While the idea of organizing discontented and fragmented youth into violent
bands is tried and true, still Victor hopes to uncover signs of discontent in
the quasi middle class of the adjunct faculty.  No doubt the young gansters
will play an important role in any real revolution but Victor is looking for
more widespread support and the possibility of non-violent change.  That will
be hard to find.
   The middle class, even those being slowly squeezed out by corporate culture,
tend to be more deluded than the underpriveleged youth of the society.  Mostly
they have just plain given up but they see themselves as "being practical".
They tell themselves things could be worse and of course they are right.  Where
they delude themselves is in believing things won't get worse anyway.  They
each think they will somehow ride out the downsizing trend and keep the faith
up to and somewhat beyond the time they actually hit the street broke and
powerless.  The belief that the system is inevitable and invulnerable, no matter
how abusive, is the bulwark of their stupidity.  Victor is determined to
believe otherwise.  He doesn't care if it is hopeless or Quixotic.  He has
nothing to lose.
   "Victor, I think the city is getting to you.  You seem to be clear enough in
your own way but where is the serenity you felt on the ridge that morning a
week ago?"
   "I think I lost it in the desert.  And now I'm committed to staying here
and working through this thing.  I don't think I'm strong enough to maintain
a clarity of purpose and do it calmly.  Maybe some day but not quite yet.  I'll
have to do the best I can."

   The first few weeks of the session Victor worked ten hours a day, six days
a week preparing for classes and familiarizing himself with the territory.
Then he got into the swing of it.  He wondered how he would have handled those
first weeks if the PC repair class hadn't been cancelled.  He also wondered
why, in the first place, he had been assigned two classes that were cleary
outside the mainstream of his experience.  Until he had gotten a feel for the
material he had had all he could do to keep a few hours ahead of most of the
students.  Some of them had been managing networks in their day jobs for years.
But no matter, he would soon be over the hump and coasting.  He had time to
join in conversations with other faculty and staff of the school.
   Pete's a herpetologist who likes to spend time in the desert studiing
lizards.  Victor told him of his campsite in the desert but confessed, "I don't
know much about lizards except that they're everywhere".  That precipitated a
series of questions about size and color that demonstrated Victor's ignorance.
He'd paid some attention but was mostly interested in lizards and snakes as
natural insect and rodent control.  "There is a Scarlet King Snake living
living under my utility trailer, I hope he gets the mouse that pilfers my
potatoes."
   "Oh, I guess he might, but how's it you came to spend so much time there?
Do you do any gold panning?"
   "No, I pick up some rocks from time to time if I like them.  I don't know
much more geology than I do about reptiles, though I've read a couple of books
about rocks and keep a field guide at my camp."
   "I wish I could spend so much time out there but I have a lot to do around
here".
   Pete was fishing, Victor knew, for the reason that Vic was homeless.  What
he wondered was how Pete knew he was homeless.  Victor decided to really let
him know.  "Well, there is enough housing food and clothing to go around in the
world but not if everyone wants more than they need.  In that case some of us
have to do without so that others can live in style.  I guess one can reason that
is OK as long as there are alternatives to starvation for the superfluous.  I
think it's apparent that some if not most can reason that way even if there are
no other means for people like me to live.  I didn't choose to be excluded but
I am trying to make the best of a bad situation."
   As he was saying that he remembered something quite similar he had said to
John Le'Treue.  He wondered if it had been John who pointed out Vic's
"lifestyle".  Angered by the possible betrayal with it's implicit devaluation
of himself in the mind of any "normal" person, Victor imprudently continued,
"I think we need to make some changes.  I have some websites where I publish my
thoughts in great detail.  Would you like to check out the 'Homeless
Homepage'?"  Pete assented and Victor wrote the net address for him.
   After an hour gathering information from the internet for his next class,
Victor went to visit Milton to try to coordinate computer and disk usage.
Victor and Milton both taught classes, during the same period, that required
the use of networks the students could use for practice.  Part of the exercise
was to wire the networks and setup the operating systems.  Victor had had his
students install their OS on the removable hard disks assigned to his class.
He and Milton had to share the computer bodies for use in both the classes.
When Vic's class started their second lab the OS they had installed had been
replaced by the one Milton's class was using.  In that same class period Milton's
class had checked out six of the eight computers instead of the agreed upon
four and four split.
