Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

It has been observed that human beings' basic necessities (other than just generally being somewhere it is possible to live, i.e., somewhere with gaseous oxegen in steady, but not lethal, supply, without more than trace amounts of toxic substances, and without temperatures or pressures such that human tissue will be burned, frozen, crushed, or decompressed) are: water, food, clothing, shelter, and love. It is less often observed that the rationalization of the obtaining thereoff comprises the vast majority of mankind's technical development.

The necessity of water is such that it's presence may as easily be counted not among the "basic necessities," but even among those qualities comprising a "somewhere it is possible to live," as described above. The immediate usefulness of direct access to fresh water for purposes of replenishing the body's quota is one of two reasons the first civilizations are typically to be found along rivers; the other reason is that water is not just something people require: it is also something required by virtually all the things that people need (or simply like) to eat parts of: plants, animals, fungi, and in a few interesting cases, other people.

This was the rationalization of food and water. By settling near rivers, people gained access to water not only for themselves, but they also gained the ability to create irrigation for mass aggriculture, a system whereby water is stored in nutrient-rich sacks such as produce and livestock, which are easily stored, transported, and consumed at leisure. In a well-documented theoretical progression, this achievement led to trade specialization, which created surplus, which allowed for trade, which necessitated mathematics, and both writing AND reading; by the time this chain of seemingly well-intentioned creations reached that point, it was already directly or indirectly responsible for less reputable institutions as well, such as social inequality, warfare, businessmen, and television.

That (except for television) was the status quo until the early modern period: humanity for the most part up until that point was divided into large and small aggricultural empires, fighting with one another to take control of the land from which is derived the surplus used to fund the fighting. It was the rationalization of the next item in the itinerary, clothing, that made all the difference: in the period of a few short centuries, the world was divided into large and small industrial empires, fighting with one another to take control of the human capital needed to work in the industries from which is derived the surplus used to fund the fighting.

What had happened was this: three events, that had probably happened before, but had never yet happened together, happened together. One was that some people decided they wanted more clothes. The next was that someone thought that production of clothes could be increased with a significant reorganizing of the process (and the workforce). The third was that a bunch of people decided usury wasn't such a bad thing. These people siphoned up money that had previously been just laying around allowing people to live, and with funds thus concentrated, they were able to finance the reorganizations envisioned.

Textiles are the seed of industry. Textiles started the Industrial Revolution in Europe, and they form the foundation of new industrialization in today's developing nations, albeit in the form of sweatshops, which differ from the Lowell Mills of yore in that they are somewhat more shoddily constructed, and some employ boys as well as girls.

However, once the principles of industry were developed, they were applied to other enterprises, the first of which, naturally, was murder: the American System of manufactures developed at armories in the young republic formed the basis of mass-production to come. This, really, was what has been called the "second wave" of technological development. The first wave was aggriculture, the mass production of life: things that, for the most part, manufacture themselves. The second wave was industry, the mass production of things that don't, with the corrolary creation of standardization. Each of these waves resulted in a dramatic increase in surplus, and a corresponding increase in what may be termed the western conception of standard of living: more food, more income, more social wealth. Aside from the plundering of the environment, in economic terms equivalent to killing the goose that layed the golden egg, there was another side effect of these, particularly the latter, development. I shall describe this presently, but there is something else that must be mentioned first: shelter.

The fourth of the necessities mentioned, shelter, was, in mass quantities, both reqired and provided for by the industrial revolution. Mass production of metal tools, and later, thanks to the Haber-Bosch process, Ammonium-based fertilzer, muliplied aggricultural output a hyperbolefold, which caused human populations in industrializing countries to mushroom. These populations were accomodated physically and economically by the dramatic growth of the construction trade in those countries; the construction industry typically became one of the largest employers of men during the industrialization process. Construction was itself also a beneficiary of mass-production techniques, including the development of mass-produced standardized building-parts expediting the process of erecting everything from new homes to skyscrapers.

