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

[Andy Blunden]

That is a fair and interesting distinction, Huw. My only point is that 
culturally/historically the two arrive together along with large number 
of people living together.
Think Jane Jacobs vs your average city planning bureaucrat!

Andy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/


Huw Lloyd wrote:
> 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 
> <mailto: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/
>     <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>
>
>     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).
>
>          
>
>
>