(11-27-2017, 03:29 PM)t Eric the Green Wrote: That is a good point, that we need breaks from change. But I do think we live in the age of perpetual revolution. But, within that Revolution, there also needs to be a revolution of respect for tradition and valuing of all of our heritage; a revolution to keep recovering all that is great from the past, as well as perpetually questioning all things and moving beyond current authority. To be always creating the new, and at the same time, revering and building on the old; for as Bergson said, we only know what is new if we know what is old. We know what is coming into being only by contrast to what already is. Only if we remember the past, can we move into something genuinely new. "Progress" has its delusions too.
The economic revolution is the end of scarcity. Productivity now outstrips the need for more labor, and all human needs are comparatively easy to meet. Labor will be devalued, or people will be compelled to pay (or overpay) for questionable objects or services -- like loan-shark interest. If I had to move I would probably buy such stuff as I need at Goodwill, Salvation Army, or the like. Replacing my current stuff with such used stuff means less of an outlay than renting a moving truck. Sure, I will keep most of my books, music CDs, and video -- and clothing.
Much serviceable stuff is cheap. What is precious isn't a dinner plate; it is the cultural creations.
Quote:The Enlightenment is certainly old hat now. And I wonder how much value it really brought us. It's culture has grown stale and too enclosed within reason; too superficial. But it has brought us a lot of good, especially, at least, in the political realm; respect for human rights being top of the list. And it started what we call the modern world, in which more freedom is possible. Where do we go from there, though? Where have we gone? Into many other spaces and ideas, philosophies and approaches in the last 250 years, as we have been given new horizons to explore, both within and beyond the "Western" world or civilization. And we never can explore or build them all; we can never know and create everything. Life is always within mystery, and that's as we would have it.
The Enlightenment is Old Hat? Heck no -- obviously not Bach's Toccata in F, not Voltaire's Candide, and certainly not the paintings of Francisco Goya. There are to be rediscovered as if new by the best and brightest of all new generations of sophisticated adolescents and smart adults. We need to put more emphasis on enriching human minds. What we need reject is the idea that the past has nothing to offer. I saw a program on PBS last night on the album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which according to one music critic is the greatest album of pop music ever made. The Beatles were quite sophisticated with musical techniques (duh! They were the most polished figures of pop music since the Big band era), but also with music of the then-distant Baroque era, the polyrhthms of Stravinsky, and contemporary trends involving Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, and John Cage -- and English literature, including the fantasy world of Lewis Carroll. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds had nothing to do with lysergic acid.
One consequence of the End of Scarcity (except on genuine luxuries such as antiques, waterfront residential property, gems, and precious metals) is that we will have more leisure time. We may have to cut the normal workweek from 40 hours a week to 30 hours or so just to avoid unemployment, transforming unemployment into leisure and increasing pay for such hours as they still work. That is what America did in the 1930s, and what we may need to do again. Do we still need to buy more stuff to go quickly into a landfill?
We need to learn how to live -- truly live -- as we never have before. The raw materials and labor that we needed for living as we did in the 1950s are close to what we need now per person. Even vehicle fuel has flatlined in recent years.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
