Friday, 4 April 2008

The set



It starts with the feeling that there has been some terrible mistake, or a series of mistakes, and that They can't possibly have thought things through. In fact, it is far worse than that, for it turns out that all along They were under the impression that They'd bought machine-tools and forgot or ignored the intelligence and goodwill that came with them.



Then your sensibilities are blunted by the realisation that not only is this predatory elite wrong about everything, but that its members will brook no dissent, are not interested in what you think, and that, to twist a phrase, it's Their way or the highway.



This is unsettling, and has been for the several years. But whereas the queasiness used to come in waves - when, for example, you'd look at Them and not quite believe your eyes - it is now a constant, and you can't really remember the last time you looked at Them without feeling contempt, distrust and a knot of fear about where it is all going.



One crumb of comfort here rests on the power of first impressions, but is a pretty poor and sour sort of comfort. The point is that every so often you look at someone, form a view and hope and pray that you're wrong, though of course you never are. A slimeball in a suit is still just a slimeball.



At the end it boils down to self-preservation and the realisation that those ideals on which such great store was set won't do a bit of good because you are just a series of noughts and ones on a hard drive. It would be nice also to say that while you look around and measure the degrees of compromise and acquiescence yielded by your peers, you have not yourself compromised in the least. Nice, but totally untrue, and so you are part of the problem and have been all this long while because you have helped to sustain something in which you no longer believe. And every second that passes makes it worse, especially when you think back and remember how much you used to believe. What good did it do?



Various mileposts mark the journey: the reneging on such and such a principle; the appointment of such and such a person; the kicking sideways of some nice old chap; the re-allocation of resources in a way that is of no apparent benefit. The worst thing, however, is the change in the air - the change of air, even. It is as if hope and the expectation of good things are being sucked out at one end and disaffection and cynicism are being pumped in at the other.



The end of the journey is marked by detachment. You're not there quite yet but the day is coming when convulsions, U-turns, acts of spite and the unquenchable flow of evidence that points to your being a chisel, will be met with a shrug or maybe just a blink. Hardly a flicker, anyway. But already you know that by then the whole venture will be irretrievably doomed. After all, it is even now just bells and whistles with nothing behind it. A whole heap of talk and hype drowning out creaking inefficiency. And if it was just inefficiency or ineptitude you'd be more forgiving. But it's not - there is a punitive streak to it, a machismo pursuit around the furniture.



You have somehow found yourself on the set of a cowboy film constructed entirely of facades and the doors of the saloon across the way will swing open in a minute to reveal a back lot where tumbleweed blows along.



Idealism has drained away, enthusiasm is waning, acid is bubbling in your chest and belly and will shortly seep from every pore. You pray for release, escape and wish ill on Them - but then, so does everybody.