ON|OFF

Terry Eyssens goes from alienation to allegiance to

alienation.

1 feeling it
I think it started when I was at school. A sense of not “I don’t know”.
having anything to do with what I was supposed to He’d ask, “Do you wanna end up working in
be doing. It wasn’t painful. It wasn’t a hard school. a factory?”
I simply was not the slightest bit interested in the I answered “No” but actually didn’t know. I
basic activity of being at school, being a high-school knew I wasn’t meant to want to work in a factory
student. I concede that I enjoyed – slightly – a couple but couldn’t see why that was worse than any
of subjects in Year 11. But maybe it was more the other job.
energy and fairness of the teachers that engaged me. Every job had the same effect. Factory or building
Apart from that, kicking the footy during breaks site or servo. I despised it. I took many, many sick-
and after school was the most interesting thing I did ies. Quite often, one sickie would turn into a week
back then. I couldn’t wait for it to end. off. But I rarely got the sack because I worked hard
It’s when you leave school and enter the world as enough while I was there, mainly because I didn’t
a worker that you can really feel it. While I was still want anyone else to have to work harder because of
at school, someone older told me that he wished he me. I knew that drudgery had to be shared. Gener-
was back there. He warned me not to wish for it to ally, work made me nauseous. At that time, though,
end too soon. Once I began work, I knew what he I didn’t really know why. It was strange being sur-
meant but I didn’t want to go back to school. Work rounded by people who showed up every day for
was worse but it was just more of the same thing. decades. I couldn’t understand how they did it. As
As for work – working – there was nothing that a young man who thought little of himself, with
I wanted to do, to be. No vocational counselling or no confidence in his ability at anything, let alone
badgering could change that. So I took the easiest the ability to make sense of the world, I could only
option. I began work as a carpenter, apprenticed conclude that something was wrong with me.
to my father. I wasn’t interested in carpentry, but On one of my weeks off I decided to catch the
a few of my friends were going into trades and I train up to Sydney, simply because I’d never been
thought I might get to know my dad. I lasted little there. I read a second-hand copy of Lawson stories
more than a year. on the way. I had no real political understanding of
Over the next ten years I worked in dozens of what it is to labour and I got nothing out of Lawson
jobs. I writhed my way through and inflicted on along those lines. But in him I found, for the first
others the angst and ennui of my twenties. Up until time, a portrayal of bosses and work which coin-
I was about twenty-two my father would sit me cided with my experience, and that the boss to be
down and ask me what I was doing, what I wanted most wary of is the one who expects loyalty. Prob-
to do and, more importantly, he asked me what I ably more importantly, Lawson’s stories encouraged
was going to do. I answered over and over again, me to keep wandering. They consolidated an urge to

62 overland 188, 2007

be on the road, and to read about it. So of course I First, the fact that labour is external to the worker,
found Twain, London, Kerouac and others. i.e. it does not belong to his essential being; that in
Like Lawson, these writers taught me nothing his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but
about politics. However, I began to come around denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy,
to the idea that it wasn’t that something was wrong does not develop freely his physical and mental
with me but there was something wrong with the energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind.
ways of the world. Also, in Kerouac, I found the The worker therefore only feels himself outside his
romanticism of the ‘being’ of the bum. I was still work, and in his work feels outside himself. He is
angsty and annoying, but I didn’t lose so much sleep at home when he is not working, and when he is
over it. This was a significant early experience for working he is not at home. His labour is therefore
me. A liberation from the mainstream of expecta- not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labour.
tions and from the associated guilt. I loved it. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is
merely a means to satisfy needs external to it. Its
2 recognising it alien character emerges clearly in the fact that as
But I still worked most of the time, and despised it. soon as no physical or other compulsion exists,
I spent a total of three years (on and off, in between labour is shunned like the plague. External labour,
hitch-hiking trips) in a car wash, and despised it. labour in which man alienates himself, is a labour
Enjoying myself away from work just lent it some of self-sacrifice, of mortification. Lastly, the external
kind of utility. character of labour for the worker appears in the
Sydney again. I wasn’t working and wasn’t on fact that it is not his own, but someone else’s, that
the dole. I can’t remember what I was living on it does not belong to him, that in it he belongs not
at the time, apart from the generosity of friends. to himself but to another. Just as in religion the
A girl I was having a fling with drove down from spontaneous activity of the human imagination,
Sydney, picked me up and took me back. I told of the human brain and the human heart, operates
her I had no money but she said it didn’t matter. independently of the individual – that is, operates
She was minding a house in Woolloomooloo and I on him as an alien, divine or diabolical activity – so
hung around there while she was at work. After I is the worker’s activity not his spontaneous activity.
started to frequent Kings Cross she gave me books It belongs to another; it is the loss of self.3
to read to keep me home. Then, when she realised
that ‘no money’ meant no money, she sent me back The passage is beautiful because it’s true. In argu-
to Melbourne. The only book I remember is the one ments with friends, the idea of truth is a staple. I
that accompanied me on the bus. hold that truth isn’t something that can be sought
Once again, the book itself and the writer had out, discovered or proven via scientific method, but
little to do with expanding my consciousness. It was something that is recognised when it appears, or
Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines.1 I know now that emerges or when it’s revealed. That’s how I under-
the book and Chatwin’s methods during its creation stand Marx’s passage on the alienation of labour.
have been criticised, even discredited.2 At the time I could quibble with him about terminology, but
though, I enjoyed reading a narrative with an ele- I don’t. What he wrote is simply true. It was my
ment of being on the road. That always got me in. introduction to political thought too, strangely, via
What I remember most are the sections of the book Bruce Chatwin.
containing quotes and aphorisms of other writers Apart from being true – or maybe this is what
and thinkers. Inspired by this, I began my own col- makes them so true – Marx’s words are a phenom-
lection, which I still add to. One passage, included enological explanation of what it is to labour and
in the narrative of the The Songlines, is from Marx’s why it is sickening. He evokes the despair of being
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, ���� split in two and stretching and straining to pull it
on the alienation of labour. all together. At the very least it’s a dualism that is
I don’t know the passage word for word but am phenomenologically real. It’s true because it can be
a carrier of its sense. felt in the bones. It’s not just some nerdish cognitive
puzzle like Descartes’ method of doubt. When you
What, then, constitutes the alienation of labour? think about the thought game that leads to Des-

