doesn't provide a template, just some ground we can get into the
issues through. The great warnings to us on 'solutions' is real
history and the failure of Germany as the most cultured and scientific
nation culminating in "Hitler" - the lesson being so-called triumphs
in rationality, science and culture are dreadful fantasies. I would
hope in this that German friends would not see any blaming in this -
the culpability is wider-set in imperialism and our still stupid
notions of leadership. In intellectual terms we are supposedly in
postmoderism (really read that and weep in a different way from
Gabby's sonnet). The crisis is one of legitimation and the need for
an incredulous stance towards grand narratives like religion and the
'wealth creation' espoused in the status quo of oligarchy (rather than
competitive capitalism).
I'd say the big issue is dishonesty and the ease with which we swallow
chronic lies whole as the facts stand up against them. The idiocy is
in demanding paragons of virtue in politics. Honesty is not so easily
produced. As a population we remain crudely ignorant and politicians
can rely on this. I can prove over and again that voters don't know
what they vote for - the result being my regard as a smartarse,
"commie" or whatever suits. We get bogged down by popular opinion
(Idols in Bacon) and inane rationalist fantasies as to whether god
exists or not to which there is only 'answer' in sentient (Hume). We
rightly point to failures in communism whilst failing to spot we have
already been carried away in the anti-communism (even anti-democratic
management - see the use of the UnAmerican stuff against quite mild
adherents of such) that drives our resources into the hands of a tiny
few, leaving even 1 in 5 Americans poor etc. and wars all over -let
alone poverty through massive over-breeding and climate change.
The answer is a massive change in our ways, including world-government
- but the rub here is this can't involve the kind of people doing
politics at the whim of banksterism and it does mean not allowing
'riches' as currently conceived, which many think 'fair' owing to
propaganda. The statement on population ignorance itself needs review
as it can't itself be just another bid for leadership and power. On
the odd occasion I do chemistry for schoolkids I do experiments that
go bang, flash light and then a tame one in which heating Lead
Carbonate turns it yellow before it melts. The kids rarely understand
(which isn't the point). Teaching economics is much the same in
result - most end up with no clue and would need to be in intensive
educational care to get a grok. I am much more confident in my
scientific prognostications than on those of how we should live and a
viable economics. Yet the world of science is much less authoritarian
than that of public opinion, despite the techniques being much more
reliable. If you don't want to listen properly on how to make,say,
gunpowder - then you're free to blow your hands off. Yet how do I
tell anyone not to have children in excess? Recruit Indira Gandhi?
How do we get work done - sit around drinking tea voting?
The basic idea is often to get everyone up to western standards - yet
what 'standard' do we offer? Planet burning firsts? A model that has
always favoured a few rich with a minor blip after WW2 and is as debt-
ridden as ancient Mesopotamia? A big part of the answer is the
setting up of complex regulation that prevents undue power accretion.
The human tendency in this is towards bureaucracy and that runs into n
iron cage (Weber). I believe computing offers new avenues -but we'd
have to guard against this being perverted in the usual ways. The key
roadblock is world peace and not believing we could have it and the
daft assumption just laying down our 'guns' would produce it.
There's a massive literature that could help - the problem being few
read and would even watch if our media could summarise it. Should I
issue a bibliography? This doesn't even work at university.
The first solution is getting resources into individual and collective
control with banking as a utility (rather than designed to steal them
as happens now even with micro-credit). This itself should produce
enough argument to fill several books - but watch this space. The
move is broadly capitalist but anti-oligarchy pro-democracy in the
sense of (Popper's) control of those allocated 'power'. Questions
immediately arise as to what is not allowable - like a bunch of
Taliban mistreating women and trying to build an H-bomb or burning
coal for the hell of it.
