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Ditching The Engine
For nearly all of human recorded history, mankind's relationship with the planet was simply extractive. Take what you need, where you can find it, use it up, and take more. Run out of timber to burn? Burn coal. Run out of land? Conquer someone else's land. Run out of resources in your own territory? Build an empire; travel the oceans to take resources (including slaves) from far off lands.
This cut it down/burn it up/get some more methodology changed with Newcomen's invention of the steam engine. A new way of exploiting the world was invented; what seemed to be a superior one. It suggested mankind could not merely extract from the world, but could actually master it.
And so the engine became the metaphor we built our society around. This concept of a mechanical engine that could run almost indefinitely expanded in the minds of Henry Ford and others into a vision of a societal engine: an economy fueled by the middle class. By cultivating a sturdy middle class through plentiful factory jobs, competitive salaries, affordably priced commodities, goods and services, etc., society could be 'engineered' to run as smoothly as an Oldsmobile.
Even more powerful than capitalism (this engine can theoretically be applied via Marxism as well), this concept of a socioeconomic engine running smoothly and efficiently for the good of all has become the core principle our society is based on.
And...... it's not working anymore. The pistons have worn down.
It's rarely a good idea to throw something out that still has utility, so it's important to confirm our suspicions before doing anything foolhardy. Thus, HAS the engine metaphor overstayed its welcome, or is it just in need of some tinkering?
Let's look at its performance. To start off, how well has it performed as an improvement over mere extraction based economics? Clearly, not well. Rather than replacing extraction to provide a more sustainable mechanism for prosperity, it has done the opposite. It has placed extraction on a mega-dosage steroids regime! Before the steam engine (as well as other inventions such as dynamite and eventually the internal combustion engine), mankind's ability to extract was curtailed by physical limitations. NOT by moral, ethical, spiritual, philosophical or even commonsensical constraints, mind you. Simply by the fact that before the Industrial Revolution, it was not easy to cut down a whole forest in mere hours, to bore gigantic holes into mountains, to gauge and claw at the Earth (and deep into the oceans) to our heart's content, and so on in our gluttony for its resources.
Sadly, the engine took extraction to new levels, with the disastrous result being that we have now nearly picked the Earth dry, down to the bones, with little signs of us stopping until there is nothing left to pick at. Far from 'mastering' the Earth and Her offerings, the engine has merely increased our capacity to continue extracting from Her until nothing remains.
It is with the second aspect of the engine metaphor, that of a wealth yielding engine that utilizes both the hard work and the desires and aspirations of a robust middle class in order to perpetually (and smoothly and efficiently) hum along, where things get interesting.
First, credit where credit is due. We HAVE in fact benefitted by adopting this metaphor, utilitarian and perhaps even vulgar as it may be.
We have, let's be honest, Henry Ford to thank for this. Perhaps no person in history has so successfully imprinted his own vision upon society. Gutenberg, after all, just wanted to sell a lot of bibles. He wasn't out to change the world. But Henry Ford WAS. And it is truly astonishing just how well he succeeded in doing so.
Let's take a succinct look at his vision and give him a scorecard:
He wanted to create a vehicle for the masses. Check. He wanted to bring the city and the countryside closer together. Check. He wanted to make mass production on assembly lines the standard way that goods were (and still are) produced. Check. He wanted to utilize supply chains so that businesses could succeed at all levels, small to large, and focus on what they were best at. Check. He wanted there to be a door-to-door avenue for large goods to flow, so that people could furnish their homes with washing machines, refrigerators, televisions and so on; thus creating an array of factory jobs for his envisioned middle class workers to fill. Check.
His vision went well beyond this. He wanted all those workers to have enough money in their pockets come payday that they, and not kings and nobility, would 'make the world go round', satisfying their desires via jobs that didn't force them to live paycheck to paycheck and becoming as a result the economic bedrock of society. Check.
The cranky ol' engineer hit it out of the park, he did!
Now, it has to be said that Henry Ford was a flawed person; a rabid antisemite and conspiracy theory peddler. A Nazi sympathizer. Yes, yes and yes. If you hate him, you have reason to. But, like it or not, you live in his world.