   As Victor approached the office door, Milton picked up the phone and began
to check his voice mail.  He glanced up and signalled with his eyes and
upraised palm that he was busy and Victor should wait on him.  Cradling the
phone on his neck and pressing the reciever against his ear with his shoulder,
he knit his brows, nodded curtly while subvocalizing "ah" and began shuffling
papers on his cluttered desk.  Victor didn't crack a smile as he watched the
pantomime.  It was an impressive display and signified to Vic an importance
that was beyond the intention of its author.  After several minutes of the
routine, Milton put down the phone and acknowledged his readiness to grant
audience.  "Come in", pointing to the only other chair, "sit down!  What's on
your mind?"
   In a level, factual tone Victor answered as he was bidden.  "It's difficult
to maintain continuity in my class if the assigned hard disks change contents
between sessions and the promised PCs aren't available.  I thought the last
time we had talked you had decided on the use of those resources and the
matter was settled.  But last night our Operating Systems had been wiped from
the disks and the computers weren't available for use."
   With an air of patronizing indulgence, Milton tried to instill in Victor a
sense of relative importance.  "Well, you only have one class to teach and
I have five.  We don't have enough resources to go around..."
   Victor interrupted, "My students need this class to graduate at the end
of the semester.  If I can't have the necessary resources and information, they
won't be getting their money's worth."
   Milton shrugged and suggested that Victor place his assigned disks in marked
box and they wouldn't be interfered with.  And they weren't.  For a while
everything went smoothly but Victor began to sense an air of disapproval,
especially from Milton's underlings, including his friend, John Le'Treue.

   Victor was on his own.  The promised support in teaching the class was
illusory.  Art was the most helpful at first but was himself groping with
respect to the Network OS in question.  Ham wanted Victor's total capitulation
and recognition of Ham's superior knowledge and humanity in exchange for any
bits of information more often disinformation since the required conditions
were never met, he might choose to dole out.  He also tried to place himself
in an intermediary position with respect to Bill, who was in charge of
electronic resources.  Bill was very territorial.  Any impediments he placed
for Victor were mere thoughtless reaction.  John Le'Treue was like Ham
without the potential for providing useful data, though he had tons of free,
extremely patronizing and condescending advice about how Victor should lead
his life.  In other words, he just wanted recognition and approval as a
competant player of the game.  Victor soon began to ignore all of them and if
he didn't actually avoid them neither did he often seek them out.
   John visited in Victor's class room just before the start of a session.  "I
have been wondering how you are doing?"  There seemed to be some possessiveness
in his tone as if he were assuming some responsibility for Victor's performance.
He aslo showed some sad disappointment.
   In conversations in the past John had displayed attitudes towards Victor that
evidenced subscription to one of the Social Thought Templates which assume any
homeless or other refugees of corporate culture is must be so through their own
fault.  That is a common mode of "thinking" among the general population and
even the homeless themselves.  It is a handy way for corporations to eschew
responsibility for the greed fueled downsizings and for moving manufacturing out
of the country.  The rationalization presumes the freedom of owners to dispose
of their property as they see fit and the freedom of the rest of us to starve.
It refuses to acknowledge our contribution to their economy or the dependence
on it that they encouraged in the first place.  It's almost schizophrenic but
it's quite normal.  Is John screwing himself up to a lecture on attitude?
   "The class is going well.  It isn't easy to work around the equipment
vagaries but we get by."
   "You've got to understand, Victor, that we all have to share the instruments
and space."
   "I had no problem with that.  But Milton and I had already worked it out
then he changed usage without notice."
   John didn't seem  the least puzzled which indicated to Victor he had already
talked to Milton and this was not the casual visit he had tried to imply. "He's
very busy Victor, he has a lot to do.  There are more important things than
your class."
   "My students need this class to graduate.  Why don't you ask them how
important it is.  Or is important never meaningful unless it involves saving
money.  Is Milton's management skill evaluated by the quality of the education
he is providing the students or the $0.5M contribution from Intel that he
brought with him when he got the position."  Victor noted that John was taken
aback, probably because he hadn't known that Victor knew about that money.  A
staff employee, trying to impress Victor with his knowledgability and savvy,
had mentioned it a few days earlier.  "You tell me.  What is important?"
   John was angry.  "You know you're lucky to have this job.  It's better than
most and if you don't like it you should quit."
   "Should I be grateful that a wannabe yuppie takes advantage of a fellow
human being's misery by giving them a job that requires fifteen to twenty hours
a week to do properly and pays less that a hundred dollars for them?  If it
were possible for his feeble imagination to encompass his good luck he would
fall on his knees and thank his fictitious God for it.  As for quitting, my
ethics, like my decisions, are my own affair."
