Dear Peter Burnet- my heart jumps at your words. You are the person I have been looking for on this list serv. I suggest you would enjoy a fresh listen to the audio book, Frankenstein by Mary Shelly in 1830. Her insight cuts through both world wars to our century facing AI, genetics, and bio-engineering. Theodore Rosak is a Mary Shell…
Dear Peter Burnet- my heart jumps at your words. You are the person I have been looking for on this list serv. I suggest you would enjoy a fresh listen to the audio book, Frankenstein by Mary Shelly in 1830. Her insight cuts through both world wars to our century facing AI, genetics, and bio-engineering. Theodore Rosak is a Mary Shelly scholar who explains what she reveals about science, technology and feminism.
Also, check out the web site of the Jacques Ellul Society. I believe philosophy is the queen of the social sciences. While most people realize Western Civilization needs a new paradigm, it will be through philosophy (perhaps) a new Worldview might be constructed before we face the assurred destruction of Progress & Development.
I think you might also find Jurgen Habermas's writing about The Public Sphere helpful in guiding Democracy toward a responsible worldview to address human society's relationship to the environment we depend upon. His German writings have not been translated to English in a reader friendly way.
Thank you, Jay, but the only times I have been called a philosopher, it was NOT intended as a compliment!
My comments in the 1980s on the coming threats to the survival of democracy were viewed as wildly imaginative nonsense having no possible connection with reality, but my concern was with the nurture of living institutions -- nothing special, living entities need attention: feeding, watering, exercise...
As for me, despite a lively interest in philosophy and a strong regret not to have made a proper study of it when young, I simply try to think for myself and free myself of conditioning. I can make no other claim than that.
I haven't read Mary Shelley's powerful novel for a long time but maybe I'll take your advice and read it again. Good books always speak differently to us at different ages. I've always been thrilled by the poetry of her life partner.
One author who had a very clear and present sense of our much-vaunted civilization as a very, very fine veneer was Joseph Conrad. His work is shot through with the symbolism of illusory appearances masking savagery. Nor was he mistaken.
Only, these days people don't seem able to distinguish a symbol from a road sign.
You speak of Habermas -- yes -- but at this moment there's a sociologist I'd like to bring to your attention: the German Hartmut Rosa, who teaches at Jena university. I'm very interested in the concepts he picks on to explain our utter failure to lead the good life, and the growing discontent and violence in our societies. The first is blindingly obvious: Acceleration. Runaway change, slavery to the stop-watch and the drying up of time's stream (my silly image) in our over-regulated societies. The second is more subtle: Resonance and the cult of Growth.
I am blown away by Harmut Rosa! My son is enjoying Sociology in his first year in college. I sent him a link to a TedTalk by Harmut. Did you notice he listed through "spheres"? I believe he is referring to a systematic analysis of social spheres, the public sphere is only one of many social spheres. I am excited to hear more from Hartmut and others about social resonance and de-growth. This "invisible college" of thought is exactly the direction Western countries need to go to find a way out of addictive, unsustainable growth.
Aloy Soppe, the writer, is a professor of financial ethics at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
His approach is holistic, taking account not only of human beings but of the planet and all life.
In addition to mankind’s original struggles with the environment and other life forms, we mortals are caught between the hammer and the anvil of abstract, inimical forces—ideologies with little or no bearing on our lives and the dead weight of debt, at once lifeless and undying. I think you’ll find that Soppe takes an original but well-grounded approach to the issue of growth, drawing on the patterns of life and death in Nature, far from dualism and Cartesian abstraction.
Do we really have to wait for greed and hubris to pursue their uninterrupted career all the way to the bursting of the next bubble before we act to bind and tame the monster we have created?
Dear Peter Burnet- my heart jumps at your words. You are the person I have been looking for on this list serv. I suggest you would enjoy a fresh listen to the audio book, Frankenstein by Mary Shelly in 1830. Her insight cuts through both world wars to our century facing AI, genetics, and bio-engineering. Theodore Rosak is a Mary Shelly scholar who explains what she reveals about science, technology and feminism.
