The Opiate of the Status Quo
In a time of strife and uncertainty, it is common to see people who are all equally affected by the outcome of a problem to bicker and point fingers at one another. We in Windsor are at the precipice of a tall, shadowy cliff, and there is a massive argument happening at the edge.
In this city we have always relied on powerful and sometimes faceless companies for our survival. We are not alone, throughout history, entire civilizations followed the same philosophy: Someone, somewhere will help us. They won’t let the system crumble and fall away. Something will come in at the last second and save us from disaster, and we can go on with our lives, knowing that everything will be just the same as it’s always been. That is human nature.
Many in this city tonight are relying on a convoy scheduled to leave our dreary cousin to the north, Detroit, in a few days to save us once again from the guillotine. This time, even if they get their wishes, that faceless spectre of salvation will fail to appear.
When we have a bad cough, we often neglect taking medicine, hoping our immune system will rally together and defeat the nagging cough on its own. Cough medicine tastes really horrible, even with a bit of sugar, but we all know it will be the only thing that will completely get rid of the cough, along with wearing a scarf more often – yes mom, you were right all along.
Some compare our reliance on the auto industry for identity, survival, and an unofficial nickname to an addiction. In some ways, this is a valid point. However, I prefer to compare it to a sickness, a massive, debilitating sickness that seems manageable at first, but when looked at under a microscope its devastating effects are obvious. We are a city afraid to take the bad tasting medicine of an auto industry restructuring because we knew something was terribly wrong for years, yet now we are forced, en masse, to go to the emergency ward.
I grew up listening to my classmates, many of whom were talented in many valid scholastic areas and subjects tell me their dream was to work for the big three. As a child I remember being told about the high wages, the great benefits (even though I didn’t know what benefits were) and the job security that those who work for those companies enjoy.
Even at that tender age I asked too many questions, so inevitably I inquired, “How do you get a job there?” “Well, it helps if your parents work there” I felt left out, due to the fact that neither of my parents worked in any facet of the automotive industry and neither did any of my living relatives. My great grandfather worked at Ford for forty years, but he died in the mid nineteen sixties, so I guess I was out of luck.
It was from that simple exchange as a child that I first felt that I was a band apart from most people in this city. I continued to grow older but the maelstrom never ceased. I heard people dreaming about factory work for the big three while I was in high school and college, people who could have been great educators, artists, engineers, writers, musicians, anything they wished were lured by the siren’s song of sixpence.
Yet still I didn’t see the attraction.
Doing exactly the same thing all day long, for the rest of your life seemed like a kind of mental death to me. Shutting off your brain for eight hours a day was the epitome of boredom in my opinion, but when I tried to relate this to other people I became the recipient of scorn, resentment and exclusion.
From that point on, anything I said was taken with a grain of salt by almost anyone who knew my thoughts on working for the big three. I was the bookish one where I worked, no matter where it was. I could totally relate to Chris when he said he garnered the nickname “the librarian” because he simply chose to read during his breaks at work, rather than discuss the results of last night’s wrestling pay per view, the score of the hockey game, or how hammered his co worker got last night and how it was a miracle they came into work that day.
I have vivid memories of one particular day in grade school. A teacher I had went around the classroom, asking people what they wanted to be when they grew up. Most of my classmates replied “to work at Ford/GM/Chrysler”. When I was asked, I said “I want to be a writer”. A few people laughed, as whispers went around the room and my teacher told me not to waste my time, as I’d probably end up “working on the line”, as many people she knew with similar aspirations eventually did with their lives. The discussion moved past me and I sat there shocked and embarrassed. This isn’t how teachers are on television; they encourage people, motivate people and cause people to do good things in their lives “The Sky’s The Limit” and all that.
Luckily, as I grew older, I had teachers who encouraged my career path, but they all had one thing in common: they were all not originally from Windsor, and they were viewed as being “weird” by my classmates and fascinating by me. In fact, one was British; the other three were American, one from Boston, the other two from New York City and Houston. Was I born in the wrong place? Was I switched at birth with someone from another country? Maybe I was right when I chose not to drink the kool-aid.
I am convinced that many people in this city are hypnotized. We are hypnotized by a dream, a fantasy of easy money and a job for life. Entree into the big three meant your own big house, car, cottage up north and a gorgeous wife to go along with everything. Forget your personal talents; forget your dreams and everything you want in life. This is Windsor, and to make it here, you have to collect a cheque from Ford’s Chrysler’s or GM or else you had better practise saying “Would you like fries with that?”
The coming collapse/restructuring of the auto sector will force this city to innovate and change. We will not wither up and die, we are too strong and proud to do that, no matter how misguided we may be.
The sickness is now coming to an end. We will feel withdrawal symptoms, but that is just the addicted citizens screaming for more of the same old fantasy. They will eventually see the light, and know that no matter what their children want to be, they will never “end up” working on some line.
They just might end up being something different.
Tags: Education, Entrepreneurs, World Changing
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There’s hope for the right-brained crowd.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/11/04/f-vp-handler.html
Hypnotized? I tend to see many of my fellow Windsorites as stunned, disconnected maybe even oblivious. Everything that is happening now has been forecast by any number of experts and yet has been completely ignored by the very people that a) brought about the economic disaster that is still unfolding and b) the same people that brought the disaster that initially ignored the warnings are now tasked with fixing it.
In a conversation the other day I likened it to not just putting the fox in charge of the henhouse but, waiting until the fox had eaten all the chickens and then giving it more.