overland 188, 2007 63

 cartes’ pronouncement cogito ergo sum, it sounds 4 consuming it
like something a group of gamers would come up As expected, not much was changed by my univer-
with in a chat room. It’s lame. And we have founded sity education. Like many of my friends, I ended up
much of our philosophy on it. The contemporary back in the same workplaces. With me, that was
cliché, the idea that our ‘minds are like computers’, factories and building sites. I did, however, try to
is part of the nerdish legacy. Look around. Who runs escape and after a couple of years and many fruit-
this joint? Do they feel anything? They can’t. Their less interviews I landed a job at a student union. I
thoughts have no body. reckoned that it would be a more tolerable form of
wage slavery. I was right. I lasted longer at it than
3 knowing it I’ve ever done before. (Un)Fortunately, as with the
Once you know, you know. Once you are a conscious experience of every job I’ve ever had, I ended up
carrier of this sense, work is never the same. It’s no needing four-day blocks of sickies.
longer bewildering. Knowing it, however, doesn’t I had hoped to be able to work in an ‘unalien-
help all that much. Being conscious of my being as ated’ way at the union, to find that my ‘physical
a wage labourer, a wage slave, doesn’t make it any and mental energy’ would be ‘developed freely’ as
less nauseating. Nevertheless, knowing it made me part of my ‘essential being’. Admittedly, what I did
a proselytiser. Not to tell is impossible. And once I there often coincided with my stated positions but
knew, I made a more deliberate effort to not be a it wasn’t long before I realised that even this labour
wage slave. I felt vindicated as one who ‘shunned is alienated. I won’t go into detail as to why it is
it like the plague’. I still haven’t found an activity alienating or why I was alienated. There is no need.
that totally escapes this way of being but I ended Go back to the passage cited above. My work there
up going to university. In tutes I was introduced to was not my own. Despite my idealistic expectations,
Weber’s iron cage and Hobbes’ pallid idea that we the effect was the same. Mortified body, ruined mind
are all just cogs in a machine society. I socialised … the loss of self.
with people who, because of their youth or class, There was a difference, though, between this
had never seen a factory floor or a building site ex- work and all my previous jobs. The pay. It was plen-
cept on TV. I still worked in such places during uni. ty. There was more than I could ever spend. Some of
I’d tell them about the experience of reblocking a my fellow ‘professionals’, however, were constantly
house and fume at their responses. For example: “It broke. Their offices multi-tasked as storehouses for
must feel good to do that kind of work. It’s good for piles of clothes-shop bags, CDs and appliances. I
you.” Steam would come from my ears. A lecture on have always been astounded by the capacity of the
the phenomenological actuality of Marx’s passage liberal Left to consume. I’ve worked at four student
(a text they knew) would follow. unions now. They vary but there is conspicuous
I could forget too. After an academic year of consumption by some staff at every one. Though
reading and essay writing came the summer holi- this didn’t really make its mark on me (I remained
days. In need of rent and beer money, I’d return engaged in the struggle with the traditional kind), it
enthusiastically to a building site. The friends I was my introduction to another kind of alienation.
mentioned earlier were still tradesmen and I often The lives of many of my colleagues were immersed,
picked up work with them. I admit that there is subsumed, in consumption. This encompassed eve-
something about a long hot day toiling alongside a rything we’re familiar with. A superficial4 obsession
friend. The beer at knock-off time is the sweetest it and preoccupation with pop culture TV, clothes,
ever can be. I’d go home with a contented glow. But movies, events and festivals. These are all things
that would be just the first day. When the alarm rang that I have enjoyed, but not that way.
the next morning, the knowledge that the job still As a teenager I enjoyed going to the footy. I used
had two months to run shattered any romantic or to stand on the beer-soaked terraces at Victoria Park
wholesome notions about the nobility of hard work. watching Collingwood. It was awesome. The noise,
The knock-off beer was always good, but never as the humour, the tribalism. There was more going
good as that first one and all day every day a phrase on than a game of suburban football. It was like
would ring in my ears. Mortified body, ruined mind being in another world. I still have some indulgences
… the loss of self. – books, alcohol and the odd CD – but I’ve never

