Arthur,
When I wrote my very careful description of what I thought to be the
relevance of the new discoveries of epigenetics on the perseverance of
culture from generation to generation -- to which REH responded with
"Bullshit" -- then I wish I had had Oliver Wendell Holmes's amazingly
prescient quotation to hand. In poetic language this describes exactly what
I was attempting to discuss.
I won't be writing to Futurework again until there are clear signs that REH
and Christoph Reuss understand and observe the normal rules of courtesy. Or
you can delete me from the list. I won't mind either way. I have had enough
of both of them to last me for quite a long time to come.
Keith
At 10:03 25/11/2010 -0500, you wrote:
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0046_01CB8C88.0B442F90"
Content-Language: en-us
Lots of good and constructive responses to how to nurture the health and
integrity of the list.
This morning up popped this sobering Thought for Today
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the
record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man
wholly out of the superstitious fears which were implanted in his
imagination, no matter how utterly his reason may reject them. -Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Sr, poet, novelist, essayist, and physician (1809-1894)
-----------------------
So like the myth of Sisyphus we continue. And where possible we try to
recognize what is going on in us and what is going on in the world around
us. And we try accept that there are filters that we know about and
filters that we dont know about that cause us to interpret the world in
one way or the other.
arthur
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Gail Stewart
Sent: Thursday, November 25, 2010 12:36 AM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Lets get back to the future of work and away
from pushing and shoving
Hi Arthur and all,
I'm uneasy with the notion of excluding people from the list, especially
long-standing participants. On their behalf, I'd like to suggest that it
is at first distressing and then perhaps increasingly irritating not to
have one's perceptions or deepfelt convictions addressed, especially when
the issues raised are clearly related to issues of work and hence the FW
list, e.g. predators, on Chris's part, and cultural perceptions, on Ray's.
While I don't pretend to have read everything everyone has said, I try to
keep up with a general sense of where the discussion on FW is going. I
don't recall seeing any sustained attempt to address Chris's "predators"
whether psychologically, politically or economically (for example). We
seem to have treated the matter more as a conspiracy theory personal to
Chris. The theory is surely more prevalent than that in our society,
although under a variety of names and is not irrelevant to "work and
working." Maybe we could give it a more thorough going-over than has been done.
Similarly, I think we have been rather dismissive of Ray's attempt to
illuminate our understanding of his culture, tending often to see it as
merely a variant of our own. (I hope I'm not being unfair -- it is at
least my impression that we are not treating his participation as coming
from a different (forgive me but the term may be more familiar as denoting
radical difference) "paradigm."
If I'm not mistaken, it is near impossible for those of us immersed in
conventional Western culture to perceive the world as I suspect Ray must
perceive it. Making a couple of guesses, I would suggest that, rather than
seeing the environment as we do, as "out there," he may see it as
context, so that all of us are "in here." I've known very few persons
non-native to North America who can even glimpse that perspective, let
alone sustain it. (My own glimpses of life lived that way around, which
involve a Copernican shift in my "Western" outlook, have been few and
unsustainable.)
Similarly, human relations are perhaps perceived differently by Ray, his
culture possibly being far more accepting of us (i.e. other persons) than
we who are of Western culture are of other persons. Indeed the FW list is
so biased itself in terms of the gender of its participants that dialogue
with Ray comes heavily from the odd angle of male rather than Western
culture more inclusively. (The list would of course be enlivened, made
more intelligent and empathic with more balanced participation from both
genders. But perhaps I'm biased myself. <grin>)
A wise woman I knew insisted, "we are enriched by our differences." Rather
than, on this list, trying to argue each other into abandoning other
outlooks in favour of our own, perhaps we might re-embrace our current
"transgressors," avoid an "our way or the highway" approach, value our
differences -- and get back to discussing "work."
Ray, would you please say something again about the perception of "work"
in the community in which you grew up? A friend of mine, an aboriginal
elder, shocked me when he insisted that, in his village, they didn't have
an "economy" but only "a way of life." As an economist it took me a while
to understand how it was possible not to have an economy, let alone the
important implications of this for our Western concept of work. In a very
practical way it seemed to me these implications might be used to
strengthen the arguments for the basic income of interest to Sally and
others -- and indeed could helpfully affect a number of our policies.
All this said, I do deplore the decline in civility which has occurred and
have been surprised and saddened by it. I hope that era is behind us.
Regards,
Gail
P.S. Apologies for all the Western culture talk -- I wish there were a
better term. Any candidates?
----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:[email protected]>Harry Pollard
To: <mailto:[email protected]>'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME
DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 5:24 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Lets get back to the future of work and
awayfrompushing and shoving
My experience, Mike, is that when restrictions are placed on a list to
make it better, it tends to disappear.
We must be careful about any actions we take.
Harry
From:
<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Michael Gurstein
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 9:38 AM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Lets get back to the future of work and away
frompushing and shoving
Arthur,
What you seem to be suggesting for list governance is rather more of the
"hidden hand" market place--bad actors will be shunned and correct their
behaviour as a result. It appears that for whatever reason some of those
in the marketplace don't respond to the same set of product cues in the
same way as others do hence the bad behaviours are in many cases engaged
with rather than shunned.
If the list were in fact self governing rather than left to the laissez
faire of the open market there would be some process of collective
self-regulation/governance.
Having been involved in several such efforts I know that they can be
tedious in the extreme but perhaps as list coordinators you folks might
like to suggest a few simple rules for collective self-government as for
example along the lines of "formal complaints by two members of the group
to the coordinators and then there is a public process of voting people
"off the island" -- or some such.
M
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 6:29 AM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION'
Subject: [Futurework] Lets get back to the future of work and away
frompushing and shoving
I received this message from an active FWer. And I am adding my own plea
to FWers below.
========================
Arthur,
I won't participate in the futurework list as long as racist and venomous
comments continue. This kind of talkdoesn't contribute anything to the
list but bile.
==========================
My open plea to FWers.
FW was set up to discuss the future of work but seems to go off track from
time to time. The conversation soon leads to schoolyard type of talk I
said this, no you said that&you are a creep, no you are a creep. Pointless
schoolyard pushing and shoving.
If people want to engage in this virtual pushing and shoving please do it
off list. One to one. So that others dont have to be party to what are
private shoving (pissing?) matches.
I have asked individual FWers to not respond to those FWers who provoke in
this way (you know who you are) thinking that by shunning those who behave
this way would cause them to change their ways or drift off to another
list where this sort of behavior is tolerated. But for whatever reason a
few (you know who you are) seem to want to pick a fight and so things heat up.
Now is our chance to be a self-governing group. Lets not do or say
anything virtually that we wouldnt say if we were talking face to face.
I prize civility and exchange of ideas. How do other FWers feel about
this? Suggestions and ideas welcome.
Arthur
----------
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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