Monologuist and Seattleite emeritus Mike Daisey gets an op-ed in the New York Times today to explain why, in essence, Steve Jobs’ death is no hindrance to the opening of his one-man-show, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, at the Public Theatre on October 11.
Calling Jobs an “enemy” of nostalgia, Daisey argues that casting a cold eye on Jobs’ legacy is exactly what Jobs would have done, were he around to take on the task:
One of the keys to Apple’s success under his leadership was his ability to see technology with an unsentimental eye and keen scalpel, ready to cut loose whatever might not be essential. This editorial mien was Mr. Jobs’s greatest gift — he created a sense of style in computing because he could edit.
Daisey is well-suited to Boswell Jobs: He shares in the delight of the well-formed Apple device, while extending his criticism beyond aesthetics to the moral sphere, where, he makes the case, Jobs fell short. In a review of Agony, I wrote: “Given Wozniak’s treatment as Jobs becomes Apple’s avatar of amazement, the working conditions at Foxconn look like ramification of a founder’s principles, not an accident.”
In his op-ed, Daisey asks how rebellious it is, really, to be Apple these days. Not only does the company enjoy an enviable market capitalization, but it has established, through strict controls, a kind of fascist software state, which customers tolerate because “the trains run on time.”
While I remain unconvinced that Jobs, who lost Apple once, also had the capacity to reinvent Chinese workforce treatment, it’s true there are no anthemic Apple commercials announcing a determination to try. Eerily, Apple is all there in that 1984 ad, both the iconoclast and the legions of workers being barked at by the punishing leader. Concludes Daisey:
We can admire the design perfection and business acumen while acknowledging the truth: with Apple’s immense resources at his command he could have revolutionized the industry to make devices more humanely and more openly, and chose not to. […] We would also see a man who in the end failed to “think different,” in the deepest way, about the human needs of both his users and his workers.
In Seattle, the University Village Apple Store reopened after its renovation, and the impromptu memorial to Steve Jobs was recorded with high-res photography, then discarded.
