241 242 concrete steps we can take to gain some momentum in developing patterns of communitarianism. In light of the principles that practice is paramount and that we need to establish some roots in a place, one way people can develop communitarian association with one another is to become involved in what Karl Hess calls "the politics of place."1 The politics of place means that we come together with others in the place we live in order to formulate opinions about issues that affect us and to translate them into action. It involves constituency.... It involves making friends and envisioning neighborly relations. Conventional politics does it rhetorically, as in merchandising, using the lingo of pulling together, common causes, and enlightened self-interest. The politics of place has to do it concretely, getting neighbors interested in something, working together to do it, letting other neighbors see the work, make judgements, ang perhaps join the next step, the next work. Hess argues that the politics of place can be more knowledgeable, experimental, and flexible than conventional politics. Since the politics of place focusses on where people live, they will likely have more knowledge and understanding about the issues that call for attention. Furthermore, it is easier to try an innovative approach to solving a problem or sharing an idea if there are fewer people involved than the population of a nation, state, or large city. In neighborhoods or small communities there can be face-to-face discussions of what is being aimed for, how it might help the community, and what it means for individual 243 people. Finally, if a mistake is made in local efforts, it might be more easily corrected or less damaging than one made by a national or international group. While local politics has often been stereotyped as parochial and closed-minded, it need not be so. The politics of place does not discourage thinking intergalactically, but it does discourage simply thinking inter- galactically, or globally, without due consideration for what concretely and currently, you can DO about it. Certainly, one can be active in the politics of place and still keep informed about broader issues, cast one's vote in elections, and try to reason with one's elected representatives. In fact, the politics of place can be a mode of active participation with others in practices which can relate the particular circumstances of one's locality to broader issues. Furthermore, since the politics of place encourages the integration of politics with daily living in a place, becoming active in it can empower people to become genuine participants in changed economic and cultural affairs. At the same time it can inspire communitarian spirit and practice, it can be a mode of activity by which people become more self-actualizing. In the familiar surroundings of the place where we live we can begin with some small steps that can help us and others overcome individualistic habits and form communitarian ones. Another way to begin to establish communitarian ties with other people is to organize or join more specifically functional groups, such as food or child-care cooperatives. 244 Cooperatives generally are organized and joined by people who desire ways of meeting some of their needs through alternatives to profit-oriented businesses in the mainstream of the American economic system. For example, many food cooperatives make only enough of a mark-up on the cost of food to cover operating costs. These costs can be kept relatively low through the working services of members who trade work for a discount on the cost of what they buy. Moreover, many food cooperatives belong to associations of cooperatives that buy produce in bulk from local producers, so that the co-ops are supporting local food self-reliance. Most co-ops of all sorts make it possible for members to participate in varying degrees of involvement. Although co-ops serve a functional need of some sort, i.e., they develop in part because of Gesellschaft considerations, due to the nature of their operation, they often engender a communitarian spirit that brings members into more frequent contact so that Gemeinschaft relationships become an important part of their attractiveness. All these elements combine to make cooperatives important structures in overcoming the obstacles of individualistic economic habits and in developing trends toward communitarianism.4 Radical humanists also affirm the value of joining what Theodore Roszak calls "the situational network.” This is a network of situational groups to which people have turned when they are at their wit's end in trying to cope with their particular life situations in the face of what appears to be 245 a total lack of concern for them in a largely impersonal and monolithic society. Situational groups are bands of people who turn to others who have undergone similar experiences and who find themselves in similar situations. They turn to each other for "...the therapeutic companionship of those in whom they can see themselves, those with whom they can most securely be themselves."5 Sometimes situational groups take the form of support groups such as the familiar Alcoholics Anonymous or the less familiar Parents Anonymous, an organization that tries to help members of chronic child-beating families. Others take the form of less structured support groups or of households of several people who can offer each other mutual aid and acceptance. Common to them all is the concern for personal recognition, autonomy, and self-discovery in an intimate interpersonal setting. Roszak hears the objections of those who complain that such fragmentation among disaffiliates from the mainstream works against wider social change, not for it. The objectors believe this fragmentation makes impossible the political organization they think is necessary to bring about social change. We concur with the gist of Roszak's reply. There is something to the objection to the extent that, eventually, situational groups will have to find ways to meet on some common ground if they are ever to be more than safety valves for the pressures of an overly individualistic society. On the other hand, in the meantime, situational groups serve as 246 reminders to those who try to promote large-scale social change that the way to overcome excessive individualism is not by a turn to collectivism. Rather, as we argued in Chapter 3, in attempting to bring about social change that takes intrapersonal values seriously, we must find ways to dissolve the polarity between individualism and collectivism.6 While situational groups often make no efforts to last beyond the situations of those who form them, radical humanists also hold up as models, which might inspire us to action, groups that do try to become longer lasting, more permanent settlements: intentional communities or communes. Most notable among intentional communities are the Bruderhofs in New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, The Farm in Tennessee, Koinonia in Georgia, and Twin Oaks in Virginia. These communities have managed to develop on the basis of, in Roszak's words, "...a bond of personal trust within the group that does not need to build a wall around the community's children or to raise barriers against the world outside."7 Even if many people do not take up this kind of undiluted communal association, communes serve as powerful examples of some of the benefits of communitarianism. They show proof that alternatives to the economic and social mainstream can be successful. In their efforts to work out patterns of work and leisure that allow the satisfaction of communal physical and organizational needs and of the intrapersonal and interpersonal needs of members, they serve at once as pilot 247 projects and sources of inspiration for others who try to join together in their own ways to cultivate forms of community. With these proposals radical humanists show some concrete, realistic steps people can take to begin personal and social changes toward communitarian ways of life. Different people who are searching for more satisfying ways of life that involve personal contacts with others in working toward common goals can begin with their own small or large steps toward forming communitarian relationships. These proposals suggest some paths we can follow. There are already established communities of diverse kinds we might be able to join, or we can look to them as general patterns to be adapted to a different set circumstances. Moreover, participation in any of the four kinds of communitarian ventures we have described holds promise for enabling us to develop different patterns of work and leisure which can help us meet intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological ideals and which can enable us to join with others in solving other cultural problems. Toward Food Self-Reliance In the section on food and agriculture in Chapter 6 we pointed out some of the more glaring faults of our present food system. We criticized it on several grounds. First, modern mechanized farming techniques are having adverse