textfiles/magazines/MISC/alembic3.txt

    The ALEMBIC
    third edition, Autumn 1989

    * a publication dedicated to superseding pre-fabricated ideologies
    * for those who `think too much' and have a `bad attitude'
    
    
    contents:
     Beyond Radicalism, by Lawrence E. Christopher
      Time Wars, Jeremy Rifkin's book reviewed by Rick Harrison
       Life Without Principle, by Henry David Thoreau
        Research for Whose Benefit? by Masanobu Fukuoka
         an alembic trigram: using the flow


    ``This Troylus in teres gan distille,
      As licour out of alambic, fulle fast.''
                               - Chaucer, 1374

    _The_Alembic_ is a magazine of thoughts and speculations simultaneously
    distributed on paper and as a computer textfile which you can download
    from the more enlightened electronic bulletin boards. _The_Alembic_ is
    made possible entirely by donations of articles, publicity, money and
    distributive technology. Written and financial contributions should be
    directed to Rick Harrison, Box 547014, Orlando FL 32854 USA. Copyright
    1989 Tangerine Network. Commercial use of this material is forbidden.

    Editor's note: The electronic version of _The_Alembic_ continues to be
    released right on schedule, appearing at its distribution points shortly
    after the equinoxes and solstices. Printing and mailing the paper
    version on time has turned out to be impossible (not to mention more 
    time-consuming, more troublesome, and more expensive). Last year I got
    a mass mailing from an anarchist microfiche publisher in Australia
    commenting on how thoughtless alternative press readers are in
    their demand for paper versions of small publications. At the time I
    thought he was nuts but I realize now he's right! In addition to killing
    trees and exposing print-shop workers to chemical and physical hazards,
    the use of the paper-and-ink medium extracts an inordinate amount of
    time and money from the editors and publishers of obscure journals.
    Ultimately, of course, it would be nice to replace all ``media'' with
    real communication, i.e. face-to-face interaction in real communities.
    
    

    ________________________________________________________________________




                               Beyond Radicalism

                          by Lawrence E. Christopher
                   copyright 1989 by Lawrence E. Christopher.
       Reprinted from _Light_&_Liberty_, P. O. Box 33, Woodstock NY 12498.

        Imagine that the world is enclosed in a web made of an imperceptibly
    fine fabric. Your slightest motion is subtly guided by the pattern of
    the web, which is so thin and delicate that it could be destroyed with
    one stroke of a pocket knife. However, most of its captives are not
    even aware of its existence, so they continue to be confined by it.
    Others see the web, but believe it to be indestructible. They, too, are
    never able to break free of it. This is essentially the way in which the
    mass media and political system control the thought processes of people
    living in modern industrial society.

        Consider the worldview implied in any newspaper article or tele-
    vision news broadcast. I am not speaking of lies and biases here. I am
    speaking, rather, of the _context_ into which _all_ sides of every
    public issue are placed. The moment you read or hear terms like "the
    economy," "the nation," or "society," the essence of the indoctrination
    has been effected. What is subsequently said _about_ these entities is
    secondary. If you accept these entities as objectively existing aspects
    of ultimate reality rather than as purely subjective (though widely
    accepted) ideas which _you_ are free to accept or reject, then you've
    been taken in already, regardless of what opinions you form regarding
    the issue at hand.

        My objective in this essay is to suggest a method of breaking this
    web, which is in fact made of nothing but thought. I am going to focus
    largely on the issue of why most radical strategies fail in this regard.
    As has been suggested, there are two ways in which the aforementioned
    web can ensnare one. The first, which is what keeps the majority of
    people captive, is simply to not recognize its existence. This lack of
    awareness on the part of the masses has been pointed out innumerable
    times by intellectuals throughout the ages. That is why I want to focus
    on the second, more subtle way this web has of captivating one. This
    entails the victim recognizing the existence of the web, and becoming so
    frightened or angry about it that he attributes far too much power to
    it. This is the trap radicals frequently fall into. They fail to see
    what a simple matter it is to eradicate this web.

        Almost as soon as I began thinking about societal issues, I defined
    myself as a radical. My opinions on various issues changed as my
    ideological position on the political spectrum shifted, but what
    remained was the conviction that society was controlled by a power elite 
    who ruled over a sheeplike population with force, fraud and indoctrina-
    tion. This basic belief remained the focal point of my thinking as I 
    went through the stages of defining myself as a populist, a libertarian 
    and an anarchist.

        I have not rejected the premises upon which my radicalism was
    grounded. More than ever, it seems apparent that we live in a world
    which is dominated by forces that are antithetical to any meaningful
    concepts of peace, liberty, or justice. Yet, I have concluded that
    traditional radical strategies are ultimately a futile pursuit.

        I will begin with the assertion that the motivating force underlying
    all radical thought and action is the desire to exercise _free_will_.
    Human consciousness innately yearns to realize its full potential; to
    inhabit a reality of its own creation rather than one externally imposed
    upon it. Political institutions are often obstructions in our quest for
    this freedom. To the extent that we are free of conditioning, we resent
    these institutions imposing their structures upon our consciousness.
    There is disagreement among radicals as to the best means of achieving
    freedom; for example, whether by utilizing the political system in order
    to gain control over it (as in forming an alternative party), by
    peaceful protest, or by violent revolution. Radicals also disagree over
    what _constitutes_ liberty and justice; i.e. what kind of social system
    should replace the present one. Yet, all radicals agree that society in
    its present form stifles liberty and should be either fundamentally
    changed or abolished altogether.

        Paradoxically, in their very attempt to assert free will, radicals
    implicitly hold an assumption which is antithetical to the very concept.
    The essence of the problem lies in the fact that true power and energy
    lie in _consciousness_. This includes the power of leaders and social
    institutions. The power which they wield is almost entirely in the
    realm of thought. It only extends into physical reality to the extent
    that people believe that it does. When, as radicals, we _believe_ that
    political institutions prevent us from being free, we are contributing
    to their power just as surely as are the obedient citizens who support
    the status quo. THe only difference is that the latter are contributing
    to what they perceive as a benign entity, while the former are contrib-
    uting to one they believe is malevolent.

        Action is taken with the assumption that in order to bring about a
    desired consequence 'y', action 'x' must be carried out. If, as
    radicals, our 'y' is freedom and our 'x' is, say, revolution, then we
    are granting that 'y' is _contingent_. We cannot be free until the
    revolution takes place. We are placing a limitation upon our free will,
    assuming that, for us to exercise it, external conditions must first be
    changed. Consider how much power we are thereby granting our enemies!
    We are conceding that they have the capacity to prevent us from existing
    as free individuals. Despite the fact that all radical theories place an
    emphasis on freedom and empowerment, there is always the built-in
    limitation that our liberation is dependent upon the transformation of
    an entire society.

