On Nietzsche and the Precariat

 Joan Priego: Contortionist  [1]

 

When Nietzsche suggested that the secret to a fulfilled and happy life was to live dangerously [2], I don't think that what he had in mind was people agreeing to zero-hour contracts, for example, and becoming part of the precariat ... [3]

 

For those of you who are unfamilar with the term, the precariat refers to a new social class made up of workers in non-standard and/or temporary employment that is often poorly paid and affords no rights, protections, or security. 

 

Those neoliberal shits who pretend that such is advantageous to the employee as well as the employer, often speak of flexability rather than precarity, but I think we all know whose needs are best met by this idea and who has to bend over backwards - like a contortionist - just to survive from week to week. 

 

For being flexible doesn't simply mean being willing and able to adapt to change. It also means being prepared to be bent out of shape like a pretzel. In other words, being physically and mentally flexible, means total compliance; one ends up existing in a state of perpetual standby - or on call 24/7 - though without being renumerated for this.   

 

Which, of course, is a form of modern slavery; thus the very opposite of what Nietzsche had in mind ... [4]

 

 

Notes

 

 [1] Spanish sculptor Joan Priego is known for his philosophically-informed works that manipulate (and reimagine) the human body. He is particularly interested in how social, cultural, and economic forces can remake identity; how workers, for example, are required to become ever-more flexible, twisting themselves into knots in order to meet the requirements of the job market.

      The image of the contortionist figure is taken from a post on Priego's blog - Wooden Surface - published on 21 May, 2012: click here. 

      To read an interview with Priego published on the excellent website founded by Tulika Bahadur - onartandaesthetics.com - click here.   

[2] See Nietzsche, The Gay Science, IV. 283.    

[3] See Guy Standing, The Precariat, (Bloomsbury, 2011). 

      According to Standing, globalisation is to blame for the emergence of the new social class that he calls the precariat. He describes the latter as formed from several different groups of people, including immigrants and educated youngsters working McJobs. 

      Members of the precariat not only suffer from financial insecurity, but also identity issues and even a disrupted sense of time, due to their working odd hours on different days each week, rather than the nine to five Monday to Friday regime that employees knew in the past.      

      Readers interested in knowing more can find a short paper by Standing entitled 'The Precariat' in Contexts, Vol. 13, Issue 4, (November 2014): click here. Alternatively, see Standing's article on the WEF website entitled 'Meet the precariat, the new global class fuelling the rise of populism', (9 November 2016): click here. 

[4] To be clear on this: when Nietzsche advocates living dangerously, he is addressing those whom he regards as preparatory individuals; i.e., sovereign men and women who will restore honour to courage above all other virtues. Such individuals would refuse to become a tool, or to make themselves perfectly pliable in the hands of others (so probably wouldn't find jobs in today's labour market).   

 

 

The Case of Dylan Alkins

 

The above photo, posted by friends on his Facebook page, was taken of fourteen-year-old Dylan Alkins just days before he was tragically swept out to sea in a recent storm.

It's a haunting and beautiful image of a young man who dared to live dangerously, confronting the waves and the elements and laughing in a state of ecstatic happiness. Doubtless there will be those who will shake their heads and talk about the foolishness of youth. And, obviously, it's not sensible to stand at the edge of a pier when sixty-mile-an-hour winds are blowing and giant waves are crashing all around. 

But, whether they like to admit such or not, there is something heroic in Dylan's paradoxically death-defying and death-affirming foolishness and I believe that his was a true practice of joy before death; that is to say, a fatal game via which a young man sought to transfigure and transcend a dull individual existence.

He might have taken precautions; but instead he took a risk. And I admire him for that and even, in a sense, envy him.