Mark
Age: 45
Height 6'3"
Weight: 260lb
Mark wakes up at 5am and glances over at Colin, who is still sleeping. Colin is Mark's cuppie [from CUP, standing for Civil Union Partner – Civil Unions cover both hetero and homo unions, there is no separate legal status of "marriage"]. They have known one another since childhood, and theirs is a CU of convenience as much as anything: Mark, although he identifies as gay, is largely asexual; Colin is largely straight and boasts of having fathered 6 children by different women [The women each wanted to have a child, and chose Colin as the sex partner of choice to achieve this goal; they chose other men or women to be their partners in raising their children, or opted to be full-time carers, with the full support of society]. Mark recalls a couple of times when he has performed fellatio on Colin when Colin has been feeling sexually frustrated, but mostly theirs is a platonic union, formed because they always did everything together anyway, and had shared one another's most intimate secrets, it is a recognition that they are soulmates, even if they are not sexmates.
All this passes through Mark's thoughts as he eats breakfast and heads to the nearest car park. It is early, so the park should be full and he can have his choice of vehicle for his journey into town. He plugs his jPod [author's conceit – one better than an iPod… ] into the car stereo and listens to some of his favourite music as he drives into town. He is pleased to find that the car is nice and clean; not everyone follows the instruction to leave a car tidy and clean, either out of haste, or carelessness, or just absent-minded forgetfulness. Some people's community service time is spent on making sure that cars get cleaned regularly, but it's good manners, Mark thinks, not to force too much person-hours to be eaten up this way.
Of course, Mark has a particular thing about cleanliness in public spaces. He is often selected to perform garbage collection duties (and indeed, his early starts this week are due to being selected again for that work) on his community service hours, because of his strong physique, which makes him well suited to the work. When he was younger, he was approached by three different football codes [possibly American, Rugby and Aussie Rules] to train for high-level competition, but he preferred to spend his time in engineering, which is his true love. Although the admin teams do their best to have everyone get their first choice of community service, it doesn't always work out that way, so sometimes people have to take a turn at doing something they'd rather not do. But because everyone knows that the work is vital, and because they know it's usually only a short stint, it isn't much of a problem.
Leaving the car at a nearby car park, Mark walks his way the last block to the recycling/waste-processing depot. Very few people choose to spend their working time here, but every job in the place needs to be done, and there are those who gain a lot of satisfaction from their community service in making sure that recycling is as efficient as possible, and that non-reusable waste is disposed of as quickly and neatly as possible. Mark's experience in this area has enabled him in his working hours to produce new versions of several components in the process that have been duplicated across the globe and made recycling significantly more efficient.
The faces are familiar, and there is an easy camaraderie between Mark and the others on his route. Because of his experience, Mark has been selected as leader for this week, and as a result he is also expected to help out the new member of the team, a 21 year old called Gary, who actually has joined a sports team recently, and is expected to do very well in the coming season. Gary has responded well to advice on how to lift heavy objects ("that'll come in handy when I make tackles!" he quipped on his first day). Gary has, as is traditional since time immemorial, been a victim of some pranks and hazing, but has taken it all with good humour, and already got his own back even on one or two of his more careless tormentors. The two-hour tour goes by easily with conversation about all manner of idle topics, including the recent weather and Gary's team's chances in the season opener in two weeks' time. Gary heads straight off to training after finishing his morning of community service, while some of the crew go straight home to bed. Mark has always been an early riser, however, and as the clock ticks past 8:30am he is already at the lab catching up on his latest project. He has been waiting for some results from a test run by his colleagues elsewhere, which may make all the difference to his plans. He is pleased to see that the results have arrived by email overnight, and he spends most of the rest of the day studying them and incorporating them into the designs he was working on.
The last hour or so, however, he puts in some hard work on actually building the machinery that he helps to design. For him, a part of the enjoyment of his job is that he gets to see a design go from the page to the factory, and then into the real world, and everyone in the team has a hand in it at every step of the way. No one is confined to a single role, but everyone is an expert on the whole system. The business is run as a collective, because everyone is able to bring something to discussions on how best to direct their resources, and what working practices are best suited to their particular issues.
After a full 8-hour day, with a break at midday for lunch, Mark heads homewards. He doesn't bother to go to the car park, because lots of people come into work and leave their car parked on the street. Mark finds one that looks in reasonably good shape and hops in, turning the radio to the news programme to listen to what's been happening in the world and locally. He drives home as he hears of various events, some good, some bad, that have taken place. He pays close attention to those that will impact directly on his work or home life, and pays more attention again to the political news. There is a big debate going on, and Mark wants to know how the arguments are shaping up.
Colin arrives home a couple of hours after Mark, and after they share a dinner prepared by Mark, they head off to the pub to meet some of their friends and neighbours.
Alan, the barman, greets them as they enter, and asks, "Is it a conference tonight?"
