systems.

Plato, the father of the Western tradition, said that the hand is an organon, which in English means tool. to call the hand an organon is simply to say that it is a tool of the owner. Plato said the hand is an organon, the hammer is an organon and the hammering hand is an organon. however, the electric juicer that one finds in many kitchens today is something much more sinister. it masquerades as an organon but it is in reality something quite different. it is one of the many manifestations of the gigantic system that is devouring our world. like it or not, the age of tools has passed and the age of systems is here. you juice your oranges and make a delicious healthy drink. wonderful! but if you observe the juicer more closely, its more disturbing aspects can be noticed. the electricity to power the juicer arrives via a network of cables and overhead power lines, which are fed by power stations that depend on water pressure, pipelines or tanker consignments, which in turn require dams, offshore platforms and derricks in far-off countries. the whole chain only guarantees an adequate and prompt delivery if every one of its parts is staffed by armies of engineers, planners, financial experts, who themselves can fall back on administrations, universities, indeed entire industries – and sometimes even the military, as we have seen again and again. whoever thinks they are merely using a juicer is wrong. the juicer is a disguise; it is not a convenient tool at all but the final element of just one of the millions upon millions of tentacles of the great system that is wrapping itself around this world and every day tightening its grip. and so through such insidious disguises as the blender, the washing machine, the car and so on, these tentacles enter our daily lives and force us to service the system that will in fact one day, in the not too distant future, destroy us. the opportunity to opt out has long since passed. it is the nature of systems that they grow and take on a life of their own, eventually creating their own goals, different from those they were meant to serve. look at organized religions. today they are vast global systems with ambitions that are now a long way from the good words of their prophets. the goal of our current global system is to force more and more people to depend on the energy it provides. by using the system, we are writing it a blank cheque. and remember, Nature is the bank on which ultimately all cheques are drawn.