Good Morning Friends,

Now we can talk about toilets, ideology and toilets. Here is where we look at this idea of Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Zizek. Actually, we don't want to examine the idea as much as simply express gratitude for it.

There was a time when I was unclear about the value of philosophy. There was a time when I thought this world had moved beyond it - as Zizek puts it, there is the widespread view that we are living in a "post-ideological" age.

I suppose by this we meant that: A) philosophy had run its course and was now like Latin, an obscure discipline to be studied by academics for its own sake, an expression of the leisure of the bourgeoisie; and B) our actions and politics are governed now by practicality, pragmatism, indeed, "facts."

If I had it to do over again I would have majored in philosophy, got a Ph.D and taught somewhere. Its a living, of course but I worried about its limited appeal or at least lack of promotion of philosophy for a wider appeal. There was a time when I wished that I possessed a more practical skill set.

There was a time when I wished for a talent for computers or working with tools or cars or something like that. I remember wanting to be able to do something that was "undeniable," something that provided undeniable value.

This computer I am using is something of clear, undeniable value. No matter what your "philosophy" or ideology, or what political party you belong to, no matter if you are a "progressive," liberal, conservative, "Independent" (not a real political party, by the way), Libertarian, Democrat, Republican, and so forth, this computer is of singular, undeniable value to all of you.

This was what my thinking was like long ago. But ideology, philosophy is disputable. Obviously, people make a living communicating a certain ideology to an audience that is receptive to it, whether by Internet in various ways, television, radio, newspaper columns, and the like. You go about living in your "echo chamber," being echoed to and echoing to your particular "masses," and everything's fine, I guess.

There was a time when I had longed to have been born sometime in ancient Greece, when the great philosophers lived (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc.). Part of their greatness, it seems to me, came from the relative newness of the ideas they talked about. Now these things are "old hat."

Yes, I should have majored in philosophy, full speed ahead and simply gone on to teach at university. But this implies a certain constraint of the publication of philosophy, a communication of academics to academics, per se.

But what about the garbage hauler? What about the taxi driver? What about the people who clean the rooms at the hotels? What about the people who work in the chicken slaughtering plant? And so on and so forth.

Some people say that the work done in a university is "not for everyone." We may examine that sentiment in more detail at a later time. But this "not for everyone" is in itself an ideology that underpines world society. After all, if "education" were "for everyone," then who would our garbage haulers, high-rise building window washers, chicken slaughtering plant workers, the taxi drivers, the security guards (I once had the pleasure of being one), and so forth be.

George W. Bush rolled out the "No Child Left Behind" education bill. But millions of children MUST be left behind in order for our society to function along these line. That is the unescapable contradiction of not only or even capitalism necessarily, but rather the much older world social and economic system of organization that is much more fundamental, and upon which capitalism was built - I think, rather reluctantly at that.

Anyway, people who talk about what is not "for everyone" will, of course, say that foregoing "higher" education need not mean that people have to be consigned to "marginal" ( I want to make clear that I am not calling the people who do these jobs "marginal" Marginal are the jobs that many of us are structurally compeled to do) jobs.

They can point to examples of people who did not go to college and yet through "training" or even "re-training" got good, high-paying jobs working with technology and so forth. Granted but these are exceptions that prove the rule. The system must allow a modicum of "upward mobility," but not too much to play havoc with the social order, which is namely the division between those of us who must sell our physical labor power for a wage - a low one at that - and those that get to "write [their] own ticket," as it were, by selling their perceived "intellectual" bona fides to do work that is more prestigious and better paid and benefitted and very much less physically taxing.

Anyway, we were meant to be talking about toilets. And we will. We are going to spotlight how practical is not as practical as practical thinks it is, and how speculative is not as speculative as speculative thinks it is - a formulation I gave before.

wingedcentaur