{"id":229391,"date":"2023-02-20T12:01:04","date_gmt":"2023-02-20T12:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=229391"},"modified":"2023-02-16T06:27:50","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T06:27:50","slug":"inside-the-iron-cage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/02\/inside-the-iron-cage\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Iron Cage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cNo one knows who will live in this [iron] cage in the future\u2026.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u2013 Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism<\/em><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

PHOTO: GLEN BOWMAN<\/p><\/div>\n

7 Feb 2023 – I would prefer not to relay the following very strange story given to me by a fellow sociologist, but he had done me a number of favors, and since he asked me to do him a favor in return, I feel obligated.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what to make of the whole thing.\u00a0 Following this brief introduction, you will find the manuscript he handed me. I realize you are getting this third hand, but there\u2019s nothing I can do about that.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know his friend.\u00a0 When he asked me to print it for him, I told him I would prefer not to, but then guilt got the best of me, so here it is.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is one of those stories hard to believe.\u00a0 When I first heard it, I thought it was a joke, some sort of parable, and my friend who was telling it to me had had too much to drink or was just pulling my leg.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure.\u00a0 Like so much in today\u2019s world, the difference between fiction and fact has become very blurry.<\/p>\n

Let me call him Sean, since these days holding a strong dissenting opinion can cost you your job.\u00a0 He is a professor who, like the character David in John Fowles\u2019 story, \u201cThe Ebony Tower,\u201d teaches art history.\u00a0 And like Fowles\u2019 character he is a very frustrated academic.\u00a0 In Sean\u2019s case, he has had to contend with the transformation of his college from a place of learning to a place where \u201cWoke\u201d ideology stifles dissent.\u00a0 Perhaps more importantly, he has suffered from extreme writer\u2019s block.\u00a0 He had just been telling me how, after years of writing copiously in his private journals, he had grown nauseated by it because it seemed so self-involved, concerning self and family stuff he was sick of.\u00a0 He wanted to write articles and books, yet when he tried, he couldn\u2019t.\u00a0 All his energy had been going into his futile daily journals, where he felt trapped by family matters.\u00a0 Until one recent day at the bar where we regularly meet, he heard this strange story.\u00a0 It jolted him.<\/p>\n