ecological effects. Second, there are unjustifiable 248 inequities in the ways food and other agricultural products are produced and distributed. Third, these inequities are in part due to the fact that too many of us are passively dependent on the wheelings and dealings of multinational agribusiness corporations. To correct these faults in our food system, radical humanists advocate adopting a strategy of food self-reliance. We argued for several conditions of change that must be met to bring about self-reliant food systems. Here we will focus on the three that apply primarily to Americans and others who live in more developed countries to see what we can do to contribute to food self-reliance. The first condition of change requires removing the obstacles to the formation of self-reliant food systems, especially the obstacles that originate in our own countries. To find what these obstacles are, we can learn what the sources of food dependence are and how food dependence affects different people's lives. Learning need not be limited to studying books, articles, and documents. Some people can learn by living and working with poor people who are most adversely affected by the present food system. Others can learn by traveling to countries to experience firsthand the food systems there. After and while learning, we must share what we discover with other people to make them aware that not all is right in our food system. This education of self and others is an important preliminary to action aimed directly at removing obstacles.8 We can also 249 join organizations like Bread for the World, Oxfam-America, or the Institute for Food and Development Policy. Groups like these do research into the causes of famine and food dependence, keep abreast of current political and economic developments that affect the food system, lobby for programs that would help bring about self-reliant food systems, and give self-help aid to people in developing countries.9 Finally, guided by what we learn on our own efforts and from those of others, we need to exercise discretion in our eating and food-buying habits. For example, it's a good bet that any fresh vegetables we buy in the winter and early spring months were grown in Mexico. With situations like this in mind, Lappe and Collins observe, ”As obvious as it may sound, we must remind ourselves that land growing crops for the Global Supermarket is land the local people cannot use to 10 What we buy and eat can grow food crops for themselves." make a difference in what is grown, where it is grown, and by whom it is grown. In these and other ways we can begin to tear down the barriers to the development of food self-reliance. The second condition of change calls for us to support groups that are resisting food dependence and trying to build food self-reliance. How we can do this? Financial assistance with no strings attached is one way. Since most of us do not have direct contact with such groups in countries where famine and undernourishment are common, if we are able to offer financial support, we could do so through 250 organizations like Oxfam-America. We can also make known to other people the existence of groups who are trying to implement strategies of self-reliance. This will help undermine the stereotype that ordinary people in developing countries are too oppressed to change. Finally, we can lobby to end economic assistance by the government to countries who are not trying to democratize control over food-producing resources. We can also lobby for direct economic assistance to countries that are trying to become food self-reliant, assistance that is not tied to the purchase of American products.11 The third condition of change calls for efforts to transform our own economic system, especially our food system, into a self-reliant one. Here again study and discussion of the issues so that people become aware of what is at stake is important. The editors of Organic Gardening magazine in their "Cornucopia Project” are helping people to investigate the effects of a failure to develop regional food self-reliance in our country. They also offer organizational assistance so that interested people can join forces to make known and carry out practices that will make us more 12 We can take up gardening to regionally self-reliant. grow some of our own food and encourage the development of community gardens. We can also join or organize food co-ops. As mentioned in the section on community, food co-ops provide a source for healthy, unprocessed or minimally processed foods. Also, in general, they bypass, as much as possible, 251 the mainstream agribusiness food system. This often involves support of regional producers of food with direct purchases. This, in turn, can contribute to the strategy of moving away from a dependence upon chemical pesticides and fertilizers and from large-scale mechanization of farming toward a system of organic farming and gardening located on a larger number of smaller farms, in household backyards, and in community gardens. This kind of agricultural system could receive some of its fertilizer and organic matter from a more sensible use of such ordinary things as table scraps, lawn clippings, and tree leaves. It is common current practice to flush food wastes down the disposal into the sewage system, thus burdening our water systems, and to burn leaves or dispose of them and grass clippings along with trash and garbage. More individuals and communities should develop ways to utilize rather than waste these potential enhancers of soil fertility, as some already have.13 We can also work for land reform to discourage absentee ownership and the control of farmland by any corporations who might be interested more in quick profits or tax write-offs than careful cultivation of the land. Another contribution to regional self-reliant food systems would be efforts to "despecialize" the interests of our local colleges of agriculture, to shift the focus of their study from agribusiness and industry to local farmers and from large-scale mechanization of food production to organic methods appropriate to smaller producers.14 With our emphasis on the place organic methods of 252 gardening and farming can take in regional self-reliant food systems, we should consider some objections or worries that are not unusual. First, while many people agree that organic gardening is a useful and valuable pursuit for those who are interested, they also express reservations about the possibility of converting a whole agricultural system to organic methods. There are doubts about whether organic farms could be economically feasible and whether they could supply enough food for people who don't farm. In the words of an Indiana farmer interviewed by Studs Terkel, ”They have a lot of good points, but I never did see a large organic farm. They're just more or less small operators. I don't think you can do it on a large scale enough to be feeding a nation."15 However, Wendell Berry reports visits to some successful organic farms of various sizes, from smaller family-size farms to large-scale highly mechanized farms. After reporting his favorable general impressions and the competitive crop-production figures of these farms, he concludes, There is, then, no way to deny that crops and animals can be produced in respectable yields by the methods generally designated as "organic". These methods work on large farms and small ones. Available evidence indicates that they work at least as well as orthodox methods within the economy of the individual farm.... But perhaps the greatest benefits ...would go to the general public--in greatly reduced soil and water pollution, in reduced public expenditures for pollution control, in better healthIGand at least eventually in cheaper food. While this first objection is based, as we can see, on 253 uninformed general impressions about organic farming, we should consider another objection to a food self-reliance strategy which is more hostile. The objection arises with the mention of a move away from the continued mechanization of farming or with the criticism of orthodox research done by agribusiness and colleges of agribusiness. Such talk is interpreted by defenders of the status quo as being antitechnological and regressive. In a slightly different but related context, Wayne Rasmussen berates those who question the wisdom of a greater mechanization of farming. The answer is not to limit research or stop the production and use of new machines. ...Farmers and their families today live longer and healthier lives at least in part because of the mechanization of American agriculture. Whatever solution may be found to the problem of disemployed farm workers, it would hardly be humane to return them to dawn-to-dusk labor chopping cotton, thinning beets or flailing grain. The not very veiled supposition here is that unless we carry on with the mechanization of farming, we will be condemning farmers to grinding poverty and unremitting toil. To ask more people to farm or to grow more of their own food, then, is to condemn them as well. This supposition makes it seem