I am going to digress a bit from ART Strike, so please bear with me for several paragraphs until I tie it up later in the post.

This morning, my husband told me about a shop owner in England who opened a new type of mens’ clothing store. She has only one employee.  Her store can function with this limited staff because, when her male customers arrive, they “shop” on their iPhones, select what they want to try on and a robotic arm dumps it into a bin for pick up.

She believes that by eliminating employees, she’ll be able to compete with Amazon.

My husband made a prediction that this is the dawn of …well, I won’t say new exactly, but a less personal, more disturbing age. We see it already with automated phone systems where you pass multiple levels of automated pre-screens to speak with someone.

My first reaction was: Men will love this, Women will hate it.  The men I know see shopping as a destination…really, a necessary evil.  Women see it as a visual, tactile and emotional experience. (Disclaimer: this is a broad generalization, so if you are an outlier to this theory, please take no offense).

My second reaction was: If humans are replaced with robotics, who will replace those consumers whose salaries are lost to technology?

I may be overreacting, because the human spirit and intelligence always adapts.  For example, in our supposedly paperless society, new businesses have arisen and flourished to replace the functions driven by “paperless-ness.” I’m sure storage archive companies housing years of historic documents never imagined cloud storage.  An economics-driven society always evolve to address the status quo.

Now for the main point of this post:

Today is ART Strike. Now one may wonder what this post about the evolution of technology has to do with ART Strike, a Culture Day of Action protesting the fiscal cliff that is – I believe – as much real as it is made up.  Do I believe there is an economic problem? There is no doubt.  Do I believe the world will end tomorrow – as those who worry about the  end of the Mayan calendar predict – if the fiscal cliff isn’t bridged. No.

But I do believe we need to put more focus on the things that matter – people and the value they bring to any endeavor. We need to advocate for the education of our children – and to make sure higher education remains affordable and not only for the wealthy. We need to understand that there are people in dire situations who need our help and support. We need to make sure individuals are not subverted to a society driven by capitalism. We need to value culture  and the arts and sustain them, because there is no better mirror to hold up to our humanity. Culture is a looking glass that reflects our history and our future, our frailness and our strength, our greatness and our flaws. Without culture, we are doomed as a a society.

Technology will continue to evolve.  Big business will continue to leverage anything – especially technology – that grows the bottom line.  This is indisputable. But as we evolve as a race, we need to continue nurturing our humanity in all its splendor.

So ART Strike may be, on the surface, a protest about the debates taking place in Congress, but it is really a cry to nurture and celebrate the Art of Humanity.