Anonymous said...
This is one very well worded and sizeable philosophers whine. Alas, the glories of Rome are past!
Meta: This sort of approach was dealt with in the Tiny Thinker article below. It's just an index to your mentality. I mean I begin by telling you its my best article so you dismissing by calling it a "long whine." That tells the discerning reader more about you than it does about me.
Anon:I couldn't disagree more with the foundational presuppositions in this work,
meta: So its a good whine all around right?
anon:
clearly it is written by someone who's never worked in or understood the corporate environment, specialization, risk-reward, and the benefits to society. The failures of civilization are errantly blamed on society's lack of appreciation for, and the lower status of philosophical thought in the hierarchy. It whines about the lack of freedom to think because we are dependent upon the need to produce. Yet, production, progress, specialization, is the very means that ultimately frees us to Think by producing enough prosperity that the basic needs of society are met ultimately freeing men from their labors. The failures to do so are moral failures not structural ones. Oh, and some people actually find meaning and satisfaction in their specialization, even on a machine shop floor.
Meta: So in other words, you want to privilage your experinces and position to the extet that no one else lives in socieity or has a right to critqiue it. Unless you've been in the fray, blah blah. Well, that's just sure unless you have sweated in the sun picking cotton,you just don't know what life is all about.
As to the argument that production frees us from drugery, yes, that is very. I think addressed taht (one might try clsoe reading of the text). It's not that production is the bugbier in and of itself. We are cut off from a relationship with the overall process of production. We fit into the equasion as overhead if we are wrokers, and comodity if we are management. We are given a jaundiced sense of life because we befcome the comodity sold to manufacturers. Like a tv audience. You may think tv works by selling air time, it really works by selling audience to those who buy air time.
So I dont' want to spend my days gelaning wheat or building a sod house without power or transforport either. But there should be some middle range of life experience other than either being stuck in the horse and buggy days and responsible for the total process of production, form killing the cow to tanning the hide to showing the boots, or being a commodity on a supermarket shelf and being unable to use my free time for anything but tv viewing.
I deny that the hazy sentiment for the "good old days" is on that article like you think it is. I don't think you carfully.
Anon:Yes, the philosopher is dependent upon the producers and no, Utopia and the Second Coming haven't happened yet.
Maslow, jr.
5:33 AM
Meta: Are you even a believer?
why respond so negativley to an article that tries to put the reader on to the forgotten works of a great mind, and which seeks to reaise questions about ethics and modern community? Why is that such a threat to you. It striking a nerve?
BTW Maslow said we can't consider our higher needs until we provide our lower ones. He didn't say we hsould never consider our higher needs,.
the real disspointment is that no one seesm to have gotetn the upshot of hte article which was it's affect upon Christianity. We have cut off society for the itnellectual heritage of the chruch so that's why atheists are asking things like "what cuased God?" Because the education of a vast body of Christain thought has been lost to our society due to this one-dimensionalization.
Meta: This sort of approach was dealt with in the Tiny Thinker article below. It's just an index to your mentality. I mean I begin by telling you its my best article so you dismissing by calling it a "long whine." That tells the discerning reader more about you than it does about me.
ReplyDeleteLOL, I didn't say it wasn't an intelligent whine! It was very intelligent, but a whine nonetheless ;)
meta: So its a good whine all around right?
Right!
Meta: So in other words, you want to privilage your experinces and position....
As a matter of fact, I do. Just as you privilege your experiences and position in God arguments.
Meta: ...to the extet that no one else lives in socieity or has a right to critqiue it. Unless you've been in the fray, blah blah. Well, that's just sure unless you have sweated in the sun picking cotton,you just don't know what life is all about.
Well, let's just say that those who are "in the fray" and "picking cotton" (your phrase, not mine) might know a bit more about their real world experience than those who intellectualize about those who are in the fray and "picking cotton" but have scant to no corporate experience. Your choice of words are revealing. There's something to be said about walking a mile in another man's shoes before you criticize them as "overhead" and "commodities" sold to the manufacturers. If you have time for TV viewing (your choice) then thank the "commodities" and "overhead" who stock your supermarket shelves.