as though there are only two choices open to us, and since one is clearly undesirable, we are forced to accept the other. The obvious response is that there are other alternatives. No reasonable radical humanist demands that all mechanization be stopped or 254 reversed. Rather, the idea is to direct research away from megalomechanization toward the development of diverse techniques and tools which allow farmers and gardeners to exercise their crafts in ways that conserve land and other resources while promoting optimally healthy productivity. Such techniques as biointensive horticulture and the use of draft animals and such tools as the U-bar need not require relentless toil.18 However, a food growing system based on a strategy of self-reliance employing techniques and tools like these would require more of us to become more active in food production and to be more discerning in food consumption than we are now. It should be clear by now that the problems associated with our food system provide a clear example of how some of our pressing problems are interconnected in important ways. It should also be noted that the strategy for bringing about regional food self-reliance exemplifies how realistic and effective action for solving one nexus of problems involves action that links up with correctives in other sets of problems. The relationships we form with others to work on various problems in our food system can be a common ground for establishing communities. Our efforts to become more responsible consumers of food can help us reflect on and change how we fulfill our other wants and needs. Those who take up gardening are open to an appreciation of the workings of nature that they may not have had before. Those who take seriously the importance of conserving the soil and building 255 up its fertility exercise an important form of stewardship for our descendants. The attempts to develop alternatives to large-scale mechanization of agriculture provide an ideal environment for practice of a science and technology for and by the people. Our participation in activities that contribute to regional food self-reliance conduces to our fuller all-around well-being. It involves translation of important values into action that furthers our individuation. It connects us with other people in worthwhile ways. It promotes the ecological health of our natural environment. It allows us to meet some important needs while undermining the supports of exploitative institutions.19 Toward Control of Work by Workers Our critique of monopoly capitalism in Chapter 6 involved an examination into how technology and management practices have been and are used to decrease the self-directed control workers have over how they work. In light of this critique we advocated changes in production and services that enable workers to gain control of the work processes they carry out. We followed Braverman in identifying two broad conditions of change. The first condition calls for a demystification of technology so that workers can gain the technical knowledge necessary for self-directed control of the work they do. The second calls for a reorganization of modes of production as one part of a revamping of our economic system. 256 One way we can contribute to the demystification of technology is to modify our present educational system. The extension of the time of education which modern capitalism has brought about for its own reasons provides the framework: the number of years spent in school has become generally adequate for the provision of a comprehensive polytechnical education for the workers of most industries. But such education can take effect only if it is combined with the practice of labor during the school years, and only if education continues throughout the life of the worker after the end of formal schooling. Such education can engage the interest and attention of workers only when they become masters of industry in the true sense, which is to say when the antagonisms in the labor process between controllers and workers, conception and execution, mental and manual labor are overthrown, and when the labor process is ugated in the collective body which conducts it. This kind of change in our educational system is an ideal project for a politics of place. Changes in the system begin with changes in our local schools. Ways must also be found to develop pilot projects which demonstrate how this proposal can be implemented. More about this shortly. Another, more modest way to demystify technology that might motivate more people to dig in and try to gain technical knowledge is to study and make known the history of technological development as it relates to the issue of control over work. Such study would require a different focus and a more critical examination of the consequences of specific forms of technology than is usually the case in many popular histories of technology. Many such works are simply ”gee-whiz" histories that try to evoke from us high levels of 257 amazement at what scientists and engineers have done.21 It's not that there haven't been or aren't amazing things going on. The point is that we must consider whether amazement is called for rather than concern for those who are affected by the technology. Even if amazement is an appropriate response, we must move beyond it to try to understand. Only then can we explode the myth of the political neutrality of technology, a not insignificant factor in the mystification of technology. Radical humanists also maintain that more control over the work process can be returned to workers by simplifying technology where possible. Where this can be done, workers could exercise skill and creativity at what they do without being required to understand the specialized principles and applications of technical engineering. Here are projects for engineers and scientists who want to take seriously the call for a science and technology for the people. Turning to the second condition for worker control, in conjunction with carrying out our proposals in community and agriculture, there are ways we can begin to change the mode of organization of our present economic system. From the side of production, radical humanists advocate the development of alternatives to large, automated factories that are now the predominant place of work for so many. ...Social production might be organized at three levels: neighborhood workshops, in which craft-work could be redeveloped at various levels of technologY; small multipurpose factories able to create a variety of products 258 by flexible tooling: and medium-size largely automatic factories at a regional level, producing both finished goods and standardized materials and parts for community factories and workshops. It is easy to imagine how more self-directed control over work can be exercised in small-scale, craft-oriented workshops than in most present forms of production. As for the relatively larger, more mechanized and automated plants, some might wonder whether they are consistent with worker autonomy and control. Here we concur with Braverman in his judgment that control over production of goods most appropriately fabricated by automatic systems of machinery is a real possibility, providing the workers attain the engineering knowledge required to master the machinery and providing they rotate among themselves all levels of the 23 Whatever the level of work, routines of the operations. people who have control over what they do and how they do it can derive from their work and invest in their work a craft pride that is now too often absent. Such craft pride not only usually results in a superior product of work but also builds up the person who does the work. Efforts toward organizing alternative modes of production and other alternatives to the mainstream economic system could be financed through the development of such things as labor banks and worker-controlled pension funds. Such funds could also be used to help create worker cooperatives. Carnoy and Shearer examine several industrial cooperatives, some of which were formed by workers as new 259 firms to create jobs, others of which arose in order to preserve jobs that would have been lost because of corporate 24 As alternatives like these are being divestiture. shaped, people would find themselves in ideal circumstances for beginning the modifications of the educational system we advocated earlier. Here again activities that contribute to workers' control of their work situations mesh well with activities that further other radical humanist goals for social change. In order to exert control over work, we must come together in communitarian modes of relationships. Choices we make in the things we buy and use can affect for good or ill people's efforts to gain self-directed control of their work. Workers' control would also have other effects on the reorganization of our economic system. We could devise patterns of working that allow us to jump the rail of the single-track life that is too often imposed under presently available conditions of work. We could make possible a ‘variety of work by