Ray,
Thanks for your latest. Please forgive me if I don't reply in detail -- I
think we both know where we stand on a number of issues and we're unlikely
to persuade each other.
But you mention something at the end which has intrigued me enormously for
some years -- though I suspect that I will disturb your artistic
sensibilities and you'll consider me a Philistine. This is where you write:
>Keith & Ed.
>I have questions. Is this duality virus related to the
>issue of wave and particle in Quantum Mechanics?
>Is it possible that all of this yes and no in economics
>and politics, this right and left as the only possibilities,
>is really a wave result from the earthquake of Quantum
>theory in science and math and it's consequent effect
>on Western languages? A question for the next Dr.
>Freud or Jung perhaps. It could also explain why so
>much of the discussion about work seems so emotional
>and unconscious.
The short answer to the question as you've put it is No. The human race,
being tribal, has always considered most questions of politics and
economics from the point of view of whether it benefits one's own group or
not. The duality was there long before Quantum Theory.
QT has obviously had huge effects in science and technology, and will
continue to do so (what with quantum computers being seriously developed
and so forth) but I believe that it has also affected the arts (including
religion and philosophy) in a considerable way.
What I mean is that, by the turn of this century, the arts (visual,
musical, literary), plus organised religion, plus philosophy had left the
practical world where ordinary people could enjoy them and were becoming
extremely sophisticated. But, essentially, they had reached the end of the
Newtonian world, and could go no further. Nothing really new (beyond
temporary gimmicks) was going to happen and be as successful as in the
past. Technically, they had all reached a high level, but they had nothing
further to say. Then along comes QT and opens up a whole new mystical
world of a depth far beyond anything that the
arts/religion/word-based-philosophy could express. In short, here is a
double whammy. The arts/religion/word-based-philosophy can no longer be
taken any more seriously than, say, flint knapping, morris dancing, or
pottery. They are all crafts (extremely interesting, no less) that have
reached their expressive limits. At the present time, they are all being
used as sophisticated class "badges" (particularly "serious" music and
poetry) by those who want to have something to make themselves distinctive
and to keep the hoi polloi in their place.
Here I was going to write a little further about the effect of all this on
the world of work (and of its quickly changing nature), but I have no more
time today, and will have to leave it for now. Perhaps someone else would
like to take this theme further.
Keith
________________________________________________________________________
Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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