Go next to Stop 9 on Tour:
Suppose that humans happen to be so constructed that
they desire the opportunity for freely undertaken productive work.
Suppose that they want to be free from the meddling of
technocrats and commissars, bankers and tycoons, mad bombers
who engage in psychological tests of will with peasants defending
their homes, behavioral scientists who can't tell a pigeon from a poet, or
anyone else who tries to wish freedom and dignity
out of existence or beat them into oblivion.
- Noam Chomsky, "For Reasons of State"
Psychology and Ideology, 1973
As you will see in the section labeled here Other Tools, we make and insist on the claim that the transition to new work has been greatly held back by the fact that so many of those who are positioned to make a difference in these matters -- whether they be in government, the research community or the private sector -- are pathologically incable of understanding the full depth of the issues involved because they chose to treat them in a certain anonymous way, as if they were, quite exactly... statistics. And when the issues are framed only in such terms, it is inevitable that they become dry, somehow less important and that often as not they eventually get lost in the rush of other, much more "important" matters.
For thus reason, we insist on the point that for every statistical analysis we also make sure that we have corresponding human faces.... knowledge in very real, concrete terms of how all these things are playing out in real life for real people. Hence, we feel that it can be useful to ensure that we present here either specific case studies or evidence of the human side of what it means to be "out of work" (reminder: when you are out of work, you are also, in a very real way, out of life) or links to such evidence. This is, of course, an excellent opportunity to make full use of the Net's increasing capabilities to convey information in terms of other and fuller media than just the old print sources.
This element of the New Work program will, like all others, be carried out on a collaborative basis, and will take shape as you and others let us have their materials and links so that they will be available to all to consult and use.
Go next to New Work Tour Stop 9 ->
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Updated 2 August 1999