Epistemological violence in America

From the moment I step off the train and begin to make my way to my workplace, I am bombarded with toxins and carcinogens. Delivery trucks and cars bring the first wave of this assault with their exhaust; the smoke produced by people racing down the street with cigarette in mouth trying to get a quick nicotine fix before the workday begins compliments this. As I walk past the fenced-in site of a building that is under construction, I’m showered in the noxious fumes emitted by welding equipment. On certain days, I may even have the pleasure of walking through a cloud of particles of God-knows-what produced by sandblasting or some other industrial process. This all generally occurs every morning in the course of ten minutes.

# posted by workplex @ 15:16 0 Comments

In many early-modern Western cities, one’s wealth was directly related to their proximity to the ground; the richer folks lived over the street, above their poorer counterparts who resided at street level. Before the advent of modern plumbing and sanitation, one would dispose of waste, human and otherwise, by pouring it out of the window onto the street below. Thus, whether in New York, London or Paris, it was enormously desirable to live off of the street, where one could perform this disposing rather than find oneself on the business end of a chamber pot.

# posted by workplex @ 14:45 0 Comments

Let’s get down to brass tacks and address a core issue we’ve neglected thus far: the racket run by corporate businesses and universities. A great many of our fellow peons are caught in a nightmarish debt trap that began when they were impressionable youth and will dictate the rest of their lives. This person is, on average, intelligent, relatively young, idealistic, single and without child; in other words, they are unencumbered by the trappings of a typical middle age, suburban lifestyle that is largely devoid of social and physical mobility. Yet the peon remains unable to exercise their autonomy and mobility because these things are rendered null and void by the crippling debt they began to accumulate as students, as well as the inadequate preparation given to gain meaningful employment. By the time they finish school and are ready to enter the workforce, the peon, in order to merely service their debt, is forced to find immediate and unsatisfactory employment. This type of work generally pays just enough for the peon to maintain some semblance of independence, which in turn lures the peon to compensate for their castrated mobility by seeking immediate satisfaction in the form of material goods and a lifestyle obsession that can be sated only by the accumulation of further debt. The peon is rendered unable to develop the skills and experience necessary to find better employment and becomes stuck in the lowly job for which they are over-qualified, uninterested and under-compensated until their spirit is broken, their aspirations dashed and they resign themselves to a vapid and inescapable fate. Thus they become the ideal corporate drone: docile, unquestioning and hopeless.

# posted by workplex @ 15:37 0 Comments

The building I work in is under tight security, as is the case with many skyscrapers in my fair metropolis. The lobby is filled with uniformed and unarmed security guards, closed-circuit cameras and monitors, and several airport-quality x-ray machines. Standard procedure for searching bags is as follows: backpacks and larger luggage must be X-rayed while messenger bags need just be briefly opened so that a guard can quickly peer inside with no ostensible intent other than creating the illusion that a search has been performed. This seems to be completely devoid of logic. But that's not all...

I generally bring my lunch in a plastic grocery bag that I carry in my backpack. As I mentioned above, the backpack must be put through the x-ray machine. However, I object to having my meal bombarded with gamma rays* so I remove my plastic lunch bag before placing my backpack on the conveyor belt. Not once have I been asked to submit my lunch bag to a search. Not once has a uniformed rent-a-cop eyebrow been even slightly raised at the sight of my transgression. I presume that the security guards and expensive-looking equipment are present to detect dangerous objects such as bombs and guns in order to prevent an attack on a person or the building itself. Yet it apparently hasn’t occurred to anyone responsible for security in the building that a gun or bomb or whatever can be carried in a plastic grocery bag. It’s gotten to the point that I try to make myself look particularly shady or conspicuous by being extremely deliberate in my movements, especially once I’ve cleared the security area and am free to proceed toward the elevators.

I can’t help but wonder how this situation has come about. Is there some security guideline manual in which it is specifically mentioned that plastic grocery bags (or messenger bags for that matter) are less likely to harbor contraband that a backpack or suitcase? I wonder how many meetings and work hours were spent to determine the protocol regarding the checking of bags in “high-risk” places. How many red flags and action item lists did this matter warrant? I’d like to believe that there exists an ultimate vault of bureaucracy that is buried beneath a monolithic federal building and in this vault there is a top-secret directory in which every type of bag, satchel and parcel is given a corresponding threat assessment and rating. In this great tome of precaution I would imagine that those cool shiny steel briefcases are given a really high threat rating, maybe 9 out of a possible 10, though not as high as the huge black duffle bags that seem designed to be filled with machine guns a la the Matrix. Based on that, here are some possible ratings:

Black “machine gun” duffle bag – 10

Steel “heist” briefcase – 9

Backpack or large suitcase – 6

Messenger bag - 3

Plastic Grocery bag - .4

I’m also curious as to whether a paper grocery bag would be considered more suspicious. Soon I will test the limits of the private security industry and report my findings.

*Some might call this fear irrational, neurotic or even insane. While I will not address those assumptions, I will can safely say that this quirk o’ mine is due in large part to watching the Incredible Hulk TV series starring Bill Bixby when I was a child.

# posted by workplex @ 15:55 0 Comments