For Independence Day Fannie and I drove to Detroit Lakes, had lunch overlooking the lake, took a stroll along the beach, drove around some lakes, and over to visit a couple that we knew were Republicans and remembering our last visit, we were not especially looking forward to this encounter. We quickly marked the territory and I was surprised that he was hesitantly against Trump and she seriously against Clinton. The mention of Sander’s name brought scorn to their faces and so the territory had been properly marked. I had gone to their cottage determined not to let things get out of hand as they had several years ago discussing politics.
To do this I entered their cottage with the intent to listen to what is important to them. In his 80’s, the fellow’s children in their 60’s and his grandchildren had all completed university degrees. He seemed to hold education in high regard, he had attended a university but had not gradated, deciding instead to start a business. He is successful and had passed the daily operation of his businesses to his children, but still kept involved. He said that if he had gotten his university degree it would have made no difference to the outcomes in his life. “If I had gotten a degree,” he said, “I would have gone on to become as successful being a GM or GE executive. Either way I would have reached the same point as now – I am perfectly happy with my life!” He spends his days golfing, reading fiction, and looking out over the lake – he seems set to meet his maker, whatever his level of consciousness.
However, he recently had a concern with one of his grandchildren in that after graduating with a university degree he was not properly employed in his field and was searching for something different. After his grandchild had not taken up his introduction to interview for a proper job, he indicate he was no longer taking an active interest in his grandchild’s occupational decision. In other words, his grandchild was not fulfilling the designated role his capitalistic education had planned for him.
I sensed that I was looking through a window into the interior of this unfolding experience. I took special notice of his comment on “being equally happy” with his life whether he had or had not received a university education. Either with or without a degree, he reasoned, he would have been equally well-off (happy) working as a capitalist either in his private business or for General Motors. He is saying that formal education would have made no difference in his monetary success (his happiness) and apparently no difference in his level of consciousness – one way or the other he would have lived his life equally successful in America’s capitalistic system.
As we drove home from the lakes, I realized that what we had just whiteness was Pinky’s logic on Globalization. Here is the first clip of Pinky addressing how globalization is the colonialization of the past, with the same objective to control others. Pinky says that “Military force is only the most obvious way to control. Maybe even more important is to dominate the areas that shape consciousness and define relationships: media, technology, law, education – we have to always appear to have progress, authority, and civilization itself on our side.” This hit me as I reflected on my 40+ years in higher education and specifically on some real pain I wrote about in Modern Times the University Factory Scene.
This second clip Defending globalization – A mission for the educated and the enlightened, describes the system producing our friend’s privileged stuff, his beautiful cottage, cars, and boats, a system which is invisible to him and as Mimi says concluding this clip, “there’s really no incentive for [him] to seriously want to examine any of this….”, to which Pinky concludes, “Someone told me fish can’t see water.” There is no use discussing any of this with our hosts, since swimming with awareness in the fish bowl of global capitalism takes a special kind of lens to see through the muck. However, even if one is able to grind such a lens, there is the daunting task of using it, getting out of the fish bowl, and then making a living to support one’s family. At the end of a future clip a university professor tries to explain this effort to his wife – this is me and this effort is committing class treason, which we will address next. In the mean time realize that even friends of a state are not looking up!
SA Scherling
Dialectic Analytical Man 