On the Renaissance and the Renaissance Man (or Woman)

The Guardian ran an article recently arguing that systems were crumbling, that people’s daily life was continuing, and that there was dissonance between the two. I find this curious because I think there have been dozens of times that empires have collapsed in history and sometimes people on the periphery of those empires didn’t learn about it until dozens of years later. The article is likely more about urban life that people living in the periphery because people in the periphery have had to be more or less systemless for as long as anyone can remember. We always say, “no one is coming to save us,” and that now applies to everyone I guess.

It’s bad, but it’s not the end of the world.

Joe Fontine is a friend who worked with me at The Automotive Free Clinic, which is an example of systems building or systemless building or just taking care of each other. He can do plumbing, electrical, he’s a decent auto technician, carpentry, he’s a Vietnam vet, though he was kicked out because he was too young, worked a billion jobs in his life and is a big MAGA dude.

We called him Papa Joe.

It’s hard for Joe to picture a person who doesn’t know how to do anything useful and his love of MAGA is that he believes it will force people to be useful, which he characterizes as working. He also believes in taking care of people who can’t take care of themselves, but he just believes that people abuse the system. I don’t really agree with much of this, but I do believe people should be useful to their community, and Papa Joe certainly was and I respect him for that.

As weird as it sounds, Papa Joe is the example of the type of people we need to be minus the cruel politics, but I give people a pass for that because the country is so propagandized that everyone’s politics are cruel and/or unusual. Basically, Papa Joe has been shit on as a redneck his entire life and he doesn’t understand why supposedly more talented people can’t be as useful as he is. In this, I agree with him.

Most of our jobs are bullshit. The American Dream has become grow up, be average, go to college, be average, work a chair job, be average, have an average family with an average house in the average suburbs, and don’t have too many friends. This formula is so easy to control by the powers that be because nobody talks to anyone else about anything meaningful and everyone is totally dependent on government services for survival. This life is not even an option for Papa Joe, people shit on him for not having it, and then expect him to have empathy for them when they have none themselves. Papa Joe is exceptional in an average world.

The brunt of this collapse is going to fall on the white collar data-entry professions, the pencil pushers, the average guy or gal doing average things for an average life. That’s not going to exist and the people the average guy or gal are going to turn to are going to be the authors of our Renaissance, the Renaissance men like Papa Joe.