My apologies. Not knowing the book I did make an assumption. Just went to Questia and reviewed it. We are not on separate sides here. I don't see how the current need for capitalism to grow in order to survive fits with sustainability. A homeostatic economy is considered stagnant and bad by the current system. I agree about the need to rethink natural resources as capital if I understood what he was saying. Still, a relationship with the world as alive would be even better. But to get that the Neo-classics would have to admit their failure. Too much ego.
As far as Arthur's train is concerned. I made it concrete only if you believe the world is concrete. I don't. I don't think reality can be explained ultimately in anyway other than metaphor. I use train metaphors all the time. It was the experience of the process of the smell, the hugeness, the danger and the result that came together to represent "Train" to me. I'm not sure what the process means to anyone else, hence my question. That list you're on is strange. It feels more like a political list. I'm eliminating such groups from my life at this point because I have to do a lot of writing and organize my legacy both in my business and community. Don't know how much longer I've got to do that. I hate leaving a mess. Who the hell is Tom Walker? A serious dude who is a typing friend on the internet. Wasn't it you who visited John Warfield at GMU some years ago and wrote about it on another list? Perhaps I'm mixing you up with another friend from the past. REH -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sandwichman Sent: Saturday, July 24, 2010 4:28 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] Servants and Nannies? It was I who asked why the threads on the list seem to specialize in digression from the topic of re-designing work, income and education. "Are orchestras and opera companies small?" Ray, "Small is Beautiful" is the title of the book, not a comprehensive summary of the book's analysis. And, yes, within the compass of Schumacher's conception of small, orchestras and opera companies ARE small. But smallness is only one part of S's three-part response to the technological problems of impermanence and absurdity that he diagnoses. The other two parts are cheap (that is, accessible to virtually everyone) and compatible with creativity. Parsing the TITLE of Schumacher's book is another digression. I cited a PASSAGE from the book about work, escapism, aggression and denial. I asked two questions: have we become so desensitized to the absurdity of denial that we are no longer able to respond? and isn't that impotence in the face of venal banality a symptom of precisely the escapism and aggression? Arthur replied to my question with a metaphor about a train coming down the track. You, Ray, literalized Arthur's metaphor and put pennies on the track. I suppose it's a valid response to any metaphor to take it literally and thus "derail" its fictive impulse. But it doesn't answer my question about work, escapism and aggression. Or does it? Does it say, implicitly, "I don't want to talk about that" and then enact that refusal to talk by 1. not uttering it and 2. substituting the title of the book for the passage in question and "refuting" a reductio ad absurdum interpretation of the title? So, "Who the fuck is Tom Walker?" My name appeared four days ago in a thread on Econjobrumors.com that I will present as exhibit "A" for Schumacher's diagnosis of denial, aggression and escapism. These people are -- purportedly -- grad students in Economics. _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
