On the other hand, solutions (and that is probably the wrong word) which promote the desirable tend to include the problem-solver and are much more difficult, being usually a consensual redistribution of resources, often looking like nothing happened. Given there is only one finite world, it is odd that more attention is not paid to the fact that most human activity is actually devoted to ensuring (or resisting) intra-generational transfers of resources, disguised as mortgages (transfer of possessions from old to young in exchange for labour), education (transfer of knowledge from old to young), work (transfer of capital to young in exchange for work) etc.
Few people speculate as to why or how they are engaged in this chain or these chains. While respecting Mr Harrell's views on the liberating values of art, to which I would add philosophy and just the richness of other people, there seems no reason to speculate that humans are globally in control of their fate - Jay Hanson's game management dilemma, positing some wise elders who will solve it, was one Plato tried and failed at - and most people interest themselves in some chosen or enforced diversions in the space between birth and death. You can't escape, unless you are one of those who find religion or eqanimity in solitude. I have always liked Rousseau's comment that man is born free and is everywhere in chains, enslaving himself, perhaps to his necessary condition of fear as a kind of temporary pimple on a decreasingly green planet
Mark Measday
Geneva
Switzerland
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Mark Measday
UK mobile: 0044.370.947.420 tel/fax:0044.181.747.9167
France tel/fax:0033.450.20.94.92/0033.450.20.94.93
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Ray E. Harrell wrote:
Sorry guys, but considering the history of people who have "solved" the problems of the past like highways, nuclear power, the "free market", the buffalo, the Indians, the internal combustion engine, the Concorde, the economy, all with out looking at the big picture, makes me not look to science as the great parent or authority for all things that have to do with life. The simple fact is that science has a history with the wolf that makes trusting them tough at times. It was science as a tool that fascilitated changes in industrial practices for the better. But it often was the morality of religion that made them use the science. As Mike Hollinshead has pointed out on many occasions as he described the actions of the non-conformist industrialists who were Quaker. Science wants to take credit for them, but they no more deserve that credit than the piano does for the pianist. On the other hand there are many scientists like Mengele the beast who were doing serious science that was immoral, just as economics likes to skip Marx and Lenin as children of their best motives. While in this country genocide has been propagated in the name of science while being protected by the propagation of ignorance.
Making such a royal mess all in the name of the various departments of science, seems like those connected to it would exhibit at least a bone of humility. But alas all of that muscle is calcium carbonate. I am not convinced that the Messiah exists but this I am convinced of, that that Individual would not be found in any one area of human professionalism. I realize Eva doesn't like the word but Synergy or the Big Picture is what it is all about for me.
If we have to have science acting as the U.S. Cavalry on this, then let it be the science of healing. I think the old medical law, "hurt no one," would make a far better rule in this case. Or if that fails, than use the old liability "Law of Blood" which says that any harm that comes from any action will be paid to those who are harmed from the pockets and lives of those who did the harming. If it is a life then a life is owed the clan that lost the member. They can decide whether it is capital punishment or whether they will just adopt the member and make him a sewer worker for the rest of his life.
All that being said, I agree that Jay's analysis is correct. In fact I can find speeches that go back 200 years predicting the coming catastrophe as a result of European land use policies. I have the speeches in my library. Speeches from men in paint and feathers from the U.S. to the jungles of Brazil and Bolivia. I might add that I am not including the marginal glosses in the Chief Seattle speech. We had no trouble developing the environment. We simply admitted that it was alive and that we were its children, not the reverse. I don't know whether it still exists but there was for a time a web-site on American Indian Environments which had a treasure trove of environmentalist articles.
I don't have any data, however, that says that Darwin or any other over-dressed scientists killing their health for propriety's sake, took any of the "paint and feathers" seriously. Why not? For the same reason that the scientists told us as children that it was safe to play in chemically saturated rain runoff from the lead and zinc mines. Greed and arrogance! On the other hand the ancestors of those paint and feathers folks have built a world class museum with top drawer researchers and fascilities as a result of their gambling success at Foxwood in Connecticutt. Something the Smithsonian has not been able to do on the mall even though those same folks kicked in 10 million to help them.
All of this being said, I am not an anti-European or an anti-Scientist. I love Europeans and their culture and art. Some of my favorite relatives are European as well as my ex-wives. (I know it was cheap but I couldn't stop myself!) I value the great gifts that they have brought to the world. But that does not excuse the arrogance of sitting in a library and writing about people you have never seen when they are living down the street from that library. As a theater director I have to face the same temptation myself. People and their cultures are messy and complicated. But acknowledging that and working with it may get you want you desire much more quickly than being such a pure academic.
So, Jay the key IMHO is to be inclusive, not exclusive. In point of fact I think this rhetoric around exclusivity has more to do with an act of power, than seeking a solution to solve the problem that could end us all. If in fact, that asteroid doesn't take us out first, or the global warming kills the food chain and makes it impossible for all to eat or the lousy air makes it impossible to develop our children's respiratory abilities. A good start on all of this might be watching them placing the shriveled dead bodies of the children of Sierra Leone in shallow graves without a casket much as you would your child's deceased pet.
I still say that Art is non-polluting and if you pay for it, it adds to the GNP(like Brad's housewives) and develops the kind of abstract and structural holistic mapping ability that would make the population think more seriously about long term issues. There are even a lot of scientists who developed that kind of thought playing the piano and violin. (See Donald Schoen's Reflective Practitioner books). I believe that people who have more of an investment in the pride and pleasure of their cultural heritage and their family's future are less likely to ignore these things. Unless of course they are poor themselves. Still all being said, I admire Jay's passion, hardwork and imagination and I am envious of Brad's mind and education. I wish I could come up with quotes as varied and profound as he just seems to call up with ease.
Regards,
REH
Jay Hanson wrote:
From: Brad McCormick, Ed.D. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>>less terrible? *That* I believe is quite possible. My
>disagreement with Jay's postings is simply with their
>feeding into the ideology which makes persons think they are
>less than they can be and thereby helps them to become
>that less (if you don't like Husserl, Gregory Bateson,
>one of the fathers of ecology, etc. said the same thing).We would keep the guys who think people are animals out of the ideology
department.Let's pretend for a moment, that we had the resources to minimize global
human suffering. What would we do?I would expect to see at least three different groups of effort:
#1. A "scientific" group attempts to understand the way things are. (This
is the kind of stuff I like to think about.)#2. A "normative" group works on ideology. (This is the kind of stuff Brad
likes to think about.)#3. A "tactical" group utilizes the product of the other two to formulate an
action plan.Jay
