The Death of the Rucksack Revolution
After the big wars, we’ve always had social unrest.
After the rise of the corporation, we had a big social movement
called the Rucksack Revolution, as white men became disillusioned
with how things were.
Now, I know this movement hasn’t died. It has spread and broadened.
But really it’s nothing like it was. It’s no threat to The Man. Why?
1.) Co-opted. 2.) And crushed in competition. How?
***
Peter Ceresole wrote:
> >1.) Co-opted. 2.) And crushed in competition. How?
>
> The usual reasons- including both the ones you give. But mostly, The Man
> has delivered quite well. People who want *stuff* have been getting it, in
> large quantities.
But for awhile HOW stuff was made was intolerable
to ever growing numbers of usually white male workers,
including the exec’s and management class. There was
a big disillusionment, then it seemed like all that
went away. Big illusion came back.
> Not everybody; but those that don’t get their goodies from The Man, meaning
> the blacks and Hispanics and poor whites, weren’t usually part of the
> Rucksack Revolution and expressed their revolt (still do), if they have the
> energy and organisation to do so, in other ways.
One of the big huge leaps forward that The Man made
was in marketing to and creating demand from what used
to be pariah or forbidden markets: the poor, the ignorant, and children.
These are seemingly huge sectors now. Poor folk are apparently
just as willing as rich folk to work huge hours and spend their
pennies as well as any credit they can find. Crap has
made more millionaires in the last 30 years than ever before.
Preying on children is huge these days.
Moreover, neglected labor sectors were welcomed into most levels of the
workforce in exchange for compliance with poisoning the culture. The new
groups, such as women, ethnics and gays, who greedily wanted what they had
been denied were more than happy to trade their birthrights for porrage, thus
putting the pressure back on the white straight man. Now, these groups have made
positive gains, but they have to stay on their toes about their equal exposure to new risk,
the ways in which they have been vulnerable to those who play on their base instincts.
These groups acted suddenly high and mighty, yet they were very new to the game of
success, which the white straight males had seen thru and rejected by way of their Revolution.
Many minority manifestoes even openly declare that they prize the thing that the evil men
had possessed for so long: pure power and that it is the only standard. Thus opening themselves
up to depravity and legitamized counterattack.
****
Rick Harrison wrote:
[ ]
> Life is an aching emptiness. Some fill it with a cause to fight for,
> others with religion, others choose drugs to plug up the hurty vacuum,
> and most people choose CRAP! Who can say which is best.
Well, you can test for soundness. What works might be best.
If something directly poisons one it’s probably not best.
Also what isn’t contradictory with other aspects of life
might be best: it’s an ongoing thing, but a standard which
has fewer contradictions could be said to be better than
one that has more. It’s more harmonious, whole, integrated,
might be more likely to be correct.
Again, for awhile it seems like people in the form of a movement
were getting closer to dealing with the problem. People were
seeing thru the lies of Organization Man. It seems like always
an improvement to recognize a lie. Can’t deny that’s a step forward.
But then more rules come into play: if the lie isn’t repaired by
quality rootedness in life, then a new lie will simply take the place
of the old. And a couple decades later, the veil is firmly back in place.
Maybe there wasn’t anything found that improved on the illusion well
enough so that the culture just went back to the illusion. We saw that
“plastics” were stupid, maybe went on to even stupider things and so
now are back at “plastics.”
So, in addition to the movement itself failing to come up
with enough right answers (actually I think it did darn fine and
still does work darn fine)…I think that the biggest reasons
why Organization Man came back with a vengeance was:
1.) fear due to foreign competition. We were working on enjoying life
when other markets started kicking our butts. Their methods
failed. But we’re still on the butt-kick high, forgot our old
lessons.
2.) Our own labor force broadened hugely.
For every guy who had seen thru the ruse of climbing
the ladder there were several new players who had been
kept out of the game previously who were more than happy
to play by most of the old rules (in new sheeps clothing)
as long as they were let in on the game. These new labor
sectors haven’t been around long enough yet to go thru the cycle
of disillusionment. They were happy to wear suits,
nose brownly and employ any manner of bloodthirsty careerism.
The format which had been evolving of “let’s all be decent humans
here” was thrown out the window and the ball got rolling
steeply downhill again.
3.) Generation gap. Lessons of the past were forgotten by
most of those who had learned them and so not passed along to
the next group.