The gains we received from this Ford-ian engineering of society are not to be dismissed. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty, education has become available to the majority of the world's population, infant mortality has declined precipitously, and so on. Basically all the arguments that proponents of capitalism and industrialism espouse are true. Furthermore, the -at least temporary - extinction of the lords/serfs paradigm of society is something that all of us who are reading this (assuming we are all middle class and benefitted from a decent education) can be grateful for.
But the problems are very real. Not only do they appear in terms of our treatment of the planet and its resources, which go beyond egregious. They also manifest in terms of how the human being, and the very purpose of life, has come to be defined. We live in a society that is deeply, pathologically materialistic to its very core, and it appears to be getting worse.
This is hardly coincidental. When the middle class becomes the 'fuel' by which the engine of Utopia runs, the human being is essentially reduced to an automaton with but two functions to perform: production and consumption. It is the unspoken rule that guides how we teach, raise, entertain and stimulate our children from a very early age. “You are here, biological specimen, to feed the maw. You do this in two ways. First, your labor will be placed into the mechanism of production of goods and services that can they be sold, to others like you. Your friends, family members, coworkers, fellow global citizens, etc. will pay to own the things that you, and millions like you, bring into existence. Second, you will be trained to desire the many things that you and your fellow producers create. You will want the convenient appliances, the vehicles, the educational pedigrees, the vacations, the sports goods, etc. that the production end of the machine cranks out.
Producer and consumer, human. That's what you are. That's the only way you matter to the machine. Everything else is an externality. Even if, perhaps, you wish to cultivate a spiritual dimension to your life, you will find the Machine's encroachment in the form of mega-churches, 'The Secret' and 'The Law of Attraction'. You can't really escape it. In Ford's Utopia, you ARE what you produce and you consume. And failure to do either sufficiently makes you an outcast; a ‘loser'."
To see how this plays out, just think of the conversations you generally hear at places of social interaction, such as a bar or a family gathering: "Johnny's preparing for his law exams" HE HAS BOUGHT INTO THE SYSTEM AND DESIRES TO PRODUCE AT A HIGH LEVEL. "Jenny just bought a Lexus!" SHE HAS CONSUMED WELL. "Bev and Bill took the family to Disneyland!" THEY CONSUMED. "Tom was promoted to Vice President." HE HAS PRODUCED WELL.
"How many of the Oscar nominees have you seen?" WHAT ARE YOU CONSUMING? and on and on it goes. Just think how much conversation essentially boils down to keeping up with each others' production/consumption activities. It is hypnotic.
The great irony of the scene where Neo awakens to the reality of the Matrix and is shocked and appalled by what he sees is that the reality he thought he knew was in fact a Matrix itself. What was he so upset about?
Reducing humans to the utilitarian dual roles of producer/consumer has been an utter disaster on the large scale, as well as leading to specific instances of utter depravity and horror, with The Holocaust, the atomic bombings, Unit 731, Stalin's murderous reign and so on at the absolute nadir of this Hall of Shame (some may wish to add Bhopal in there as well, and I certainly wouldn't object). It has deeply trivialized and utterly dehumanized the way we look at ourselves, and others.
The result: a fixation on materialism and the elevation of money to the world's most powerful religion. Neither of these things had to happen because The European Enlightenment happened. It was one possible path but not the only one. No; it was the adoption of The Engine Metaphor that locked us into the situation we must now extricate ourselves from in order to have any future worth having.
It is time to let go of The Engine Metaphor. Its utility has reached its end. It has become an albatross around our collective necks, and a poison pill inserted into the future. It's The Engine Metaphor or us, in other words. This planet ain't resilient enough for both.
How do we go about this? First, we must develop awareness of its presence in our lives, its infiltration into our language, our politics, our education, our entertainment, and so on. We must challenge its preeminence. When we hear it in the mouths of politicians and business and cultural leaders, we must take issue with it. We have a duty to disagree. They are espousing a worldview that dooms the planet, dooms the human race.
