Dear Ray,
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I cannot remember when I have read a piece that says what has to be said so
beautifully, clearly, eloquently.
You have laid out the 'ground', the roots of Western economic organization
that has so damaged everyone on this planet.
Selma
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray Evans Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Keith Hudson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2002 9:39 AM
Subject: Re: Soaring works? (was RE: To survive or not to survive.)
> No Keith, I didn't exaggerate. I said: and I meant:
>
> >>Instead of creating
> > >great soaring works of human imagination and building economies around
> such,
> > >we have built our lives around widgets that mean little and eventually
> lead
> > >us all down the road to pillaging our neighbors or creating
> > >self-justification for legal conundrums that will make even murder
just.
>
> What kind of "Great Soaring Works of the Imagination" would an economist
> create? Not Cathedrals. Those were works of Imagination built around
> the language of the Christian Faith. The Cathedral was the expression
of
> a philosophy and an ediface of the mind. The Economy that I was
speaking
> of was the expression a great mind that included all of the masteries of
the
> human spirit and place proper values on things rather than the upside down
> world you complain constantly about on this list. There are
expressions
> (of ideas and philosophies) that "work" and there are those like the
> Cathedral made out of Soapstone that are falling down. It may look
> soaring but the builders put the idea of form over content and the
building
> has had to be propped up ever since. That is what has happened to
> Western Society ever since the Utilitarians build their economic edifice.
> Such a "building" has created a dumber more bovine humanity and heralded
> science as the old act of the human imagination possible in the last two
> hundred years because they would only pay scientists for their effor due
to
> a defective theory of human value. That slovenly definition of economic
> philosophy has, in my opinion, to go!
>
> Let us have new, more intelligent, genius economists who will take us out
of
> this cul-de-sac that J.S. Mill and such second rate minds as followed him
> created. Smith and Mill were interesting but you can't leave their
world
> like you can leave Stockhausen's by simply walking out the door to the
> concert hall. Today's Nobel funds ideas that are novel whether they
> "work" or not. (Friedman) You may not like our foreign policies but they
> are being put forward by people who believe the same economic theories and
> theories of law that we hear on a daily basis. Pre-emptive strikes are
> just a logical extension of their concepts of law and selfishness. And
> today's American public disagrees profoundly with Kofi Anon and Nelson
> Mandela. To most of the American public, the only thing Mandela did was
> spend his time in jail and come back from it.
>
> I have too often published the quote from the Dawes commission about the
> Cherokee Nation from the 1880s that said that Indians would never succeed
> because they had universal sufferage, universal health care and held their
> land in common in a different system from the West and that it wouldn't
> "happen" because selfishness is at the root of all Western genius and
> invention. And there is the cause of it. The catoon character Ayn
Rand
> thought up by the Russian Immigrant Alice Rosenblum is the logical
extension
> of Utilitarian thought in the West. This stupid short term thought
> taught by Western economic theories so seperated the Western citizen from
> their spirituality, morality and culture that they created virtuosic
> technological idiots. ("What do you mean 'morality' this is BUSINESS!")
> Neither Dickens or Blake will ever get a reall read or hearing in this
banal
> simplistic world of numbers. Today's audiences are so stupid they
can't
> even imagine most of the works that were created at the end of the 19th
> century by the musical giants. Or as Richard Schilder the Musical
> Historian from Yale commented in the 1950s: "To today's audience the
idea
> of Bach racing across a room to finish a cadence left unplayed by a
careless
> performer is ludicrous. To today's audience even a dominant seventh
needs
> resolution like it needs a 'hole in the head'".
>
> So, I'm sorry that I wasn't more clear about that. I place the blame
> squarely on the backs of the contemporary economic thought that precludes
> genius in the economic medium. Every profession should have a
Beethoven
> and not be limited to the Beatles and the production of Widgits. I hope
> this clears that up.
>
> Ray Evans Harrell.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Keith Hudson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2002 4:01 AM
> Subject: Soaring works? (was RE: To survive or not to survive.)
>
>
> > Ray,
> >
> > Come off it! You really do exaggerate!
> >
> > If by "great soaring works of human imagination" you mean the great
> temples
> > and cathedrals of the past, they were erected as the visible symbols of
> the
> > power of the hierarchies of their times mainly in order to impress (and
> > oppress) the hoi polloi.
> >
> > Yes, technically, they were great achievements and we've even grown to
> love
> > their interesting shapes, but don't spiritualise them as though they
were
> > built with any different motives from, say, the Enron building (though,
> God
> > knows, that building is so boring I cannot imagine that anybody would
ever
> > love that!)
> >
> > Keith
> >
> > At 21:21 02/10/02 -0400, you wrote:
> > >Ray said,
> > >
> > >So Arthur, why do we do all of these things that you mention? I
> realize
> > >that it is more difficult to explain the grandeur of a magnificent
> economic
> > >edifice than the Hoover Dam but you should try. Today's economists
> are
> > >"hooked" on the lower rungs of the Maslow Hierarchy. Instead of
> creating
> > >great soaring works of human imagination and building economies around
> such,
> > >we have built our lives around widgets that mean little and eventually
> lead
> > >us all down the road to pillaging our neighbors or creating
> > >self-justification for legal conundrums that will make even murder
just.
> >
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> > --------------
> >
> > Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
> > Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > ________________________________________________________________________
>