Also, check out the web site of the Jacques Ellul Society. I believe philosophy is the queen of the social sciences. While most people realize Western Civilization needs a new paradigm, it will be through philosophy (perhaps) a new Worldview might be constructed before we face the assurred destruction of Progress & Development.
I think you might also find Jurgen Habermas's writing about The Public Sphere helpful in guiding Democracy toward a responsible worldview to address human society's relationship to the environment we depend upon. His German writings have not been translated to English in a reader friendly way.
Thank you, Jay, but the only times I have been called a philosopher, it was NOT intended as a compliment!
My comments in the 1980s on the coming threats to the survival of democracy were viewed as wildly imaginative nonsense having no possible connection with reality, but my concern was with the nurture of living institutions -- nothing special, living entities need attention: feeding, watering, exercise...
As for me, despite a lively interest in philosophy and a strong regret not to have made a proper study of it when young, I simply try to think for myself and free myself of conditioning. I can make no other claim than that.
I haven't read Mary Shelley's powerful novel for a long time but maybe I'll take your advice and read it again. Good books always speak differently to us at different ages. I've always been thrilled by the poetry of her life partner.
One author who had a very clear and present sense of our much-vaunted civilization as a very, very fine veneer was Joseph Conrad. His work is shot through with the symbolism of illusory appearances masking savagery. Nor was he mistaken.
Only, these days people don't seem able to distinguish a symbol from a road sign.
You speak of Habermas -- yes -- but at this moment there's a sociologist I'd like to bring to your attention: the German Hartmut Rosa, who teaches at Jena university. I'm very interested in the concepts he picks on to explain our utter failure to lead the good life, and the growing discontent and violence in our societies. The first is blindingly obvious: Acceleration. Runaway change, slavery to the stop-watch and the drying up of time's stream (my silly image) in our over-regulated societies. The second is more subtle: Resonance and the cult of Growth.
Take a glance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCLPpU0hSUw
One description of hell -- drawn from a distant memory of the hell of depression -- NO SPACE -- NO TIME.
Everywhere, but there is never any room. Eternity, but there is never any time. Never room, never time, never any escape.
America's just had a golem for president... And no one anywhere will be safe for as long as he, his backers and his cronies walk free.
Anyway, while I'm here, maybe take a look at an item I've written further on in this thread about bringing America's Gun Cult to my country, Scotland.
I am blown away by Harmut Rosa! My son is enjoying Sociology in his first year in college. I sent him a link to a TedTalk by Harmut. Did you notice he listed through "spheres"? I believe he is referring to a systematic analysis of social spheres, the public sphere is only one of many social spheres. I am excited to hear more from Hartmut and others about social resonance and de-growth. This "invisible college" of thought is exactly the direction Western countries need to go to find a way out of addictive, unsustainable growth.
Jay, I'm adding another cross-reference which could perhaps be useful to Dr. Richardson herself and to others who follow her blog:
https://www.routledge.com/New-Financial-Ethics-A-Normative-Approach/Soppe/p/book/9781138366527
Aloy Soppe, the writer, is a professor of financial ethics at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
His approach is holistic, taking account not only of human beings but of the planet and all life.
In addition to mankind’s original struggles with the environment and other life forms, we mortals are caught between the hammer and the anvil of abstract, inimical forces—ideologies with little or no bearing on our lives and the dead weight of debt, at once lifeless and undying. I think you’ll find that Soppe takes an original but well-grounded approach to the issue of growth, drawing on the patterns of life and death in Nature, far from dualism and Cartesian abstraction.
Do we really have to wait for greed and hubris to pursue their uninterrupted career all the way to the bursting of the next bubble before we act to bind and tame the monster we have created?
Thank you, Jay.
HCR and her followers exemplify RESONANCE.
Let's snowball!