The myth of efficiency: Online With Angelos

The myth of efficiency

Angelos: I really got inspired by our conversation and think would be valuable to continue it on here. Potentially the most important theme that came out of it is how this major disruption (who the fuck thought we would experience a pandemic of this scale in our lifetimes) really changes our perception of what is valuable in our daily lives. 

It is this slowing down of life’s pace and the confinement that shift the emphasis from the grand to the little, from the convenient to the efficient (but not the efficient as defined by economics). Now I have the time to be fully invested in whatever my action is without being as distracted by other artificial deadlines and pressure that I create for myself. And that state of mind allows you to think about the impact of your actions, about your values and about the way things are connected to everything else. What are your thoughts on that?

Diana: Free like a cloud

I have been cycling, walking, moving, drawing and writing. I have been taking photographs of rotten fruit on the sidewalk thinking about food insecurity in the times of confinement since I have the ability to move on my feet, my bicycle, place and displace objects around marks and objects do so as well. 

I am exploring my desire to move, to move my hand to make marks on paper, to move my feet to look the outdoor (flowers, clouds, architecture) vs. the inside when I am not on the internet. 

My drive to wake up is to be able to listen and create narratives of these intense political times, and wait for when the free ones will be able to gather.

Angelos: I am finding that I observe so much richness in simple and subtle things nowadays. Gardening has entered my life and that romantic idea of moving out of the city and living in the countryside is not as abstract anymore. The necessity has activated the desire which had just been idly waiting for a future moment where everything would fall into that place. I spent yesterday cleaning up the garden and planting parsley, watercress and radish and then I fried potatoes for lunch and a tomato for salad. It was the most simple and delicious lunch ever. I felt so rewarded and happily tired at the end of the day. I also loved how you said you found pleasure in washing up dishes, which I think is usually a task most people dread, it takes time from other more important things, but now it seems like it’s value of care (for the object and for other humans) is arising. Why is that?

Diana: “The  Marxist  assertion  of the materiality  of history challenged  two 

fundamental depoliticizing strategies. First, if history is material, then

we need to understand where we are now, what we think, what is

possible—and even what we desire—not only as historically located but

also as structured by the ways in which our human material being—

our  needs—inaugurates  a certain relation  to matter. Because of  our 

species needs, we are required to produce, and the mastery of 

production will demand ever more sophisticated technologies. Crucial to the

development of technology will be the division of labor. This very

commitment  to efficiency,  repeatability, and  maximization of effort 

will eventually lead to those ideological categories of class and gender.

Our  consciousness  will be 

class

 consciousness  precisely because  what 

Claire Colebrook

On Not Becoming Man

61

we take the world to be will be determined by just how we relate to the

distribution of production. For the capitalist, the world of matter in-

cludes human labor, technology, and raw material; other human bod-

ies are so much quantifiable power, available for increased production

and  to be  managed like  any other resource.  For the proletariat, the 

world is both matter upon which one must exert labor and those rela-

tions of production that are not purely material. Relations of production—

the very fact that my body must exert effort beyond my need and must

expend more material force than is required to live—are lived by the

proletariat (in false consciousness) as natural, as nothing more than the

way things are. Matter is lived as existing only in itself. But in revolu-

tionary class consciousness, the worker’s relation to matter—his bodily

being—is understood as an outcome of dynamic or dialectical materi-

ality.  Our subjection  to the system of  capital has occurred  precisely 

Because our  material.”

Angelos: And this is where self-isolation comes to encourage people to re-evaluate how their material lives are so constrained and defined by abstract forces beyond their control. 

Perhaps the fear of lack of food in the stores, 

or the disruption of public infrastructure,

the shortage of active workforce,

will highlight how important we are to one another for the functioning of our daily lives but also the structural faults in the system. 

Certainly in the US we have seen how absurd 

it is to expect the most vulnerable in society to pay for their own COVID19 treatment

and how powerful Congresswoman Katie Porter’s speech was, to help pave towards a more equal access to healthcare… hopefully after this pandemic (which seems like there isn’t really gonna be an after) radical change will not seem as impossible as before. A nationalised health service will be necessary - demanded! Workers rights such as proper statutory sick pay and a safety net such as universal basic income for people who are working the gig economy or are self-employed are no longer absurd socialist ideas but essential ways to keep societies working when under threat. 

