It is a position that we have publicly supported (i.e., in writing) on various occasions, despite it being particularly unpopular: every process of extensive mechanization of human capabilities quickly leads to the destruction/loss of these human capabilities: this, (and) this is capitalism. In the sense of the continuous devaluation of living capacities (labor, thought, feelings) alongside the concurrent “revaluation” of whatever mechanical equivalents (: fixed capital).
Our position does not stem from … field statistical research. It comes from working-class, class history. This was the tailoring in relation to the knowledge of the craftsman, the master. And this will always be any version of tailoring, in whatever field it is applied.
Early on, at the end of the ’90s, we spoke (wrote…) for the first time about the unskilled in life.
Regulatory bodies are now arriving to measure (and confirm) the latest versions of this dispossession-of-the-living. The first “wave” came with the official, “measured” finding of the loss of memory capacity directly proportional to the daily use of digital devices by large segments of western populations. The word “memory” now means only one thing: the computer’s gigabytes…
The most recent “wave” was the results of the research on students’ “performance” in various fields, from the well-known PISA: the unprecedented decline (on average) in their abilities in mathematics, reading and expressing ideas in many cosmopolitan areas is parallel to the equally significant decrease in their ability to focus and stabilize their attention for a sufficient period of time on a single “target” and their difficulties with memory.
Before the curses begin here or there, let’s think about it (for those who can still do so): the mechanization of human intellectual capabilities (in various doses for over a century now) did not start nor does it proceed in vain! And it is not without drastic consequences, no matter how much various indebted “intellectuals” swear the opposite in the name of “scientific progress.” The new “basic qualifications” of citizens are their ability to follow standardized instructions and handle “smart machines.” Not producers, not creators (and certainly not dissenters!!)∙ operators at various levels…
What is “strange” about this development;;;