Atdtda29: Bureaucrats at play, 806-814

[Mark Kohut]

Yes, time is not lived in but measured and "managed"...judged 'valid' use
  or not

Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com> wrote:
  [806.7-8] "You can have young Mostleigh along if you feel you need a
bodyguard."

Bevis was happy enough to be out of the subterranean funk of his crypto
facility. "Yes do me good to get out of the old coconut-shy for a bit."


Bevis has been introduced on 799 as, in Cyprian's uncomprehending eyes, a
"young crypto wizard".


Cf. an early round in the Theign-Cyprian bickerfest, on 706:


"Oh that's just a big myth," Cyprian looking for an argument today, it
seemed. "They are as direct as children."

"Indeed. Most of the children of your acquaintance being at best, corrupted,
how 'direct' is that, exactly?"

"Get about more and you'll see."


And so to ...


[806.23-25] "But this thing is too small to be of any use to anyone. It's a
toy."

"Well. I mean it's good enough for the F.O., isn't it. This happens to be
the very map they use."


Which reminds us of an earlier promise, on 708:


"Depots are in place. You'll have maps. What do you imagine it is I do out
here?"


Hence ...


[807.3] "It would certainly explain a good deal about the F.O.," Cyprian
staring at the map bleakly.


A few pages on, Cyprian with Ratty in Graz:


[808.37-38] "A paradise for arms dealers, and the despair of bureaucrats. I
wish I were on the Chinese desk."


Cf. Ratty here ("grumbl[ing]") to Bevis on 806: "Yes do me good to get out
of the old coconut-shy for a bit."


Subsequently, the modern bureaucrat in conflict with traditional power:


[809.20-22] "It certainly seems as if both the Emperor and the Sultan were
recognizing in Russia a common enemy. Neither gentleman talks to me, so how
would I know."


And so to the preterite ...


[809.33-36] "Wagers, many of them substantial, are being booked throughout
the diplomatic community. There are European Apocalyse Pools among the
workers at the bureaux concerned, as to the date of a general mobilization."


Pools = sweepstake. Subversive, perhaps, given the status of gambling; or
rather the hostility to working-class gambling. See David Dixon, Prohibition
to Regulation: Bookmaking, Anti-Gambling, and the Law, Clarendon Press,
1991.


Finally, Theign justifying the sacrifice of Yashmeen:


[811.29-30] "... we must all support F.O. in this, set aside our unimportant
little personal dreams and wishes mustn't we."


In the age of scientific time-management not only restaurants have been
automated (808, 810). Hence:


[811.34-812.3] ... rather than be defied, Theign chose to look ridiculous
pursuing Cyprian through the rooms and presently into the street screaming
threats of bodily insult, but Cyprian was determined today not to be struck,
and at length Theign gave up the chase. It was not a valid use of his time.


Interesting use of "valid" there. Anyway, cf. Cyprian himself on
time-management, when about to leave Yashmeen:


[814.26-27] He had resolved in fact to give up tears as an unproductive
indulgence.


Cf. Weber's spirit of capitalism:


To waste time is thus the first and, in principle, the worst of all sins.


From: Max Weber, Selections in Translation, WG Runciman ed, Cambridge UP,
1978. 141. See also: Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific
Management, Harper & Brothers, 1917. Frederick Winslow Taylor, Scientific
Management, Kenneth Thompson ed, Routledge, 2003.




       
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