We must make an effort not to support those leaders who are in thrall to this worldview, AND we must make an effort to raise the voices and profiles of those leaders who offer alternatives.
Sadly, among political leaders, these are rare and hard to to find. In the current moment, they are to be found mostly among authors, educators, philosophers, bloggers/podcasters, artists, as well as a minority of scientists (sadly, current science education has been largely coopted by the metaphor, so the majority of working scientists and nearly all engineers and programmers today are engaged in activities that bolster the metaphor; but not all) WHEREVER you find them.
We must continually remind ourselves that we are NOT what we produce and consume. We are as lovable as our dogs and our babies, as beautiful as the flowers in our gardens, NONE of whom we think of primarily in terms of production/consumption. It is amusing to return to the earlier scenes I portrayed of conversations at social interactions. All of our 'What's Tom doing these days?' 'Who is Anne working for?' 'Has Shel found a job yet?' 'How does Samantha like her new car?' yada yada nonsense doesn't apply to them, but what if it did? 'What has Fido produced recently?' 'Has Rover moved into his new house yet?' If we can yank our pets, babies and flowers out of the matrix, we can yank ourselves out of it as well.
Given that we don't think of our dogs, babies etc. in terms of production/consumption, how MIGHT we describe them? As 'beings of love?' Does that sound corny? In fact, isn't that fairly accurate? We have these beings in our lives in order to express love, share love, experience our own best qualities. Why not try to widen this way of looking at the world to include grown adult human beings? We don't necessarily have to love everyone, but it's better than thinking of them as mere cogs in a machine.
Materialism is the prevailing philosophy and money the universal religion of our day. Materialism in the bland, supposedly intellectual belief that 'hey, when you're dead, you're dead; anyone who thinks otherwise is a deluded nutter' attitude and materialism in the belief that having things brings happiness and getting as much as you can for yourself is a worthy life pursuit. It is the stigmata of our culture and it runs on the Metaphor of the Engine.
What are we, really? That is what I think all of us yearn to know, and I further think that is why so many of us find The Engine Metaphor so deeply unfulfilling, because we sense it is hiding that from us.
How shall I put it? Above, I suggested 'being of love', but that was mainly to point out how we subconsciously think of our pets, our small children, and other elements of life that are external to the Engine but give us opportunities to express love.
More accurately, I would describe us thus: we are holistic participants in the theater of life. Holistic, meaning we are ALWAYS participating and every PART of us is participating; NOT just when we are working and being ‘productive', and NOT just our thinking minds.
Is a gorilla less a gorilla when it sleeps? Would not that very concept seem absurd to it? Does it stop mattering then? Does a panther see its identity diminish when it is dreaming and not hunting? Is there anything more panther-esque about the latter than the former? Of course not.
Panthers are ALWAYS panthering and you are always humaning. The difference is that no panther has ever been made to feel guilty for taking a midday nap, and you undoubtedly have, perhaps more times than you can count. What purpose does the guilt serve? Why, to lock you into the Engine Metaphor, of course! Better get busy producing or consuming something, bucko; that's where your value lies!
Holistic Participants in the Theater of Life; is that not it? Life is not an engine and you are not its fuel. Life is an ongoing play, unfolding organically, spontaneously, orgasmically even. And you? You are a fortunate participant in this play. You move with it, dance with it, experiment with it, and most of all play with it (it IS a 'play', after all).
You get to be here watching it unfold and contributing to its unfoldment. How would you like it to be? You get your chance to make it that way, even if only slightly. And not just via your mind. Your limbs, your hair, your breathing, your health and even your illness make you what you are, and add to the spice of the play.
This is not the way that ol' Henry Ford thought of you, or that fuddy duddy Ayn Rand thought of you. It's not how your presidents, prime ministers, mayors and governors think of you. It's not how Dawkins and his merry band of smug atheists think of you. But who cares what they think? First and foremost because they are wrong, and furthermore because why should you give up the opportunity to live life more fully and richly because the 'experts' think they know you better than you know yourself?
