geek

Tom Mackey dubiousclarity at yahoo.com
Fri Sep 15 14:41:54 PDT 2000


the hallmark of geekdom is the impairment of empathy. the excluded become the excluding. the geek is insufficiently socialized in adolesence. the geek entrepreneur however finds himself invested with social capital. sociopathic, spoiled by early failure, via a historical accident he accumulates the spoils of success. he has learned the boring control machine and it pays. the former loser high-school av-tech computer nerd boasts of his ex- cheerleader trophy wife (the brainy guys get the girls -- the jocks just rabbit run) and is very particular about damage to his SUV. the biting of head off chicken is castration, no duh.

Now is his revenge time. the geek capitalist forms the us vs them company family team. they vacation together, they "spend more time together at work" than they do at home. i'm not the boss i just work here. he defers authority but retains control. teamwork is the formula for success and its his team vs the rest of us. the small internet start-up, he tells himself, is a humane and progressive alternative to big corporations populated by ex-jocks and fratboys. who are his clients.

His non-corporate HQ is in a low-rent part of town and he frets over damage to his SUV by windows smashing young ethnic vandals. he installs expert security systems in car and office. he is a control geek. he thinks unions are are thing of the past because of his enlightened post-corpo family view. but because he was/is geek he is in constant apprehension of chicken-head removal, and he fears rivals among his "family." it becomes less a family, more a primal horde. the office is full of totem objects: toys, dolls, plastic dinosaurs and monkeys. these are meant as ironic gestures against corporate power, but they serve the original function of the totem: to ward off castration, protect against the anger of the geek- father, separate the sexes and prevent office incest, and to cement group solidarity. add to this the racist, ethnic and sexist humor that the group engages in (we're rock and roll, not politically correct, we are good because they are bad) -- anyone who is not on the team is the other -- and you get the formula: geek fascism.

at least the big companies have human resource policies.

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