        It can be argued that it is objectively the case that our government
    can take away our freedom. It can impose laws on us, imprison us, kill
    us if it chooses. Here it must be stated that this essay is presupposing
    a certain view of human nature. I am assuming that the exercising of
    free will is an essential condition for a meaningful life; that fully
    realizing our freedom is ultimately more important than any physical
    circumstances we may be in. I should also mention that it is my belief
    that we are ultimately responsible for every circumstance in which we
    find ourselves. Although this is not a necessary presupposition for the
    rest of my argument, if you fundamentally disagree with this meta-
    physical position, it would be difficult to completely agree with my
    conclusions.

        True freedom entails realizing what freedom is. Without this, no
    external conditions can enable one to attain freedom. One can have more
    true freedom in a prison cell than in a luxury penthouse apartment
    (although, all else being equal, the latter is still preferable to the
    former). Governments, of course, do not realize this. Leaders believe
    that they can take away your freedom. They believe that if they
    accumulate enough wealth and annex enough territory they can thereby
    control the lives and destinies of other people. "Leaders" are entirely
    ignorant regarding the nature of freedom and power. They desperately
    want to feel powerful and they attempt to achieve this by manipulating 
    external conditions. They do not realize that the only authentic power
    lies within.

        Two people can exist in virtually identical physical circumstances
    and yet perceive and interpret these circumstances in completely
    different ways. Evidence of this is widespread in any large city that 
    contains a variety of ethnic and economic subcultures.  For example, the
    government of the United States labels all people living within a
    certain geographical territory "Americans," and most people accept this
    definition. Yet, in truth, white collar middle class people living in
    "America" have more in common in regard to lifestyle, values and
    overall perception of reality with white collar middle class people
    living in, say, England or France, than any such middle class people
    have in common with, say, drug dealers in New York City (who in turn
    have more in common with South AMerican and Asian drug dealers than
    with most of their "fellow citizens.") There are many ways of categoriz-
    ing people; they are grand conceptual schemes which structure reality in
    a particular way. There are others -- races, religions, economic classes
    and ideologies being the most commonly used.

        Once it is established that no particular method of categorizing or
    structuring human beings has any objective validity, it is easier to
    see a way to free oneself from any such category. There is a basic
    reason why political movements and revolutions so seldom result in
    fundamental long term change. Radical ideologies teach us to define
    ourselves and our reality in a way diametrically opposed to that of our
    opponents. This, however, prevents us from ever becoming truly free from
    those we least esteem. To define oneself against some principle 'x'
    forever enslaves one to 'x'. For example, a Satanist is inextricably
    bound to the concept of the Christian god. Likewise, communists define
    their reality based on their opposition to capitalism, and anarchists
    must always have the belief system of government to oppose. In this way,
    the political system and its transgressions against liberty are more a
    part of the radical's reality than they are of the ordinary citizen's.
    Of course, the mindset of the ordinary citizen, who simply defines
    reality in _accordance_ with the reigning political structure, is hardly
    conducive to freedom. There is, fortunately, an alternative to both: a
    belief system which is entirely independent and self generated. This is
    a point which requires elaboration.

        Believing that I live in a reality constructed by my own conscious-
    ness does not imply a schizophrenic state that ignores the existence of
    others and their beliefs. It does not entail feeling bound to perceiving
    reality the same way that others do. It is possible to recognize the
    beliefs of others and the ways in which those beliefs influence you,
    while at the same time maintaining your own independence from those
    beliefs.

        The only way we can live by values that differ from those which the
    political system and media represent is for us to live and work from a
    standpoint completely independent of these institutions. If politics is
    a destructive force, then we will never improve things by working within
    a political framework. An entirely different paradigm is called for, one
    which does not depend on the "establishment" paradigm at all.

        Living in the realm of a particular paradigm, or set of values, does
    not imply that there is no contact with other paradigms. Hence, living
    in an apolitical paradigm might at times involve confrontations with 
    the mainstream paradigm. For example, consider war resistance. If we
    vote for political candidates who promise to end the war, we are working
    within the political, mainstream framework. If we overthrow the
    government and put a new, "peaceful" one in its place, we are still
    working from the framework of our opponents; we would be seizing _their_
    institution, the one that caused the war in the first place, with the
    intention of using it for our own ends.

        There are ways of resisting political oppression which do not
    themselves assume a political framework. Avoiding income taxes, refusing
    to be drafted, boycotting corporations which produce weapons for the
    military: all of these actions are independent of the political
    paradigm. That is, they recognize the existence of the political
    paradigm and they are not inhabiting it. On the contrary: they 
    constitute a refusal to participate in it.

        The essence of this strategy is for each individual to remain at all
    times aware of his basic sovereignty regardless of societal conditions.
    As much as possible, people should create and live in the society they
    want, rather than passively accepting the one imposed on them by the
    mainstream media and political system. Whenever one is threatened by
    another's belief system in a way that cannot be avoided, then action
    is required; this action should not, however, entail accepting to any
    degree the conceptual framework of the offender.

        This can perhaps be seen more readily if we consider the mindset of
    a street gang. A gang has "turf" which is won and defended by violent
    means. Willingness to commit violent and aggressive acts is the way
    status is attained within the gang. If such a gang existed in the
    neighborhood in which you lived, preventing you from safely walking the
    streets, you would have a variety of possible responses to choose from.
    One response would be to submit to the gang's rule. Perhaps if you paid
    them a certain amount of "protection" money, they would allow you to
    walk the streets unharmed. This would be conforming to the gang's view
    of reality. It would be conceding that the gang indeed controls the
    neighborhood and that you are compelled to conform to its demands
    (although, in reality, one could conceivably pay the protection money
    without psychologically accepting the gang's view of reality, just as
    one may pay taxes without accepting the government's claim to legit-
    imacy; for the sake of simplicity I am assuming in this example that
    one's actions are completely in accord with one's belief system).

        Another response might be to form a gang of your own; your gang
    could then atempt to take over the "turf" for yourselves. This would
    also be completely accepting the (original) gang's worldview. You would
    be, like the gang, defining the neighborhood as turf to be won and
    defended with violence. Calling upon law enforcement authorities for
    help would be another variation of this "rival gang" alternative, for
    here, too, we have a group with coercive rules, demands for payment, and
    violent retribution against those who do not conform.

