THE ARTIST

 

I am Bertison Harlwood. They call me Harlo. I am an inventor, designer, builder, thinker in Oakland, California. Developing these stools was an act of patriotic compulsion. Civic duty is a great tonic for dark and uncertain times. My rage and fear boiled over, and I funneled it into an unlikely design project. I hope my work can offer a bit of levity, hope, or even inspiration to others. The repetitive tasks of stool-making has afforded me long hours of contemplation, which I fittingly directed towards the current state of the union. Ostensibly, this page should be about me. But, the part of me consumed by politics and civil rights is large enough that I believe it deserves some air time. As they say, all writing is autobiographical, so please excuse me as I now rant aimlessly, railing against the system, indulging in a bit of cathartic release...

Donald Trump is the spoiled heir of a slumlord tycoon. He spent his life flitting about New York on daddy's dollar, whoring himself out to the media in a desperate bid for the acceptance of a big city elite that would never have him. Around town he was a punchline, a flailing dilettante, propped up by inherited wealth and power, then elevated by reality TV into the public spotlight under the laughable pretext that he was in fact a self-made mogul. Well, the joke is on us. Trump is not to blame. We are. Society is. He is just a sheltered moron that had to take up the mantel forsaken by his older, wiser brother. Yes, Trump is racist, crooked, greedy. He does possess the deepest possible wellsprings of narcissism, fueled by implacable insecurity. But, he has no cohesive plan. He didn't mastermind his way to the white house. He percolated to the top through an evolutionary process. We churned a toxic stew, blindly adopting news as entertainment, social media, reality TV, and so on. It was that environment, and its selective pressures, that gave rise to "The Donald". He is no more than that which crawled forth from the primordial stew.

So yes, we are all implicated, but I focus my anger at the top and keep my sympathy with the masses. I think about money in politics, gerrymandering, voter suppression, the criminal justice system. I avoid the conspiracist sideshows that distract from the truly nefarious deeds done in plain sight. We are inundated with news filtered through the profit-focused lenses of major corporations. This applies to conservative and liberal media outfits alike. But, let's look at a specific and particularly egregious example, which, were it to exist outside our country, we might refer to as State TV: Fox News.

Fox News is a propaganda engine run by the Australian son of a knight. Their core viewership is working class. To think that foreign nobility is aligned with the interests of the American working class is patently absurd. When Fox-watching Joe Shmoe thinks that Obama was born in Kenya, it is sickening, but he didn't dream it up alone. It came from the mind-numbing, self-amplifying, full-circle human centipede comprising Trump and Fox (among others). The Fox News viewership is wielded by the uber-rich to maintain the plutocracy. That plutocracy splits us as a nation along political, racial, and ideological lines. Everyone adopts an us-verse-them mentality that is reinforced or even generated by news and social media. These platforms thrive off strong reactions. Outrage is at a premium. There are perverse incentives with intrinsic rewards for fear-mongering and sensationalism. As McLuhan put it, the medium is the message.

Let me remention our societal divides: politics, race, ideology. It is no coincidence that wealth doesn't make the list. If the inequities of wealth, income, and economic opportunity rose to the forefront of popular discord, the societal structures maintaining these inequities would topple overnight. The vast majority of the population would overpower the privileged few. Instead, we are consistently divided along lines that run down the middle. This is no coincidence. Split into halves, our population is at maximum susceptibility to corporate influence and private interest. These forces dictate how the tie is broken. They become the arbiters of our fate.

To be clear, I do not find any inherent fault in wealth. I aspire to it. But, there are too many at the top that seek to guard the ladder, creating a system of exclusive access. It is for this reason that wealth inequality has ballooned out of control. Our other societal divides have been maintained and deepened by the machinations of capitalism—machinations designed to keep the general population divided, weak, docile.

I contemplate these things as I build my stools. I could rant for hours. My heart bleeds for our nation. I find bits of hope here and there and cling to them with abandon. When hope wanes I bury my head in work, insistent that the needle can be moved, the tides turned. These things can happen. Bit by bit. Do your part. I'm fighting to do mine...

All my love,
Harlo