arrangements that allow and encourage us ‘to rotate, perhaps within the span of a year of two, among industrial, craft, professional, or agricultural 25 Furthermore, these proposals for working out activities. a more balanced proportion of productive activity in our jlives would make it much easier for us to overcome the (lichotomy between men's work and women's work. There could more easily be a sharing of tasks that have been traditionally assigned to one sex or the other. In a family 260 situation, for example, if the husband-father is not at work away from home most of the day every day, he can become more involved in caring for and raising the children. Conversely, if the wife-mother is not solely or primarily responsible for housekeeping and child care, she can develop other aspects of her person in other activities. Incidentally, the ability of one or both parents to be close at hand or the close cooperation of neighbors could also make nonexistent the phenomenon of "latchkey children," children who, upon arriving at home after school, must let themselves in with their own keys and stay home alone until their parents arrive from work. Needless to say, such lack of adult supervision and companionship is less than desirable for young children's 26 In solving other problems like these and in development. encouraging social changes, bringing about worker control in production and services helps translate important intrapersonal and interpersonal values into action. Summary In this chapter we have examined some central radical humanist proposals for action that can bring about desirable changes in our ways of life and our social institutions. Before pulling together the various strands of my main argument in the next chapter, I want to indicate briefly how I think these radical humanist proposals meet the conditions of practical adequacy set forth in Chapter 5. In Chapter 6 on the basis of our critique of key areas 261 of our contemporary cultural situation, we advocated attainable goals that would help us overcome our present problems. In this way we meet the first condition. In this chapter we have clearly met the second condition, which calls for realistic recommendations of action for effecting these changes. The proposals we have made in regard to social interaction, food and agriculture, and worker control are realistic in several ways. They are concrete enough that people will be able to perform the activities we suggest. We suggest enough different activities so that different people can find something constructive to do without feeling that their small part won't help or that social change is too big for anyone to attempt. Finally, we have clearly related the proposals for action to the goals we formulated and to the values we have judged to be important. Also for these reasons I think we have met the fifth practical condition, which requires guidelines for people to follow without smothering their enthusiasm and adaptive creativity under a blanket of detailed orders, and the sixth condition, which demands firm but flexible guidelines for judging whether the alternative practices and structures we develop are doing ‘what they are supposed to. Finally, we have met the fourth condition, which demands that an adequate view of work and leisure help us propose and carry out changes that integrally solve problems that are interdependent. We have indicated Ihow the actions proposed for solving each set of problems (also has beneficial effects in correcting other sets of 262 problems. It is less clear whether we have met the third and seventh practical conditions. The third condition, one of the conditions that demands rhetorical effectiveness, requires an adequate view of work and leisure to motivate people to carry out the changes it advocates. I am not sure whether we can ascertain now the effect that radical humanist proposals will have on people. I think time will probably tell of our success or failure on this point. The seventh condition requires a view of work and leisure to help us develop ways to resolve conflicts that arise as we change our ways of life and social institutions. We have given little attention to this condition here. The question of whether this significantly weakens our case that radical humanism is the best view of work and leisure will be addressed in the next chapter. 6. 7. 263 NOTES Karl Hess, "The Politics of Place," CoEvolution Quarterly 30: (Summer 1981): 4-16. Ibid., p. 8. Ibid., p. 5. Since Hess' essay appeared, CoEvolution Quarterly has received many contributions on the politics of place. In the same issue cited above, see Michael Phillips, "Local Shadow Government," pp. 18-19. In Issue 34 (Summer 1982), see Tom Parsons, "Don't Beg. Take Control: Why and How to Hold Local Political Office," pp. 34-37; Bryce and Margaret Muir, ”'Think It's Breezin' Up?': Politics of Place in the Maritimes," pp. 40-43. For helpful information about co-ops, consult some of the following: Co-op Magazine, North American Student Co-op Organization, Box 1301, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. National Association of Housing Cooperatives, 1522 K Street, N.W., Suite 1036, Washington, DC 20005. How to Organize a Co-qp--Moving Ahead Together, Community Services Administration, 1200 19th Street, N.W., Room 318B, Washington, DC 20506. Food Co-op Handbook, NEFCO Collective, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2 Park St., Boston, MA 02101 Theodore Roszak, Person/Planet: The Creative Disintegration of Industrial Society (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1979), p. 15. Ibid., pp. 10-16. Roszak indicates that situational groups are best located through local resource guides like the People's Yellow Pages. Ibid., pp. 160-161. On The Farm see The Mother Earth News, "The Plowboy Papers: Stephen Gaskin and The Farm," Number 45 (May/June 1977): 8-20, and "A Good Look at The Farm," Number 62 (Mar./Apr. 1980): 138-140, both quite favorable reports. Another favorable, more in—depth report is given by Cris and Oliver Popenoe, Seeds of Tomorrow: New Age Communities That Work (San Francisco: Harper 8 Row, Publishers, 1984), PP. 88-107. A much more ambivalent experience of The Farm is related by John Rothchild and Susan Wolf, The Children of the Countergulture (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1976), PP. 169-191. Personal accounts of Twin Oaks are given by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Commitment and Community, pp. 18-31, and Robert Houriet, Getting Back Together (New York: Avon 264 Books, 1971), Pp. 287-328. John R. Hall, The Ways Out: Utopian Communal Groups in an Age of Babylon (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), discusses both The Farm and Twin Oaks, among other intentional communities, in a comparative theoretical discussion of how such communities view time as significant, enact their communal life, meet their needs and organize their work, and govern themselves. Specifically about The Farm, pp. 61-66, 95-101, 154-155, 159-161, 174-176. About Twin Oaks, PP. 54-58, 92-95, 144-146, 153-154, 159-160, 172-174, 187-189. A brief description of Koinonia can be found in Ron E. Roberts, The New Communes (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1971), Pp. 69-71. For a detailed and balanced account of the Bruderhof communities, Benjamin Zablocki, The_Joyful Community (Baltimore: Penguin Books, Inc., 1971). Roszak did not have Twin Oaks on his list, but he did include Synanon. Synanon, originally a program to help drug addicts, made several changes of emphasis and intention until it had become a business/religious cult. For a personal account of this transformation see David U. Gerstel, Paradise Incorporated: Synanon (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1982). Lewis Yablonsky, The Tunnel Back: Synanon (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1965), describes the therapeutic/conversion process used in the early Synanon. Kanter, Commitment and Community, pp. 7-8, 194-195, 201-212, also gives a brief description. From a different perspective, Rothchild and Wolf, Th2 Children of the Counterculture, pp. 147-168. Roszak also lists the French "communities of work" that began with and are exemplified by Boimondau. On Boimondau, Claire Huchet Bishop, All Things Common (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1950), and Henrik F. Infield, Utopia andlExperiment (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1955): PP. 180-203. Another foreign intentional community that came to my attention while looking for models of communitarianism is the Findhorn/Erraid community in Scotland. For favorable reports on Findhorn, The Mother Earth News, 'Findhorn: A Bright Light in a Dark World," Number 71 (Sept./Oct. 1981): 32-33, "Life on a Scottish Isle," Number 78 (Nov./Dec. 1982): 24-25, ”Finally...Findhorn Buys Its Birthplace," Number 81 (May/June 1983): 36. A more critical discussion occurs in Philip Abrams and Andrew McCulloch, Communes, Sociology_and Society (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), pp. 83-92. Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins, Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity, rev. ed. (New York: Ballantine Books, 1978), PP. 494-496. See also Susan George, How the Other Half Dies: The Real Reasons_for World Hunger (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld, 1977), PP. 252-254. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 265 Bread for the World, 802 Rhode Island Ave, N.E., Washington, DC 20018 Institute for Food and Development Policy, P.O. Box 40430, San Francisco, CA 94140 Oxfam-America, P.O. Box 288, Boston, MA 02116 Lappe and Collins, Food First, pp. 281-282. Ibid., pp. 494, 498-499. Organic Gardening (Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, Inc.). For explanations and motivations of the ”Cornucopia Project" see the following editorials by Robert Rodale in Volume 27: "Stocking Up on Future Food," 8(Aug. 1980): 22-28; “The Cornucopia Project,” 9(Sept. 1980): 22-26: "Have You Ever Asked These Questions About Your Food?” 10(Oct. 1980): 22-28, 30; "Plan Your Food Future Now,” ll(Nov. 1980): 26-31. For a report on how two communities use leaves gathered by their residents see Mark Kane, ”Bringing in the Leaves," Organic Gardening 28: 10(Oct. 1981): 54-57. Some of these proposals are made by Lappe and Collins, Food First, pp. 496-498, some by Wendell Berry, Th3 Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture (New York: Avon Books, 1977), pp. 218-222. Pierce Walker, as quoted in Studs Terkel, Working (New York: Avon Books, 1974), p. 28. Berry, The Unsettling of America, p. 197. For descriptions of the farms, pp. 193-197. It is also interesting and instructive to read his account of some horse-powered farms, pp. 206-210. Berry claims that food grown by organic methods might eventually be cheaper because these methods could avoid some increases in the costs of large machinery, fuel, and chemical fertilizers, increases in cost that he assumes are likely to continue. On this see also Lappe and Collins, Food First, pp. 56- 58, 161-163; George, How the Other Half Dies, pp. 267-275, cites similar increases in costs of chemical fertilizers, even though she thinks farming cannot do without them. For a balanced study of organic farming in one region of the United States see William Lockeretz, Georgia Shearer, and Daniel H. Kohl, "Organic Farming in the Corn Belt," Science 211 (1981): 540-547. They include many other references. Wayne D. Rasmussen, ”The Mechanization of Agriculture," Scientific American 247: 3(Sept. 1982): 88. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 266 Biointensive horticulture is based on the techniques of biodynamic/French intensive gardening most widely demonstrated in this country first by Alan Chadwick. It involves the use of planting beds "double dug” to a depth, ideally, of 24 inches rather than the traditional row technique of planting with which most people are familiar. It also involves composting, organic fertilizing, companion planting, and succession planting. The U-bar is a digging implement designed to the specifications of John Jeavons, who is currently refining biointensive techniques, to make physically easier and less time-consuming the subsequent preparations of planting beds that have already been double dug. For more information see 'Biodynamic/French Intensive Gardening,” The Mother Earth News, Number 61 (Jan./Feb. 1980): 92-94: "The Plowboy Interview: John Jeavons," The Mother Earth News, Number 62 (Mar./Apr. 1980): 16-20, 22: John Jeavons, How To Grow More Vegetables (Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 1979). Many issues of Organic Gardening magazine of the last few years also contain information about this approach to growing food. See the references to Berry, The Unsettling of America, in note 16, above, for information about the use of draft animals in farming. In Chapter 6 I indicated that we were using food and agriculture as a case study of a radical humanist approach to how we can fulfill the physiological requirements of human health in ways that promote intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological values. For an advocative dicusssion of radical humanist proposals for energy production, shelter, transportation, and medical care, see David Dickson, The Politics of Alternatiye Technology (New York: Universe Books, 1974): PP. 107-138. Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974), p. 445. Braverman, of course, is not the first or only person to advocate this basis for this kind of education. Peter Kropotkin made essentially the same proposal in Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, Colin Ward, ed. (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1974). See pp. 169-187 of this edition. I borrow the notion of "gee-whiz" histories from Wendell Berry, who criticizes ”gee-whiz journalism" on its superficial treatment of the workings of modern agribusiness, The Unsettling of America, pp. 60-67. Dickson, The Politics of Alternative Technology, p. 106. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital, p. 230. Martin Carnoy and Derek Shearer, Economic Democracy: The Challenge of the 19808 (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.), 25. 26. 267 on labor banks and worker-controlled pension funds, pp. 86-124, and on industrial cooperatives, pp. 143-194. Kropotkin, Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, pp. 151-158. Conservative estimates put the number of latchkey children in this country between the ages of 5 to 12 at five to six million. See "When You Can't Be Home: Teach Your Child What to Do," Changing Times 38: 8(Aug. 1984): 35-36. Articles like this containing advice for parents who cannot or will not find alternatives to this arrangement abound in popular periodicals. For two other samples, see Mary H.J. Farrell, "Latchkey Kids: A Working-Parents Guide,” Good Housekeeping 199: 3(Sept. 1984): 254, and Virginia E. Pomeranz and Dodi Schultz, ”When Both Parents Work," Parents 59: 4(Apr. 1984): 146. CHAPTER 8: THE ARGUMENT FOR RADICAL HUMANISM It is now time to draw together the various elements of the main argument I am propounding. Recall that in Chapters 1 and 2 I tried to show how our splitting of work and leisure is the knot at the center of the tangle of contemporary social and personal problems that are taking on crisis proportions. I claimed that radical humanism offers us an improved way of looking at the world which can help us unravel that knot and its subsequent tangles. Indeed, I claimed that radical humanism is the best view of work and leisure we have available to us. I argue for this conclusion on the basis of two premises. First, I argue that that view of work and leisure which meets the conditions of adequacy better than any alternatives is the best view of work and leisure. The discussions in Chapter 5 defend this premise and argue for the theoretical and practical conditions of adequacy. Second, I argue that radical humanism does meet these conditions of adequacy better than any alternatives. Although my discussions in Chapters 6 and 7 point out the extent to which radical humanism meets the conditions of adequacy, the argument that it meets them better than any alternatives has been more implicit than explicit. Here I want to make this argument explicit by considering in turn each condition of adequacy to see how the views we have expounded measure up. First, a word about the alternative views. I don't 268 269 pretend in this project to have considered every possible view of work and leisure. Rather, I have chosen to expound those views that seem to be most operative in the common culture of contemporary Americans. It seems to me that many people's opinions about work and leisure and many people's practice of work and leisure are grounded in the stock of ideas, images, and attitudes found in the alternatives we have considered. I tried to make this clear in Chapter 4, where we expounded key elements of five alternative views: (1) the work ethic as it had taken shape in early nineteenth-century America, (2) the view I have called modern scientistic materialism, (3) the fatalistic asceticism of the Stoics and Epicureans, (4) the classical View of Aristotle, as well as some modern versions of this view, and (5) the communism of Karl Marx. If I am right that these are the most important alternatives to radical humanism, in showing that it meets the conditions of adequacy better than they, I will have succeeded in showing that radical humanism is the best view of work and leisure. Recall that we imposed the conditions of adequacy after a discussion of the sense in which the various views of work and leisure are ideologies. Briefly, an ideology, as we have neutrally rather than pejoratively conceived of it, is a cultural symbol-system that partially defines our social existence by helping us understand and evaluate social realities, by creating an identity for us in terms of which we relate to social realities, and by motivating us to act in 270 effective and appropriate ways. In formulating the conditions of adequacy for an ideology or view of work and leisure, we focussed on the roles