The Nomadic Alternative – Page 192

or unconsciously, the bowing and scraping of Christians, the comings

and goings in the Synagogue, the fervent prostrations of Muslims,

accompanied by the chanting and howling of litanies, suras, mantras

and sutras, and the cyclical fumbling of rosaries - to say nothing

of the propaganda techniques of the modern states with its military

parades, displays of gymnastics and mass rallies or the displays of

collective hysteria at Pop Festivals - all silence the intellect

and dwarf the personality of the individual to nothingness compared

with a greater truth. Those who drink in the "vain repetitions" of

the litany or advertisements flashed across the television screen

permit the electric rhythms of the brain to be tampered with.

Giddily, they say "YES!"

Viewed from this perspective the tedium of work in modern mechan-

ized conditions - in a super-market or on a production line - acts

towards a similar suspension of the rational will. Periods of sullen

passivity will give way to sudden fits of revulsion as the individual

pits himself against the automatized machine. Irregularity of work

is essential to health; this is the lesson the hunters and gatherers

have to give us, for except in the Arctic insanity is virtually

unknown among them. Ultimately the will or refusal of workers to

work as and when they feel like it - in other words to strike or

not as each individual sees fit - will be essential to prevent an

automated society from making impossible demands for further distrac-

tions or from degenerating into collective insanity. Efficiency and

the automatic drudgery of regular work have in the past provided

dehumanized fodder for dictatorships.

"AAA OOO ZEZORAZAZZZAIEO ZAZA EEE III ZAIEOZOA CHOE OOO UUU

THOEZAOZAEZ EEE ZZEEZAOZA CHOZAECHEUDE TUXAALE THUX". This Gnostic

incantation of the 3rd Century A.D. is quite as meaningless, but

just as transporting, if repeated a number of times as anything the

Pop generation has to offer. In our irreligious age, the liturgical

utterance - "Om mani padme hum" "Hallelujah!" "Hosanna!" "Amen!" -

stands transformed into the ritualized screaming at musical enter-

tainments or the political slogan belted out at mass meetings -