        A third possibility would be to not accept the gang's view of
    reality at all. For example, you could organize, rather than a rival
    gang, a group of fellow neighborhood residents who may carry weapons,
    but who would only use violence in self defense. In this case, you
    would not be trying to win turf; you would be attempting to live in a
    reality in which streets city streets are not considered "turf" at all.
    This would be the only alternative which fully rejects the offender's
    view of reality.

        {Editor's note: the author has failed to mention the possibility
    of moving to a better neighborhood where people behave differently.}
    
        The above analysis can be applied to more organized forms of
    coercion, such as nation states. If we regard governments as
    destructive, we should not in any manner accept the government's
    worldview. We should not try to take over the government, or form
    a government of our own. We should not even let ourselves become
    preoccupied with the idea of eliminating governments from the planet.
    We would do far better if we simply made the decision to live in a
    government-less reality, albeit one which may at times have to interact
    with others to whom the government's definition of reality is relevant.
    Such interaction, however, can be kept to a minimum. For example, in
    the above example, the neighborhood patrol would not _seek_ confronta-
    tions with the gang. More importantly, it would essentially disband
    once the threat had passed. If America had remained true to the military
    strategy it adhered to during the revolution, the military as we know it
    today would not exist. There would only be a _potential_ citizens' army,
    ready to fight when necessary, but not forming an entrenched institution
    seeking world domination. 

        Freedom from those with intentions we do not share entails escaping
    not only their overt rules but also from the entire conceptual frame-
    work in which they reside. Although I entitled this essay "Beyond
    Radicalism," what I am really advocating is a truer, more radical
    radicalism. A radicalism that has outgrown the desire to rebel for
    rebellion's sake; one which recognizes that human nature has the
    potential for grander things than brooding over and complaining about
    the behavior of the least enlightened members of our species.


    ________________________________________________________________________




                                 Time Wars

                        book review by Rick Harrison

                                _Time_Wars_
                      copyright 1987 by Jeremy Rifkin
                        Touchstone/Simon & Schuster
                            isbn 0-671-67158-8


    ``Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed.''
                                       -Darth Vader in _Star_Wars_

    ``Clocks for some reason or other always seem to be marching, and, as
    with armies, marching is never to anything but doom.''
                                       -Alan Watts

        In his book _Time_Wars_, contemporary philosopher Jeremy Rifkin
    asserts that the battle for control over the expenditure and perception
    of time is ``the primary conflict in human history.'' The calendar, the
    clock, the schedule and finally the computer have given those in power
    tighter and tighter control over how the average person uses his time.

        ``We're a nation obsessed with efficiency,'' Rifkin said in a
    mid-1989 appearance on Larry King's radio show. ``In fact, I think if
    you look at it anthropologically, this culture is more obsessed with
    labor-saving, time-saving technology than any other culture in history.
    And ironically, we feel we have less free time than any culture in
    history. And in real terms that's true because, with all of our labor-
    saving, time-saving technologies -- the cellular phone, the fax machine
    -- the amount of activity continues to increase as a result of these 
    new tools and so we can never catch up.

        ``The fax machine just gives you more material that has to be faxed,
    and then you have to pay more attention to it. If you have a message
    machine, you have to listen to all those messages every night when you
    come home. The fact is, most people feel that their lives are increas-
    ingly frantic, frenetic, that they're losing a sense of relationship, 
    of a sense of bonding and community, and people feel stretched to the 
    limit. Most people I know are experiencing information overload, they're
    experiencing burn-out in their day to day lives, and they're about ready
    to look for new alternatives.''

        Rifkin's assertion that technological devices which are supposed to
    save labor actually lead to increasing enslavement corresponds to
    comments made in Bob Black's essay ``The Abolition of Work.'' Black 
    observed, ``I don't want robot slaves to do everything; I want to do 
    things myself. There is, I think, a place for labor-saving technology, 
    but a modest place. The historical and pre-historical record is not 
    encouraging. When productive technology went from hunting-gathering to 
    agriculture and on to industry, work increased while skills and self-
    determination diminished. The further evolution of industrialism has 
    accentuated what Harry Braverman called the degradation of work. 
    Intelligent observers have always been aware of this. John Stuart Mill 
    wrote that all the labor-saving inventions ever devised haven't saved a 
    moment's labor. The enthusiastic technophiles -- Saint-Simon, Comte, 
    Lenin, B.F. Skinner -- have always been unabashed authoritarians also; 
    which is to say, technocrats. We should be more than sceptical about 
    the promises of the computer mystics. _They_ work like dogs; chances 
    are, if they have their way, so will the rest of us.''

        ``The average medieval serf,'' Rifkin says, ``had 185 days off per 
    year on the Christian calendar. That's 185 days with no work -- feast 
    days, holy days. The average American has 19 hours less leisure time 
    per month than we had ten years ago. So I'm not sure that we're really 
    progressing when it comes to enjoyment of life.'' Consider that twenty 
    years ago it was possible for a husband to buy a house on his wages 
    alone, and now in most households both husband and wife are working. 
    The amount of time which the average individual has free to use as he 
    pleases is definitely decreasing.

        We are reminded of a passage from Benjamin Hoff's classic of
    Taoist propaganda, _The_Tao_of_Pooh_:
         In China, there is the Teahouse. In France, there is the Sidewalk
         Cafe. Practically every civilized country in the world has some
         sort of equivalent -- a place where people can go to eat, relax,
         and talk things over without worrying about what time it is, and
         without having to leave as soon as the food is eaten... What's the
         message of the Hamburger Stand? Quite obviously, it's: ``You don't
         count; hurry up.''

         Not only that, but as everyone knows by now, the horrible
         Hamburger Stand is an insult to the customer's health as well.
         Unfortunately, this is not the only example supported by the
         Saving Time mentality. We could also list the Supermarket, the
         Microwave Oven, the Nuclear Power Plant, the Poisonous Chemicals...

         Practically speaking, if timesaving devices really saved time, 
         there would be more time available to us now than ever before in
         history. But, strangely enough, we seem to have less time than
         even a few years ago. It's really great fun to go someplace where
         there are no timesaving devices because, when you do, you find
         that you have _lots_of_time_. Elsewhere, you're too busy working
         to pay for machines to save you time so you won't have to work
         so hard.