   John turned and stalked off.

   "Victor, John is trying to help in his own way and you don't have many
friends."
   "Yeah, but he is in a wierd transition.  He still clings to the idealism of
youth while he is learning to accept some "real world".  What he doesn't see in
the presentation is that he is being courted by views that are more delusional
than the one he thinks he is outgrowing.  He oscillates among the psuedo
realities and sometimes is stuck in the middle.  If he talks to a person who
represents a particular thought template, or some major compilation of
templates, he allows himself to be filled in.  There is nothing unusual in that
process.  But he projects a lot of his confusion onto me.  He apparently talks
to others about my "problems" and they use it as an opportunity to proselytize
or to seek some personal gain from the situation.  In the end, unless John sees
through all the bullshit he can't really be much help to me."

   Milton remained aloof, as befits his exalted position as head of the
department but soon asked for copies of the computer files containing the class
presentations.  Victor gave him the first one and assured Milton he would
have the rest as they were produced but never offered or was asked for more.
It would have been difficult to refuse but Victor realized very quickly that
he was putting a lot of effort into what was essentially course development,
for very little compensation.
   Then equipment began to do unusual things.  Hard disks, assigned to Victor's
class, metamorphed their characteristics between sessions.  Computers assigned
for use in his class were busy elsewhere and no replacements were available.
Bill promised a network drop into Victor's classroom, the only room that wasn't
already so wired, but it never materialized and Victor's queries met with
nothing but stalling and fast talk.  Victor took it all with good humor.  It
wasn't like it affected his survival in any immediate way.  This job paid so
little he was still eligable for foodstamps.  He didn't help himself when one
day he mentioned to Pete that he was ashamed of his country for allowing a
situation of so few decent jobs for so many people.
   "The corporation commit treason by sending jobs out of the country and
we're all fools or cowards for allowing them to do it!".
   Pete was incredulous.  "They have a right to make a profit!"
   "All this we have built we've built together.  Without cooperation none
of it works.  They are taking what we have created as a people to satisfy their
greed and selfishness.  I'm tired of this bullshit!  It offends me!"
   Pete shrugged and smiled knowingly, with some poorly disguised ill will,
"What are you going to do about it?"
   Victor responded with an increasingly malicious tone.  I'm going to talk to
anyone who will listen and write and publish it on my web pages; if no one else
has the nerve.  But maybe I should go teach the gangbangers where to point
their guns."

   Little by little, along with, coincidentally, the growth of Victor's
knowledge of the OS and networks and the corresponding growth of confidence in
his ability to teach, he began to notice an unmistakable decay of his
popularity in general and credibility with the students in particular.  The
latter decay puzzled him because he knew his competance was growing not
declining.  Sure, he'd made some mistakes at first but he'd also scored some
points.  It seemed something else was going on.
   He knew, aside from gaining the confidence of the students, he had to be
careful about conforming to habits of operation they had acquired from the
other teachers in the department.  This was the final semester for most of
them and they had picked up loyalties to people and procedures that Victor
had to learn as he learned the material he was teaching.  These habits,
especially the bad ones, proved to be more important than the course content.
The allusion to bad habits requires some justification and discussion.
   The students have been taught, or at least allowed, to ignore the logical
design of a network.  The operating system contains logical constructs designed
to be used to create a secure and managable network of computers.  The students
had learned to circumvent those constructs in order to implement the network
without the necessity of planning or taxing their minds.  That means at least
an unmanageable net if not an insecure one.  When Victor tried to point these
things out he was met with skepticism, mistrust and even scorn from some.
Why?  Had previous teachers assumed their students to be incompetant and so
deliberately underprepared them for realistic systems?  Were the teachers
incompetant?  Was it done deliberatly in order to undermine the corporations'
desire to have higher paid professionals replaced by lower paid technicians
with associates degrees?  Is this sabotage of evolving corporate culture?  If
so it is at the expense of the students.
   "Victor, isn't your questioning of the possibility of sabotage of corporate
culture inconsistant with your resistance to the system?"
   Victor didn't hesitate.  "I doubt there is any such sabotage happening.
