Living For Dummies

Was life ever simpler? And when it was simpler, was it necessarily better? This is of course the question posed by Defoe in Robinson Crusoe, a primer on the recusal of at least one man from civilized society. Eventually Crusoe finds his Tonto in a local native called Friday. There are, of course, many ways in which such a novel can be read. On the one hand it can be viewed as form of screed, broadsheet or feuilleton arguing for the virtues of the primitive world. On the other it may be seen as an allegory for society itself, under the theory that there is no escaping the human condition. But there are certain incontrovertible facts. The industrial revolution produced economy of scale and most importantly the division of labor, an innovation that exponentially increased the alienation of the worker from the product he was producing. You may have to deal with conflict in even the most idyllic of settings since there's no evidence that either primitive man or his ancestors were free of territoriality or aggression. However, automation and the assembly line created a host of new and invidious paradigms that still inform the workplace today. In the pre-industrial world where men hunted, fished and bartered for those items they couldn’t make, neither deferred gratification nor capital accumulation were part of the equation. On the other hand you had the Inquisition and Salem. In order to survive, the fittest had to conform to a tight mold that didn’t allow for the kind of diversification that would be naturally selective for the species as a whole.Turns out when it comes to that elusive things called progress, you're damned whether you do or don't.