So, will we ditch The Engine Metaphor or will it, metaphorically, leave us in the ditch? I can't say I am optimistic. This is a very well entrenched, deeply embedded metaphor that has the added strength of being always able to extol its triumphs as if they were trump cards that inoculate it against any criticism. Did we NOT increase longevity, and radically reduce infant mortality rates? Did we NOT see GDP rise all over the world, freeing billions from crushing poverty? Did we NOT provide education for billions of people for whom, in any other time, illiteracy and indentured servitude would have been their inevitable lots? Right? So how could anyone think to complain about a metaphor that has served us so well? The problem is clearly with THEM and not the metaphor.
What this assessment overlooks is the price that was paid. Essentially, mankind bought a century and change worth of prosperity at the expense of the future prospects of every living creature on Earth. That's quite a price, that is. And it looks steeper when we acknowledge how many hundreds of millions of people suffered throughout this temporary Golden Age, victims of two world wars and countless other conflicts that have raged unceasingly during The Engine Metaphor's primacy. And not by accident: reducing people to utilitarian producer/consumer caricatures makes it easier to dehumanize them and thus justify cruelties inflicted upon them.
So yeah..., although The Engine Metaphor may appear to be a boon to mankind, it is more like a Potemkin village that is beginning to collapse. Which it SHOULD; as I wrote earlier, this Earth isn't big enough, or resilient enough, to sustain both the human race AND the metaphor - but that doesn't mean it WILL. Sadly, there are very few signs that we will ditch the metaphor in time to save ourselves and right our course.
But I am hopeful, because the alternative is disgust and depression, which I reject. Hopeful that more and more people will wake up from the slumber of materialism, pull back their fealty to the god of money, define themselves beyond the societal roles of producer/consumer and re-envision themselves, their lives, the people around them and society itself.
We are Holistic Participants in the Theater of Life. Our ability to love - anything - is our greatest strength, and being given a role in the Play is our greatest gift.
Working and buying are fine, but they are not better than dreaming, laughing, stretching, chatting, making stuff, fascinatedly watching children play or a caterpillar move along a branch, and on and on. Such things are no more externalities than jobs or shopping trips. It's all one thing. And it can be so much better and so much more.
Let's give that to ourselves and to the future, and most definitely, let's give that to Earth. She, who has given us so much.
This cut it down/burn it up/get some more methodology changed with Newcomen's invention of the steam engine. A new way of exploiting the world was invented; what seemed to be a superior one. It suggested mankind could not merely extract from the world, but could actually master it.
And so the engine became the metaphor we built our society around. This concept of a mechanical engine that could run almost indefinitely expanded in the minds of Henry Ford and others into a vision of a societal engine: an economy fueled by the middle class. By cultivating a sturdy middle class through plentiful factory jobs, competitive salaries, affordably priced commodities, goods and services, etc., society could be 'engineered' to run as smoothly as an Oldsmobile.
Even more powerful than capitalism (this engine can theoretically be applied via Marxism as well), this concept of a socioeconomic engine running smoothly and efficiently for the good of all has become the core principle our society is based on.
And...... it's not working anymore. The pistons have worn down.
It's rarely a good idea to throw something out that still has utility, so it's important to confirm our suspicions before doing anything foolhardy. Thus, HAS the engine metaphor overstayed its welcome, or is it just in need of some tinkering?
Let's look at its performance. To start off, how well has it performed as an improvement over mere extraction based economics? Clearly, not well. Rather than replacing extraction to provide a more sustainable mechanism for prosperity, it has done the opposite. It has placed extraction on a mega-dosage steroids regime! Before the steam engine (as well as other inventions such as dynamite and eventually the internal combustion engine), mankind's ability to extract was curtailed by physical limitations. NOT by moral, ethical, spiritual, philosophical or even commonsensical constraints, mind you. Simply by the fact that before the Industrial Revolution, it was not easy to cut down a whole forest in mere hours, to bore gigantic holes into mountains, to gauge and claw at the Earth (and deep into the oceans) to our heart's content, and so on in our gluttony for its resources.