You conveniently left off a significant point I made: "Oh, and some people actually find meaning and satisfaction in their specialization, even on a machine shop floor."
Many people find fulfillment and satisfaction using their God-given skills or talents to feed their families and raise them up in a Godly manner. Because a man works on a shop floor doesn't mean he's a mindless cog "cut off from the overall sense of production". It seems to me it is you and Schwietzer who are "one-dimensionalizing" the lives of laborers when you imply there is no meaning or spirituality in the lives of those who labor as "cogs".
Meta: Are you even a believer?
Yes. Are you? (that was tongue-in-cheek)
Meta: We have cut off society for the itnellectual heritage of the chruch so that's why atheists are asking things like "what cuased God?"
Blaming atheism on the chruch is a stretch if you ask me. They ask those things because they reject all epistemology except science.
Maslow, jr.
You don't know what Ive done in my life, and you have right to assume that only middle level busienss manage people can understand the world. That is so totally provential and anti-intellectaul it doesnt' deserve a response.
ReplyDeleteMeta: We have cut off society for the itnellectual heritage of the chruch so that's why atheists are asking things like "what cuased God?"
"Blaming atheism on the chruch is a stretch if you ask me. They ask those things because they reject all epistemology except science."
You understood that backwards. I certainly didn't say that the chruch made one-dimensional society. So obviously I said nothing along the lines of blaming the church for atheism.
I said the consqeuqenced of a dumbed down soud bite society is that the rich intellectual heritage of the church is not part of public common knowledge, 0r the knowledge of most people in the chruch. That's why atheits make arguments that betray their lack of theological acuity.
Meta: You don't know what Ive done in my life, and you have right to assume that only middle level busienss manage people can understand the world. That is so totally provential and anti-intellectaul it doesnt' deserve a response.
ReplyDeleteWe can all be critics Meta, but that doesn't make all our criticisms valid. All I'm saying is that our criticism should be carefully weighed in light of our real world experiences and our area of expertise. If you have little background in macro economics or real world experience in business environments then perhaps you and Scwietzer are merely speculating from a theoretical point of view that is presumed rather than based in factual experience.
Meta: I said the consqeuqenced of a dumbed down soud bite society is that the rich intellectual heritage of the church is not part of public common knowledge, 0r the knowledge of most people in the chruch. That's why atheits make arguments that betray their lack of theological acuity.
Well, we live in a world where the sheer volume of knowledge that exists makes it nearly impossible for anyone to be a "renaissance man" having indepth knowledge in all subjects. That is a thing of the past and specialization of knowledge IS a post-modern phenomenon (so here I end up agreeing with part of your premise, I just disagree with your conclusion). We also live in a free society where people may choose what knowledge they wish to become well versed in.
Maslow, jr.
Meta: You don't know what Ive done in my life, and you have right to assume that only middle level busienss manage people can understand the world. That is so totally provential and anti-intellectaul it doesnt' deserve a response.
ReplyDeleteWe can all be critics Meta, but that doesn't make all our criticisms valid. All I'm saying is that our criticism should be carefully weighed in light of our real world experiences and our area of expertise. If you have little background in macro economics or real world experience in business environments then perhaps you and Scwietzer are merely speculating from a theoretical point of view that is presumed rather than based in factual experience.
>>that has nothing to do with anytihng. You are merly saying "I work in the real world I know moere than you do" and that's just foolish. I worked in the real wiorld plenty before graduate school.
Meta: I said the consqeuqenced of a dumbed down soud bite society is that the rich intellectual heritage of the church is not part of public common knowledge, 0r the knowledge of most people in the chruch. That's why atheits make arguments that betray their lack of theological acuity.
Well, we live in a world where the sheer volume of knowledge that exists makes it nearly impossible for anyone to be a "renaissance man" having indepth knowledge in all subjects.
<>>>im a rensassance man
That is a thing of the past and specialization of knowledge IS a post-modern phenomenon (so here I end up agreeing with part of your premise, I just disagree with your conclusion).
>>>you are just rationalizing you slavery. You just looking for a place to hang your chains.
We also live in a free society where people may choose what knowledge they wish to become well versed in.
>>>Yea right, that's why they passed homeland secuirty. so now they can arrest you if you disagree politially.