Bewes, T. 1997 (Cynicism and posmodernity) puts it quite bluntly:
'Stupidity, a cultural commodity, is at a premium'. I find it interesting
that, driven by lovely metaphors of "the market" (who closely resembles the
fairies at the bottom of the garden), public policies based on asocial,
self-interested, self-reflexive, outright greeeeeeeed, have taken on the
status of myth. Ideological mutation, indeed, Diane.
> (as opposed to, though not excluding the material transformations of)
>industrialization and Enlightenment,
I'm inclined to believ that any form of systematised rationality gives way
to myth. That's because someone gets to be an expert, develops an
appropriately obscure language, and everyone - being totally awed by not
being able to understand what anyone "important" is saying, leaves the
running of the world to everybody else. How's that for a gross, totalising
generalisation?
>...a refusal of responsibility, a distance from organic awe/awareness...?
Yup!
>
>> Globalisation is exemplary. Of course, like God, it doesn't exist
>>>>and I dare anyone to define it without creating an idiotic tautology.
>
>Come on : double dare? ha ha:
>
>Globalization is empirical evidence of the theory of postindustrial chaos.
"Globalisation is a nineteenth century idea dressed up in High-Tech and
posing as the future" (Saul, 1995 "The doubter's companion"). I don't
believe there's any such thing, personally.
--snip me--
>. Capitalism + anarchy = postindustrial chaos. How to
>salvage/reinvent/recreate/rediscover/rewrite a moral or ethical
>consciousness in such a state?
Warm baths, beetroots, and good friends, perhaps?
>FOR EXAMPLE:
>maybe like the 18th century Acadians, of Nove Scotia.
>Anyone else know their history?
>It provides a compelling metaphor for rebellion in the name of cultural
>intelligence and self-respecting autonomy. I can provide more info if
>anyone is interetsed, or
>if this is not very xmca of me, then email me privately and I can offer
>some historical anecdotes which, I think, illuminatet the notion of how
>internal dissension in the anarchic structres of chaos can, at times,
>survive.
I'd be most interested.
What's xmcaish behaviour anyway?
"Where am I, anyway?", says Phil
[Loud, Charlton-Heston-on-quaaludes-voice booms from stage right]:
"Traaapppped insiiiiiide Multiple Discourse Tradishunnnnssss you mortal
foooooollllll AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA ... etc.
>---snip --
--snip snip --->
>Phil, babe, seems we both know that everyone's shit stinks! :-)
How vulgar!
>
--kasnip--
>[snip - reluctantly though, Phil, you crack me up!]
And you crack me up, Diane ..
>
>>It's okay for the intelligent wordsmiths and hermeneutically sophisticated
>>among us to say: open a discursive space for all dialects. However, the
>>fundamental of democracy - a healthy one, not the tokenistic kind we
>>ususally get - is a language (a public dialect) in which _everyone_ can
>>participate. That is, no matter where people come from in a given
>>democracy, they should all have the public debates open to them, not closed
>>as they most ususally are - especially when they count the most.
>
>
>Absolutely. NEVERTHELESS (as Katie Hepburn announces at the end of "African
>Queen", at the impossibility of blowing up that gunship, "Nevertheless,
>that is what happened."
Indeed. And continues to do so.
>
>Public debates do take place, but in my experience, the lack of critical
>consciounsess invariably interferes,
> and self-interest takes over.
I don't see public debates. I see a lot of slogan-peddling mantra mongers
(specialists) who juxtapose interstingly concieved compound nouns together,
each of which has innumerable themes, ideas, and processes in them, fixed
like flies in the goo at the bottom of a 3-day old coffee cup that's been
left on the sink. You can, however, still tell they're flies if you look
real closely.
>There is so much resentment, now, aganist
>what "difference" means, the targets of social hostility are so clearly
>defined, krist. I feel like wearing skirts and high shoes, you know?
I can identify with that Diane. The last time I had such an urge was when
I'd broken a ten year non-drinking binge. After a 6-month Thompsonesque
shindig all around the East and South coasts of Australia, I took a stroll
down to the local shop after borrowing (and throwing on) a lovely white
number with matching heels from a good friend. I was carrying a large
bottle of Scotch and singing loudly in a jovial manner. All I wanted was
cigarettes and to feel free. Unfortunately, the sight of me scared the
shopkeeper and the day (and the decade for that matter) took a turn for the
worse. Perhaps I should have shaved first.
I haven't been back to that shop since, you know.
Ironic, eh? You're scared to wear a skirt and heels, and I scare people
when I wear them.
>Why aren't I SAFE in this world? Why is my peril so acceptable to so many?
>How do you expect us to continute to WRITE our frustrations before we sayy,
>screw the canon man, show me the change.
Yeah. It's like an "oholic" society, except I'm not sure which prefix to
use. Perhaps we have to horrify ourselves en masse to have any change; like
a drunk who just can't live with her/his own actions any more and then
reforms (like me). Wars, pestilence, famine, and mass murder seem to be so
passe these days ... I wonder what the next shock will be ...
>wow. am I having a bad day or what?
A bad decade ... this is a bad decade. What's worse, we're all in it
together. Perhaps its better that we are. Perhaps if we weren't, we
wouldn't be, if you know what I mean.
>>We're all blind: Reality is a patchwork quilt. There's a
>>lovely little exercise in Maturana & Varela's 1987 (Tree of Knowledge) that
>>shows quite plainly exactly how blind we are - we literally can't see great
>>chunks of the world that we're looking at. Nevertheless, our clever little
>>minds stitch up the blind spots into a nice neat continuum. If you do the
>>exercise, you have to spend some time for it to work right. That's because
>>the mind doesn't like to have its weaknesses exposed to itself. Especially
>>the biggies like literal, sheer blindness.
>
>Okay I was just talking/arguing with a friend about this:
>
>1> there is an empirical reality which exists outside of our imagined
>conceptions of reality;
Yes
>2. reality is only available to us through our interpretations.
Agreed
>An inescapable paradox.
A fact of life.
>What to do?
Revolt.
>Accept that emprical realities exist,
>and act in the interests of...? What? Whom?
Each other's; our children's.
Whose interpretation?
Our own.
>BAH! I've been reading too much moral philosophy. I'm drifting.
Not at all. That's precisely the point. Doubt is the beginning of the end
in a technologically administered society. Here's to doubt [dry clink of
glasses].
>There is hope. There are a few who can see, and hear, and speak. We just
>need to
>look for 'em [hint: they're artistis]
I were a artiss wunce. More hints please.
Thanks Diane,
Phil
BTW can you book me a spot near that farm please?
Phil Graham
pw.graham who-is-at student.qut.edu.au
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html