But if it were true, how does it differ from the system in the exploitation of
these students?  In any case I think it might be better to give the system
exactly what it wants for now.  When they grow complacent and fat we'll nail
them to the wall.  That is seemingly inconsistant because I think the system is
already intolerable enough to scuttle or at least alter significantly.  But
most apparantly disagree with me. So...  In the mean time it is better to give
the students the education they are paying for and attempt to raise their
consciousness a little in the process.  Of course, if I'm fired from this job
it will probably be for that reason.  I've said many times, 'I've been fired
from better jobs than this one!'  Though I feel better about what I'm doing
here than I have about most, I have a nagging suspicion it is me who has been
sabotaged.  My economic and political views aren't very popular.  Of course
free speech gaurantees me the right to say what I please as long as I'm
willing to endure the consequences."
   But what of the consequences of Victor's attacks on the entrenched positions
of the faculty through the implication of incompetance.  Or even his desire to
do what he thinks is right and good if it is seen as competion for their position
and security.  That could explain the attitudes of both faculty and students;
presuming the faculty have undercut him with the students.  They also make him
appear to be disgruntled with society because of his own shortcomings and
probably believe their own lies about those faults.  A casual remark to one
or more of the students would accomplish the discrediting but how they convince
themselves that fooling with the equipment is Victor's own fault is undoubedly
trickier.  Aren't we amazing and complex creatures?
   The elements of selfishness and greed, altruism and egalitarianism exist in
all of us to variing degrees that seem to be determined more by age than
anything else.  As we increase individually in power and knowledge our desire
to have more grows pari passu.  We begin to believe in our superiority over
others as a personal attribute more the the concomitant of our social position
which is more often due to patronage than any special strength that we possess.
The power comes with the position.  It is not personal.  But it can appear to
us to be personal power and we desire it to be so.  This is a process of the
erosion of our finer virtues as we become more desirous of the superficialities
than the substance of superiority.
   The same is true of knowledge.  We may have some real knowledge but we are
more intersted in building our [self] image of superiority in that domain.  So
we discount the learning of others in order to enhance the appearance of our
own.  This process is personally degenerative and the combined effect of many
specious individuals is a degenerate culture because the owerall effect of
competing egos is general superficiality.  The better the image the more likely
you are to win the competition for power.  Having completely lost sight of the
substance of life, we can ignore the misery caused by the the unscrupulous
means we are willing to employ to satisfy our own greed and other desires.  In
other words, stupidity and foolishness is free of the inhibition provided by a
healthy conscience!  And we are stupid and foolish if we continue to thrive at
the expense of the misery and death of others.  We can't fool them forever.
They will see through the game and there will be hell to pay.  So wake up fools
and let's clean up our act.
   But that is very unlikely.  Most people in a position of power are
conservative of their place.  They think you will never see through the
delusions because they have come to believe themselves.  They truely believe
they are superior people with superior minds.  They maintain the illusion, for
the most part, by hiding information.  For instance: the technical wizardry of
most geeks is based on the access to technical documents.  Some aptitude is
required but specific areas of expertise are produced through study.  Take two
engineers with the same education and roughly the same experience.  Set them in
separate rooms with with the same problem to solve.  The problem is in an area
that neither has much direct experience with.  Therefore neither have much
background knowlege to assist them.  Both have the necessary tools to work on
any device that may be involved in this setup.  Give one all the documents
that are applicable to the problem and none to the other.  You don't have to be
a rocket scientist to see which one will appear to be the better engineer.
   The people in power today have benefited from favoritist setups like the one
above.  They may or may not have real skill, knowledge or intelligence.  But
do have access to data, by unjust means, that those they have competed with for
position have not always had.  By hiding more information they can further
secure their position.  The control of other resources is emplyed to the same
selfish ends.
   In the 1990s our culture, it seems to me, has selected for the most deceptive
and not necessarily for the best for the job.  All of this stems from the desire
to appear to be superior.  We are destroying ourselves by striving for
superficiality.  The shallow people coming to power today may be able to
adequately perform their tasks.  But since thay had to develop deceptivity
beyond all else to gain their position, it seems unlikely will be better than
others who are less fond of delusion.  They had no time to develop crativity
except as creative liars.  Real progress is likely to end as we personally
and culturally degenerate.  My opinion is that it already has and we are
into a stage of lateral development that does not require much creative
intelligence.
   Intelligence is the measure of the ability to learn.  The idiots in power
today think if they inhibit anothers ability to learn, by hiding information,
they thereby demonstrate intellectual superiority.  In a perverse way this is
true.  But it does not indicate superior intelligence.  It merely measures
selfishness, childishness and greed.  The use of their abstract reinvention of
reason to evaluate others is the most delusional, and therefore the most
offensive, fixture on this ship of fools.  It is a sure sign of cultural decay.