of helping us understand and helping us act. We argued for six conditions of theoretical adequacy, which ensure that a view or ideology will enable us to understand psychosocial realities. We also argued for seven conditions of practical adequacy which require a view to guide us in action in light of the understanding we reach. The Conditions of Theoretical Adequacy The first condition of theoretical adequacy demands that a view of work and leisure have explicitly articulated, coherent values around which we can organize our experience. Without such values we would be unable to sort out our experiences and, so, would be unable to understand the realities within which we live. The expositions of a radical humanist conception of human being in Chapter 3 and of the alternative views of work and leisure in Chapter 4 make explicit the main values of each view. The critical comparisons and contrastings of each alternative view with radical humanism expounded in Chapter 4 and summarized at its end enable us to see that radical humanism can coherently take account of the positive elements of each alternative while showing how its other elements go wrong. For this reason radical humanism, with its intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological values, meets the first condition of theoretical adequacy better than the alternative 271 views. The second condition of theoretical adequacy requires a view of work and leisure to take account of all the available relevant evidence in its descriptions, analyses, and evaluations of human realities. In my various extensions of radical humanist principles and proposals to key social problems, I have honestly tried to consider relevant evidence. While I don't make any claims to have uncovered all the relevant evidence, I believe our account of radical humanism meets the second condition reasonably well. It is more difficult to judge whether it meets this condition better than the other views. In light of its superior fulfillment of the first condition, it would probably be sufficient that radical humanism handles relevant evidence at least as well as the other views. In any case, it is beyond the purview of this dissertation to devote as detailed a discussion to the analyses, proposals for action, and other elements of the alternative views as we have given to radical humanism. However, such detailed expositions would be necessary to allow the critical comparisons needed to make a sound judgment about which view meets the second condition best. Here proponents of alternative views can make important contributions to a critical discussion of work and leisure. The third theoretical condition for an adequate view of work and leisure calls for an account of the genesis and perpetuation of the cultural realities it has judged to be 272 significant in contributing to our problems. Although I have waved my hand several times at a radical humanist account of how we got into our present fix and how we stay stuck, the formulation and defense of an adequate account is beyond the scope of this work. However, several radical humanists have made considerable contributions to such an account. Lewis Mumford has some particularly helpful insights into the genesis and perpetuation of our cultural problems. Other notable contributions are made by Philip Slater, Theodore Roszak, and David Dickson, among others.1 In light of the work of these radical humanists, I believe radical humanism can be shown to meet the third condition better than the other views. However, the critical comparison with other views remains to be done at some other time or by some other contributor to the discussion. The fourth condition of theoretical adequacy requires that an ideology give us insight into the degree of interconnections that exist among various cultural problems. It is here that I believe our emphasis on work and leisure is most significant. In reflecting on what we think and feel about work and leisure, how we act to carry them out, how changes in our work and leisure can affect us and our society, I think we can begin to see how various cultural problems are interconnected. Radical humanists take account of this interconnectedness in ways the other views do not. 'rhe work ethic focusses too much on work and the importance of isolated individual effort, missing radical humanism's 273 insights into the connections between work and leisure and into the importance of interpersonal factors in personal and social improvement. Modern scientistic materialism would have us believe that the ecological problems we face can be handled with technical fixes that do not require us to make a fundamental reevaluation of our ways of life and social arrangements. Ascetic fatalism provides advice to maintain inner peace in the face of problems, but no insight into how the problems are interconnected. Aristotle's classical view does better than these other views, but it has the disadvantage of having been framed with a different set of problems to address. For this reason, it does not help us see the connection of contemporary ecological problems to intrapersonal and interpersonal problems. The modern classicalist views of Pieper and de Grazia have the significant weakness of propounding a separation thesis, which claims that the problems of modern work can be offset by opening to people the sphere of leisure. Moreover, they miss the constitutive importance of work for human well-being, granting it only functional importance. Marx's analysis of society certainly provides insight into interconnections between various problems, so it seems to meet this condition fairly well. Thus, radical humanism Ineets the fourth theoretical condition better than all the ‘views with the possible exception of Marx's, to which radical humanism is at least an equal. 274 The fifth condition of theoretical adequacy imposes the requirement that a view of work and leisure give an account of the conditions under which changes that will solve our problems are possible. We framed this in light of Goulet's claims that for change to be possible, the existence rationality or ideology under which change is proposed must have values which are consistent with the core values of the reigning existence rationality. In Chapter 6 we tried to show how radical humanism's call for changes respects people's concern that change involves some risks and that present ways of life certainly offer some positive things. At the same time, radical humanism tries to persuade people that the problems with the status quo offset its advantages and that the benefits of change more than compensate for the risks. This was our indirect way of trying to show that radical humanism meets Goulet's challenge. It is more difficult to provide a more direct argument. We have the basis of part of such an argument in the critical comparison and contrasting of key values of the various views. However, we would also have to judge what core values people hold before we could say with any certainty that radical humanism's values are consistent them. The collection and evaluation of the evidence needed to make this judgment goes well beyond the parameters of this dissertation. Moreover, it might well be that only in a retrospective view could we judge which values people hold as core values and the relation of radical humanist values to 275 them. Again, also, we do not have available the accounts of conditions of the possibility of change that could be made on the basis of the other views. For these reasons, while we have some grounds for claiming that radical humanism meets the fifth condition, we must reserve judgment on whether it meets the condition better than alternative views. The sixth theoretical condition demands that a view of work and leisure be rhetorically adequate. A view's claims, evaluations, arguments, and prescriptions must be translatable into terms which can be understood by ordinary people. In my exposition of radical humanism's values and my formulation and defense of its calls for change, I have tried to make radical humanism as understandable as possible. Notice, however, that even if I have not been totally successful, this may reflect more on my abilities than on the adequacy of radical humanism. Improvements by others are certainly welcome. In any case, I have confidence that radical humanism can be made as comprehensible to people as any other view. However, we cannot judge now whether it is rhetorically better because it is not in common circulation yet. We do not know very well how people will respond to it, either in understanding or in action. The Conditions of Practical Adequacy The first condition of practical adequacy requires a view of work and leisure to propose goals for change which are attainable. In Chapter 6, following a critique of some important elements of contemporary society, we proposed some 276 goals for change. We advocated changes toward communitarian social relations, regional food self-reliance, and workers' control of their work as samples of the kinds of personal and social changes radical humanists support. We also