As some of you recall, I wrote an article a while back on the state of the world. And how there is in fact a lot of reasons not to resign oneself to cynicism and pessimism. I often use the vocabulary of history, it’s how I was educated. I see the past as the best source of knowledge with regards to outcome, and I think history is the science of outcomes.
I recently spoke to Ted Reese, who I think wrote a brilliant text that compliments this, but using a very different vocabulary. Namely that of political science. To me, studying present day using present day information is like some kind of impossible trick, I cannot make sense of it. So needless to say I was very impressed by Humanising Production, a book on political science that I very much recommend to understand this topic.
Since this is very much not my wheelhouse I feel like the work does a far better job at explaining this than I could. But I do want to post a few of my thoughts on why I like it.
Because Humanising production is a very cleverly crafted piece of text. It has the impact of a sledgehammer, and yet the delicate delivery of a surgeon’s scalpel. Every section reads like a carefully designed thing. It has its own intuition that permits one to grasp overarching conclusions and careful detail at the same time, woven into a narrative of facts, excerpts, footnotes and citations. It carefully outlines the nature of contradiction in a world that suffers a new kind of dark age.
Where we are no longer suffering a scarcity of information, but rather a state of oversaturation. Wherein fact, fiction, truth, lies, sincerity and duplicity becomes many different animals in an endless ecosystem. It is a thing that provokes curiosity, and returns exhaustion. It demands reflection and careful thought. It is like reading a block of marble in its density. It takes only a few hours to read, and yet its content takes weeks to digest.
It is a wonderful reminder of how we are always ignorant, of how there is always more to learn. It doesn’t offer simple fixes or idealistic conclusions, it is rather a narrative of a story that ends in the middle; A middle that describes the present. It makes us aware of our role in the world as working people, and how it is up to us to give the story a satisfying ending through the timeless call of class struggle and solidarity among peoples.
It describes the many forces at work, and how technology, science, ecology, society and politics is an ambiguous thing. How the working people have many advantages whilst still giving us a lucid reminder of the dangers ahead.
So do yourself a favour and check it out, you can also find free pdf copies if you check out Ted Reese on Twitter.