        ``As we increase the pace, we're increasing the impatience in our
    culture,'' Rifkin said in his radio interview. ``Many people have a hard
    time with simple things like social discourse now, because they're used
    to the nanosecond culture. What happens when a society starts organizing
    time below the realm of experience? You can't experience a nanosecond,
    yet computer time is based on a billionth of a second. When we get to
    that point, we have to re-assess exactly where we're going.''

        In his book, Rifkin elaborates on this by describing ways in which
    people who spend an unhealthy amount of time with computers react to 
    their fellow humans:
         In clinical case studies, psychologists have observed that
         computer compulsives are much more intolerant of behavior
         that is at all ambiguous, digressive, or tangential. In their
         interaction with spouses, family, and acquaintances, they are
         often terse, preferring simple yes-no responses. They are
         impatient with open-ended conversations and are uncomfortable
         with individuals who are reflective or meditative. Computer
         compulsives demand brevity and view social discourse in
         instrumental terms, interacting with others only as a means
         of collecting and exchanging useful information. 
     
        Perhaps you can think of some illustration of this from your own 
    life. I am reminded of an exchange of messages I had on a computer 
    network with a would-be defender of the Libertarian Party. My messages 
    were usually well thought out, often enhanced by quotations from 
    Thoreau, Black and other philosophers, and were usually longer than the 
    average messages in the networks. The Libertarian's replies were brief, 
    were seldom backed up by references to other thinkers, and he objected 
    when I used metaphors, complaining that they were `reification.' 
    Eventually the chain of messages ended abruptly when he vituperated 
    something like, ``I believe in the right of private property. You don't.
    I'm not going to waste my time talking to you any more.'' Shortly after 
    that, the same Libertarian received a similar message from another 
    computer user, who summarily dismissed the Libertarian's ideas as 
    ``a bunch of crap.'' 

        Both of these characters appeared to be operating in a vacuum, 
    rigidly clinging to opinions that were neither supported by research nor 
    by personal experience, making bold, blanket pronouncements about 
    serious social issues seemed absurdly unconnected to reality, and 
    perhaps this is not surprising since they spend so much time in the 
    simulated universe presented on the computer screen. The Libertarian 
    works as a computer programmer, and I suppose his objection to the use 
    of analogy and metaphor was based on the inability of computers and 
    their disciples to understand anything that can't be directly digitized.
    Another participant in the electronic conference blasted writers who 
    use poetic devices and extensive vocabularies, claiming that eloquence 
    is a form of obfuscation or obscurantism! Rifkin is right: technophiles 
    like their communication to be terse, lifeless and utilitarian.

        In the computer message-exchange networks, if an idea cannot be
    expressed in 200 words or less, it will probably be skipped over by the
    majority of readers. A week or a month after a message is posted, it is
    automatically erased, and even if the ``thread'' of discussion con-
    tinues, it becomes impossible for the participants (or newcomers) to 
    refer back to what has been said previously. If a participant's computer 
    breaks down or he becomes ill, the thread will probably be completely 
    gone by the time he returns. Responding to a message that is more than a 
    week old has brought ridicule to some users: ``Where have you been, in 
    a time warp or something? I posted that message weeks ago.'' This is the 
    culture, or rather non-culture, which is developing among most avid 
    computer users: messages must be replied to immediately, even complex 
    ideas must be boiled down to a few words, and after the discussion is 
    over, it evaporates into oblivion, leaving the participants and humanity 
    at large with nothing to show for it. 

        Another example cited in _Time_Wars_:
         Harriet Cuffaro offers another illustration of the different
         sense of temporal entrainment that ensues in computer
         learning, as opposed to experiential learning in a
         non-simulated environment. She uses the example of parking
         a car. If a child uses blocks as play pieces to park a car,
         his or her temporal skills will develop quite differently
         than if the child uses computer symbols. With the blocks,
         ``the child's eye-hand coordination must also contend with
         the qualitative, with the texture of the surface on which
         the car is moved, and with the fit between garage opening
         and car width.'' Cuffaro points out that ``such complexities
         do not exist on two-dimensional screens.'' Parking a car on
         the computer screen is pure action in a vacuum, ``motion
         without context.'' 
    
        This motion without context is accompanied by emotion without
    context. One box of illusions, the computer, works hand in hand with its
    counterpart, the television, to plunge a person into a simulated life.
    Protected from true adventure, the future worker can only watch 
    adventure shows on TV or play adventure games on the computer. Rigidly-
    held, vehemently-expressed opinions are formed on the basis of 
    `information' obtained from the old idiot box and the new. I am reminded
    of the anarchist slogan, `the society which makes true adventure 
    impossible makes its own destruction the only possible adventure.''

        The artificial time perspective promulgated by digital watches and
    omnipresent computers is, as demonstrated above, having an impact on
    the way people behave. The question to consider, then, is `who benefits
    from this separation of humans from organic rhythms and natural temporal
    cycles?' The answer appears to be, the ruling class: those who control
    the productive activity of the world economy.

        To be a night watchman, an assembly line worker, or a dishwasher,
    an employee has to be able to tolerate vast stretches of boredom. The
    jobs of the future, however, are going to require a faster pace, and
    tomorrow's workers will find their every action closely monitored by
    computer. This is extremely stressful and offensive to most adults, but
    perhaps today's computer-indoctrinated children and adolescents are 
    being molded into the ideal employees of tomorrow. The transition from 
    organic agricultural time to tightly-controlled industrial scheduling 
    was also accomplished through indoctrination of the young, as Rifkin 
    observes:
     
         For the most part, the new class of owners was unsuccessful
         in converting farmers and tradesmen into disciplined factory
         workers. They were too settled into the temporal orthodoxy
         of an earlier epoch. But it soon became apparent that their
         children, still temporally unformed, provided a much more
         convenient labor pool for the new industrial technology.
         Child labor was cheap and could be easily molded to the
         tempral demands of the clock and the work schedule. By
         spiriting children away at the tender age of five to seven
         to work up to sixteen hours a day inside dimly lit and
         poorly ventilated factories, the owners insured themselves
         a captive and manipulable work force that could be thoroughly
         indoctrinated into the new time frame.
     
        That's what life was like in the days of laissez-faire capitalism.
    The computer-accelerated, impatient children of today may have a similar 
    fate in store for them. Already we are getting glimpses of what the 
    future workplace, designed by technocrats, will be like:

         In Kansas a repair service company keeps a complete computer
         tally of the number of phone calls its workers handle and
         the amount of information collected with each call. Says
         one disgruntled employee, ``If you get a call from a friendly
         person who wants to chat, you have to hurry the caller off
         because it would count against you. It makes my job very
         unpleasant.''
      
