[Xmca-l] Re: Why Computers Make So Little Difference

[Huw Lloyd]

Unfortunately that seems to tie in with my view that civilisation is the
open regard for others and appreciation for the power of objective systems
in contradistinction to bureaucratic power.  I shall reflect on that.



On 12 March 2015 at 00:32, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> So true, Huw!
> I think it deserves some reflection among CHAT theorists who take an
> interest in cultural development that when a non-literate community comes
> into contact with "civilisation" they actually meet two different things
> for the first time.
> (1) They come into contact with *civilisation*, a.k.a. institutions which
> have developed culture with the aid of the written word, and the
> interaction between the written word and technique, and the immensely
> productive spiral of development which has given us Mozart, Beethoven,
> Darwin, Einstein, and Harpo Marx. That is dialectical logic.
> (2) They come into contact with *bureaucracy*, which in its mission to
> manage the collective lives of very large numbers of people, has utilised
> the written word to break down the true concepts created by the culture
> into neat little pigeon holes for filing away, and is dedicated to
> inculcating the minds of our children into thinking in terms of taxonomy,
> rather than true concepts.  That is formal logic.
>
> I think there is a lot of confusion between civilisation and bureaucracy,
> and consequently between true concepts (which nonliterate people have,
> albeit within a limited scope of experience) and pseudoconcepts (which are
> the great love of bureaucracy, the commercial world and positivist science.)
>
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>
>
> Huw Lloyd wrote:
>
>> ...
>>
>> The impression that I have of our collectively western society is that it
>> is utterly swamped in formal logic and its mode of operation.  Our schools
>> and universities are probably the worst of all in this regard, such that
>> even raising the notion of schooling based upon creative understanding
>> seems to bewilder people (and small wonder that innovators in logic were
>> also technical innovators, because it is necessary to create and design in
>> order to learn how to think).
>>
>>
>>
>
>