Point taken, the you was generic not specific. It should have been "without significant purpose one shows less personhood than an amoeba." I didn't mean to demote you. Years ago I was at a conference at Rockefeller University on biological consciousness. The presenters made a very interesting case for conscious choice and purpose in the actions of many groupings of smaller life including the Amoeba. Of course no one could prove it since no one spoke amoeba.
The difference between you and I seems to be that that you seem to believe you were thrown into the world by fate and must fight to even get a bite to eat or a place to stand. On the other side I believe the spirit is eternal and returns home when leaving this place. I believe that there was a choice in coming here and a reason for doing so. That we forget all of that in the trauma of birth and that the discovery of it is a part of opening up who we are to our potential. I would never say that fuel was not necessary, only that it is a lousy reason for living. The purpose, to my way of thinking, should not be the tool but the learning from mastery of the use of it to greater purposes. As you know from our talking through the years, your theories about land are not strange to me. I don't believe land can be owned, only space defined by groups. It can then be assigned for a time and purpose to the group that does the best for the whole society as a result of such "leasing." Reality is that humans are temporary and humans come from the earth not the reverse. Ownership is a myth. Unfortunately in the capitalist society, such lease deals always means that the lessee, usually a mining company, can destroy the place and walk away with all of the wealth accrued from the use leaving it useless for others. I have personal knowledge of such things in several places in the country around oil and minerals. Some of the places I have lived and observed the mess first hand. The system I would prefer is this: When you leave you have to put the land back to the way you found it, or better, for the next generation and the future of the culture. Since humans incapable of eternal life and ownership of the earth without destroying it, "rent" is a more accurate model for what is really happening. In my apartment here I am not allowed to trash the place and leave. First I post a large deposit and then I fix anything I've damaged or I lose the deposit. What's so hard about that? I don't have much sympathy for the characters of the Borg in "Star Trek" or the Aliens in the movie "July Fourth" or the John Travolta character in the movie "Battlefield Earth". All of them seemed too familiar from my home reservation and personal experience with companies destroying and walking away with the cash and no responsibility for the future. As for the rest, here is something from a traditional Cherokee perspective by an old teacher of mine, about community and personal responsibility. At the end I will post John Blow's URL for an article about how America is doing with the children in all of this compared to the rest of the world. But first: COMMENT: "Be not greedy of great riches, it is a shame and a disgrace of all unworthiness for a man to have great possessions, when there are those of his people who are in want. When by chance of war or of commerce, or gifts from the All Father that have blessed him with power, he has more than he has need of for himself and his family, he should call his people together and distribute his surplus to those who have need, according to their needs, especially remembering, the widow, the orphan, and the sick and helpess. For no man "owns" the land. A man should only use so much as he tills or occupies with his house or his field. When he ceases to occupy that land it goes back to the tribe to be allotted to another member. No man owns the forest or the rivers or the soil of the earth mother. He did not make them, or create any part of them, it is on loan to all. The lands are to harvest given but it belongs to all. That all have wish to plant and cultivate, it should be divided equally according to their needs. If one is the person that farms his lands that he uses then he is entitled to harvest what he plants and give to those that are in need. We cannot go back to horses, buffalo, wampum shells or the simplicities of direct barter, though some people are trying to revive that, but we could go forward to the philosophy behind the ancient ways of dealing with possessions. However today many claim the air above us and try and parcel it out, the sea around us into national territories to say nothing of what has been done and are still doing to our mother earth. So we had better hold on to our shawls of achievement pretty tightly, lest they be taken from us and given to others perhaps another species altogether." END Here's John Blow of the NYTimes on how America is doing on this in relation to the children of America compared to the rest of the wealthy nations of the world. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/opinion/11blow.html?hp In the end, the only thing that matters is the quality of your life and product and how well you take care of the world when you leave. Everything else is just a story. REH -----Original Message----- From: Harry Pollard [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2010 12:43 PM To: 'Ray Harrell' Subject: RE: [Futurework] Political arithmetic I suppose, Ray, you will never raise a cogent argument when you are not allowed to get away with less than meaningful remarks (albeit delivered with great style). But style is not a substitute for meaning. It's just fun to read without it adding to one's understanding. Interestingly, the economists you denigrate often approach in the same manner. Meantime you have dropped me from a bedbug to an amoeba. I suppose it sure beats conversation when you have nothing to say. Harry ****************************** Henry George School of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 (818) 352-4141 ****************************** -----Original Message----- From: Ray Harrell [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2010 8:10 AM To: [email protected]; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: RE: [Futurework] Political arithmetic Without significant purpose you are showing less personhood than an amoeba, fuel or no. That's it Harry. I agree to disagree about the meaning of life and how it functions. I've got to go do some significant work, for fun. REH -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Harry Pollard Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2010 1:57 AM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Political arithmetic Without fuel, there may be no life. Harry ****************************** Henry George School of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 (818) 352-4141 ****************************** -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ray Harrell Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 7:18 PM To: [email protected]; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Political arithmetic Harry, the meaning of life is not fuel. REH -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Harry Pollard Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 7:23 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Political arithmetic First things first, Ray. Music is great to listen to, but not so great if you are starving. Before you practice the flute you need to eat. Economists were concerned with how you got food to eat, how you got clothes to wear, and how you found a place to live. When you have these things you can bring in Mahler. Harry -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ray Harrell Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 8:33 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Political arithmetic The thing that music is very good at defining, is the outlines of systems that are found in cultures and eras. We have no problems defining styles and eras. The current branding fashions of the day are the generic tools of every music student and pop musicians are absolute fetishists about it. Now the Harvard Business Review