         According to Dr. Alan Westin, author of a 1987 report
         published by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA)
         entitled _The_Electronic_Supervisor_, between 20 and 35
         percent of all clerical workers in the United States are
         now being monitored by sophisticated computer systems.
         The OTA report warns of an Orwellian future of ``electronic
         sweatshops'' with workers doing ``boring, repetitious,
         fast-paced work that requires constant alertness and
         attention to detail''; where ``the supervisor isn't even
         human'' but an ``unwinking computer taskmaster.''
     
         In an effort to speed up the processing of information,
         some visual display units are now being programmed so that
         if the operator does not respond to the data on the screen
         within seventeen seconds, it disappears. Medical researchers
         report that operators exhibit increasing stress as the time
         approaches for the image to disappear on the screen: ``From
         the eleventh second they begin to perspire, then the heart
         rate goes up. Consequently they experience enormous fatigue.''
     
        Perhaps the well-indoctrinated worker of the future, after spending
    his entire childhood playing video games and otherwise responding to
    the super-normal pace of computers, will not react so poorly to such a
    work environment. Perhaps the ruling class will once again succeed in
    creating a proletariat that is largely integrated into the productive
    technology that enriches the few.

        In opposition to this anti-human quickening of the workplace and
    the replacement of real activity with simulated experiences, Rifkin
    believes a widespread social movement will arise to challenge the
    onslaught of artificial time. Just as the notion of ``bigger is 
    better,'' advocated by supporters of centralization and mass production,
    was debunked by the idea of ``small is beautiful,'' advocated by those 
    who appreciate diversity and craftsmanship, so too will there be a 
    ``slow is beautiful'' movement, according to Rifkin. He describes this 
    forthcoming clash of ideologies this way:

         The ecological temporal orientation gives rise to a
         stewardship vision of the future. Its advocates would like
         to establish a new partnership with the rest of the living
         kingdom. At the heart of this new covenant vision is a
         commitment to develop an economic and technological
         infrastructure that is compatible with the sequences,
         durations, rhythms, and synergistic relationships that
         punctuate the natural production and recycling activities
         of the earth's ecosystems. Proponents believe that social
         and economic tempos must be reintegrated with the natural
         tempos of the environment if the ecosystem is to heal
         itself and become a vibrant, living organism once again.
     
         The artificial temporal orientation gives rise to a high-
         technology simulated vision of the future. In this time
         world, an ever more complex and sophisticated labyrinth
         of fabricated rhythms will increasingly replace our long-
         standing reliance and dependency on the slower rhythms
         of the natural environment. Advocates of the artificial
         temporal orientation envision an environment regulated by
         the sequences, durations, rhythms, and synergistic
         interactions of computers, robotics, genetic engineering,
         and space technologies...
     
        Consider the much-misused word `freedom.' What does it really mean, 
    if not the ability of the individual to control what she does with the
    irreplaceable hours, minutes and seconds of her own life? This is the
    object of the real struggle for real freedom, and Rifkin's _Time_Wars_
    is an important document of the emerging consciousness of this new
    movement.


    ________________________________________________________________________




                    excerpts from "Life Without Principle"
                      by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

    {Editor's note: Thoreau's "Walden" and "Civil Disobedience" have been
    widely published and studied, but this essay is not so well known. It
    has been carefully swept under the rug by those who edit the classics.}

        ...Since _you_ are my readers, and I have not been much of a
    traveller, I will not talk about people a thousand miles off, but come
    as near home as I can. As the time is short, I will leave out all the
    flattery, and retain all the criticism.

        Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives. 

        This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am
    awaked almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It inter-
    rupts my dreams. There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to see
    mankind at leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work. I
    cannot easily buy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are commonly
    ruled for dollars and cents. An Irishman, seeing me making a minute in
    the fields, took it for granted that I was calculating my wages. If a
    man was tossed out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for
    life, or scared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly
    because he was thus incapacitated for -- business! I think that there is
    nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to
    life itself, than this incessant business.

        There is a coarse and boisterous money-making fellow in the out-
    skirts of our town, who is going to build a bank-wall under the hill
    along the edge of his meadow. The powers have put this into his head to
    keep him out of mischief, and he wishes me to spend three weeks digging
    there with him. The result will be that he will perhaps get some more
    money to hoard, and leave for his heirs to spend foolishly. If I do
    this, most will commend me as an industrious and hard-working man; but
    if I choose to devote myself to certain labors which yield more real
    profit, though but little money, they may be inclined to look on me as
    an idler. Nevertheless, as I do not need the police of meaningless labor
    to regulate me, and do not see anything absolutely praiseworthy in this
    fellow's undertaking any more than in many an enterprise of our own or
    foreign governments, however amusing it may be to him or them, I prefer
    to finish my education at a different school.

        If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is
    in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day
    as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before
    her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if
    a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down!

        Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in
    throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely
    that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed
    now. 

        ...The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead
    downward. To have done anything by which you earned money _merely_ is 
    to have been truly idle or worse. If the laborer gets no more than the
    wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself. If
    you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which
    is to go down perpendicularly. Those services which the community will
    most readily pay for, it is most disagreeable to render. You are paid
    for being something less than a man. The state does not commonly reward
    a genius any more wisely. Even the poet laureate would rather not have 
    to celibrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of
    wine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gauge
    that very pipe. As for my own business, even that kind of surveying
    which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. They
    would prefer that I should do my work coarsely and not too well, ay,
    not well enough. When I observe that there are different ways of
    surveying, my employer commonly asks which will give him the most land,
    not which is most correct. I once invented a rule for measuring cord-
    wood, and tried to introduce it in Boston; but the measurer there told
    me that the sellers did not wish to have their wood measured correctly,
     -- that he was already too accurate for them, and therefore they
    commonly got their wood measured in Charlestown before crossing the
    bridge.

        The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get a
    "good job," but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary
    sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that
    they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a
    livelihood merely, but for scientific or even moral ends. Do not hire
    a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for the love
    of it.

        The community has no bribe that will tempt a wise man. You may raise
    money enough to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to
    hire a man who is minding _his_own_ business. An efficient and valuable
    man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The
    inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are
    forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they
    were rarely disappointed.

