Judy, I counted to ten and no-one spoke so ... I agree with your assessment
of the possible ways forward, with this big qualification:
Is it possible to live in this global world without *sharing an ideal*?
Currently, we eschew all attempts to share ideals (outside of a small
circle of friends/family if at all), because of the very real fear that any
such attempt will only divide us. Instead we allow MONEY to function as
that shared, objective ideal which mediates all our collaborative activity.
It seems to me that shared collaborative activity is the genuine, material
basis for a new world and new people, but I don't see how it can be done
without resolving the problem of the ideal. Hence, my questions.
Andy
At 11:37 AM 12/17/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Andy wrote:
>If I understand you correctly Judy, of
>>course we all value the capacity for abstract reasoning, just as no-one
>>wants to go back to animism and witch-hunting, but equally we all know that
>>the roller-coaster we are on is taking us somewhere we really don't want to
>>be, don't we?
>
>It's safe to say that we on this list don't want to go where we've been
>catapulted -- (less fatalistically: are being?...). One hypothesis is that,
>over time, diverse values (control, rationality, dominance) get so tightly
>interwoven in the network of what's become exploitive activity systems of
>production & distribution, within which WE are produced -- & thus out of
>the control of individuals -- that change can happen only catastrophically
>from "outside" or from collapse from within OR
>
>through the agency that individuals direct toward their performance as
>ethical, relational beings -- re-visioning and hopefully changing within
>critically reflexive social relations and thereby making it possible to
>imagine & produce the sort of changes in local systems of activity that
>would unfix their internal structures, moving toward dynamic institutions
>that are self adjusting toward ethical goals....
>
>well, I am eager to get help in thinking more carefully about possibly
>designing better futures so I look forward to seeing the holes that some of
>you will thoughtfully point out in the above and the directions others
>might take this
>judy
>
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* Andy Blunden, Teaching Space Support Team Leader
* Email ablunden@unimelb.edu.au or andy@mira.net
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* University of Melbourne 9344 0312 (W) 9380 9435 (H)
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