Mark replies, "I think it might be, Alan – set us up on table 10, would you?"
As Mark and Colin take a seat and wait for a friend to turn up, Mark reflects on the qualities needed to be a good barman these days: not just the ability to serve customers and recognise when they might have had enough already, but also a huge amount of discretion, too. This is where democracy begins, after all, and the barman is responsible for making sure that it goes all the way up.
Colin breaks into Mark's reverie, by leaning across and pressing the mute button by Mark's seat: "Hey, how about a double-date with that pair?" Colin asks, indicating with his eyes a man and a woman who are sitting opposite. Mark chuckles, knowing that Colin is often teasing him about his low sex drive, and doesn't bother with the mute button as he replies, "dirty old man!"
Soon enough, Joey turns up. Mark doesn’t know whether Joey is male or female, and Joey doesn't seem to care; she says she prefers the feminine pronouns purely because she finds them more elegant than the various alternatives in common usage. Joey's costume never varies from her worn-out jeans and t-shirt and offers no clues either. As Joey takes a seat, the conference begins. It turns out that she had listened to the radio reports all day and was very angry about some of the remarks in the debate, and was determined to have her say. As the evening stretched onwards, and one or two other friends join them, the debate at the table is fuelled by alcohol ad passion in equal measures, and one or two ideas come up that hadn't been mentioned at all on the radio. The reason for the mics at the table is obvious now, and this is where democracy starts: in a pub debate between friends. Table 10 is also known as the Red Dragon North Street Local Collective, and in a couple of days' time, as long as Alan does his job assiduously, the ideas that are recorded from table 10 could end up being a part of the debate as it is reported on the local news.
The debate goes on rather longer than Mark would have wished, but he only realises this when he arrives home and sees that in 5 hours he has to be up and ready to go back out to collect the recycling and garbage. Colin arrives home a couple of hours after Mark has fallen asleep, and goes into the guest bedroom. He has company and doesn't want to disturb Mark.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
3 things wot people said:
Comments Moderation Policy
This blog is intended to be a place where I can develop my thoughts freely and get free and honest responses. Essentially, it is my safe space, and for that reason I have elected to maintain this blog as a moderated space. However, I am opposed in general to censorship and believe that usually the best way to kill a bad idea is with a better one, so very few comments will be rejected. Comments designed to cause offence for the sake of it (e.g. abusive or inflammatory remarks with no other content), or else those that I feel cross a boundary of human decency, are most likely to be rejected.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Interesting post. One question I have about it is, why the frequent references to sexuality? Since you were writing this piece in order to illustrate what day-to-day life in a Communist society would look like, I'm assuming you included those references because they are part of what society would look like post-Communist revolution. I'm a bit confused on that, I admit, because I don't see how a change in the economic system of a country would lead to largescale changes in how people approach sexuality and gender.
ReplyDeleteAlso, your mention of Mark appreciated cleanliness in public spaces goes back to what I was saying on the other thread. Unfortunately there are people who care about the space around them and people who don't - and I don't see that changing based on economic system. My concern is that in such a society, the lazy would have no motivation to do their part, because the people who actually keep up their end of the deal would just pick up their slack. You mentioned banishment as a punishment but that seems a bit severe... how would you suggest addressing, say, a first offense?
Interesting post. One question I have about it is, why the frequent references to sexuality? Since you were writing this piece in order to illustrate what day-to-day life in a Communist society would look like, I'm assuming you included those references because they are part of what society would look like post-Communist revolution. I'm a bit confused on that, I admit, because I don't see how a change in the economic system of a country would lead to largescale changes in how people approach sexuality and gender.
ReplyDeleteWell, this is why I identify myself as being specifically a radical feminist. I believe that the hegemony of capitalism and that of the Patriarchy are deeply intertwined, and I don't believe that the hopes for either feminism or anti-capitalism can be achieved without the success of the other also.
It is a fact that Marx and Engels both wrote excoriating attacks on the institution of marriage as it appeared in their society, and in some ways their criticisms still stand. Marx was very much anti-religion, and I also believe that religious construction of society and social norms is counterproductive to the freedoms necessary for communism to work. For that reason, I think that marriage as we know it would cease to exist, and would instead be replaced by civil partnerships (or "civil unions" as they are called in this post). After making that determination, and saying already that religious conceptions are thrown out, then it is reasonable to conceive that a union such as Mark's and Colin's would be possible.
As to Colin's fathering of 6 children, this has two bases: firstly, since property is generally held in common, there is no point in having marriage as the basis of childbearing – if you find someone with whom you want to have a child, then you can fuck them and hope to get lucky, or ask for a donation and have it done the less fun way. Secondly, it is a development from Marx and Engels' defence against the accusation by anarchists that they would turn all women into whores (this was based on the culture in the mid-19th Century that women were the property of their husbands: therefore, argued the anarchists, if all property is held in common, then all women are common property and fair game for anyone). The point of introducing the idea was to show that any connection between parenthood, sex and marriage would be redundant in a communist society; sex would not require emotional connection, and would not be intended for reproduction unless it was her desire.