Sadly, the engine took extraction to new levels, with the disastrous result being that we have now nearly picked the Earth dry, down to the bones, with little signs of us stopping until there is nothing left to pick at. Far from 'mastering' the Earth and Her offerings, the engine has merely increased our capacity to continue extracting from Her until nothing remains.
It is with the second aspect of the engine metaphor, that of a wealth yielding engine that utilizes both the hard work and the desires and aspirations of a robust middle class in order to perpetually (and smoothly and efficiently) hum along, where things get interesting.
First, credit where credit is due. We HAVE in fact benefitted by adopting this metaphor, utilitarian and perhaps even vulgar as it may be.
We have, let's be honest, Henry Ford to thank for this. Perhaps no person in history has so successfully imprinted his own vision upon society. Gutenberg, after all, just wanted to sell a lot of bibles. He wasn't out to change the world. But Henry Ford WAS. And it is truly astonishing just how well he succeeded in doing so.
Let's take a succinct look at his vision and give him a scorecard:
He wanted to create a vehicle for the masses. Check. He wanted to bring the city and the countryside closer together. Check. He wanted to make mass production on assembly lines the standard way that goods were (and still are) produced. Check. He wanted to utilize supply chains so that businesses could succeed at all levels, small to large, and focus on what they were best at. Check. He wanted there to be a door-to-door avenue for large goods to flow, so that people could furnish their homes with washing machines, refrigerators, televisions and so on; thus creating an array of factory jobs for his envisioned middle class workers to fill. Check.
His vision went well beyond this. He wanted all those workers to have enough money in their pockets come payday that they, and not kings and nobility, would 'make the world go round', satisfying their desires via jobs that didn't force them to live paycheck to paycheck and becoming as a result the economic bedrock of society. Check.
The cranky ol' engineer hit it out of the park, he did!
Now, it has to be said that Henry Ford was a flawed person; a rabid antisemite and conspiracy theory peddler. A Nazi sympathizer. Yes, yes and yes. If you hate him, you have reason to. But, like it or not, you live in his world.
The gains we received from this Ford-ian engineering of society are not to be dismissed. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty, education has become available to the majority of the world's population, infant mortality has declined precipitously, and so on. Basically all the arguments that proponents of capitalism and industrialism espouse are true. Furthermore, the -at least temporary - extinction of the lords/serfs paradigm of society is something that all of us who are reading this (assuming we are all middle class and benefitted from a decent education) can be grateful for.
But the problems are very real. Not only do they appear in terms of our treatment of the planet and its resources, which go beyond egregious. They also manifest in terms of how the human being, and the very purpose of life, has come to be defined. We live in a society that is deeply, pathologically materialistic to its very core, and it appears to be getting worse.
This is hardly coincidental. When the middle class becomes the 'fuel' by which the engine of Utopia runs, the human being is essentially reduced to an automaton with but two functions to perform: production and consumption. It is the unspoken rule that guides how we teach, raise, entertain and stimulate our children from a very early age. “You are here, biological specimen, to feed the maw. You do this in two ways. First, your labor will be placed into the mechanism of production of goods and services that can they be sold, to others like you. Your friends, family members, coworkers, fellow global citizens, etc. will pay to own the things that you, and millions like you, bring into existence. Second, you will be trained to desire the many things that you and your fellow producers create. You will want the convenient appliances, the vehicles, the educational pedigrees, the vacations, the sports goods, etc. that the production end of the machine cranks out.
Producer and consumer, human. That's what you are. That's the only way you matter to the machine. Everything else is an externality. Even if, perhaps, you wish to cultivate a spiritual dimension to your life, you will find the Machine's encroachment in the form of mega-churches, 'The Secret' and 'The Law of Attraction'. You can't really escape it. In Ford's Utopia, you ARE what you produce and you consume. And failure to do either sufficiently makes you an outcast; a ‘loser'."
To see how this plays out, just think of the conversations you generally hear at places of social interaction, such as a bar or a family gathering: "Johnny's preparing for his law exams" HE HAS BOUGHT INTO THE SYSTEM AND DESIRES TO PRODUCE AT A HIGH LEVEL. "Jenny just bought a Lexus!" SHE HAS CONSUMED WELL. "Bev and Bill took the family to Disneyland!" THEY CONSUMED. "Tom was promoted to Vice President." HE HAS PRODUCED WELL.
