Roadrunner is going out for a time but I want to congratulate you on the
gracefulness of your post and writing. As for your ancestors, I was
surprised at the wealth of instruments from the area and music that is never
heard or played here because we don't know them. They also have some
interesting scales and tunings that laid the myth of tonality to rest in my
mind. Their scales were both sophisticated and microtonal when combined
with voices. Like the Irish who loved their whiskey, were poor and gave us
some wonderful stuff. Not long ago they were just considered "hornpipers."
Sleep well
REH
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ed Weick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Magic Circ Op Rep Ens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Arthur Cordell"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
"futurework" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 10:46 PM
Subject: Re: Less is less (Photos of The Computer Revolution)
>
> > > Ray, I don't think it's quite right to say that economists saw utility
> as
> > > being equal to pleasure. It would be more correct to say that they saw
> it
> > as
> > > the source of human satisfaction.
> >
> > Actually Bentham and Mill used the term pleasure and tried to decide how
> you
> > could measure it.
>
> You may be right. I'm a long way away from having read the history of
> economic thought. Even then I mostly concentrated on Marx. What I
remember
> most vividly about Bentham was that he thought up something called an
> "panopticon", a circular prison in which everybody could be watched all of
> the time. The French philosopher Foucault used it as a metaphor for
> society. Isn't it Bentham who is stuffed and mounted in one of England's
> university, or is that just a nasty story of a deserved fate?
>
> >
> > >The more utility, or "utils", accruing to
> > > someone, the more satisfied he would be, though each util would give
him
> a
> > > decreasing amount of satisfaction. Utilitarian economists pretended
not
> to
> > > make moral judgments, but most would probably have restricted what
they
> > > meant by "satisfaction" as relating to the fulfillment of basic needs.
> >
> > Until the time of Jevons, the opposite was true. The issue of a
decline
> in
> > pleasure in a piece of music as compared to ownership of a material
thing
> > was a source of grief to JS Mill, especially since Wordsworth had
brought
> > him back from a nervous breakdown through the artistic process.
>
> Again, you seem to have read more than I have.
>
> > As for basic needs, these folks were much more cultivated then you are
> > giving them credit for being. Otherwise why would they have been so
> > knowledgeable when as the "wretched refuse of their teeming shore"
these
> > walking wounded came to America and the first thing they did was build a
> > church and a theater. Their knowledge of the classics was far superior
> to
> > our audiences today as was their reason for knowing such. You got it
> > wrong Ed, it was we natives that Milanowski said that our lives were
> brutish
> > and short, not the Europeans. He was wrong about us as well. But
what
> > do you expect when everything is remembered in books that go out of
print
> > and disappear. I'm just delighted that people are starting to ask the
> > basic questions again. The very basic ones, like what forms our lives
> and
> > what gives us pleasure. How to discover and create from an inner
life.
>
> I don't think it was Malinowski (Sp?). I believe it was an English
> philosopher, Hobbes or Locke or someone like that that referred to
> aboriginal lives as being "Nasty, brutish and short". I would have to
look
> it up, but a judge who presided at the hearing of a famous Canadian native
> claims case used the quote in describing pre-contact Canadian Indians. It
> may have been an early round of the Calder case, which, back in the early
> 1970s, established the existence of aboriginal title in Canada. But, I'd
> have to look it up in my notes.
>
> However, when I think of poor and downtrodden Europeans, my usual model is
> the central and eastern European peasantry from which, alas, I'm
descended.
> From the stories that have been passed down to me, their lives were truly
> nasty, brutish and short, and probably quite totally artless. All they
> could do from one short-lived generation to the next was satisfy their
basic
> needs for food and probably alcohol.
>
> > > "Pleasure" would not likely be viewed as a basic need, at least not
for
> > the
> > > poor, but of course once basic needs were satisfied, the individual
was
> > free
> > > to pursue pleasure in any way he saw fit.
> >
> > So all of those musicians and artists were from the rich? Get serious.
> > Most were lower middle class and servant classes. They were so good at
> > music that a servant had to be able to play and sing before they would
> hire
> > them to wait tables. Once more I point out that the most expensive
> seats
> > in the live theater today were the place where the folks who brought
their
> > lunch and threw it if they didn't like the action on stage, sat. They
> > also tore up the seats and threw them at the stage as well. They were
> the
> > poor and in New Orleans the respected slaves who sat under the dripping
> > candles in the Orchestra Pit, now just called the Orchestra and where
> seats
> > run $200 in New York while the royalty boxes are cheaper.
>
> I'm sure you're right, but rich is a relative term. From what I know of
my
> ancestors and millions of people like them, they would have considered
lower
> middle class people and servants as being considerably more fortunate than
> they were. When she was a young woman in Poland, my mother considered
> herself as very fortunate to be hired as a servant girl to a wealthy
> industrial family in Lodz. She brought some of those attitudes with her
> when she came to Canada, and I remember her instructing my brother and I,
as
> young children, on the importance of bowing at the right time and always
> appearing to be subdued and subordinate (excellent training for my
> subsequent career as a civil servant!). On the other hand, she did claim
> that we were related to Joseph Conrad, which is a very nice thought dear
to
> all people of Polish descent.
>
> > > In 18th,19th and even early 20th Century Europe, most people were so
> busy
> > > simply satisfying their basic needs that they had no time for
pleasure.
> >
> > Are you from the wealthy? I'm from the Indian reservation that is
still
> > the number one toxic waste superfund site in America. When we were
> hungry
> > we practiced. We placed musicians in the Chicago Symphony, developed
one
> > of America's greatest composers (and Mickey Mantle) and many other
> > successful souls. Pleasure is one of the ways you subvert pain and
> > injustice. This is the economist's myth that has gotten us into this
> > bizarre situation.
>
> No, I'm not from the wealthy. Take a look at my mini-autobiography on my
> website sometime and you'll see: http://members.eisa.com/~ec086636/ed.htm
>
> SNIP - getting late - bedtime!
>
> > The best thing economists could do is get to know a few Gypsies. They
> > always make a living at art but will walk away from you if you try to
buy
> > it.
>
> I tried being a Gypsy once - even attended an art school and led a very
> Bohemian life. Trouble is, I sold my art. Guess I was meant to be an
> economist.
>
> Bedtime!
>
> Ed Weick
>
>
