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Up to the minute notes on the current state of free thinking and free living: Kentucky moonshine - original analysis and reporting from MoreThings, and all round pop culture museum of sight and sound - photo galleries, mp3 and video downloads.
Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
Live free or die!
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January 27, 2004
Your job doesn't exist
The map is not the territory. - Alfred Korzybski
The menu is not the meal. - Alan Watts
Language is a funny thing. The talking functions are so deeply imbedded in our consciousness that we largely THINK in language. We often don't even realize we're doing it.
Nor do we realize that language is just symbols, not the actual reality of the world. Many people speak of "intellectual property rights" as if this were something more than merely a metaphor.
"Your job" makes a good current example of a semantic spook- an idea conjured up by words that does not correspond to anything in reality. Manufacturers are going to export your job overseas, according to Democrat presidential candidates, among others. Goddam it, them businesses are stealing, exporting YOUR JOB.
Psst, buddy! Over here. Let me tell you a secret: Your job doesn't exist. "Your job" is really only a semantic spook. For starters, jobs are nouns only as a function of language, not in reality. A job is not really a person, place or thing. You can't store your job out in the carport, or hang lights on it at Christmas.
A job is more a relationship than a THING. You do stuff for me, and I'll give you cash. Then comes a day when either you don't want to work for me anymore, or I don't need your services. Have a quick chorus of "Auld Lang Syne" and move on.
Instead, some people speak of a job as if it were a piece of material property, something that belongs to you, like a toothbrush or a pocket knife. They are simply delusional, or perhaps just wrestling for political position. The fact that a company hired you to work for them at some point does not mean that they OWE it to you to keep paying you forever. Unless you've got some kind of contract agreeing to pay you for x number of years or some such, you've got no basis of complaint.
At some point, this talk about exporting "your job" just amounts to a nicer or more subtle way of saying that the world owes you a living.
posted by Al at 1/27/2004 03:15:00 AM
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