To see this as other than 'castle-in-the-air' one needs an
understanding of social economics and the mad stuff of the mainstream
and what its results are. This requires a lot of negation -something
widely perceived (still, long after science) perceived as negative
because of Idols. Rigsy started a thread on Freud in which this and
the paranoid-schizoid and 'depressive' positions could have been
explored. This level of intellectualism can even lead to 'academic
bullying' claims in universities in these dumbed-down days. A good
start would be Naomi Klein's 'Shock Doctrine' would be a start, but
only a start (you can get it on Movshare and the like).
I'm much more positive than most people I know in spirit, from running
myself into the ground and desperate tackles to trying new stuff. One
meets this negative stuff everywhere from underperforming sports teams
to simple changes like not buying vastly over priced ink and toner and
getting advice from the data protection officer that means don't put
anything on your project website. The 'highly positive', of course
ain't going through the Pillars of Hercules because they'll fall off
the edge. The positive question is nearly always 'what junk are we in
thrall to now' - what is today's "flat earth theory". The big
challenge isn't ignorance but incompetence even to the point of not
recognising one's own. The arguments many think they take part in are
carefully structured inside highly parochial propaganda (Idols).
Rather than learning through gleaning the facts, most people just
reinforce there dullard positions - this means you (or me if I don't
check myself).
Most, even in this group,lack enough knowledge to have more than mere
opinion, whether on how to make TNT or understand what the banking
crisis is. Much of what I say won't work would not be negative if you
knew more, but seen as pointing to reasons for radical change.
Classic moves include atheism meaning I must lack morality or am not
open-minded about god possibilities - you know the form. With, say,
nitroglycerin manufacture you can leave it to me (at a safe distance)
- but why are we generally so reluctant to learn what is available on
ideological and economic-practical issues? What model of the positive
do you guys work with - Mollyarian letting fear slip away (which is
complex in her elaborations, not barking), how would you get across a
street under fire (the answer is you don't unless there is no
alternative) - how do you assess what is negative?
Many of the issues discussed in groups like this are deeply
constrained because most people don't study and have false views on
fact. I see this as key in developing 'democracy' - I'm anti-democrat
in the same terms as Joseph Heller's lovely book - but how many have
read it and would recognise I'm not being negative but asking for a
review of the ideas and practices for better, wider control of
authority and how we might achieve it? Try making nitro by just
bunging the constituents together (goodbye you). There would be a lot
of 'don't do that it's a waste of time' in my teaching on that. You
don't get "democracy" through a voting system alone. We can't get
near economic fairness until we realise just how negative the
'positive modern world' is and the complexity we need to handle.
On Oct 21, 7:23 pm, Chris Jenkins <digitalprecip...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd be interested to see that enumerated as well. A frequent meme in Neil's
> writing is that he doesn't feel most offered solutions have any real value,
> once percolated down through human greed and incompetence.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 1:24 PM, Allan H <allanh1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Neil how about listing the potential solutions as you see them? I would
> > apperciate it as it is not something I have a talent for..
> > Thank you
> > Allan
>
> > On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 5:47 PM, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> I think there is always a standing excuse on the greater good - that
> >> 'irrational capitalism' provides for it better than any rational
> >> solution. Our thinking is puny at such levels and we have allowed
> >> over-breeding into poverty just at the point we could have established
> >> sensible regulation without cruelty. Much of the discussion is
> >> barking - like Chinese oligarchs saying we will all have to work
> >> harder and longer when There is actually not that much work to do
> >> thanks to productivity (other than in making oligarchs richer).
> >> We talk in moral argument only at simplistic levels - however abstruse
> >> the language gets and have little grasp of how complex systems work
> >> and how they might be controlled. Gabby is always right in my view to
> >> point to the issue that control easily becomes the problem as even
> >> legitimate authority is used illegitimately. Yet there is always a
> >> default and this is what the oligarchs rely on. It's almost like
> >> those pesky downloads that screw your browser settings Allan.
