Lex Anteinternet: Mondays

Lex Anteinternet: Mondays:  

Mondays

 There is nothing so dispiriting as coming into your "good" office job after a weekend of working cattle.

Lex Anteinternet: Some Labor Day Reflections.

Lex Anteinternet: Some Labor Day Reflections.: 

Some Labor Day Reflections.

Yesterday, I made some observations on Denver, and today I'm doing the same on Labor Day, 2024.

Of course, it's immediately notable that I'm making these the day after Labor Day, which was a day I didn't get off.  I worked a full day. 

I was the only one in the office.

Labor Day dates back to the mid 1800s as an alternative to the more radical observance that takes place in many countries on May 1.  Still, nonetheless, early on, and for a long time, there was a fair amount of radicalism associated with it during that period when American labor organizations were on the rise. The day itself being a widely recognized day off is due to organized strikes on the day that started occurring during the 1930s, to the day as sort of a "last day of summer holiday" is fairly new.

Even now, when people think of it, they often think of the day in terms of the sort of burly industrial workers illustrated by Leyendecker and Rockwell in the 20s through the 40s.  Otherwise, they sort of blandly associate it with celebrating work in general, which gets to the nature of work in general, something we sort of touched on yesterday with this entry;

Deep Breath

A Labor Day homily.

Sadly, I'm working on Labor Day.

Early on, Labor Day was something that acknowledged a sort of worthy heavy work.  There are, in spite of what people may think, plenty of Americans that still are engaged in that sort of employment, although its s shadow of the number that once did.  Wyoming has a lot of people who do, because of the extractive industries, which are in trouble.  Ironically, therefore, its notable that Wyoming is an epicenter of anti union feelings, when generally those engaged in heavy labor are pro union. There's no good explanation for that.

When Labor Day became a big deal it pitted organized labor against capital, with it being acknowledged by both sides that if things went too far one way or another, it would likely result in a massive labor reaction that would veer towards socialism, or worse, communism.  Real communism has never been a society wide strong movement in the United States, in spite of the current stupid commentary by those on the political far right side of the aisle accusing anyone they don't like, and any program they don't like, of being communistic.  But radical economics did hae influence inside of unions, and communists were a factor in some of them, which was well known. As nobody really wanted what that might mean, compromise gave us the post war economic world of the 50s and 60s, which were sort of a golden age for American economics.

One of the unfortunate byproducts of the Cold War era, however, was the exportation of jobs overseas, which brought us the economic regime we have today, in part.  The advance of technology brought us the other part.  Today we find the American economy is massively dominated by capital in a way it hasn't been for a century, and its not a good thing at all.  The will to do anything about it, or even understand it, seems to be wholly lacking.  As a result of that, while an increasing number of Americans slave away at meaningless jobs in cubicles, and the former shopkeeper class now works at Walmart, we have the absolutely bizarre spectacle of two Titans of Capital, Donald Trump and Elon Musk, spewing out populist rhetoric.  Populism, of course, always gets co-opted, but the working and middle class falling for rhetoric from the extremely wealthy is not only bizarre, its' downright dumb.

Indeed, in the modern American economy, having your own is increasingly difficult.  Entire former occupations that were once local have been totally taken over by large corporations while agriculture has fallen to the rich in terms of land ownership, making entry into either field impossible.  Fewer and fewer "my own" occupations exist, and those that do are under siege.  

One of those is the law, of course.  Lawyers, because of the nature of their work, still tend to own their practices, as to medical professionals of all types. The latter are falling into large corporate entities, however, and the move towards taking down state borders in the practice is causing the consolidation of certain types of practice in the former.

Not that "having your own" in the professions is necessarily a sort of Garden of Eden either, however.

Recently, interestingly, there's been a big movement in which young people are returning to the trades.  That strikes me as a good thing, and perhaps the trades are finally getting the due they deserve.  Ever since World War Two there's been the concept that absolutely everyone had to achieve white collar employment, which demeaned blue collar employment, and which put a lot of people in occupations and jobs they didn't care for.  I suspect the small farm movement reflects that too.

Indeed, on my first day of practicing law as a lawyer over thirty years ago the long time office manager, who must have been having sort of a bad day, made a comment like "you might just end up wishing you had become a farmer".  I remember thinking to myself even then that if that had been an option, that's exactly what I would have become.  It wasn't, and it never has been for me, in the full time occupation sort of way.

Oh well.

And so we lost the garden to labor in, but we can make things better than they are.  And we could do that by taking a much more distributist approach to things.  Which seems nowhere near close to happening, a populist uprising notwithstanding.

Lex Anteinternet: i nolunt

Lex Anteinternet: i nolunt: 

i nolunt

Radical refusal to consent.

More specifically, radical refusal to consent to the spirit of the times.  It's part of what I admire in them, but it didn't strike me until recently.

John Pondoro Taylor, in his memoirs, recalled having seen Maasai walking through Nairobi as if it simply wasn't there, as they had always done, dressed in their traditional fashion, and carrying spears.  On their way from one place to another, refusing to consent that the development of the city meant anything in real terms.

I was recently waiting in the Church for the confession line to form.  One of the Mantilla Girls walked in.  I've seen this one once or twice before, but not at this Church.  She not only wears the mantilla, and is very pretty, but she carries herself with pride.

They don't all do that.  Some of the younger women who wear chapel veils do so very naturally.  Some sort of timidly, or uncomfortably.  With at least one, and I could be massively off the mark, it's almost sort of an affectation.  But here, you see something quite different.

Or so it seems.

I don't know her.  I could be wrong.  But it's clear she isn't timid and it's not an affectation.  

It is, it seems to me, a radical rejection of the modern secular world in favor of existential nature.

For those who believe in the modern world, in modernism, or the spirit of the times, or who are hostile to religion, that may seem like a shocking statement.  But the essence of our modern lives (or post-modern, if you insist) is a radical rejection of nature, most particularly our own natures.  Wearing a chapel veil indicates that the person deeply believes in a set of beliefs that are enormously grounded in nature.  The wearer is a woman, in radical alignment with biology in every sense, and accepting everything that means, including what the modern world, left and right, detest.  I nolunt.  She's accepting of the derision, and ironically, or in actuality not ironically, probably vastly happier than those who have accommodated modernity.

Moreover, those who think they're reaching out for a radical inclusion of the natural, who don't take the same approach, never can quite reach authenticity.  There can always be a slight feeling that something isn't authentic, and there isn't.  Reserving an element of modernity defeats it.

Related Thread:

We like everything to be all natural. . . . except for us.

Labels: Agrarianism, Agriculture, An hoc pertinet ad naturam?, Commentary, Daily Living, Food, Friday Farming, Medicine, Men, nature, The roles of men and women, transgenderism, trends, Women