Adam Curtis, "The Century of the Self" (2002)

[danschank]

When I consider the last three or four years of my life, there has been no darker omen than the word “restructuring.” In 2009, my entire office was laid off due to “restructuring.” In 2010, at a different job, I got screwed out of a week's worth of paid vacation time because of “restructuring.” Presently, “restructuring” is holding back several

Comments

[discotarantula]

Your knowledge and use of history is impressive and enviable.

[discotarantula]

I am sort of Buddhist these days though.

[danschank]

pretty much all of the history cited comes from the doc itself. it's four hours, so there's more time than usual to get into detail. one of the most exciting things about watching curtis' work is that i inevitably think "that can't be true" and then 20 minutes of googling later, i'm convinced. history is quite weird sometimes.

as for buddhism, i was merely poking fun at jobs' image as a "spiritual" dude in a black turtleneck, and how it superficially implies humanitarianism, even though he was quite stingy and unethical in reality with his insane wealth. had he worn a ten gallon hat, i doubt we'd all be heeding his call to "think different."

but buddhism itself is something i know very little about. i'm not a very spiritual person, though i obviously have no quarrel with people who are.

[discotarantula]

I think we live in a pretty comparative culture and the fact that Jobs compares favorably to Bernie Madoff and the Kardashians gets him a pass. Plus people love their iPhones.

I'm not super Buddhist at all, but the ideas of pain being a natural and important part of the fabric of life, of removing wants, and of being accepting are all important to me these days.

[bad_juice]

awesome piece, though i'm not sure when i will get around to the doc series. summer starts in a couple of weeks, so... maybe then

[danschank]

aww man, you noticed my "i'm 35 and maybe i'm too old to write in all lowercase crisis"!

on the other hand, i am writing long treatises on BBC documentaries, so maybe suspended adolescence isn't my problem?

[bad_juice]

it was actually funny cause i was planning on asking this question even before i read the post, but then here was this post flying in the face of my already established conceptions.

do you know when you decided on the lowercase thing to begin with? was there a mental decision to specifically do it, or did it just sort of happen naturally in the online arena and then you went with it.

i switched to lowercase sometime last year, after noticing on this forum i visit that most of my favorite posters wrote in lowercase. then i remembered you and reuben also did on lj. and i thought, "hey maybe there's something to this."

you didn't answer my question about professional-related stuff though!

[danschank]

nope, no caps on resumes. in my experience, resumes should be overbearingly professional, and every little bit helps. i've even taken to signing mine "daniel c. schank", which feels more like "smarmy mcdouchebag" in my soul, but whatever.