        Perhaps I am more than usually jealous with respect to my freedom.
    I feel that my connection with and obligation to society are still very
    slight and transient. Those slight labors which afford me a livelihood,
    and by which it is allowed that I am to some extent serviceable to my
    contemporaries, are as yet commonly a pleasure to me, and I am not
    often reminded that they are a necessity. So far I am successful. But
    I foresee that if my wants hsould be much increased, the labor required
    to supply them would become a drudgery. If I should sell both my
    forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure
    that for me there would be nothing left worth living for. I trust that
    I shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage. I wish to
    suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time
    well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the
    greater part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are
    self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his
    poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it
    makes. But as it is said of the merchants that ninety-seven in a
    hundred fail, so the life of men generally, tried by this standard,
    is a failure, and bankruptcy may be surely prophesied.

        It is remarkable that there is little or nothing to be remembered
    written on the subject of getting a living; how to make getting a
    living not merely honest and honorable, but altogether inviting and
    glorious; for if _getting_ a living is not so, then living is not. One
    would think, from looking at literature, that this question had never
    disturbed a solitary individual's musings. Is it that men are too much
    disgusted with their experience to speak of it? The lesson of value
    which money teaches, which the Author of the Universe has taken so much
    pains to teach us, we are inclined to skip altogether. As for the means
    of living, it is wonderful how indifferent men of all classes are about
    it, even reformers, so called, -- whether they inherit, or earn, or
    steal it. I think that Society has done nothing for us in this respect,
    or at least has undone what she has done. Cold and hunger seem more
    friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and
    advise to ward them off.

        The title _wise_ is, for the most part, falsely applied. How can 
    one be a wise man, if he does not know any better how to live than 
    other men? -- if he is only more cunning and intellectually subtle? 
    Does Wisdom work in a tread-mill? or does she teach how to succeed 
    _by_her_example_? Is there any such thing as wisdom not applied
    to life? Is she merely the miller who grinds the finest logic? Is it
    pertinent to ask if Plato got his _living_ in a better way or more
    successfully than his contemporaries, -- or did he succumb to the
    difficulties of life like other men? Did he seem to prevail over some
    of them merely by indifference, or by assuming grand airs? or find it
    easier to live, because his aunt remembered him in her will? The ways
    in which most men get their living, that is, live, are mere makeshifts,
    and a shirking of the real business of life, -- chiefly because they
    do not know, but partly because they do not mean, any better.

        The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely
    of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation
    to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready 
    to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others
    less lucky, without contributing any value to society! And that is
    called enterprise! I know of no more startling development of the
    immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a living. The
    philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth the
    dust of a puffball. The hog that gets his living by rooting, by
    stirring up the soil so, would be ashamed of such company. If I could
    command the wealth of all the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not
    pay _such_ a price for it. Even Mahomet knew that God did not make this
    world in jest. It makes God to be a moneyed gentleman who scatters a
    handful of pennies to see mankind scramble for them. The world's
    raffle! A subsistence in the domains of Nature a thing to be raffled
    for! What a comment, what a satire, on our institutions!

        ...It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few
    moral teachers. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways of men.
    The highest advice I have heard on these subjects was groveling. The
    burden of it was, -- It is not worth your while to undertake to reform
    the world in this particular. Do not ask how your bread is buttered;
    it will make you sick, if you do, -- and the like. A man had better
    starve at once than lose his innocence in the process of getting his
    bread. If within the sophisticated man there is not an unsophisticated
    one, then he is but one of the devil's angels. As we grow old, we live
    more coarsely, we relax a little in our disciplines, and, to some
    extent, cease to obey our finest instincts. But we should be fastidious
    to the extreme of sanity, disregarding the gibes of those who are more
    unfortunate than ourselves.

        In our science and philosophy, even, there is commonly no true and
    absolute account of things. The spirit of sect and bigotry has planted
    its hoof amid the stars. You have only to discuss the problem, whether
    the stars are inhabited or not, in order to discover it. Why must we
    daub the heavens as well as the earth? ...I hardly know an intellectual
    man, even, who is so broad and liberal that you can think aloud in his
    society. Most with whom you endeavor to talk soon come to a stand
    against some institution in which they appear to hold stock, -- that 
    is, some particular, not universal, way of viewing things. They will
    continually thrust their own low roof, with its narrow skylight,
    between you and the sky, when it is the unobstructed heavens you would
    view. Get out of the way with your cobwebs; wash your windows, I say!

        To speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a
    world in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, and flatter
    and study effect only more finely than the rest. We select granite for
    the underpinning of our houses and barns; we build fences of stone; but
    we do not ourselves rest on an underpinning of granitic truth, the
    lowest primitive rock. Our sills are rotten. What stuff is the man made
    of who is not coexistent in our thought with the purest and subtilest
    truth? I often accuse my finest acquaintances of an immense frivolity;
    for, while there are manners and compliments we do not meet, we do not
    teach one another the lessons of honesty and sincerity that the brutes
    do, or of steadiness and solidity that the rocks do. The fault is
    commonly mutual, however; for we do not habitually demand any more of
    each other.
    
        ...We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not
    read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most
    part, the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has
    seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not. In proportion
    as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the
    post-office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away
    with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspond-
    ence, has not heard from himself this long while.

        I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I
    have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not
    dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees
    say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more
    than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.

        We may well be ashamed to tell what things we have read or heard in
    our day. I do not know why my news should be so trivial, -- considering
    what one's dreams and expectations are, why the developments should be
    so paltry. The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our
    genius. It is the stalest repition. You are often tempted to ask why
    such stress is laid on a particular experience which you have had, --
    that, after twenty-five years, you should meet Hobbins, Registrar of
    deeds, again on the sidewalk. Have you not budged an inch then? Such
    is the daily news. Its facts appear to float on the atmosphere,
    insignificant as the sporules of fungi, and impinge on some neglected
    thallus, or surface of our minds, which affords a basis for them, and
    hence a parasitic growth. We should wash ourselves clean of such news.
    Of what consequence, though our planet explode, if there is no
    character involved in the explosion? In health we have not the least
    curiosity about such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I would
    not run round a corner to see the world blow up. ...