"How many of the Oscar nominees have you seen?" WHAT ARE YOU CONSUMING? and on and on it goes. Just think how much conversation essentially boils down to keeping up with each others' production/consumption activities. It is hypnotic.
The great irony of the scene where Neo awakens to the reality of the Matrix and is shocked and appalled by what he sees is that the reality he thought he knew was in fact a Matrix itself. What was he so upset about?
Reducing humans to the utilitarian dual roles of producer/consumer has been an utter disaster on the large scale, as well as leading to specific instances of utter depravity and horror, with The Holocaust, the atomic bombings, Unit 731, Stalin's murderous reign and so on at the absolute nadir of this Hall of Shame (some may wish to add Bhopal in there as well, and I certainly wouldn't object). It has deeply trivialized and utterly dehumanized the way we look at ourselves, and others.
The result: a fixation on materialism and the elevation of money to the world's most powerful religion. Neither of these things had to happen because The European Enlightenment happened. It was one possible path but not the only one. No; it was the adoption of The Engine Metaphor that locked us into the situation we must now extricate ourselves from in order to have any future worth having.
It is time to let go of The Engine Metaphor. Its utility has reached its end. It has become an albatross around our collective necks, and a poison pill inserted into the future. It's The Engine Metaphor or us, in other words. This planet ain't resilient enough for both.
How do we go about this? First, we must develop awareness of its presence in our lives, its infiltration into our language, our politics, our education, our entertainment, and so on. We must challenge its preeminence. When we hear it in the mouths of politicians and business and cultural leaders, we must take issue with it. We have a duty to disagree. They are espousing a worldview that dooms the planet, dooms the human race.
We must make an effort not to support those leaders who are in thrall to this worldview, AND we must make an effort to raise the voices and profiles of those leaders who offer alternatives.
Sadly, among political leaders, these are rare and hard to to find. In the current moment, they are to be found mostly among authors, educators, philosophers, bloggers/podcasters, artists, as well as a minority of scientists (sadly, current science education has been largely coopted by the metaphor, so the majority of working scientists and nearly all engineers and programmers today are engaged in activities that bolster the metaphor; but not all) WHEREVER you find them.
We must continually remind ourselves that we are NOT what we produce and consume. We are as lovable as our dogs and our babies, as beautiful as the flowers in our gardens, NONE of whom we think of primarily in terms of production/consumption. It is amusing to return to the earlier scenes I portrayed of conversations at social interactions. All of our 'What's Tom doing these days?' 'Who is Anne working for?' 'Has Shel found a job yet?' 'How does Samantha like her new car?' yada yada nonsense doesn't apply to them, but what if it did? 'What has Fido produced recently?' 'Has Rover moved into his new house yet?' If we can yank our pets, babies and flowers out of the matrix, we can yank ourselves out of it as well.
Given that we don't think of our dogs, babies etc. in terms of production/consumption, how MIGHT we describe them? As 'beings of love?' Does that sound corny? In fact, isn't that fairly accurate? We have these beings in our lives in order to express love, share love, experience our own best qualities. Why not try to widen this way of looking at the world to include grown adult human beings? We don't necessarily have to love everyone, but it's better than thinking of them as mere cogs in a machine.
Materialism is the prevailing philosophy and money the universal religion of our day. Materialism in the bland, supposedly intellectual belief that 'hey, when you're dead, you're dead; anyone who thinks otherwise is a deluded nutter' attitude and materialism in the belief that having things brings happiness and getting as much as you can for yourself is a worthy life pursuit. It is the stigmata of our culture and it runs on the Metaphor of the Engine.
What are we, really? That is what I think all of us yearn to know, and I further think that is why so many of us find The Engine Metaphor so deeply unfulfilling, because we sense it is hiding that from us.
How shall I put it? Above, I suggested 'being of love', but that was mainly to point out how we subconsciously think of our pets, our small children, and other elements of life that are external to the Engine but give us opportunities to express love.
