Updates books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine

books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine.md

@@ -819,6 +819,8 @@ Another form of [labor camp](/books/historia/ibm-holocaust), it's mirror image:
 
 ### Office technology as exile and integration
 
+The whole chapter is worth reading. Some excerpts:
+
     One afternoon, after several weeks of participant observation and
     discussions with clerks and supervisors, I was returning to the office
     from a lunch with a group of employees when two of them beckoned
@@ -861,3 +863,208 @@ Another form of [labor camp](/books/historia/ibm-holocaust), it's mirror image:
     technology can be said to have "textualized" the organizational environment.
 
     -- 126
+
+    Why was it felt to be important and natural to check the ledgers?
+    Many of the clerks experienced a loss of certainty similar to that of the
+    pulp mill operators when they were deprived of concrete referents. In
+    the office the referent function operated at a higher level of abstraction
+    than in the mills. For these clerks, written words on pieces of paper
+    had become a concrete and credible medium-for several reasons.
+    First, paper is a three-dimensional object that carries sensory weight-
+    it can be touched; carried; folded; in short, dominated. Secondly, writ-
+    ing is a physical activity. The pen gives voice to the hand. Each written
+    word is connected to the writer both through the intellectual relation-
+    ship of authorship and through the immediate physical relationship of
+    fingers and pen. In the act of writing there is a part of the self that is
+    invested in and so identified with the thing written. It comes to be
+    experienced as an extension of the self rather than an "otherness."
+    This identification occurs so subtly, that it is rarely noticed until it has
+    been taken away. Electronic text confronts the clerk with a stark sense
+    of otherness. Text is impersonal; letters and numbers seem to appear
+    without having been derived from an embodied process of authorship.
+    They stand autonomously over and against the clerk who engages with
+    them. A benefits analyst described the sensation:
+
+        You can't justify anything now; you can't be sure of it or prove it
+        because you have nothing down in writing. Without writing, you can't
+        remember things, you can't keep track of things, there's no reasoning
+        without writing. What we have now-you don't know where it comes
+        from. It just comes at you.
+
+    -- 130-131
+
+Concentrating on concentrating: nano-genealogy of clerical work
+---------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Sounds like there's a paradox between the simplification of work -- the diminishing
+knowledge required to do the task -- and the increased need for concentration in
+the task accomplished -- not only because it was dificult to rollback transactions,
+but also because of an increased pressure to do more.
+
+        We really did not have a need for such intensive concentration be-
+        fore. There are times when you are looking at the screen but you
+        are not seeing what is there. That is a disaster. Even when you get
+        comfortable with the system, you still have to concentrate; it's iust
+        that you are not concentrating on concentrating. You learn how to
+        do it, but the need doesn't go away.
+
+    -- 131
+
+Here I get a curious feeling. Which makes me get back to the origin of the term
+"clerk" and "clerical work". This is what Norbert Elias tells us from his second
+volume of "Civilizing Process":
+
+    They entered this appararus by two main routes: 103 first through their growing
+    share of secular posts, that is, positions previously filled by nobles; and secondly
+    through their share of ecclesiastical poset, that is as clerks. The term _clerc_ began
+    slowly to change its meaning from about the end of the twelfth century onwards;
+    its ecclesiastical connotation receded and it referred more and more to a man who
+    had studied, who could read and write Latin , though it may be that the first
+    stages of an ecclesiastical career were for a time a prerequisite for this. Then, in
+    conjunction with the extension of the administrative apparatus, both the them
+    _clerc_ and certain kinds of university study were increasingly secularized. People
+    no longer learned Latin exclusively to become members of the clergy, theu also
+    learned it to become officials. To be sure, there were still bourgeois who entered
+    the king's council simply on account of their commercial or organizational
+    competence. But the majority of bourgeois attained the higher regions of
+    government through study, through knowledge of canon and Roman law. Study
+    became a normal means of social advancement for the sons of leading urban
+    strata. Bourgeois elements slowly pushed back the noble and ecclesiastical
+    elements in the government. The class of royal servants, of ''officials", became --
+    in contrast to the situarion in Germany -- an exclusively bourgeois formation.
+
+    [103] https://www.worldcat.org/title/philippe-le-long-roi-de-france-1316-1322-le-mecanisme-du-gouvernement/oclc/489867779
+
+    -- 332
+
+The same excerpt but from the portuguese translation:
+
+    Eles ingressaram na máquina do governo através de dois caminhos principais:103
+    inicialmente, graças a sua crescente participação em cargos seculares, isto é,
+    em posições antes ocupadas por nobres e, depois, devido a sua participação em
+    postos antes eclesiásticos, isto é, como amanuenses. O termo _clerc_ começou a
+    mudar lentamente de significado a partir de fins do século XII, recuando para
+    um plano inferior sua conotação eclesiástica e aplicando-se mais e mais a
+    indivíduos que haviam estudado, que podiam ler e escrever latim, embora possa
+    ser verdade que os primeiros estágios de uma carreira eclesiástica fossem, por
+    algum tempo, precondição para isso. Em seguida, em paralelo com a ampliação da