The point about Mark being willing to perform fellatio for Colin (and, I guess, about Colin being willing to accept it) is more feminist than communist, I'll admit: it's because I would expect that freedom from performative masculinity, and from the expectations built up around sex, would follow from a communist society being formed, because of the focus on one's self-realisation. With such freedom, there would be nothing upholding the false binary of hetero-/homo-sexual, so Mark would feel no barrier to offering if he sees his friend in need, and equally, Colin would find no difficulty in accepting it.
Finally, I introduced Joey because in a society whose guiding principle is to further each individual's fulfilment, then the person is what matters, and not anything about their physical nature. Consequently, trans folks would be accepted, and racial distinctions would have much less significance.
Also, your mention of Mark appreciated cleanliness in public spaces goes back to what I was saying on the other thread. Unfortunately there are people who care about the space around them and people who don't - and I don't see that changing based on economic system.
Yes. In a way, that whole passage was anticipating this argument coming up! As it says, some people go around to clean up after the lazy/forgetful/too hasty people. Those people who don't have much of a concern about the cleanliness of their spaces probably wouldn't end up being selected to do cleaning work in general, but might be asked to do work that is more suited to their talents.
My concern is that in such a society, the lazy would have no motivation to do their part, because the people who actually keep up their end of the deal would just pick up their slack. You mentioned banishment as a punishment but that seems a bit severe... how would you suggest addressing, say, a first offense?
Well, the chief point of the passage was to say that Mark, because he ends up having to clean up other people's garbage, has developed more of an eye for public cleanliness than most – I deliberately hinted that it is not his first choice of job, but he gets picked for it sometimes because he's good at it; he far more often gets the work he prefers, and only has to pitch in with the garbage collection maybe one week in every six or something (he could opt out of garbage collection entirely, of course, or might be exempted if he turned out to be bad at it).
The point about banishment as a punishment is that everyone in society is picking up someone else's slack for them, so it's almost a quid pro quo type of deal – if you refuse to do your part for others, why should anyone else do their part for you? But banishment would only be for chronic offending.
Suppose someone (let's call him Bob) gets selected for a week on Mark's garbage collection team, but decides he would rather stay in bed. When the team arrive for work, they'll notice that they're a man down. After a quick check of the roster, they'll find out who it is. So they ring up admin and say, "Bob's not here, we're worried he might be ill." Then admin ring up Bob and say, "Are you okay? You're late for your community service duty." Bob can then either admit to being lazy, or refuse to answer the call, or pretend to be ill. If he does the former, then he'll be advised to make haste down to the depot to get started. If he doesn't answer the call, then they send someone round in case he's had a nasty accident and can't reach the phone. If he says he's ill, he'll be given the day off, but if he keeps up the pretence then after a couple of days, admin will call up his doctor and suggest that Bob be paid a visit to make sure he's okay. It may well be that word will get to Bob's local, and thereby to his friends: "Bob's not been turning up to community service hours, he must be ill."
The result of which is a gradually increasing amount of social and peer pressure to play his part.
If Bob turns up but decides to let everyone else do all the work, a similar process of peer pressure would come into play, all with the same "concern troll" type of approach – his colleagues will offer to give him advice on how to do the work better, ask him if he is poorly, and generally by showing concern for him make it clear that they've noticed he's not pulling his weight. Eventually, if Bob just doesn't pick up his share of the work, they'll start asking if he's really cut out for this kind of work, and maybe if nothing else works send a suggestion to admin at the end of the week, "Bob's not really cut out for this kind of work, give him something else to do in future, please." Naturally, admin will have a record of what people have been thus blacklisted from what types of work, and how often – if a pattern emerges of general unwillingness to be involved in the daily upkeep of society, then Bob will be given a warning; if the pattern persists after the warning, then Bob would be invited to a hearing, and given an ultimatum. If the ultimatum is ignored over the next few weeks, then Bob would be banished.
Now, it is important to note that there would be a risk with such a situation that people suffering depression might be wrongly banished, but that's why the health concern element plays such an important part – it would be hoped that Bob's doctor would pick up on the signs soon enough, and then Bob could receive treatment (and possibly an exemption from community service until he has managed his depression). As a last resort, before a hearing is called, then Bob might be examined by a doctor to see if a diagnosis of depression is reasonable. Ideally, of course, since people would not face the same stresses as we do in modern society, depression should be much rarer, but I wouldn't want to bet on it.
One final thing - although I reference Marx and Engels above as part of my justification for including my feminist elements of the new society, Marx himself was in fact a horrendous sexist and chauvinist. He and Engels were also both very racist. Fortunately, modern communists tend to be rather more enlightened in those regards than their 19th Century forbears!
ReplyDelete