More accurately, I would describe us thus: we are holistic participants in the theater of life. Holistic, meaning we are ALWAYS participating and every PART of us is participating; NOT just when we are working and being ‘productive', and NOT just our thinking minds.
Is a gorilla less a gorilla when it sleeps? Would not that very concept seem absurd to it? Does it stop mattering then? Does a panther see its identity diminish when it is dreaming and not hunting? Is there anything more panther-esque about the latter than the former? Of course not.
Panthers are ALWAYS panthering and you are always humaning. The difference is that no panther has ever been made to feel guilty for taking a midday nap, and you undoubtedly have, perhaps more times than you can count. What purpose does the guilt serve? Why, to lock you into the Engine Metaphor, of course! Better get busy producing or consuming something, bucko; that's where your value lies!
Holistic Participants in the Theater of Life; is that not it? Life is not an engine and you are not its fuel. Life is an ongoing play, unfolding organically, spontaneously, orgasmically even. And you? You are a fortunate participant in this play. You move with it, dance with it, experiment with it, and most of all play with it (it IS a 'play', after all).
You get to be here watching it unfold and contributing to its unfoldment. How would you like it to be? You get your chance to make it that way, even if only slightly. And not just via your mind. Your limbs, your hair, your breathing, your health and even your illness make you what you are, and add to the spice of the play.
This is not the way that ol' Henry Ford thought of you, or that fuddy duddy Ayn Rand thought of you. It's not how your presidents, prime ministers, mayors and governors think of you. It's not how Dawkins and his merry band of smug atheists think of you. But who cares what they think? First and foremost because they are wrong, and furthermore because why should you give up the opportunity to live life more fully and richly because the 'experts' think they know you better than you know yourself?
So, will we ditch The Engine Metaphor or will it, metaphorically, leave us in the ditch? I can't say I am optimistic. This is a very well entrenched, deeply embedded metaphor that has the added strength of being always able to extol its triumphs as if they were trump cards that inoculate it against any criticism. Did we NOT increase longevity, and radically reduce infant mortality rates? Did we NOT see GDP rise all over the world, freeing billions from crushing poverty? Did we NOT provide education for billions of people for whom, in any other time, illiteracy and indentured servitude would have been their inevitable lots? Right? So how could anyone think to complain about a metaphor that has served us so well? The problem is clearly with THEM and not the metaphor.
What this assessment overlooks is the price that was paid. Essentially, mankind bought a century and change worth of prosperity at the expense of the future prospects of every living creature on Earth. That's quite a price, that is. And it looks steeper when we acknowledge how many hundreds of millions of people suffered throughout this temporary Golden Age, victims of two world wars and countless other conflicts that have raged unceasingly during The Engine Metaphor's primacy. And not by accident: reducing people to utilitarian producer/consumer caricatures makes it easier to dehumanize them and thus justify cruelties inflicted upon them.
So yeah..., although The Engine Metaphor may appear to be a boon to mankind, it is more like a Potemkin village that is beginning to collapse. Which it SHOULD; as I wrote earlier, this Earth isn't big enough, or resilient enough, to sustain both the human race AND the metaphor - but that doesn't mean it WILL. Sadly, there are very few signs that we will ditch the metaphor in time to save ourselves and right our course.
But I am hopeful, because the alternative is disgust and depression, which I reject. Hopeful that more and more people will wake up from the slumber of materialism, pull back their fealty to the god of money, define themselves beyond the societal roles of producer/consumer and re-envision themselves, their lives, the people around them and society itself.
We are Holistic Participants in the Theater of Life. Our ability to love - anything - is our greatest strength, and being given a role in the Play is our greatest gift.
Working and buying are fine, but they are not better than dreaming, laughing, stretching, chatting, making stuff, fascinatedly watching children play or a caterpillar move along a branch, and on and on. Such things are no more externalities than jobs or shopping trips. It's all one thing. And it can be so much better and so much more.
Let's give that to ourselves and to the future, and most definitely, let's give that to Earth. She, who has given us so much.