        Not without a slight shudder at the danger, I often perceive how
    near I had come to admitting into my mind the details of some trivial
    affair, -- the news of the street; and I am astonished to observe how
    willing men are to lumber their minds with such rubbish, -- to permit
    idle rumors and incidents of the most insignificant kind to intrude on
    ground which should be sacred to thought. Shall the mind be a public
    arena, where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table
    chiefly are discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself, --
    an hypaethral temple, consecrated to the service of the gods? I find it
    so difficult to dispose of the few facts which to me are significant,
    that I hesitate to burden my attention with those which are insignifi-
    cant, which only a divine mind could illustrate. Such is, for the most
    part, the news in newspapers and conversation. It is important to
    preserve the mind's chastity in this respect. Think of admitting the
    details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to
    stalk profanely through their very _sanctum_sanctorum_ for an hour, ay,
    for many hours! to make a very barroom of the mind's inmost apartment,
    as if for so long the dust of the street had occupied us, -- the very
    street itself, with all its travel, and bustle, and filth, had passed
    through our thoughts' shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral
    suicide? When I have been compelled to sit spectator and auditor in a
    court-room for some hours, and have seen my neighbors, who were not
    compelled, stealing in from time to time, and tiptoeing about with
    washed hands and faces, it has appeared to my mind's eye that, when
    they took off their hats, their ears suddenly expanded into vast
    hoppers for sound, between which even their narrow heads were crowded.
    Like the vanes of windmills, they caught the broad but shallow stream
    of sound, which, after a few titillating gyrations in their coggy
    brains, passed out the other side. I wondered if, when they got home,
    they were as careful to wash their ears as before their hands and
    faces. It has seemed to me, at such a time, that the auditors and the
    witnesses, the judge and the criminal at the bar, -- if I may presume
    him guilty before he is convicted, -- were all equally criminal, and
    a thunderbolt might be expected to descend and consume them all
    together.
    
        By all kinds of traps and signboards, threatening the extreme
    penalty of the divine law, exclude such trespassers from the only ground
    which can be sacred to you. It is so hard to forget what it is worse
    than useless to remember! If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that
    it be of the mountain brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town
    sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the
    attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale
    revelation of the barroom and the police court. The same ear is fitted
    to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer
    determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed. I believe
    that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to
    trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with 
    triviality. Our very intellect shall be macadamized, as it were, --
    its foundation broken into fragments for the wheels of travel to roll
    over; and if you would know what will make the most durable pavement,
    surpassing rolled stones, spruce blocks, and asphaltum, you have only
    to look into some of our minds which have been subjected to this
    treatment so long.

        If we have thus desecrated ourselves, -- as who has not? -- the
    remedy will be by wariness and devotion to reconsecrate ourselves, and
    make once more a fane of the mind. We should treat our minds, that is,
    ourselves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are,
    and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their
    attention. Read not the Times. Read the Eternities. Conventionalities
    are at length as bad as impurities. Even the facts of science may dust
    the mind by their dryness, unless they are in a sense effaced each
    morning, or rather rendered fertile by the dews of fresh and living
    truth.

        ...I saw, the other day, a vessel which had been wrecked, and many
    lives lost, and her cargo of rags, juniper berries, and bitter almonds
    were strewn along the shore. It seemed hardly worth the while to tempt
    the dangers of the sea between Leghorn and New York for the sake of a
    cargo of juniper berries and bitter almonds. America sending to the
    Old World for her bitters! Is not the sea-brine, is not shipwreck,
    bitter enough to make the cup of life go down here? Yet such, to a great
    extent, is our boasted commerce; and there are those who style them-
    selves statesmen and philosophers who are so blind as to think that
    progress and civilization depend on precisely this kind of interchange
    and activity, -- the activity of flies about a molasses-hogshead. Very
    well, observes one, if men were oysters. And very well, answer I, if
    men were mosquitoes.
    
        Lieutenant Herndon, whom our government sent to explore the
    Amazon, and, it is said, to extend the area of slavery, observed that
    there was wanting there "an industrious and active population, who
    know what the comforts of life are, and who have artificial wants to
    draw out the great resources of the country." But what are the
    "artificial wants" to be encouraged? Not the love of luxuries, like
    the tobacoo and slaves of, I believe, his native Virginia, nor the ice
    and granite and other material wealth of our native New England; nor
    are "the great resources of a country" that fertility or barrenness of 
    soil which produces these. The chief want, in every State that I have
    been into, was a high and earnest purpose in its inhabitants. This
    alone draws out "the great resources" of Nature, and at last taxes her
    beyond her resources; for man naturally dies out of her. When we want
    culture more than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar-plums,
    then the great resources of a world are taxed and drawn out, and the
    result, or staple production, is not slaves, nor operatives, but men,
    -- those rare fruits called heroes, saints, poets, philosophers and
    redeemers.
    
        In short, as a snow-drift is formed where there is a lull in the
    wind, so, one would say, where there is a lull of truth, an institution
    springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at
    length blows it down.
    
        What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial
    and inhuman, that practically I have never fairly recognized that it
    concerns me at all. The newspapers, I perceive, devote some of their
    columns specially to politics or government without charge; and this,
    one would say, is all that saves it; but as I love literature and to
    some extent the truth also, I never read those columns at any rate.
    I do not wish to blunt my sense of right so much. I have not got to
    answer for having read a single President's Message. A strange age of
    the world this, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-begging
    to a private man's door, and utter their complaints at his elbow! ...

        Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as
    politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of
    human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the
    corresponding functions of the physical body. They are _infra_-human,
    a kind of vegetation. I sometimes awake to a half-consciousness of
    them going on about me, as a man may become conscious of some of the
    process of digestion in a morbid state, and so have the dyspepsia,
    as it is called. It is as if a thinker submitted himself to be rasped
    by the great gizzard of creation. Poitics is, as it were, the gizzard
    of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are
    its two opposite halves, -- sometimes split into quarters, it may be,
    which grind on each other. Not only individuals, but states, have thus
    a confirmed dyspepsia, which expresses itself, you can imagine by what
    sort of eloquence. Thus our life is not altogether a forgetting, but
    also, alas! to a great extent, a remembering, of that which we should
    never have been conscious of, certainly not in our waking hours. Why
    should we not meet, not always as dyspeptics, to tell our bad dreams,
    but sometimes as EUpeptics, to congratulate each other on the ever-
    glorious morning? I do not make an exorbitant demand, surely.


    ________________________________________________________________________




                          Research for Whose Benefit?
                              by Masanobu Fukuoka

      Reprinted from _The_One-Straw_Revolution_ c 1978 by Masanobu Fukuoka
           Permission granted by Rodale Press, Inc., Emmaus, PA 18098.
	    
        When I first began direct-seeding rice and winter grain, I was
    planning to harvest with a hand sickle and so I thought it would be
    more convenient to set the seeds out in regular rows. After many
    attempts, dabbling about as an amateur, I produced a handmade seeding
    tool. Thinking that this tool might be of practical use to other farm-
    ers, I brought it to the man at the testing center. He told me that
    since we were in an age of large-sized machinery he could not be
    bothered with my ``contraption.''