64 overland 188, 2007

been a big consumer. Shopping is for necessities, ever, students continued to enjoy my participation.
for food and clothes. Somewhere along the way I Eventually, inevitably, I had to leave. Since then I’ve
learned that as long as you have food and a roof gone from job to job, never full-time. Short of not
over your head, you’re pretty well off. Anything working at all (which does not mean ‘doing noth-
extra is luxury. As a kid, I remember ours being ing’), it’s the only way to stay human. Unfortunately,
the only house in the street that had smoke coming knowing alienation and trying to steer clear of it
out the chimney. We used briquettes and timber off- is just a small consolation. What about the people
cuts from dad’s building jobs. Nowadays a smoky that pass by, with clenched brows, wandering in
chimney means that there’s a wood heater inside, a multitude of isolation, loaded down with shop-
burning up redgum forests from the other side of the ping bags, appointments and wallets light on cash
Murray. You have to be well off to warm yourself and heavy with tickets for festivals and ‘artistic’
with that stuff. events, all organised by accountants? What about
I’ll stop trying to explain it my way. everyone else?
A writer had already recognised what I was
within. This time I didn’t stumble across his path. 5 ON|OFF
My experience led me to him. He is Guy Debord. Fifteen years ago, you could still go to Victoria
I found his book, The Society of the Spectacle, on Park and soak up the atmosphere. That atmosphere
the internet. When I read it I went, “Yep, that’s it”. consisted of tribal excitement, the odour of spilt
This passage, in particular, sums up what I’ve been beer and poorly maintained toilet blocks, (good
trying to say: humoured) obscenity, marijuana smoke and swap-
ping a couple of coins for a paper bag of peanuts
Whereas in the primitive phase of capitalist accu-
from a man who inched his way through the crowd
mulation, ‘‘political economy sees in the proletarian
with a big sack full of them. If Collingwood was
only the worker’’ who must receive the minimum
playing St Kilda, their barrackers would treat us to
indispensable for the conservation of his labour
the best day of stand-up comedy that could be had
power, without ever seeing him “in his leisure
in the open, in the rain. Victoria Park wasn’t always
and humanity”, these ideas of the ruling class are
pleasant, even for a Collingwood fan, but it was
reversed as soon as the production of commodi-
never boring. It was a world away from work and
ties reaches a level of abundance which requires
consumption. It was very human. The same could
a surplus of collaboration from the worker. This
be said for Melbourne’s band scene. There were
worker, suddenly redeemed from the total contempt
once hundreds of places to see and hear a very good
which is clearly shown him by all the varieties of
band. They could be stumbled onto. We could be
organisation and supervision of production, finds
lured in off the street into a dank bar by a tantalis-
himself every day, outside of production and in the
ing riff, for three or four dollars at the door. Now
guise of a consumer, seemingly treated as an adult,
there are fewer places and often you have to book
with zealous politeness. At this point the humanism
to get in. There is no chance in this, no spontaneity,
of the commodity takes charge of the worker’s “lei-
no luck, no surprise, no serendipity. We could think
sure and humanity”, simply because now political
of other examples. Urban festivals used to be a bit
economy can and must dominate these spheres as
ragged. What has happened to the Brunswick Street
political economy. Thus the “perfected denial of
Festival? Darebin? St Kilda? What has, over time,
man” has taken charge of the totality of human
squeezed out this kind of ‘worldly’ human activ-
existence.5
ity? What do we have in their place? Grand Prix.
After reading Debord, Adrian Peacock’s Two Hun- Commonwealth Games. Aussie Rules redesigned
dred Pharaohs Five Billion Slaves6 and a little book for Kath & Kim and Lachlan Murdoch.
of Foucault’s lectures, Fearless Speech,7 I reckon I This isn’t a lament for traditional values. The
spent my time at the student union in a relatively outer of football grounds and smoky pubs have
unalienated way. I tried to work on stuff that was never been everyone’s cup of tea. They, their en-
‘my own’ and on what was important to the least dangered (if not extinct) status, are just examples
managerial and bureaucratic students, those I liked. of increased control, containment of the potentials
Some staff stopped talking to me. Importantly, how- for spontaneity. The core of these activities seems