Mass production of steel, concrete, and electric lighting, products of the more scientific "second industrial revolution" may have played a role in the expansion of cities in this period, as cities, the mass production of structures, were no longer inhibited by the periodic mass fires that inexplicably tended to frequently decimate cities of the pre-modern era that were lit with flames and made entirely from kindling. The second industrial revolution was the one that gave rise to the modern chemical industry, which gave us the explosives needed to alter the geography of the planet when it's existing topography was insufficient to accomodate expansion, fertilizers mentioned above, and the various pharmaceuticals needed to allow for industrialized processing of livestock with only minor accompanying outbreaks of disease.

This brings us to the modern era, and the unexpected consequence I mentioned earlier. That is, as we have reorganized our society successively to increase procuction of the first four necessities, there have been corrseponding decreases in the production of the fifth, Love.

Love, in this context, refers to familial/parental affection needed of healthy child development, social support allowing a child to become a successful adult, and sexual love that becomes literally the next generation of familial affection.

In our hunter-gatherer days, we lived as tribes, clans; extended-family communites, surrounded by blood-ties. In our postmodern days, we live in isolation, in both physical seperation and nearly complete psychological alienation from family and community. At every stage in the process that took us from there to here, we became wiser and more foolish: as the immediate physical expediency of close-knit family groups for survival in a primitive world was eliminated by moderization, people were able to safely live further appart, and express themselves as individuals, what we now think of as persons, for the first time; however, people are not just people, they are animals as well: millions of years of evolution made us to live as family-groups and hunter-gatherers: a few thousand years is insufficient to adapt us to live as individuals and insurance underwritters. Individualism is the processed sugar and trans-fat of sociology: it's very pleasant, but it's not what our physiology is designed to handle.

The Industrial Revolution was perhaps the most jarring event to the production of love as previously described; millions of people were displaced in the search for employment, and the contributions of Taylor and Ford reduced them to interchangable parts, consequently eliminating the continuity of trade between the generations; later, thanks to automation, these poor souls had the discomforting philosophical experience of being replaced in their calling, such as it was, with nothing.

The consequence of the cumulative severing of human ties of affection with the rationalization of production of the other necessities has been, not suprisingly, attempts to rationalize production of love.

First, the reproductive drive, which is, by design, difficult to sate, far back into prehistory inspired enterprises by which it's physical urges and the psychological wish for immortality could be satisfied; not just the obvious example of the "world's oldest profession," prostitution (as well as the second oldest profession, pimping), but also pornography and religion, which, in their fertility-goddess origins are indistinguishable, and in their modern variants constitute the vast majority of the inspiration and usage of technological development.

The role of parental and other familial affection, as nurturers, those who care for the very young and very old, have been replaced: medical and nursing professionals, nannies and orderlies, daycares and hospices care for us for pay in the bookends of our existence. Inbetween, the role of family and community as a source of support has been outsourced to a rainbow plethora of paid caregivers and nurturers: the Surrogate Family Industry can be said to encompass all manner of clergy, drug-dealers and educators, as well as virtually the entire enertainment industry, essentially the entire spread of trades dedicated to making people feel good.

Adam Smith described the advantages of trade specialization in the microcosm of pin manufacture, and it's various steps. One worker dedicated to each sepperate step, he pointed out, would produce a far greater number of pins than the same number of workers, each performing all the steps together, mainly for various logistical reasons. In the spiritual trades, however, specialization leading to greater production, greater throughput, it not necessarily possible or desirable. In a profession, such as a psychotherapist, attorney, or agent, any one in which the professional is privy to personal details of their client, and are paid with the express purpose of advancing said client's interests, vastly increased productive capacity, that is, a greater client volume, is a bad thing for the clients: they services are retained on the loyalty of money, not blood, and when the client-list for those professions expand, there's a shift in the balance of need: clients need their services more, and they need each individual's money less.

More to say on this, maybe.