Photo by Maria
Oswalt on Unsplash
44 Production for use
Stories
The sailors were restless on the deck and
in their cabins. Drills had been completed for the day and there
was ample time to worry in silence. Suddenly the loudspeakers
blared out “We have received our orders. We are going to war.” An
adrenalin rush surged through the troops; men sprang to their
feet and cheered. They were ready! This was production for use:
they would use their training. Awareness of what they would be
doing had been conditioned out of them. That is why military
bodies induct people around age nineteen when they can be trained
to kill on command. Sadly, that machine is not unbuilt; it
is used.
In a different movie the electric chair
was described as production for use. In theory, threat of
barbaric means of execution would reduce crime. That result did
not follow but building the equipment did assure that it would be
used.
The principle applies equally to nuclear
weapons. Although they were conceived as only a threat, building
them assured that they would be used. As a threat of
ultimate force, they were theoretically a sufficient deterrent to
end warfare. Trusting the theory would have meant using them to
vaporize an uninhabited island and allowing Japanese leaders to
understand the implications. The fact that the weapons were used
against two densely populated cities indicates that
production leads beyond threat to deadly use.
In all three cases, to be effective as
deterrence the mechanisms had to exist. Building them proved to
be production for use: killing, not just deterrence. Production
invites implementation.
This is a happiness blog which functions
to instate living goals to replace morbid examples like the
above. Recall
article 33 “We go where we look,” describing my cure
for smoking. It is effected by completely shutting down any
attention given to the unhappy habit and replacing that with the
joy of constructive actions. There is neither guilt nor
deprivation. There is replacement. The whole of this blog
is my substitute for negative thinking. Instead of
studying bad things to make them less bad, we occupy ourselves
with good.
The key is to clarify what we want. Once
motivated by right reasons, we naturally turn our production
toward right uses. We are not typically choosing between
international diplomacy and warfare. We are faced with mundane
options of varying practical value. Human activity in general is
guided by utility; we choose to produce what we are going
to consume. We avoid producing something useless and we make use
of something already produced.
Simple challenges can launch us on
the happiness path. Choosing steps like the following will be
more encouraging than a morality lecture.
- Collaborate; share the load and the rewards. Competition wastes
energy.
Article 41:Success at the expense of others is
obscenity.
- Being for others replaces selfish profit motive. Bring somebody
with you and you arrive, too.
Produce quality and durability. Shoddy workmanship undermines
economic security.
- Be creative. Layoffs brought on by automation and streamlining
free up workers for more interesting tasks.
- Be occupied at something constructive. Independent of market
vagaries, responsible production bestows meaning and earns a
place at the table of consumption.
- See that every person is used, and none is left out of the
rewards. That is prerequisite to peace.
I apologize for the gory opening and hope
I will not vent in that way again. Nevertheless, the dark side
serves as a foil for the happy society we are building.
Being For Others Blog copyright © 2020 Kent Busse
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