"Scotosis" is a new term to me but I have often thought about this
phenomenon when reading history -- even fairly recent history -- and noting
fashions of thinking which were universally accepted but which are now
regarded as fallacious -- so fallacious indeed that it is a matter of
wonderment to us that they could ever have been believed.
I'm not sure that such scotoses (if that is the plural form of the word!)
are cultivated. Those of the past that amaze me seem to be cultural
consequences of what went before and entirely subconscious. They are only
exposed and questioned when some major innovation changes the culture in a
fundamental way. I think that it is salutary to realise that our present
western civilization more than likely suffers from scotosis and that our
grandchildren or further decendents will look back on our beliefs with
incredulity.
The interesting thing about my disagreement with Tom Walker's proposals for
shorter working weeks (and which he may not realise) is that I entirely
agree with him that shorter working weeks would be highly desirable.
Indeed, I don't think we can call ourselves civilised until all labour is
voluntary and that it only occupies a moderate portion of daylight hours.
(Indeed, in the two businesses I have established, my colleagues [for that
is what they are, and not my employees] work for as long as they wish,
whenever they wish, and if they left me tomorrow [as one did recently] then
there's nothing I can do about it, or want to.)
I don't know why Tom Walker is quite so hung up about shorter working
weeks. There are several more serious social/work problems in the modern
developed world (and I confine myself to the developed world because the
undeveloped world can only catch up with us by recapitulating our own
traumatic historical "progress" -- though hopefully much quicker than we did).
For example, the most serious problem to my mind is the way that the
educational system (state plus private) is now more polarised in western
countries than it ever has been. The result is that a sizeable minority of
children and young people who live in "sink" housing estates in England
(and in Europe) are so mentally and psychological stunted that they have no
chance whatsoever of breaking into worthwhile jobs. Discussion of the
length of the working week -- whether 35/40/45 hours or whatever -- is an
almost frivolous activity when compared with trying to understand the more
fundamental problems and bleak prospects of so many people.
Keith Hudson
At 09:09 23/06/01 -0700, Tom Walker wrote:
>I recently came across the term "scotosis", which refers to a kind of
>cultivated collective blind spot that we develop to ward off knowledge that
>might upset our customary way of viewing the world. My guilty secret is that
>my earliest fascination with the hours of work question had nothing to do
>with economics but with the apoplectic indignation proposals for shorter
>work time evoked from people who styled themselves sensible and
>well-informed. It's interesting (if annoying) that such folks invariably
>*know* what I'm thinking and why without paying attention to anything I
>might have to say.
>
>At this point it is really not so much a matter of whether or not a 35-hour
>week or less would make life more pleasant or at least do no harm for a
>whole lot of folks. For me, it is a question of the role that this
>remarkable scotosis about the hours of work plays in upholding an untenable
>world view -- in propping up a house of cards.
>
>I am talking about the founding myth of our industrial hierarchy. That
>hierarchy has hypertropied out of any proportion or relation to its supposed
>foundation, presumably the exchange of labour services at market prices. To
>question the foundation is to threaten the hierarchy. And it is for the sake
>of preserving that hierarchy that we must insist on the inviolability of the
>utterly corroded foundation.
>
>Or maybe I'm the one whose got it all wrong with my base/superstructure
>fetish. And the real foundation of industrial society is the entrepreneurial
>free-market blimp from which dangles suspended the structurally superfluous
>but eternally indebted undercarriage of wage labour.
>
>Is that a left-handed or a right-handed sky hook?
>
>Tom Walker
>Bowen Island, BC
>604 947 2213
>
>
>
___________________________________________________________________
Keith Hudson, General Editor, Calus <http://www.calus.org>
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727;
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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