Last week I wrote about the loss of connection at a more personal level. Discussing the change in how society interacts appears to be doing more harm than good for us as a nation and as a world community. This week I want to discuss the loss of connection in the workplace and in support of the common good hurts us all.
We seem to be going back to a point in time where corporations and the super rich have little care for anyone but themselves. A time before unions and when oligarchs controlled the halls of power. This is showing in how layoffs are always the first thing to happen when profits are down. This shows in how billionaires battle amongst themselves to be the first in space or the richest rather than giving all those funds to people and communities in need. This shows in the algorithms of social media and how misleading headlines are written to obtain maximum clicks and screen time for profit. This shows in the push to automate everything.
All of these actions are affecting how we view ourselves and how we view and interact with others.
What I’ve listed above is a lot to unpack. But I want to concentrate on the connection to work and dignity.
Although I am no longer a fan of Andrew Yang based on current actions I feel are endangering democracy, I do have to acknowledge a couple of worthwhile topics in his book, The War on Normal People: The Truth about America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income is Our Future. Yang’s run, and platform, for president in 2020 was, to me, all about what he wrote in this book.
His premise was about a displacement of workers due to automation and what this will mean for the workers being displaced. Most workers who are, and will be, displaced will be men as men overwhelming are employed in the jobs being lost to technology. The main example he used was about the trucking industry.
As self-driving vehicles become mainstream, people will lose their jobs. Yang’s premise is that truck drivers will be replaced by automated vehicles. This change will come gradually at first. This might look like truck drivers remaining in the driver’s seat to deal with any unexpected incidents while en route, but this will also be a time in which the technology learns from these experiences (basically AI that is now on the landscape in very scary ways). Next it might be the driver’s sit in the passenger seat, or the automated truck stops at designated locations for a driver to maneuver through a city, after self-driving without a human for the longer stretches of road, still learning from every experience. To a final outcome of not needing a human being at all in the long-haul trucking industry.
When this happens, and it is inevitable this will occur, what happens to all of these displaced male workers. Will they go happily into the good night? Find other jobs? Or become bitter men with nothing to do because their livelihood has been taken from them? Their dignity in being independent, self-reliant, and productive members of society lost due to automation with little to no thought of the consequences of the feelings of these men (and also to the women drivers).
What about their families? What about their local communities? What about the taxes they’ve been paying? What about their homes? What about the increase of social services needed and the cost of those social services?
So, you may be asking, where am I going with this? In reality, I’m not sure. Will we go through a renaissance of an increase in union membership to help keep these jobs? Will we go through a period of actually voting for politicians that yes, may not be everything in a person we want, but will vote for legislation to help the common person? Will we begin to hold corporations accountable for the harm they are doing to communities and society? Will we begin to actually tax the billionaire class to support what they are creating through their corporate decisions? Or will we do nothing and have angry bitter displaced workers find others like them who then begin to lash out in dangerous ways (think angrier militias, larger memberships in nationalists organizations, increase in domestic terrorism fueled by fear and anger)?
It does come back to connection. Connections between workers and their livelihoods. Connections between workers and their colleagues. Connections between corporations (and the people who run them) and the communities in which they are located, and the societies in which they exist.
As a full circle, it comes back to connection between human beings to other human beings. At workplaces, at grocery stores, at eating establishments, at schools, at civic events, and at the myriad of other places humans interact with others.
I invite, and encourage, you to reach out to another person in-person (not social media) today. It might be just a smile as you walk through the grocery store. It might be just a wave as you drive through your neighborhood. It might just be taking something down from a high shelf for someone while shopping. It might just be picking up the phone and calling a friend you’ve been meaning to see to set-up a coffee date. It might just be waiting a little longer in line at the store and skipping the self-serve register.
Remember, small gestures go a long way, and most people will then continue the small gesture of kindness and connection to those they too encounter throughout the day.
A little can go a long way.
Personal Reflections of a Middle-Aged Man 