I hoping to be able to spend a year writing with a bit of work at Cambridge. I can see little point in what I know from many years of the academic debates on society and economics. I think it is all off focus because people really contest ideologies rather than facts. Indeed, there is a denial of fact running through much alleged debate. One can, to some extent understand why given how hard we make research and the underlying languages of epistemology, most of which are half-baked. My contention is that we are confused from the start about dealing with actual human interaction and make many assumptions about competence that do not bear out. I find, on a regular basis that I am dealing with incompetence and arrogant, soaked-up prejudices most of the time, including some of my own. There is also a highly disguised hostility latent in the debate processes, though the veneer is thin.
Most of the processes I want to look at have long histories of failure that suggest the main issue is about promoting the idea of progress whilst the system remains in crisis, creating huge problems we rant on about whilst they are not actually addressed - this latter being the whole political point. Academic debate and research is increasingly part of the whitewash, bringing forth projects that would be positive if they were mainstreamed, but are not going to be mainstreamed because this would be too expensive. The research is thus just about some kind of pretence that we are doing something. I believe that, central to this, we do not understand bureaucratic processes in terms of wasta and the role of power in handing out the jobs and influence that actually control what can be done. I start to hear supposedly rational debates as 'monkey-chatter' and see due process as poison oracle readings. I wonder sometimes whether all that is around me is the birthing pain of a rational society. Some guy (possibly me) going on about the phenomenological structuralism of Habermas' communicative action of Lyotard's paralogy is not any kind of answer to social problems other than those set in universities, problems for our society in themselves. In the end we need to allow decent people to be decent and encourage this instead of forcing everyone to get their own sinecure or become rich enough to live outside of problems. We've just had an attempt to force public transport improvements on us through a congestion charge. It didn't even take into account that most of us travel in our cars because we don't feel safe or comfortable with some of the dreadful people our society has created. The plan could have been written in 1930. There was nothing ideological in the 85% rejection of the scheme. It was simply incompetent and based on lies, notably that it wouldn't cost us anything. Like much else going on at the moment, degrees of madness were involved. My overall view is that we need to unpack capitalism and democracy in new ways and bring about a practical public choice theory that takes account of human nature good and bad and which can deliver on the ground. On 16 Feb, 01:37, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > I agree completely - but we do forget just what the basics are too > easily. Agrarianism in Rwanda is an example of just what kind of > trouble basic living can get us into. > > On 16 Feb, 01:14, gruff <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I don't believe it's that simple anymore ... at least in developed > > nations where a lot of people wouldn't even recognize a plot of dirt > > if they fell in it. > > > On Feb 15, 4:45 pm, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > When it all comes down to basics, we survive if we can grow food and > > > build shelters. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