>
> >> If one takes a concept like 'artifactuality' - roughly those things
> >> produced as artifacts (which splendidly moves nothing) - we find works
> >> of art, buildings, tools and so on - the mistake is to see this as
> >> human and 'unnatural'. We find animals and plants doing the same in
> >> their terms. I'd even suggest we find molecules doing it, even
> >> water. It's in nature, so what might this mean? If one hands out
> >> vaccines like Gates one can hardly say this is wrong and yet medicine
> >> can be seen as producing poverty through overpopulation. A 'bigger
> >> cake' meaning disproportionate wealth for a few yet still bigger
> >> slices for all seems OK - but what if the bigger cake is burning the
> >> planet (just another case of the tragedy of the Commons)? What if the
> >> disproportion itself is intolerably cruel or inevitably anti-
> >> democratic?
>
> >> We have some potential solutions - but I don't see them in much of our
> >> dialogue, even in here.
>
> >> On Oct 21, 5:21 am, Allan H <allanh1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > It seems the term "for the greater good ." disappeared from the language
> >> > especially from government.
> >> > Allan
>
> >> > On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 2:32 AM, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > > I'm stuck at another level too Chris - it was always little old
> >> > > 'critical me' that got funding and such. When going to such things as
> >> > > university creativity sessions and find them led by some clown with 50
> >> > > bright ideas to get the business going what do you do other than toss
> >> > > the book '!01 Bright Ideas To Get Your Business Going' on the desk and
> >> > > leave? I found universities not to be centres of excellence but full
> >> > > of dullards or clown rules that prevented real work. I sometimes find
> >> > > a few people to work with, have heard the 'Molly experience' and never
> >> > > seen it do anything but damage - though Molly has an edge I could see
> >> > > getting through.
> >> > > With sports teams and some students you have to stop the pre-selection
> >> > > of defeat - but you also have to spot where the brick walls not to run
> >> > > at are.
> >> > > I had a fantastic chance about 15 years back with a firm that wanted
> >> > > to abolish its organisational structure in favour of project teams,
> >> > > and go paperless. The top level was a great success and the paperless
> >> > > thing worked better than I hoped. There were load of positive payoffs
> >> > > - but huge resentment in the groups doing routine and scut work. All
> >> > > in all though it was a buzz but a lot of people got left behind. I
> >> > > have no problem with this kind of efficiency move - but there should
> >> > > be more consideration of how to work with those who can't cope other
> >> > > than junking to the reserve army of unemployment. Without going into
> >> > > detail, this is why I think we need social solutions not individual
> >> > > ones. And I think the social is too broken to start with letting fear
> >> > > fall away.
>
> >> > > On Oct 20, 10:57 am, Molly <mollyb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > > > "I guess that fear is the load we are experiencing"
>
> >> > > > My world changed immeasurably when the fear fell away.
>
> >> > > > On Oct 19, 1:25 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > > > > I can't take it myself to be honest Chris. Derrida used to say we
> >> are
> >> > > > > in spirit positive. In Anglo-Saxon terms he was just a liberal,
> >> almost
> >> > > > > priestly as a bloke over a few beers. I was younger then, still
> >> able
> >> > > > > to knock things over and feel it was worth the bother. I suspect
> >> we
> >> > > > > don't understand "negation" very well. Gabby (bless) always has
> >> some
> >> > > > > - or it seems that way (I remember very positive support of me
> >> some
> >> > > > > years back) - and the question arising is when this becomes as
> >> much
> >> > > > > censorship as all the other stuff we might brand as that. It isn't
> >> > > > > "negation" or the sting of criticism that really gets to me, more
> >> > > > > selfish attitudes in what I feel as madness, triumphed as positive
> >> but
> >> > > > > perpetual children. I like kids and even childish behaviour as
> >> > > > > entertainment. I can't stand the failure of education in making a
> >> > > > > decent society of responsible adults.