indicated how these changes would have beneficial consequences for translating other intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological values into action. These goals are attainable. In our discussion of concrete proposals for meeting these goals, we cited examples of people who have already brought about some changes that further the goals. Their successes show that radical humanism meets this first condition of practical adequacy. However, it is difficult to say whether radical humanism meets the condition better than the other views. In fact, this may be a general enough condition of adequacy that it may make more sense to say that a view either meets it or not, rather than to talk about degrees of meeting it. The differences at the level of goal-setting that exist among the views probably revolve more around which goals each sets rather than around the degrees of attainability of those goals. For the sake of our present argument, we can assume that all the views can meet this first condition. Any criticisms they might make of each other will more likely be criticisms of the content of the goals rather than arguments that this or that goal is unreachable. Radical humanism also meets the second practical condition of adequacy, which demands the recommendation of 277 realistic action that can be taken to achieve the goals a view sets. In Chapter 7 we have just seen some radical humanist recommendations for action. In the summary of that chapter we argued that these proposals are realistic. People can take the concrete steps we advocate in order to begin changes in their ways of life and in social arrangements. Here again we will have to rest with this positive appraisal of radical humanism. More discussion than we can take up here of the programmatics of the alternative views would be necessary to make the relative judgment about which view meets this condition best. The third condition of practical adequacy is another demand for rhetorical effectiveness. Where the sixth theoretical condition required a view's claims to be understandable, the present condition insists that an adequate view of work and leisure must motivate people to take the actions it espouses. .As with the condition requiring understandable expression, it is difficult to judge, in abstraction from seeing how people take up radical humanism's calls for change, whether it meets this condition as well as or better than alternative views. If our previous claims about the superiority of radical humanism in meeting other conditions are true, it will be sufficient for the sake of our argument to show how radical humanists hope to meet this condition. Their hope lies in the power of example that is provided by those individuals and groups of people who have already begun to try to bring about changes in light of 278 radical humanist principles. We believe that short of experiencing for oneself the benefits of these changes, no motivation can be more powerful than seeing others who are already changing their ways of life exhibit richer personal lives and deeper interpersonal relations while improving the social conditions in which we all participate. We can make stronger claims with regard to the fourth condition of practical adequacy. It demands that a view of work and leisure advocate actions that deal with interconnected cultural problems in ways that promise long-term, integral solutions rather than piecemeal, temporary ones. Radical humanism meets this condition of adequacy very well. To show this, we can return to an objection we raised briefly in Chapter 2. The objection is that while we may have some worthwhile proposals concerning work and leisure, we have failed to address some more important problems. In Chapter 2 we constructed a list of likely candidates of more pressing problems. Unemployment and crime rates are high, political apathy is widespread, ecological breakdown and famine threaten many people, the possibility of nuclear war hangs over us, and male-dominated, centrist power structures are closing in on us. Some who find these aspects of contemporary society intolerable believe that attempts to construct an "ideal" world, in which patterns of work and leisure conform to radical humanist values, should wait until these difficulties are remedied. 279 I responded to this concern, not by denying the urgency of the problems, but by criticizing as too atomistic any conception of them which fails to see their relation to the place of work and leisure in our lives. I claimed that in the process of trying to understand what is lacking in our conceptions and practices of work and leisure and in the process of correcting these inadequacies, we would also be in the process of rectifying many other personal and cultural disorders. The cultural critique, setting of goals, and proposals for action in Chapters 6 and 7 can help support this claim. We addressed rather directly some of the problems just listed and showed their connection with presently predominant patterns of work and leisure. For example, we indicated how our dependence on agribusiness puts us in a precarious position with respect to our abilities to feed ourselves. It also denies many people in developing countries the opportunity to grow the food they could eat. Furthermore, the food system which agribusiness has developed inflicts significant ecological damage. Our proposal to adopt a strategy of food self-reliance is an attempt to tackle the many levels of this problem. More of us would become active producers of our own food. We would be less vulnerable to the profit motives of multinational agribusiness corporations. Having less support from us would help loosen their grip on the land and agricultural practices of hungry people in developing countries. In addition, a widespread 280 implementation of smaller-scale farming and gardening techniques would conserve more natural resources as well as increase the fertility of the soil. At the same time, people could become more sensitive to natural processes. Likewise, the cooperation among people that would maximize the advantages of regional food self-reliance would be a contributing factor to a person-oriented communitarianism. Thus, a proposal to do something about the social problem of famine, a proposal with significant implications for how we work and leisure, involves aspects of a systemic attack on problems like ecological maladies, domineering centralizations of social policy making, and tendencies in our present social organization of economics to isolate people impersonally from one another. Our radical humanist proposals in nonagricultural production and services also illustrate the systemic approach we recommend. We advocate that economic production be reorganized in such a way that people can gain meaningful control over the work they do. This reorganization would require the development of mutually supporting communities. The formation of such communities would encourage an active involvement in the politics of place, the development of genuine cultural activity, and the formation of habits of living which oppose the passivity of consumerism. Such communities would have a guiding principle that engaging in work and leisure should allow people to individuate themselves and to support each other in the process of 281 individuation. It is reasonable to suppose that the cultivation of communities on this principle would allow a radical reduction if not the elimination of unemployment. Likewise, the social disorders that invite a response of crimes against persons and property would less likely occur in such communities. There is no pretense here that these communities would be free of conflict or problems, but we do claim that the development of constructive ways to resolve conflict would be easier than under our present social system. These two illustrations of radical humanism's systemic approach to personal and social problems of the present age contrast strongly with an atomistic approach to the problems. Any attempts to solve the problem of unemployment which do not also attempt to change the economic structures that allow some to profit or gain power from the existence of unemployment would seem unable to have any long- term success. Any attempts to solve the problem of famine which simply focus on trying to produce more food without taking account of the power and profit oriented social and economic patterns that contribute to malproduction and maldistribution of food seem doomed also. In short, a failure to recognize the systemic continuity of various aspects of our social situation will result in a failure to find the roots of social problems. Such a failure virtually assures that any ”successes" in attempting to correct these problems will be short-term and merely apparent. Radical humanism, in seeking 282 systemic, long-term, real solutions, meets the fourth condition of practical adequacy very well. I do not think the other views meet this condition nearly as well. The work ethic counsels us to work harder and more diligently and to make work a form of prayer. However, it does not show