Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2014 23:54:55 GMT -5
As a prelude to this thread, it may be of interest to members to read two contributions I happened to see just now while performing a six-monthly check of something completely different, namely whether there had been any improvement in my internet connection. (These postings have no connection with myself I should perhaps add, except that they show other people thinking along the same lines. There are even people talking about incorruptible robots, although I did not get them from them and they are unlikely to have got them from me. ) forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2250375&p=57and here is an important and serious twenty-three page thread entitled "A World without Money", containing much that is of interest: forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2301394
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2014 14:17:54 GMT -5
Perhaps money is bound to fail, Sydney?
|
|
|
Post by ahinton on Oct 25, 2014 3:44:42 GMT -5
Perhaps money is bound to fail, Sydney? Well, it hasn't done so yet - and it's been around for quite a few years! Yes, banks seem to have done their best from time to time to screw it up (even though it is their life-blood) and some governments certainly haven't helped, but the question to ask is whether any substitute for it (whatever it may be, even assuming that there could be one) could reasonably be expected to do other than fail also.
|
|
|
Post by Gerard on Oct 25, 2014 5:50:10 GMT -5
Perhaps money is bound to fail, Sydney? It has already failed, in that it makes inequality possible kleines c.
|
|
|
Post by ahinton on Oct 25, 2014 7:03:50 GMT -5
Perhaps money is bound to fail, Sydney? It has already failed, in that it makes inequality possible kleines c. Plenty of other things likewise do that - indeed, some of them make it inevitable; furthermore, there's an absolute certainty that inequalities of all kinds would remain whether or not there were to be either money or some as yet to be defined substitute for it. Not least of the problems associated with any attempted move to abolish the existence and the use of money (two quite distinct phenomena, by the way) is that no viable alternative has been or indeed can be put forward; some people seem even want to do away with trade of all kinds as a part of such a proposal; fine - so let's all ignore one another and let humankind die a slow and painful death, then... Anyway, " a prelude" was nowhere near enough for Chopin, Debussy, Scriabin, Shostakovich, York Bowen, Alan Bush and others, each of whom felt the need for two dozen thereof - all of them far more interesting than money!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2014 0:40:13 GMT -5
"The department store," we read, "is one of the cleverest inventions of the industrial revolution. Not only did it literally invent the concept of shopping, it also sowed the seeds of female emancipation and created the consumer culture."
From that sentence we may decude the following may we not:
- "cleverness" is undesirable - "female emancipation" - whatever that might be - is undesirable - "consumer culture" is undesirable
|
|
|
Post by ahinton on Oct 29, 2014 4:45:13 GMT -5
"The department store," we read, "is one of the cleverest inventions of the industrial revolution. Not only did it literally invent the concept of shopping, it also sowed the seeds of female emancipation and created the consumer culture." From that sentence we may decude the following may we not: - "cleverness" is undesirable - "female emancipation" - whatever that might be - is undesirable - "consumer culture" is undesirable Never having "decuded" anything (or even known how to do so), I take leave to doubt that for this reason alone but, in more serious answer to your question-mark-less question, not all cleverness is undesirable and female emancipation (as it is generally understood) is self-evidently desirable in principle, although "consumer culture" - to the extent that it might be seen to equate to "consumerism" - is largely undesirable, as you say; that said, however, whilst I have no idea of the source from which this once again undefined "we" read this (and "we" can surely not possibly denote "all members of the forum" on this occasion!), its claims for the phenomenon of the department store strike me as rather exaggerated...
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 21, 2014 5:17:27 GMT -5
Mr. David Marquand has just published an excellent book entitled "Mammon's Kingdom - An essay on Britain, now". In it he - acurately - describes the country as "sleepwalking towards a seedy barbarism". The key historical turning-point, he says, was 1979, the year that Mrs. Thatcher became Prime Ministress. Since 1979, he contends, it has been down-hill all the way. Where are the Elgars and Deliuses of to-day? She wrecked the country. It would never have occurred even to Macmillan or Heath to convert Whitehall into an agency run by corporate interests for their own benefit, he reminds us, and he yearns for an alternative to plutocracy. Well we have been discussing one in this very forum have we not. Abolish "money". People just need to be persuaded of the value of equality. Like most things in life, it goes back to education. Re-education of the teachers is the first step. Obvious when you think of it.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 21, 2014 10:20:32 GMT -5
The Telegraph - Mammon’s Kingdom: an Essay on Britain, Now by David Marquand, reviewI have not read the book/essay, so I cannot fairly comment, but it strikes me that ' The Third' is kind of virtual society without money! If you wanted some serious work done, however, you would probably need to find some way to incentivise people? As for your idea of re-educating teachers, Sydney, this does raise one or two alarm bells. What if I do not agree with my teachers? Will they throw me out of school? And who is to say that they are right and I am wrong, or even left?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2014 0:43:21 GMT -5
What if I do not agree with my teachers? Will they throw me out of school? And who is to say that they are right and I am wrong, or even left? Obviously you will have to report to his study at 4.30 for six of the best. You must always assume that the teacher is right, because otherwise he would not be in that position would he.
|
|
|
Post by ahinton on Nov 26, 2014 12:10:22 GMT -5
What if I do not agree with my teachers? Will they throw me out of school? And who is to say that they are right and I am wrong, or even left? Obviously you will have to report to his study at 4.30 for six of the best. Six of the best what? Single malt whisky samples? Cigars? Songs by Brahms?... You must always assume that the teacher is right, because otherwise he would not be in that position would he. I'm struggling to figure out what logic might determine such a thing. All teachers are always right about everything? What a dangerous belief that would be if anyone held it!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2014 17:55:45 GMT -5
I'm struggling to figure out what logic might determine such a thing. All teachers are always right about everything? What a dangerous belief that would be if anyone held it! Cease your struggling Mr. H! Just relax and let it sink in. It is not a question of right or wrong; it is a question of knowledge and ignorance. Teachers (by definition) know more, and pass on their knowledge to the ignorant by way of the processes of e-ducation and permeation. But you know all that already do you not?
|
|
|
Post by ahinton on Nov 27, 2014 2:11:17 GMT -5
I'm struggling to figure out what logic might determine such a thing. All teachers are always right about everything? What a dangerous belief that would be if anyone held it! Cease your struggling Mr. H! Just relax and let it sink in. It is not a question of right or wrong; it is a question of knowledge and ignorance. Teachers (by definition) know more, and pass on their knowledge to the ignorant by way of the processes of e-ducation and permeation. But you know all that already do you not? Well, I'm not really struggling, of course! What I meant was that I would struggle to do that if I wanted to. The notion that all teachers are always right about everything just because they're teachers is about as daft as the idea that composers are ditto just because they're composers. We're all on learning curves all the time if we keep our ears and eyes open and our brains receptive - that includes teachers and composers. Of course one should not teach unless one has good reason to believe that one knows more about something than one's students (I've hardly ever taught, incidentally), but the suggestion that all teachers have unfettered knowlege and all students are ignorant for the time being just doesn't hold up. Since music is a principal concern of ours here, I might mention that, when asked late in life 80s why he had never taught, the late and much lamented Shura Cherkassky replied "because I'm still figuring out how to do it myself"; understandable, really, given that he'd only been playing the piano for just over 80 years...
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2014 15:33:35 GMT -5
Six of the best!
|
|
|
Post by ahinton on Nov 28, 2014 11:04:45 GMT -5
"Six of the best" what? Preludes? Whose? And why six in particular?
|
|