Probably the most disturbing blog post I’ve read lately is from Mike Morgan. Mike is a financial guy that not only saw this coming but has been making money throughout this melt down. His latest post has him out of ideas, and now he’s starting to worry about the other shoes waiting to fall.
http://realestateandhousing2.blogspot.com/
Humour me just a little more.
Look at this graph of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^DJI&t=my&l=off&z=m&q=l&c=
From peak to valley the New York Stock Exchange lost 88% of its value in the Great Depression.
If the DJI fell 88% from its recent high near 14,000 it would end up very close to the level it was at during the 1980’s. A value that was supported by actual wealth generated by a balanced economy, not one based on consumerism.
Just something to think about.
Brendan, this is one of the biggest challenges that Windsor and many citizens in Windsor face. We need to stop defining yourselves by what we do. Our advantages, abilities and passions have many different applications.
I currently work as a corporate pilot but this is not how I define myself. If aviation ends tomorrow, I’d like to think I could apply my disciplined and logical thinking and problem solving skills in many different ways.
This is a change not the end. Change is scary but exciting too.
Weaning pain or the lost of the auto industry as we know it in Windsor is going to be very rough and painful for this current generation of Windsorites who have the experience of working the line for the once big three and knew what Eden was.
Some might make it, others will do what they have to do to get by and find work somewhere else, in this city or somewhere. Some will head back to school and gamble on future future, while others will never make it and live out their lives in a very altered soical-economic class.
What was it that Youngstown Moxie said about Youngstown Ohio after the steel industry disappeared overnight, it took Youngstown two generations to get back on its feet in a much smaller city. I’m afraid that is what is in store for Windsor. It takes time to raise and keep your creative and innovative class, especially in a city that at one time didn’t care about that class.
Urbanrat hit the nail on the head with the statement “It takes time to raise and keep your creative and innovative class …” One of Charlottetown’s pride and joys is Victoria Row, which runs perpendicular to Queen Street, behind the Confederation Centre, public library and the Province House (the provincial legislature). This entire area features artisans, restaurants, independant businesses all within walking distance of both the waterfront (for tourists) and the majority of the office buildings. Victoria Row is an artist haven, especially during the summer when the city closes the street and makes it a pedestrian mall. Each day, at lunch, different musicians gather on a covered stage (that the city erects, no less!) to entertain the lunch crowd gathered on the patios and benches in the area.
That, my friends, is a city that opens its’ arms to the creative class. No strip clubs, rub’n'tugs or raucous bars (lots of Irish pubs and “Cheers”-type bars though) to compete with, just the creativity of, what seems like, the entire Island attracting investment and tourist dollars.
Check out this link for some picture of Victoria Row.
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3101/2669240581_b2aca9ce71.jpg%3Fv%3D0&imgrefurl=http://flickr.com/photos/82893865%40N00/2669240581&usg=__BvXphUveS5qU4p6gYOT-z8ZvXXE=&h=375&w=500&sz=197&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=yyWXhO1MO1WLqM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3DVictoria%2BRow%2BPEI%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN
PFA stated “Each day, at lunch, different musicians gather on a covered stage (that the city erects, no less!) to entertain the lunch crowd gathered on the patios and benches in the area.”
Stay tuned, a little birdie told me this may be coming to Windsor this summer.
Yay!
Urbanrat, PFA the negativity is uncharacteristic of both of you. We can produce, attract and retain a creative and innovative class in this city and it does not need to take generations to do so.
We have many advantages that Youngstown and Charlottetown don’t which makes the comparison not a fair one. The problem has been that since Windsor could count on good paying jobs from the big three the city never really put much effort in developing it. That time is over. Just watch how quickly things change.
Our many advantages (metropolitan size, large college and university town, skilled workforce, location, diversity, rich history and character, affordability, etc) they could have been diverted down a less resistant path but they can’t be held back.
Excuse me Edwin, it’s not negativity that I expressed above but the fact of life in this city. Windsor’s greatest export hasn’t been cars or engines but our creative/intellectual and inventing/innovating class because they couldn’t break through the drugged induced masses of this city as you said above; “The problem has been that since Windsor could count on good paying jobs from the big three the city never really put much effort in developing it. That time is over.” My point exactly!
And “Just watch how quickly things change.” “Things” are changing but it will still take time, you just can’t flip a city, like flipping a house for resale, it is still the same house! The majority in this city and our city council are still looking for the silver bullet, as Chris said in another blog “SNF” Something For Nothing!” a high paying job with no education, no skill and no accountability for the work done and I worked the line for seven years!
I am going to say it like I see it! Having 10,000 assembler monkeys in this city, standing every day assembling one part and being paid beyond their wildest dreams for such a job, is not a skilled worked force! In one normal shift, it is possible to teach anyone off the street how to assemble any part required.
I also don’t have to be lectured on this city’s history, its geography/climate and the possible potential of this city, with what is here now and can be here in the future.
Here’s Detroit’s future: Detroit: Do the Collapse
http://theurbanophile.blogspot.com/2008/11/detroit-do-collapse.html
And Windsor isn’t going to fair much better!
Call me naive urbanrat but, I think with a holistic approach to revitalizing the city we can attract and retain a creative and innovative class. Human capital is very the mobile. Just like there was a mass exodus when the climate was unfavorable there could be a mass influx if the conditions change. And like you said things are changing.