Pierre is a financial analyst based in Paris. He spends most of the day analysing financial data on spreadsheets. He makes sure the company remains profitable. After a long and tiring day of work, his eyes are sore. He gets back to his apartment-share by metro, and plays the new mobile game he downloaded 2 days before, after seeing an ad on Instagram.
When it has been a busy day, and he hasn’t had time to purchase a ready-meal from the supermarket — or when he wants to treat himself — Pierre orders from Uber eats. A Malian delivery man will then ride his bike and carry the meal prepared by a Pakistani cook to his flat. The rest of the evening will be a mix of watching MMA fights or football matches highlights on YouTube, swiping on Bumble or Tinder, or playing FIFA on the PS5.
Ten years like this, and Pierre will have completed his journey to the insect world. Although he failed to notice, all the marketing messages being thrown at his face every day always revolve around two simple promises : entertainment and saving time.
Entertainment : as Blaise Pascal put it, it’s the perfect way to avoid facing one’s inner turmoil and engaging in meaningful introspection. It prevents Man from seeking a more profound sense of purpose and fulfilment.
Saving time : for what ? For more entertainment.
Modern age insects
Facing the truth can lead to no other conclusion than this one : Pierre is a brain-dead insect (that’s redundant). He executes one single task, and knows how to execute no other (by the way that task insn’t necessarily worthless). He performs a job to get just enough money to be entertained 24/7 (Side note : you are an insect if you are brain-dead AND have a job. When you are brain-dead and jobless, you are only a zombie).
Now society is what it is. The ingredients for creating human insects (including mass marketing and Taylorism) are a by-product of the industrial age, where human societies have become much more stratified (actually, what I’m describing is nothing more than Marx’s idea of “Alienation”). But this industrial era has also brought ease to mankind, along with other positive features. To me there is no point in whining and screaming bloody murder about it. For being alienated is no fatality.
Two steps to become human again
Although most people will not do it, some have already found the way to escape their insect fate. It boils down to two steps :
Quitting your addiction for entertainment
Becoming enterprising
Think of what a human creature does if it is not obsessing over entertainment. It thinks, it writes, it trains, it interacts, it loves, it walks, it studies, it reads, it explores, it sings, it dances, it hunts, it banters. The accumulation of all these varied activities over the years shapes a complete man (or complete woman). But no one, apart from you, can take the initiative of engaging in such activities.
René Descartes was both a mathematician and a philosopher
Leonardo da Vinci was a painter and an inventor
Marcus Aurelius led military campaigns against Germanic tribes while writing his Meditations.
Read the original quote from Robert Heinlein to grasp the idea :
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
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Paul
Hello! Thank you very much for this article, which makes a lot of sense to me. I have a question: It seems that work in digital often leads to specialization. Does it still make sense to you to work in that area, or do you think it would be more interesting to use digital as a tool rather than making it an all-encompassing part of our work lives?