It is only now that the value of low waged workers is showing up and it is now becoming more clear to people that the right wing will keep siding with big businesses and the private sector even at times of emergency. 

People in the UK are not going into self-isolation because the government has not announced proper legislation that will allow businesses to claim money from their insurance in order to pay their workers. Also landlords have been given a three month freeze in their mortgage payments but somehow renters have not heard anything about their rent being suspended, just a vague statement about not being evicted in the next three months…

It is ridiculous to be forced in the position of putting yourself and others at risk in order to be able to pay for another day under capitalism. I am hoping that the goverments’ response to Corona will trigger a raise in class consciousness. It is already evident in the rapid growth of mutual aid groups.

Diana: For now, social distancing has been redefining the idea of what staying at home means, what is the ‘unit’ of the house for instance and social interaction deformation. The idea of “work from home” be “safe” if that implies staying alone? Warm? For sure not protesting of acting physically against injustice.
In larger political schemes, where this global crisis sees larger deaths and brutality I think it is purging societies and redefining the human. The notions of self-control and social responsibility.
For instance, reaching out to you after long periods of no sharing of words, music or calls (voice traditions!)  means interacting primarily with computers, phones that keep us feeling “human” contact when in fact, the non-humanity is happening within a brainwash of the individuality of the self, safety, values, and inter corporeal experiences. (personally the change in my cognition, the impatience, and addiction for the consumption of images, distortion in mobility and perception of time in regard to duties) .

Another example of this, Maria Galindo in Bolivia exposes how there are still more femicides than cases of  COVD19. Is it then safer to stay at home? Not going to work? Perhaps starve or simply not report symptoms? Then the tradition of women and the ‘vulnerable’ staying home’ is this safe?  

No doubts I fear, the often asked “What is next?”
Are votes on ballots going to make a change? when we know already of corruption has happened and the mediated means of delivery of vote and voice seemed like the gate out?
(M. Galindo) http://mujerescreando.org/mujeres-creando-ante-el-coronavirus-el-estado-y-la-oligarquia-quienes-mejor-saben-lavarse-las-manos/?preview_id=1934&fbclid=IwAR2odC31DLqgIajo4hdDsM1sbOVN6KJd20xw7KQm6sA9HPqO4i-0Sv_mhxY

On the side as a part of learning, I came to the conclusion that all of this is really a social responsibility before we could use the excuse of home or having to be somewhere else and for instance, we would not communicate. But one does for the other… the energy is staying home as well, so reach out to professors or family, friends or the world are all equally draining. The difference is for the one that is going to watch it.  [perhaps driven nuts already but just writing it out now]

DIANA: Thoughts on Corona virus and over virtualization;

Intro

Capitalism, the neoliberal economic system worked in the shocking events (Klain).

It has defeated us.

It won, now the duties entered all into the computer, the making is what happens in isolation, has determined what happens in freedom; home and what is around.

What I feared the most. Perhaps a good time not to shout, to scream in interpersonal relations, perhaps a good time to think about what is really around me.

Life and death, therefore. Movement, the fear to move. The fear to look outside the house from the window to move stuff around the house, to move the body around the streets, house all close that is close by.

The post-internet world, overflow of information. Now my job is measured in virtual schemes, these schemes, these maps will determine my legality in the territory I am staying now as a Bolivian woman on a student visa status in the Netherlands.

What have I made? Not a fatalistic, just a time to get alone and think separate thoughts.

Entertainment vs, production. Awareness vs. unawareness.

What do I want? To deliver my own narratives of what I have lived in this very period of time.

And then put them in the map.

Meet them, so that is not more internet trash.

What happens when I mean time to reflect, a writer, an artist, a poet’s duty. A long process of meetings, interactions and then editing last a physical book.

I want to talk about the presidential times delaying openings at museums, I am talking about me being afraid of the military forces, vandals, rapist, police, the hospital.

When staying home and stopping the paranoia so that I can’t be “toxic” for my surroundings.

https://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Business_economics/Efficiency.html