overland 188, 2007 65

 the same, but the edges have been smoothed off. Deleuze and Guattari, in Anti-Oedipus, discuss
The fringes have become frills. participation in the system of credit and debt as
When Debord wrote The Society of the Spectacle an alliance with capital and the (despotic) state.
in 1967, he didn’t live in the world we do. He wasn’t Is it more? An alliance is an agreement involving
trying to be prophetic. He was writing about his nominal equals. It’s what nation-states do when
world. He described a world which was having the both recognise that they can’t order each other
life sucked out of it. Did he imagine that it could around. It’s not necessarily a relationship of amity.
go this far? I imagine that in his world, people It is a pragmatic agreement to cooperate and/or
related to much of the society of the spectacle as a suspension or cessation of hostilities. For those
fun distractions from daily life. Superficial fun, yes, who take a position in opposition to capital, an
but fun nonetheless. Debord was confronted by the alliance, understood as suspension of hostilities,
novelties introduced to culture by the postwar boom is problematic enough. I think, though, that debt
in consumerism with its “expanding economy of should be seen as more than a simple alliance. It’s
‘services’ and leisure”.8 For Debord the spectacular a pledge of allegiance, which is different – worse.
society was just beginning, even if he could see that Those involved are not equal. One is in a position of
it had been coming and increasing for some time. power, authority or reverence and the other makes
Nevertheless, traditional pursuits like sport and mu- a pledge to him, her or it (rather than with her or
sic culture, communal leisure, remained relatively him) under terms and conditions set by the creditor.
intact. Their total subsumption as commodities, and This relationship can only end (without impunity)
their integration into the society of the spectacle if the pledge has been fulfilled by the debtor to the
for constrained and productive participation, came creditor’s complete satisfaction. Debt is a formal,
later, gradually. This process seems to have reached legal way to extract allegiance and has been with us
its zenith while seeming like a process that has no for a long time. With wage labour, it fills out capi-
zenith, and everyone’s on pills to deal with it.9 tal’s coercive tradition. In other words, because of
What is the function of these distractions? Well, our need for food and housing, they’ve got us over
they’re no mere distractions. They’ve become a barrel. We can do our best to avoid it but often,
more. They’re more sophisticated and controlled despite ourselves, we submit. However, an allegiance
as ‘events’ and, I believe, people participate in them to the society of managed events, and conscientious
with an intensity and diligence beyond ‘fun’. As participation in consumption as production (often
Melbourne’s Commonwealth Games experience via debt ),10 is largely ‘voluntary’. We have moved
shows, an individual’s participation in ‘the society from alienation from ourselves and the world via
of managed events’ is a demonstration of allegiance, our labour – to allegiance to (total) alienation via
of observance, loyalty, duty and solidarity. If only our every waking breath and action. Fuck.
these were mere spectacles. I’ve got a problem. I don’t know how this feels. I
We are familiar with the circumstances in which don’t have a phenomenological sense of it. I cannot
workers have been asked to make further sacrifices, carry a sense of it. I don’t know if that’s because
work harder for the ‘good of the state’. These cir- I’ve been able to separate – alienate – myself from
cumstances arise in times of war or during periods it, or because it’s so everywhere that there’s nothing
of economic hardship. Many workers instinctively distinct enough from it to be able to feel its shit-
recognise this call for what it is, many don’t. We, as a ness as alienation. How does it feel? All I can do is
‘workforce’, are not as loyal to our employers as our sit down in the main street and watch how people
parents were. We are largely casualised. Bosses find it move, bunched in waves but separate. In purposeful
more difficult to ask for loyalty when workers know transit between production and consumption. Com-
that their conditions of employment explicitly avoid ing on and going off. All I can say is that everyone
such sentiments. Capitalists themselves know that looks ratty.
such hypocrisy will be recognised. Are we witnessing Whether we experience our society through the
a change? Surrounded by WorkChoices, with the alienation of labour, as cogs in a machine, or as
diminishing expectation of loyalty to a boss, we are loyal, indebted, ratty consumer subjects – it is all
cajoled into pledging allegiance to consumption and dehumanising. The solutions of the past century,
the spectacle – the society of the managed events. however noble, however well-meaning or mean,