> >> > > > > I've done a lot more than most in playing the game - £7 million in
> >> > > > > research/project grants doesn't come from admissions projects will
> >> > > > > fail in the business plan. But the critical eye has to admit the
> >> > > > > majority fail and I was often signing-off on lies. £9K for
> >> university
> >> > > > > tutoring (outside of science and engineering) goes to fund middle-
> >> > > > > class lifestyles of the university hangers-on not towards the
> >> > > > > education of the young person. When last full-time, I was
> >> teaching
> >> > > > > 100 FTEs at least (200 times £9K = £900K in fees leaving £810K
> >> after
> >> > > > > my costs). I could have done a better job for the students with
> >> > > > > properly organised distance learning and a 'university' organised
> >> > > > > around local pubs, theartres and sports clubs done through social
> >> > > > > media - the overhead costed at around £100K (electronic library
> >> > > > > etc.). A better education with much more opportunity for small
> >> > > > > business involvement and so on at under a third of the cost and
> >> one
> >> > > > > not building onerous debt. What is negative in this? And sadly,
> >> the
> >> > > > > answer is easy middle-class incomes. I can go on an explain how
> >> even
> >> > > > > these would not be affected as we could expand more practical
> >> > > > > education and work development. I'm talking here of a more
> >> social,
> >> > > > > more tutor supported education better than the expensive, debt-
> >> > > > > producing fantasy we're forcing kids into. And one with lots of
> >> local
> >> > > > > creative possibilities with less bureaucracy and vastly increased
> >> > > > > 'civic' involvement.
> >> > > > > You have to 'deconstruct' to get to the above idea - and elsewhere
> >> in
> >> > > > > terms of stuff like agricultural and manufacturing productivity we
> >> > > > > have done this with little thought on the jobs lost by workers -
> >> > > > > indeed we've run roughshod over 'them'. The point in the negation
> >> > > > > should be positive - about the use of efficiency for general well-
> >> > > > > being and the creation of wider prosperity, probably redefined.
>
> >> > > > > What's hard, Chris, is facing-up to what life means to most people
> >> -
> >> > > > > the economics I've never taught (but colleagues have from a single
> >> > > > > text book) leads to a few very rich and the rest in
> >> debt-rent-mortgage
> >> > > > > peonage and the arms' race. It must be obvious we barely have
> >> even
> >> > > > > capitalism. It would be great to be able to ignore politics and
> >> the
> >> > > > > status quo, but we need to build so we can. The old phrase from
> >> the
> >> > > > > 50's (I only know from reading) was 'structuring freedom'. The
> >> human
> >> > > > > population has tripled since I was born (I reject personal,
> >> intimate
> >> > > > > responsibility!) - all very 'free' - producing planet burning and
> >> soon
> >> > > > > 'competition for air'. Raising questions about how complex
> >> freedom
> >> > > > > is.
>
> >> > > > > The weight on us - if we think for improved practice - is
> >> complexity
> >> > > > > that most use simple Idols on to make their sense. I played rugby
> >> and
> >> > > > > was a cop. The whole Bradford Northern front row were less
> >> > > > > intimidating than the mad munter of some low-life I might nick
> >> with a
> >> > > > > bread knife. The rules and structure of the competition allow
> >> rugby -
> >> > > > > but what rules and structure would allow a decent society. Not
> >> every
> >> > > > > claim can count in trying to do that do should, in principle be
> >> heard
> >> > > > > so we don't 'go total' like some Spanish Fascit (fair typo)
> >> stealing
> >> > > > > babies from their ideologically unsound mothers.
>
> >> > > > > I guess that fear is the load we are experiencing - maybe like
> >> that of
> >> > > > > animals in hierarchies under all kinds of complex leader power -
> >> just
> >> > > > > look what cockroaches and bees do to members in their 'reaching
> >> > > > > consensus rules'. Even the really positive is negative - we can
> >> now
> >> > > > > support human life without much effort - so why do
>
> ...
>
> read more »
0 comentários:
Postar um comentário