Here is what he told me over beer at the tavern. \u00a0I am paraphrasing, but because his tale was so startling, I know I have the essentials right.\u00a0 He said:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was late in the afternoon last Wednesday when I came in here for a beer.\u00a0 I was feeling very tired that day, though depressed would be more accurate.\u00a0 The teaching routine seemed absurd to me.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t writing.\u00a0 I felt at a dead end.\u00a0 I guess I was.\u00a0 Anyway, you know that guy Tom whom we\u2019ve talked to here before?\u00a0 Well, he was here and we got talking.\u00a0 The place was empty.\u00a0 It turns out his last name is Finn \u2013 Tom Finn.\u00a0 His father was Russell Finn, the famous painter, you know, the one the mainstream media gush over.\u00a0 A realistic sentimentalist is the way I\u2019ve heard him described, although I would say he was a sick fabulist trying to repaint history for Hallmark Cards. \u00a0Anyway, so this Tom Finn had had a few beers, and as he got talking, the both of us had a few more.\u00a0 It became obvious that he was obsessed with his father.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t say that exactly, but I could guess it from the snide remarks about him he\u2019d laugh out of the side of his mouth.\u00a0 I asked him about a big traveling exhibit of his father\u2019s paintings which I had recently read about in the newspapers; had he seen it?\u00a0 \u2018No,\u2019 he said, \u2018I don\u2019t go to that kind of crap.\u00a0 That\u2019s his bag of marbles.\u2019\u00a0 Things like that.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt turns out the son is also a painter, but he said nothing about his own work, just that he painted.\u00a0 He talked all about his father\u2019s work, how his father stole ideas, wasn\u2019t very good, etc.\u00a0 I told him I agreed that his father\u2019s work was overhyped and mediocre, but that my experience studying art taught me that was true for every era.\u00a0 I was trying to be nice, something I tend to overdo.\u00a0 I got the impression he turned to painting by default, it being some kind of knee-jerk reaction to his father, some kind of Oedipal contest.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt turns out his real obsession is toys, no shit, and he got very animated as he talked about them.\u00a0 He wanted me to come over to his house to see his vast toy collection.\u00a0 The invitation was so weird, and with the beer\u2019s effects, I couldn\u2019t refuse.\u00a0 It was nearly dinner time, so I called Sara and told her I\u2019d be late.\u00a0 I was actually interested in what made him tick.\u00a0 I mean, why would a grown man \u2013 I\u2019d say he is in his mid-forties \u2013 collect fucking toys?\u00a0 And weirder still, he said his specialty was tiny plastic figures of all sorts.\u00a0 Of these he had more than 25,000 \u2013 for some reason he emphasized that number \u2013 that he\u2019d periodically put on display at local libraries.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cSo I followed him over to his house which is on that street adjoining the university where a number of art history professors live.\u00a0 Oak Terrace, I think it is.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t help laughing when I saw all those abstract sculptures decorating their lawns.\u00a0 It was getting dark and they were spotlighted.\u00a0 What a juxtaposition \u2013 so perfect \u2013 so-called realism and cerebral abstraction side-by-side.\u00a0 And both utter bullshit.\u00a0 I was reminded of a description of Russell Finn\u2019s paintings that I once read: Cute wallpaper for readers of Reader\u2019s Digest.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cActually, Finn\u2019s house is quite cute itself.\u00a0 When we were going in, I had to restrain myself from saying to him, \u2018Life\u2019s cute, isn\u2019t it?\u2019\u00a0 I don\u2019t think he would have appreciated that, although it\u2019s very possible that he wouldn\u2019t have known what the hell I was getting at.\u00a0 He\u2019s a toy collector after all and what\u2019s cuter than that.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll tell you this.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t prepared for what he showed me.\u00a0 He took me down to his finished basement, which he called \u2018the laboratory.\u2019\u00a0 When he switched on the lights the room was empty except for the walls.\u00a0 They were covered with shelves about six inches apart that ran from wall to wall and ceiling to floor.\u00a0 It gave the large room this incredibly bizarre look as though it were a prison cell.\u00a0 There were even spotlights that illuminated the shelves, upon which, right along the outer edges looking out, he had lined up his collection of little figures.\u00a0 As we stood in the middle of the room, it was as though thousands of little people were staring at us, the giants. I felt as though I was hallucinating. Finn just chuckled when I said, \u2018Pretty fucking amazing!\u201d\u00a0 Then he said, \u2018I like the perspective, don\u2019t you?\u2019 \u00a0\u00a0I knew he didn\u2019t expect an answer and I could only chuckle in response, even as I felt a chill on the back of my neck. \u00a0It was so eerie that I had to contain a shudder.\u00a0 For a brief moment I had the feeling that the door we had entered was going to shut and be bolted and that something terrifying was about to unfold.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cBut at that moment he gestured to me to follow him to another door, over which a sign read, \u2018The Family Fun Room.\u2019\u00a0 \u2018This is my favorite,\u2019 he said with a smile.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the middle of this pink painted room there was a cage that extended from floor to ceiling, and in the cage, sitting on stools, were two life-sized and very realistic figures of a man and a woman.\u00a0 They were both dressed in those black and white stripped prison uniforms you\u2019ve seen in old movies.\u00a0 The woman was facing away from the man.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t tell who the woman was, but I immediately recognized the man.\u00a0 It was Finn\u2019s father, down to the most realistic detail.\u00a0 He was holding a small toy figurine and was looking into its face.\u00a0 The door to the cell was padlocked shut.\u00a0 \u2018That\u2019s to make sure they can\u2019t escape,\u2019 Finn said with a straight face.\u00a0 \u2018Now that I got them where I want them, I can\u2019t take any chances.\u00a0 They\u2019re dangerous and can cause me a lot of grief.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHe then closed the door and we went upstairs.\u00a0 Neither of us said a word.\u00a0 He offered me a beer, but I declined.\u00a0 I felt spooked, some dreadful feeling in my gut.\u00a0 I told him I had to be leaving, which I did.\u00a0 On the way out I noticed a framed photograph in the foyer.\u00a0 It was a picture of Finn at about the age of nine or ten with his parents and sister.\u00a0 They are sitting together on a couch, the two kids caught between the parents.\u00a0 No one is smiling.\u00a0 Behind them on the wall is the father\u2019s famous painting of a family of four sitting on a couch.\u00a0 In that one, everyone is smiling and the father in the painting is Finn\u2019s father.\u00a0 As you probably know, that was one of his father\u2019s favorite techniques \u2013 to put himself in his paintings.\u00a0 Such a cute double-message: I did it, of course, but how could I have done it when I\u2019m in it.\u00a0 You\u2019re left wondering: who really did it?\u00a0 Who executed the painting of these happy people. But since it\u2019s all supposed to be so amusing, you\u2019re left to chuckle, to think, how cute, how tricky.\u00a0 You\u2019re supposed to smile.\u00a0 But no one was smiling in the picture on the wall.\u00a0 It seemed like a house of smoke and mirrors and I was damn glad to leave.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAs I drove home, I sure as hell wasn\u2019t smiling.\u00a0 There was something terribly disturbing about it all.\u00a0 I felt nauseated, disgusted, really disturbed.\u00a0 Maybe it seems obvious, but I felt there was a connection between this weird experience and myself.\u00a0 A double connection, actually.\u00a0 I won\u2019t go into all the details now, and you know about my writer\u2019s block, but this bizarre experience has left me with a new sense of freedom, some kind of opening to a new way to write that at the time I couldn\u2019t put my finger on.\u00a0 I\u2019ve come to think of it as writing beyond a cage of categories.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI thought about all the stuff we talk about, the political propaganda about everything, the loss of a sense of reality, the illusions and delusions with the digital technology, the warmongering by the U.S against Russian, the covid bullshit, all of it, all the stuff we share over beers.\u00a0 Especially the disconnect between the private and the public and the two-faced nature of a way of living that is so fucking phony.\u00a0 I realized why I had been hiding in my notebooks, how they had become my cage.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cTo top it all off, when I got home and told Sara about my experiences with Tom Finn, the cage and all, she didn\u2019t believe me.\u00a0 She accused me of having drunk too much, which I had to admit I did.\u00a0 She said I was scaring her with such a ridiculous tale and that I was sounding like a deluded conspiracy nut.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAnyway, I\u2019ve told no one else about Finn.\u00a0 I\u2019m afraid they wouldn\u2019t believe me either.\u00a0 \u00a0You\u2019re a sociologist and know all about Max Weber\u2019s prediction of a coming disenchanted world with its iron cage.\u00a0 Shit, I feel like I had a small glimpse of it.\u00a0 Do you think anyone would believe me if I told this story?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cDo you?\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

__________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/em>Edward Curtin is a widely published author and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>. His new book is <\/em>Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies<\/a> \u2013 His website: Behind the Curtain<\/a> – email: edcurtinjr@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 edwardcurtin.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

7 Feb 2023 – I would prefer not to relay the following very strange story given to me by a fellow sociologist, but I feel obligated.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what to make of the whole thing.\u00a0 Below you will find the manuscript he handed me. I realize you are getting this third hand, but there\u2019s nothing I can do about that.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know his friend.\u00a0 So here it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":229392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[642],"class_list":["post-229391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}