Hi Ray, . . . heavily cropped I'm afraid . . .
At 00:46 02/10/01 -0400, you wrote: >snip (REH) >> >Note how afraid people on this list are to examining seriously the claims of the fanatics that blew up a segment of the city. >> >(KH) >> As far as I'm concerned, it's not a matter of being afraid of discussing >> these sorts of issues. I'm fascinated by them but I wouldn't dream of >> raising or discussing them here because it would produce too much emotion >> and take us away from the basic purpose of this List -- the nature/future >> of jobs. I regard this as the probably the most important problem of them >> all -- and always has been throughout history -- upon which all other >> important human issues rest. Yes, -- even things like music, art and >> culture! (REH) >See I don't think that the future of jobs IS the future of work. Well . . . I was using 'jobs' in a general way. Call it jobs or work or activity, the same applies. Unless a person or people have the opportunity to trade their skills and time with others so that they can live satisfactory lives then there'll be trouble sooner or later. This applies to many kids in the sink estates in the north of England, the Catholics in the working class areas of Northern Ireland, Palestinians in Israel, the Hindu untouchables in India, the peasants of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Afghan, Nepal, what have you. ---> snip (REH) >What is the future of real work? Work that has genuine intellectual and >cultural productivity as opposed to the number crunchers. That builds >superior human beings, societies and families not to mention beautiful ones. As I've often mentioned before, Ray, you're putting the cart before the horse. Great art can only arise when there's patronage, and the latter can only arise when there's a healthy commercial society around. (REH) ---> snip >> >The "white" world is married to the >> >ultra-simplicities of Math and Physics. Note the term used by the "white >> >world" is not simplicity but "elegant", either way it can be entered >into a >> >computer but no such thing can be done with the complexities of Chromatic >> >harmony. That is why I have to have this new computer with all of that >> >memory. (KH) >> OK I'll grant you that the basic tenets of maths and physics are simple, >> but the "white" world is also deeply interested in much more complex >> matters such as brain science, biogenetics, lunguistics and so forth. (REH) >True, but with the exception of the fact that they don't know much about >brain science and it's density is daunting and computers have made >biogenetics viable, again for the same reason, these Intellectual activities >are at their roots still amazingly simple once they are understood. !!! "Amazingly simple"? !!! If you read any book on brain science you will find somewhere near the front a caveat saying that the brain is probably one of the most complex problems that science has ever tackled. Give them a chance, Ray. Brain science (in a serious way) is only about 20 years old. >(snip) (KH) >> If it is the terrorist attack on NYTC you're referring to I thoroughly >> understand. I know from my American customers just how much it has >affected your country. (REH) >In my own studio I have students who lost bright young people that they had >taught their bar mitzvahs. Another man lost seven hundred employees. >The funerals are overwhelming. Both fire companies within ten blocks of >where I live lost 20 men altogether. Bright beautiful people. Father's >in the prime of life with families. I deeply sympathise. But keep calm, you Americans. This is your first experience of this sort of thing. I write as someone who, as a child, was bombed in two of the greatest blitzes of the last world war (in Coventry, my home town). One understands (and forgives) in due course. (Mind you, I'm not especially drawn to Germans. When my better-half and I were on holiday in Italy a fortnight ago we were walking in the countryside around Sorrento and met a party of holidaymakers. I cheerfully shouted "Good afternoon" to them, but they didn't reply and looked stonily at me -- or rather through me -- as though I was some sort of madman. [Thus, because they didn't speak, I didn't know they were Germans then.] About half-an-hour later, when Jan and I arrived at a cafe in a small harbour, the other party was already there, sitting on the corner of the patio and talking among themselves. Over the next half-an-hour or so, others came down the hillside and sat near us. These were a mixture of English, French and other mad people. Before too long we were all talking and laughing together, and the Italian cafe owner and his wife then joined us. The Germans [by then the cafe owner told us what they were] carried on looking at us with -- and still said nothing. M'mm . . . I hope this doesn't sound racist, but there's a cultural difference somewhere!) >> (REH) ---> snip >> >control would have stopped all of that instead of this Private Enterprise >> >idiocy. Instead we get PCs at home but chaos in the air. And then we >> >breed economists like locusts. (KH) >> I don't fully understand you here. I don't know why you're so >> anti-economist. Economics is, at bottom, about human nature and this, >> surely, is one of the most fascinating subjects of all. (REH) >1. I think they have created a monstrous abuse of language that creates >chaos in assigning value to work. 2. I think that the meaning of work is >not to be found in Utility. 3. I think they are sleazy in escaping >responsibility for the various economic isms that have desecrated the last >century and offers to do the same for the future as well. Wow! . . . see my previous message in reply to Harry Pollard for what I have to say about economists. I don't think they are any better or worse than any other profession -- and many of them are of the highest integrity and scholarship. Whatever you may think of their views, if you read the works of Keynes and Hayek, you realise you are in the presence of some of the finest thinkers of the last century with a precision and economy of language that is quite awesome. Keith ___________________________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Calus <http://www.calus.org> 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