        Next I went to a manufacturer of agricultural equipment. I was told
    here that such a simple machine, no matter how much you tried to make of
    it, could not be sold for more than $3.50 apiece. ``If we made a gadget
    like that, the farmers might start thinking they didn't need the
    tractors we sell for thousands of dollars.'' He said that nowadays the
    idea is to invent rice planting machines quickly, sell them head over
    heels for as long as possible, then introduce something newer. Instead
    of small tractors, they wanted to change over to larger-sized models,
    and my device was, to them, a step backward. To meet the demands of the
    times, resources are poured into furthering useless research, and to
    this day my patent remains on the shelf.

        It is the same with fertilizer and chemicals. Instead of developing
    fertilizer with the farmer in mind, the emphasis is on developing some-
    thing new, anything at all, in order to make money. After the tech-
    nicians leave their jobs at the testing centers, they move right over 
    to work for the large chemical companies.

        Recently I was talking with Mr. Asada, a technical official in the
    Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and he told me an interesting
    story. The vegetables grown in hothouses are extremely unsavory. Hear-
    ing that the eggplants shipped out in winter have no vitamins and the
    cucumbers no flavor, he researched the matter and found the reason:
    certain of the sun's rays could not penetrate the vinyl and glass
    enclosures in which the vegetables were being grown. His investigation
    moved over to the lighting system inside the hothouses.

        The fundamental question here is whether or not it is necessary for
    human beings to eat eggplants and cucumbers during the winter. But,
    this point aside, the only reason they are grown during the winter is
    that they can be sold then at a good price. Somebody develops a means
    to grow them, and after some time passes, it is found that these
    vegetables have no nutritional value. Next, the technician thinks that
    if the nutrients are being lost, a way must be found to prevent that 
    loss. Because the trouble is thought to be with the lighting system,
    he begins to research light rays. He thinks everything will be all right
    if he can produce a hothouse eggplant with vitamins in it. I was told
    that there are some technicians who devote their entire lives to this
    kind of research.

        Naturally, since such great efforts and resources have gone into
    producing this eggplant, and the vegetable is said to be high in
    nutritional value, it is tagged at an even higher price and sells well.
    ``If it is profitable, and if you can sell it, there can't be anything
    wrong with it.''

        No matter how hard people try, they cannot improve upon naturally
    grown fruits and vegetables. Produce grown in an unnatural way satisfies
    people's fleeting desires but weakens the human body and alters the
    body chemistry so that it is dependent on such foods. When this happens,
    vitamin supplements and medicines become necessary. This situation only
    creates hardships for the farmer and suffering for the consumer.


    ________________________________________________________________________




                                    Retorts
               audience contributions to the distillation process

    Dear Rick:
    
        I weary of working-classicists like Ralph Dumain deducing class 
    from consciousness and ethnicity from attitude without positioning 
    _themselves_ in the social grids they regard -- with seeming equanimity
    -- as determinative. If all views are ``socially determined,'' so are
    Dumain's and they must, pending arrival of his genealogy, resume and
    income tax returns, be filed away for future (p)reference. On a polit-
    ical scene where publishers owning a business bought with inherited
    wealth impersonate ``dissident office workers'' I have learned not to
    take class rhetoric as any evidence of class status; if anything the
    correlation is negative.
    
        Ayn Rand, whom Dumain carelessly calls a ``fascist'' -- indicating
    his own befuddlement with the political jargon he spouts -- agrees with
    him that ``having no philosophy is impossible.'' Few intellectuals and
    fewer workers agree. If anything, in this epoch of shreds and patches,
    having _any_ philosophy is impossible. The philosophers, says Marx,
    have only interpreted the world. The point is to change it, to change it
    so radically that philosophy and other contemplative modes are realized
    and suppressed. Philosophy is contemplative capitalism, the abstract
    self-consciousness of the specialists in thought (formerly priests)
    whom the social division of labor have assigned a privileged position
    in every class society since Sumer and Egypt. No wonder Dumain defends
    ``education.''
    
        Emending the title of my essay ``Feminism as Fascism'' to refer to
    ``radical'' feminism, suggested by Dumain, I actually did when I
    published a revised version of this 1983 text three years ago. Next
    revision, though, I plan to restore the original title but incorporate
    some differentiation of my target from mainstream feminism which is
    merely liberalism, an ideology I've assailed often enough elsewhere.
    I don't plan to make refined distinctions between these equally obnox--
    ious variants so long as they discreetly downplay or disregard their own
    differences in thrall to some hazy feeling of ``sisterhood'' whose
    content, when it has any, is just anti-male resentment and whose real
    impetus is probably just avoidance of boat-rocking.
    
        I'm puzzled by Dumain's caterwauling against my ``keeping company
    with anarchist riffraff'' -- the sort of anarchists I _part_ company
    with are the ones who think they have the kind of ``systematic phil-
    osophy'' Dumain, unlike most people, can't live without. I publicly
    broke ties with all avowedly anarchist publications and organizations
    in 1985. Now I deal with everybody non-ideologically and on a case by
    case basis. Labelling and self-labelling aren't very important to me,
    although people to whom they _are_ very important -- like Dumain, who
    coyly conceals his label -- tend to be my idea of ``riffraff.'' Anarch-
    ism like Marxism is food for thought. Let's chow down and, like Popeye,
    eat all the worms and spit out the germs.
    
                                       Yours in struggle (just kidding),
                                       Bob Black


    ________________________________________________________________________




                       an Alembic Trigram : Using the Flow

    ``People constantly change as they acquire new knowledge and discover
    new alternatives. But each person changes in harmony with his own
    nature, in keeping with his own desires for change and growth, in ways
    that make sense to _him_. Recognize each person you deal with as a
    different, distinct, individual entity, and you won't have identity
    problems.''
                                    -Harry Browne
                                    _How_I_Found_Freedom_in_an_Unfree_World_

    ``What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we
    will walk? I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which,
    if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not
    indifferent to us which way we will walk. There is a right way; but we
    are very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one.''
                                    -Henry David Thoreau
                                    _Walking_

    ``Using the topography and geography of an area to protect yourself
    requires harmony with your surroundings.''
                                    -Ragnar Benson
                                    _The_Survival_Retreat_


    ________________________________________________________________________
                                                                       
                                                                       
                                                                       
                          thus endeth the third Alembic.
                                                                           



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