+    máquina administrativa, o termo _clerc_ e certos tipos de estudos universitários
+    foram cada vez mais secularizados. As pessoas não aprendiam latim
+    exclusivamente para se tornarem membros do clero, mas também para ingressar na
+    carreira de servidores públicos. Para sermos exatos, também havia burgueses que
+    passavam a integrar o conselho do rei simplesmente devido a sua competência
+    comercial ou organizacional. A maioria dos burgueses, porém, chegava aos altos
+    escalões do governo através do estudo, do conhecimento dos cânones e do Direito
+    Romano. O estudo tornou-se um meio normal de progresso social para os filhos
+    dos principais estratos urbanos. Lentamente, elementos burgueses suplantaram os
+    elementos nobres e eclesiásticos no governo. A classe de servidores reais, ou
+    “funcionários”, tornou-se —, em contraste com a situação vigente nos
+    territórios germânicos — uma formação social exclusivamente burguesa.
+
+    -- Da seção 22 da parte "Distribuição das Taxas de Poder no Interior da Unidade
+       de Governo: Sua Importância para a Autoridade Central: A Formação do “Mecanismo
+       Régio”"
+
+The development both of the term _clerc_ and the change this activity took deserves
+some attention. Some brainstorming:
+
+* In a sense, the clergy lives in a form of isolation, of exile.
+* Or, in another sentence, a clerc was someone who renounced the sensorial and the
+  material word to live a monastic life. What I just said?
+
+    monastery (n.)
+
+    c. 1400, from Old French monastere "monastery" (14c.) and directly from Late
+    Latin monasterium, from Ecclesiastical Greek monasterion "a monastery," from
+    monazein "to live alone," from monos "alone" (from PIE root *men- (4) "small,
+    isolated"). With suffix -terion "place for (doing something)." Originally
+    applied to houses of any religious order, male or female.
+
+    -- https://www.etymonline.com/word/monastery
+
+    men- (4)
+
+    Proto-Indo-European root meaning "small, isolated."
+
+    It forms all or part of: malmsey; manometer; monad; monarchy; monastery;
+    monism; monist; monk; mono; mono-; monoceros; monochrome; monocle; monocular;
+    monogamy; monogram; monolith; monologue; monomania; Monophysite; monopoly;
+    monosyllable; monotony.
+
+    It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by:
+    Greek monos "single, alone," manos "rare, sparse;" Armenian manr "thin,
+    slender, small."
+
+    -- https://www.etymonline.com/word/*men-?ref=etymonline_crossreference
+
+    Noun
+
+    monastērium n (genitive monastēriī); second declension
+
+        (Medieval Latin) monastery quotations ▼
+        (Medieval Latin) cell; area used by a monk.
+
+    -- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/monasterium
+
+    From Old French monastere, from Latin monastērium, from Ancient Greek
+    μοναστήριον (monastḗrion, “hermit's cell”), from μόνος (mónos, “alone”).
+    Doublet of minster.
+
+    -- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/monastery
+
+Clerical work can be considered those isolated, repetitive, monotonous tasks
+separated from the daily, communal life.
+
+Curiously enough, the `*men-` root also means:
+
+    men- (1)
+
+    Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to think," with derivatives referring to
+    qualities and states of mind or thought.
+
+    It forms all or part of: admonish; Ahura Mazda; ament; amentia; amnesia;
+    amnesty; anamnesis; anamnestic; automatic; automaton; balletomane; comment;
+    compos mentis; dement; demonstrate; Eumenides; idiomatic; maenad; -mancy;
+    mandarin; mania; maniac; manic; mantic; mantis; mantra; memento; mens rea;
+    mental; mention; mentor; mind; Minerva; minnesinger; mnemonic; Mnemosyne;
+    money; monition; monitor; monster; monument; mosaic; Muse; museum; music;
+    muster; premonition; reminiscence; reminiscent; summon.
+
+    It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by:
+    Sanskrit manas- "mind, spirit," matih "thought," munih "sage, seer;" Avestan
+    manah- "mind, spirit;" Greek memona "I yearn," mania "madness," mantis "one who
+    divines, prophet, seer;" Latin mens "mind, understanding, reason," memini "I
+    remember," mentio "remembrance;" Lithuanian mintis "thought, idea," Old Church
+    Slavonic mineti "to believe, think," Russian pamjat "memory;" Gothic gamunds,
+    Old English gemynd "memory, remembrance; conscious mind, intellect."
+
+    [...]
+
+    men- (2)
+
+    Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to project."
+
+    men- (3)
+
+    Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to remain." It forms all or part of:
+    maisonette; manor; manse; mansion; menage; menial; immanent; permanent; remain;
+    remainder.
+
+    -- https://www.etymonline.com/word/*men-?ref=etymonline_crossreference
+
+To think in isolation, projecting, calculating. "Automaton" shares the same root.
+
+We can also say tha clerical work can refer to a dedication to spiritualism or
+philosophycal inquiry, freed from mundane affairs, desires an necessities.
+
+To be continued:
+
+* The monastic way is a mode of existence. But is different if someone chooses this path or is forced to it.
+* Monotasking during large periods of time was enabled by civilization. Multitasking was the way if you had to pay attention all the time
+  for dangers to your life. See [The burn-out society](/books/sociedade/burnout-society) for discussion. It's related to the
+  differentiation, specialization and automation of tasks. One needs someone's else, a third-party protection to be able to abstain from
+  the environment and even from oneself and focus on abstract and to be able to deep reflection and medidation.
+* How some contemporaneous clerical work tends more to multitasking and attention deficit.
+* Any equivalent term in portuguese to "clerical work"?
+* Class differentiation among both the catholic clergy and the modern monastic automated office, with high ranks of technomonks
+  doing the thinking (and acting-with) and the lower clerks acting like automatons (acting-on).