how harder, more diligent work will help us solve our cultural problems. Nor does it guide us in trying to develop an organization of work in which it is not close to blasphemous to say that the work done is a form of prayer. Scientistic materialism advises us to hold to the goal of increased individual material ease and comfort and to trust science and technology to solve our problems. However, it does not seem to be able to give any reason for thinking that science and technology will do more than trade one set of problems for another, more technically complicated set. Nor does it seem to consider how the continued pursuit of material wealth and ease renders tenuous the personal, social, and ecological conditions that make it possible to enjoy material comforts. Fatalistic asceticism offers less a solution to our cultural problems than a means of coping in the face of not being able to solve them. Aristotle's classical view comes closer to meeting this condition since it puts a great deal of emphasis on balanced human activity. But it is not clear that, based on it, one can offer the concrete proposals that radical humanism does. The modern Classicalists, in effect, give up the hope of finding integral, systemic solutions because they are willing to 283 separate work and leisure and hope that leisure compensates for the problems caused by work. Marx also proposes systemic solutions, but he is willing to allow violent revolution as an acceptable means for enforcing solutions. Yet he does not explain how, having resorted to violence, we could build any genuine form of community which would foster the continuation of improved ways of life. In light of these shortcomings in the other views, radical humanism meets the fourth condition of practical adequacy better than they do. The fifth and sixth practical conditions are sufficiently closely related that we will discuss them together here. The fifth condition calls for guidelines for action that do not constrain people's creative responses to problems, while the sixth condition requires clear yet flexible guidelines for selecting strategies, practices, and structures that would help solve our cultural problems. As we argued in the summary to Chapter 7, the proposals we have made offer a variety of activities that people can either take up as suggested or examine as patterns for developing their own ways of reaching the goals for better ways of life and social arrangements. Furthermore, our clear statements of radical humanist values provide the general framework in which people can creatively work out strategies and practices which are effective in the particulars of their personal, social, and ecological situations. Here again we must be satisfied for now with a judgment that radical humanism meets these conditions of adequacy. The detailed discussion of the 284 proposals of alternative views that would enable us to make a judgment about the relative degrees to which they meet these conditions is not something we can take up here. Finally, we address the seventh condition of practical adequacy which demands that a view of work and leisure help us develop ways to resolve constructively conflicts that arise between and within groups of people. We found it important to impose this condition in order to prevent the pluralism we encourage in the fifth and sixth conditions from degenerating into self-defeating and destructive kinds of conflict. Although this is an important requirement, a full discussion of how radical humanism or any of the alternative views can try to meet it is beyond the scope of this dissertation. We reserve this discussion as a future project. A Summary Review of the Argument Let us briefly review. We have been defending the second premise of our main argument that radical humanism is the best view of work and leisure. That premise claims that radical humanism meets the conditions for an adequate view of work and leisure better than the alternative views. We have argued that our treatment of radical humanism in this dissertation shows that it meets the first and fourth theoretical conditions as well as the fourth practical condition better than any of the alternative views. We have also argued that radical humanism does meet the second, third, and fifth theoretical conditions and the first, 285 second, fifth, and sixth practical conditions. I believe that it meets these conditions at least as well as and probably better than any of the alternative views. However, the scope of our examination of radical humanism and the alternative views in this dissertation provided only the bare beginnings of an argument for this larger claim. For this reason we have reserved judgment about these conditions. We have also had to reserve judgment about the extent to which any of the views meets the sixth theoretical condition and the third and seventh practical conditions. We have suggested that evidence for these judgments will be available only with the passage time. We must wait to see whether people are motivated to act in a comprehending way on radical humanist principles and whether they find these principles helpful in constructively resolving conflicts. Conclusion Have we succeeded in arguing that a radical humanist view of work and leisure is the best View? We can answer with a qualified yes. If I am right that radical humanism meets all the conditions of adequacy at least as well as the alternative views, then, since it meets the first and fourth theoretical conditions and the fourth practical condition better than they, it is the best view of work leisure. If this result seems rather sparse to readers who have had the patience to follow me in this work to its end, we should remember that the formulation and defense of this argument is not the only purpose we had set for ourselves. Its 286 completion, tentative though it is, is not the only thing we have accomplished. We have seen that work and leisure provide the lens through which we can see more clearly the personal, social, and ecological problems that loom before us. We have drawn together the ideas of various radical humanists, expanded on them, and systematized them into an explicit, consistent, and coherent point of view. We have seen how the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and ecological aspects of a radical humanist conception of what it means to be a human being provide important values by which we can understand, evaluate, and try to improve our culture. We have gained insight into some important alternative views of work and leisure and conceptions of human being which contribute to the common stock of cultural ideas, images, and attitudes that influence how we think, feel, and act. We have reached some understanding of several representative cultural problems, most notably those that cluster around our food and agricultural system and our social organization of work. We have proposed some concrete steps we can take to begin to change our daily activities in ways that will help solve our cultural problems. What remains to be done? We can continue work on the overall argument we have attempted. In particular, we can try to gain a fuller understanding of what we expect of an adequate view of work and leisure so that we can refine the conditions of adequacy. We can work on an historical study 287 that accounts for the genesis of the cultural problems we face, as well as a study of the forces that contribute to the perpetuation of these problems. We can try to reach a more complete understanding of the alternative views of work and leisure so that we can make the critical comparisons with radical humanism needed to bring the master argument closer to completion. All these are important and worthwhile tasks to take up in the future. However, we will have turned our project into little more than an ivory-towered academic exercise if we do not also try to change ourselves and our society. We must steadily, even if slowly at first, incorporate changes like the ones we have proposed into the day-to-day activities of our lives. We must join with others in bringing about patterns of work and leisure which make both work and leisure, rather than fragmented contributions to the problems that diminish our well-being, activities which help us flourish. By the power of example we must persuade others that joining us in developing new ways of life and new social arrangements holds great promise for all. The improved patterns of work and leisure we cultivate, to borrow and adapt the words of Wendell Berry,2 will be unifying and healing. They will bring us home from pride and from despair. They will define us as we are: not too good to work with our bodies, and not too good to exert ourselves in leisure, but too good to work poorly or joylessly or selfishly or alone, and too good to turn leisure into mere diversion from work that is lonely or poor or joyless or selfish. l. 288 NOTES Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine, Vol. II: Th3 Pentagon of Power (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1970). 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