is as well. The abstract arts are good at what the art of politics is not good at, at all. Defining the distinction between the turf of the past the present. The past is simple entertainment and craft, the present requires mastery and creativity. Artists who demean other systems don't fare well in history. And yet economists from Smith to the present have eliminated whole crucial areas of social knowledge and especially the value and purpose of the arts, as expendable in their systems. (zero utility, not ten, twenty but ZER0 utility according Stanley Jevons.) Meanwhile Peter Senge speaks of the need for systems thought (ART) and for personal mastery in the modern world as a need of business. John Warfield spoke of the need to be able to diminish complexity through personal mastery (VIRTUOSITY) as well. And yet Americans have not grown more intelligent or masterful from Franklin's time to the present. Government is not more masterful. As the culture declines the government freezes. Economics did not flower from Smith forward but limited in order to achieve a system. They gave up ownership of people in order to rent them and have no responsibility for their upkeep as an issue of "personal freedom." They dumbed the general population for dull drone work in factories and today they find their Drones can't do math or science and treat serious computer tools as toys. Its the societies that take mastery and pattern sophistication seriously that are marketing the best students in the world. Today's Americans are the opposite of Franklin who had cross cultural discussions with the native governments over personal responsibility and the responsibility of the government for the general welfare of its citizens. Franklin even had an Iroquois delegation in Philadelphia as advisors at the Constitutional Convention. But Franklin's time and government are not the same system's needs today. The needs are not the same. Today's systems require more virtuosity and performance, not less. Less superstition not more. The development of an education that would fulfill the system's needs is not available from the people who venerate the founding fathers and make the constitution into a second bible. Why not? Why are the most regressive and romantically superstitious the members of the "Federalist Society?" The "Cato" Institute? I admire the constitution and hesitate to change it except in small ways, but it must be adapted to meet the world in the present. We need more masterful governing not less. States clamoring for state's rights have no hope of existing as separate entities in a world economy. The vast cultures of Europe are inadequate to the present but they are more adequate as nations than Alabama, Texas, Florida or Virginia and what kind of a nation would Alaska be? States rights? Without America they are banana republics. Nicaragua is more viable than Oklahoma as a separate state. Oklahoma can't even deal with the diversity in their state population. They need a Federal government just to keep peace as do most of the Southern States. Beethoven and the great Masters are as relevant to the soul of humanity today as they were in their own day. I cannot say the same for the Utilitarian's and their arrogance. I also cannot say the same about the serious but flawed individuals who set up the 1776 system that would continue to own and enslave 40 to 60 million African souls and commit genocide to my own blood line. The systems then and today don't match. The people were flawed and to post the kind of abstract garbage that the libertarians use as justification for grand theft off of the face of the nation is not sustainable. They are simple minded romanticists in the artistic way of thinking. I admire the great artistic systems of 18th and 19th centuries but have no illusions about what would happen to me or my family in the midst of those folk's politics. We didn't have citizenship until the 20th century in their system. Their Artistic systems are benign. We are still fighting the Tory war of 1776 and the states rights battles of 1860. Those folks used to practice their 2nd Amendment rights by lining up ex-slaves and seeing how many one bullet would kill. That we still hear the same lame arguments is not success, that's failure in my eyes. Bach was far more successful and worthy of emulation as a theorition as was the wonderful Jewish composer Gustav Mahler who the New York societal system probably killed. REH -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sandwichman Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 10:22 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] Political arithmetic I would be the last person to disparage the cultural value of music. But I'm afraid you fall into a kind of imperialism of music, Ray, when you claim that composers are the only people who know what they are talking about. It would be good if someone would read Chastellux or Ben Franklin before passing judgment on how much they knew or didn't know about politics and what they were ore were not trying to tell people with regard to how much government there should be. On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 4:20 PM, Ray Harrell <[email protected]> wrote: > I've begun to rethink all of these folks and their stories about numbers. > The issue of competency and personal mastery is far beyond the > simplicity of > numbers. Jefferson's quote about government simply speaks to the > fact that > he and others could not comprehend the resolution of complexity in mastering > the art of government. The problem is not to have less of something > but to > be able to control virtuosically more, thus reducing complexity in numerical > values to zero. To have less to work with isn't gaining competency > but is > the realm of poverty. I've become convinced that the only people who > really knew what they were talking about in the 18th and 19th > centuries were > Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms, Mahler and the students in the > great music studios, etc. Wars have not been fought over the value > of artistic virtuosity but they have been fought over the Art of > politics. It would be > good if someone learned how to DO politics before they try to tell > people how much there should be. IMHO. > > REH > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of > Sandwichman > Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 4:00 PM > To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION > Subject: [Futurework] Political arithmetic > > The wealth of nations implies some sort of political arithmetic - the > calculation either of an immense sum or of some descriptive ratio, a > distribution or per capita allotment. Adam Smith referred to "the > distribution of the necessities of life." Benjamin Franklin pondered a > four-hour working day that had been "computed by some political > arithmetician." Thomas Jefferson's friend, the Marquis de Chastellux > proposed a formula for ascertaining public happiness, which Jefferson > summed up as a cautionary tale: "If we can prevent government from > wasting the labors of the people under the pretence of taking care of > them, they must become happy." > > Would an alternative vision of the good society evince a similar > fascination with numbers? I will argue here that it must, if only out > of strategic and transitional necessity. The outline of the kind of > reckoning required was already implied in Chastellux's and Franklin's > speculations and has been a recurrent, if dissident and subterranean, > theme in political economy since the earliest days. Even Adam Smith > somewhat ambivalently upheld "ease of body and peace of mind" as "what > constitutes the real happiness of human life." > > But how does one measure ease of body and peace of mind? We will get > to the question of how presently, but first I would like to explain > why it is crucial to calculate it, not merely to exalt it... > > http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/p/time-on-ledger-social-accounting-f > or.html > > -- > Sandwichman > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > -- Sandwichman _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
