I agree w/ Andy, Diane, and Nate. I can imagine the project of building a
global but not market-driven agenda emerging only out of dire circumstance
& still can't imagine it succeeding since scarcity would feed competition.
The ideal has to lend itself to a plurality of values -- doesn't that mean
a plurality of agendas?
We have to use language to reshape a social imagination, and language is
shot through w/ divisiveness.... Quaker meetings come to mind, where people
are joined by silence; no one speaks unless moved to do so, and tradition
dictates respect for those who speak; there is no push to consensus, but
there ARE shared (Christian) values, which are continually reworked by
individuals within the concrete historical circumstances of their own lives.
One imaginable: The members of a collective, starting from the premise that
money is a rotten ideal, work towards the formulation of an alternative
Ideal -- As AT instructs us, the outcome is formulative, but what if the
outcome is explicitly ethical? The participants work towards the
formulation of a practical ethic, using already-established productive
resources but ....?
the Object would be to develop identities that are non-exploitative, social
relations that are reciprocally reflexive....? - to change the psyche,
taking up V's agenda....
I don't know. I'm not optimistic.
Judy
At 11:02 AM 12/19/00 +1100, you wrote:
>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
>>
>**************************************************
>* Andy Blunden, Teaching Space Support Team Leader
>* Email ablunden@unimelb.edu.au or andy@mira.net
>* http://home.mira.net/~andy/ - Personal Home Page
>* http://www.ists.unimelb.edu.au - Work Home Page
>* University of Melbourne 9344 0312 (W) 9380 9435 (H)
>**************************************************
>
>
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