[MD] A hopeful note

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt]
"When a car company like G.M. is the the art 
business, every company in any other industry is, too."

[Arlo]
I think the message of ZMM is that "art" is the 
relation of the subject to the object. It is not 
an "object" but an "way of being".

"People arrive at a factory and perform a totally 
meaningless task from eight to five without 
question because the structure demands that it be 
that way. There's no villain, no "mean guy" who 
wants them to live meaningless lives, it's just 
that the structure, the system demands it and no 
one is willing to take on the formidable task of 
changing the structure just because it is meaningless."

"But to tear down a factory or to revolt against 
a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle 
because it is a system is to attack effects 
rather than causes; and as long as the attack is 
upon effects only, no change is possible. The 
true system, the real system, is our present 
construction of systematic thought itself, 
rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down 
but the rationality which produced it is left 
standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory."

And finally I hope the execs at GM take note of this passage from ZMM.

"At the moment of pure quality, subject and 
object are identical. This is the tat tvam asi 
truth of the Upanishads, but it's also reflected 
in modern street argot. "Getting with it," 
"digging it," "grooving on it" are all slang 
reflections of this identity. It is this identity 
that is the basis of craftsmanship in all the 
technical arts. And it is this identity that 
modern, dualistically conceived technology lacks. 
The creator of it feels no particular sense of 
identity with it. The owner of it feels no 
particular sense of identity with it. The user of 
it feels no particular sense of identity with it. 
Hence, by Phædrus' definition, it has no Quality.

That wall in Korea that Phædrus saw was an act of 
technology. It was beautiful, but not because of 
any masterful intellectual planning or any 
scientific supervision of the job, or any added 
expenditures to "stylize" it. It was beautiful 
because the people who worked on it had a way of 
looking at things that made them do it right 
unselfconsciously. They didn't separate 
themselves from the work in such a way as to do 
it wrong. There is the center of the whole solution."

As they move to revision their "product" as a 
work of art, I hope their emphasis is on the 
relationships between the "craftsmen" and "his 
labor", the "identity" that each point on the 
long road of production must be fostered.

Otherwise they are just going to put a "veneer of 
style" over the same-old same-old product.