Keith Hudson wrote:
>
> 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!)
[snip]
Medieval cathedrals had sculptures built into the structure in places
where only God would see them -- sort of like the moral
aptipode of the people who were cast into the concrete of
Stalin's dams.
Do you mean to tell me that the Excel Spreadsheets that Mr. Fastow
and his ilk generate have mathematically elegant
computations built into them in places where only
the CPA of The Last Judgment will find them? Is Fastow
really today's equivalent of the master craftspersons who
built the cathedrals of Bruges, Amiens, Notre Dame, Beauvais
(Beauvais was not an Enron -- the structure was sound but the
"underlying economy", proved insufficiently robust to
sustain it!), etc.?
It is my understanding that our concept of "time is money"
is a modern idea which was discovered/invented over
a millenium -- but I can't find the references at the moment.
I occasionally have put "inward and spiritual
graces" in the computer programs
I have written for work (Note: This has nothing
to do with "hacking", "viruses", etc.! -- My "hidden
additions" are most often in the form of *comments* in the code,
which do not "do" anything!).
I am an -ssh-le to throw p--rls
before sw-n-, but at least I get to see a few
pearls occasionally that way, and it's the only way
I can survive shovelling the sh-t.
What is the value of "cash value"? This seems
at this time to be a meta-economic
question (OK, something no sensible person
dares talk about), which, I think, should become a properly
economic question, and, from what little I know,
was an economic question for Marx, and maybe for others.
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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