66 overland 188, 2007

have been unable to people their models with 1999, 409–414, 417–419, 490–491.
3 Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts
humans. Fascism, liberal democracy, communism,
of 1844, International Publishers, New York, 1964,
Nazism, neoliberalism, capitalism; all require 110–111. The passage I cite here is from the Manuscripts
state organisation, hierarchy and the allegiance of and is longer than the condensation included on page 90
citizen subjects. More accurately, they all require of The Songlines. Nevertheless, Chatwin’s book is where I
first encountered it.
an alienated citizen subject, which necessitates a 4 See Damon Young, The Silent Chorus: Culture and
call to allegiance. On occasion, in some places, a Superficiality, PhD thesis, Swinburne University of
system may work tolerably well for a good amount Technology, Melbourne, 2003.
5 Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, Black & Red,
of people. None, however, fulfils its promise. It’s all Detroit, 1983.
about alienation. 6 Adrian Peacock, Two Hundred Pharaohs Five Billion
Alienation is dehumanisation. For three hundred Slaves, Ellipsis, London, 2002.
7 Michel Foucault, Fearless Speech, Semiotext(e), Los
years, people have thought about dehumanisation in Angeles, 2001.
machine terms. “We’re all just cogs!” Now we have 8 Ibid.
reached a stage where, instead of Hobbes’ machine 9 Guy Debord revisited The Society of the Spectacle in
the late 1980s and commented, “the spectacle has never
metaphor, we can adopt one more appropriate for
before put its mark to such a degree on almost the full
the digital age. Now it’s simpler. We’re just a bunch range of socially produced behaviour and objects …
of switches. On|off.   |O Nothing more can be When the spectacle was concentrated, the greater part of
squeezed from the machine – from linear, causal, surrounding society escaped it; when diffuse, a small part;
today, no part.” From Guy Debord, Comments on the
dependent organisation. Too many cogs were im- Society of the Spectacle, Verso, London, 1998, 9.
portant. If they failed or wore out, the machine 10 “A time will come when the creditor has not yet lent while
had to stop for a while. Not now.   |O Ones and the debtor never quits repaying, for repaying is a duty
but lending is an option” (emphasis added). From Gilles
nones. If one switch fails, it’s a ‘loser’, becomes Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and
redundant. It’s bypassed. Nothing stops. The event Schizophrenia, Athlone Press, London, 1984, 197–198.
can go completely unnoticed. But still, the big idea See pages 187–200 for more on alliance and debt.
is to get every switch going at once. All on. But what Terry Eyssens now does doctoral research in philosophy at
would happen then? the University of Ballarat. He would like to thank Simon
I texted a friend. “What would happen if all the Firth, Damon Young, Ruth Quibell, Karen Ballard, Jeroen
circuits/switches in a computer were turned on?” van Veen, Alan Turner, Jane Mummery, Sally Skinner,
Damien Dupuis, Bruce Lindsay and Dawn McBride for
He replied, “If this is a joke, do tell. If not, you their encouragement, advice and critical responses to
would no longer have a computer, because you drafts of this essay. (And addditional thanks to Damon
would not have enough difference to have enough Young for the text message.)
information, or calculation of it.”
Not enough difference to have information? Not
enough difference to be able to tell what it is we
are looking at, what it is we are being? Not enough 2007

left outside, to chance, to rot, left off – to feel, to

recognise, to know.
Mortified body, ruined mind … the loss of self.
Not that I believe us to be computers, or a com-
puter. We’re not. But if everything went to plan, and
everyone was on, what would happen? Could we
only know what we are not? Will we be incapable
of knowing what we are? Maybe that. But I wonder.
Would it, will we, all crash?
1 Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines, Picador, London, 1988.
2 See Barry Hill, Broken Song: TGH Strehlow and
Aboriginal Possession, Vintage, Sydney, 2003. Hill writes
of the concept of songlines as “falsely attributed to DONATE NOW
[TGH] Strehlow” and “most glibly by Bruce Chatwin”, (03) 9419 8377
5, 71. See also Nicholas Shakespeare, Bruce Chatwin,
Harvill in association with Jonathan Cape, London,

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