From: Philosophy and Human Values (1990) Lecture 6: Nietzsche – Knowledge and Belief

Transcript: …so that the process of a world becoming bureaucratically more complex and more intrusive at the level of the state is a world phenomenon. It’s not localisable. The process of an economy becoming ever more diverse – commodifying ever more sections of our lives… until we’ve replaced the “Sunday stroll”, to use another example… I mean, I’m old enough to remember that… when I’d go with my grandad, and we’d go for a stroll on Sunday. Well that can’t be done now without a relation to the commodity. Well it could be, but rarely is. We are socialised to go for a stroll someplace else on Sunday now. The mall is open in the afternoon. Even in North Carolina, after church, they open it up… after church. You can stroll through the mall. So that you can both stroll, and shop. The strolling aspect is still important, I mean I’m not saying it’s not kind of kinky to walk around and watch people buy things. It’s amusing.

So, I don’t want you to think that Marx has a critique of capitalism only, and that’s all I am interested in. The critique of the state and state bureaucracy is also important. And I have mentioned the name of Max Weber, but I didn’t bring in any of his books. They are real thick, real boring, and I have suggested that a sense for what a modern bureaucracy is like can be evoked from reading the novels of Franz Kafka. Things like “Before the Law” and “The Trial” will give you more of a sense of being caught in a modern bureaucracy. And all of you have that sense anyway. If you’ve, you know, moved to a new city and tried to hook up a telephone, and they say: “Go to room 238”. You go to room 238, and they say “Where did you come from? Who did you talk to?” You go “I forgot”. They go, “Oh no, you’ll have to go back to room 104”. You go to 104, 104 says “You’ve been to 232? Well, you can’t come to room 104”. And we all know this. I mean that’s what modern bureaucracies look and feel like, you know. So for that go to Kafka. So, what I was trying to develop last time was a criticism of the state, and of the economy. Of a new arising global order… that I guess has become popular enough to deserve the moniker “New World Order”. A new order. I am always suspicious of new orders.

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