Lawry,
At 09:35 28/11/2006 -0500, you wrote:
Good morning, everyone,
Todays news from the BBC brought two interesting snippets.
First: Bush beratesNATO allies for lack of troops in Afghanistan. My sense
is that the worlds countries, generally, are finding ways to undermine US
domination, some openly, some covertly; some by omission, some by
commission. Beratingthem,of course, will only accelerate the phenomenon.
Very true.
But it again led me to the realization that the fate of human
well-beings is heavily dependent on the wisdom (or lack thereof) of their
governments. We are gathered here to consider the future of work, and
must reckon with the reality that this future is to a great extent in the
hands of people of dont themselves think much about it, or understand it.
On the contrary. I think they think a great deal about it because their
wealth derives from the combined spending power of the masses. They may not
understand what's going on in the world of work as new technologies
constantly arrive -- but then neither do we, even though we say we are
particularly concerned about it.
One of the attractive elements of the commune movement was the sense of
isolation, that one could on a small scale do things that were relatively
free from governmental stupidity or ignorance isolatable utopias. But at
least in the US the commune movement ran into the realities of a culture
in which individualism and selfishness were not only accepted but
promoted, and so the social attitudes of those who tried communal living
impeded communal success.
No, the communes ran into human nature. When I was editor of "Towards
Survival" I visited quite a number of communes that were fashionable in the
late 60s and early 70s. In one example (the most hi-tech of them all, and
founded by the then editor of "New Scientist" -- with wind generators, heat
engines, water turbines and the lot) I was woken on both week-end mornings
by their cow in great pain because it needed milking, and so egalitarian
was the set-up in the commune that no-one bothered to milk the creature
until late in the morning. This commune failed, as did all others because
they failed to grasp some essential ideas about management and daily
discipline -- that leaders and followers were necessary.
This is also why hundreds of early Christian monasteries failed century
after century in the Middle East until Benedict came along. He said: "OK,
let's be democratic and let's elect the wisest among us to be the boss.
But, crikey, once he's elected, he's got to be obeyed." For the first time,
the Benedictine monasteries became successful and all the order followed
the Benedictine Rule with their own variations.
How then do we resolve this quandary? How do we engage with the vital
issue of work in the face of its domination by extraneous political
realities and dysfunctional leaders?
We need a better system of electing or selecting competent managers. The
present "democratic" system has led us into the nonsense of electing smooth
public performers who may or may not be competent when in power.
Keith Hudson
Second: Have you read Peter Mathiessens (sp?) superb SNOW LEOPARD? An
allegorical account of his search for the elusive creature, it evoked both
the beauty of the Himalayas with the journey-like nature of our coming to
grips with our own uncertainties, frailties, hopes, courage, and mistakes
in life. Now I read that a GPS tracker has been planted on a snow leopard.
And it leaves me with a sense of sadness: have we gone too far in
subordinating our mystical, spiritual, explorative selves to the demands
of knowledge and certainty? Why did I have, though less intensely, a
reaction to this news similar to how I felt as I saw the numbers, sitting
in a ballroom in Ohio in 2004, turn against John Kerry?
Lawry, in search
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