civilized ku # 631-32 ~ it's all connected
Wednesday, August 18, 2010 at 11:16AM 
Smithsonian Air & Space Museum ~ Washington, DC • click to embiggenDuring my recent visit to Washington, DC I couldn't hell but think of the current lousy state of affairs in which the good 'ole US of A (and the world) finds itself. And to be perfectly clear, I don't just mean the lousy state of affairs of the affairs of state - I mean the entire lousy state of affairs, wholistically speaking. After all, it's all connected.
A few days ago, I visited a blog that was waxing poetic about the state of things, nature-wise. No surprise there as, picture making wise, its a blog that treats the nature world in a rather "poetic" manner - ain't nature grand and wouldn't we all be better off it we recognized as such.
To that end, there were some quotes from one of my favorite authors, Edward Abbey, supporting that notion. However, the quotes on offer were from what I consider one of Abbey's interesting but, IMO, weaker books, Desert Solitaire. My personal favorites from amongst Abbey's books are The Monkey Wrench Gang and The Journey Home - books that treat the current state of affairs (wholistically) in more acerbic manner ...
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothing can beat teamwork. ~ The Monkey Wrench Gang
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. ~ The Journey Home
... which is not to say that Abbey is not in fine acerbic form in Desert Solitaire because he is. As this for an example ...
I'm a humanist; I'd rather kill a man than a snake.
... however, in the other 2 books he deals with real life things such as acting upon one's beliefs (The Monkey Wrench Gang) and personal life-altering tragedy (The Journey Home).
Now, to be certain, I mention this not to incite or engage in a literary debate / discussion. My reason is simply to put forth a few Abbey quotes that I believe are pertinent to many of the current problems we face in the political affairs arena. One that I think is very relevant is ....
There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.
... a quote that I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) is from his book, A Voice in the Wilderness. Now, if one were to substitute "the Tea Party" or "the neoconservatives*" for the word "California" in the above quote, I think that we would have a pretty accurate statement about the current state of affairs of state.
That said, and relative to a more wholistic view of the current state of affairs, it is my belief that Marx had it right in his book Das Kapital wherein he opined that because commercial transactions implied no particular morality beyond that required to settle transactions, the growth of markets caused the economic sphere and the moral-legal sphere to become separated in society: subjective moral value becomes separated from objective economic value. Political economy, which was originally thought of as a "moral science" concerned with the just distribution of wealth, or as a "political arithmetick" for tax collection, gave way to the separate disciplines of economic science, law and ethics ... The growth of commerce happened as a process which no individual could control or direct, creating an enormously complex web of social interconnections globally. Thus a "society" was formed "economically" before people actually began to consciously master the enormous productive capacity and interconnections they had created, in order to put it collectively to the best use. (from Wikipedia).
It is beyond my capacity to reason and to think that society has determined how to consciously master the enormous productive capacity and interconnections we have created, in order to put it collectively to the best use. Especially so in light of our current economic state of affairs which, in the opinion of many, is not just another "adjustment" in the marketplace but rather the beginning of the unraveling of many of the free-market premises and assumptions - a marketplace that, in its current iteration, is not being put to collective best use but rather for the best use and benefit of a very few.
And please, don't confuse or conflate the ideas expressed in Das Kapital with the usurpation and corruption of those ideas by governments whose sole intent was to create corrupt and tyrannical / dictatorial forms of government.
If you insist on doing so, keep your head in the sand and join the Tea Party with their Pavlovian rejection of all things labeled as "socialism" (so-called by the agent provocateurs of the neocon right).
*Abbey had no love for the neocon crowd - "Counterpart to the knee-jerk liberal is the new knee-pad conservative, always groveling before the rich and powerful, or, Our "neoconservatives" are neither new nor conservative, but old as Babylon and evil as Hell.
Reader Comments (10)
Amen, brother. The extra twist is that economists are by far the most numerous experts employed as advisors of government, so the truncated instrumental logic of economics becomes the common sense of our rulers.
> ...And then there is California.
So, who is to blame for the mess California is in -- the left or the right? ;)
"So, who is to blame for the mess California is in -- the left or the right? ;)"
Proposition 13. California was never the same after that. Even Warren Buffet thought it was a bad idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_%281978%29
I always wondered if maybe you were of fan of Edward Abbey. Here's one of my favorite little ditties (and there are so very many):
August 1959 - Albuquerque
Gawd bless Amelika
Land of the flea
Where the fat shits
And the big shits
On the multitudes pee
From Earth Apples, the Poetry of Edward Abbey.
After having you list The Monkey Wrench Gang as a favorite E.A. book I'm incredibly disappointed that subject didn't come up a few weeks back in Lake Placid. That is my all-time favorite book, and I have a hard time finding many others who appreciate it.
Re: California -> both.
Love the photos. Can't say that I'm in tune with the rest of your post, but find your opinions to be well stated and, at the very least, thought provoking.
what a young ingit your are, i guess you want those "wizards" in control in D.C. to decide our fates?
And please, don't confuse or conflate the ideas expressed in Das Kapital with the usurpation and corruption of those ideas by governments whose sole intent was to create corrupt and tyrannical / dictatorial forms of government.
How many lives of ordinary people did the great Communists murder? More than 6 million that Hitler's regime did!
Get a wake up call dude!
It really doesn't matter what ideology or religion people swear by. People are easily manipulated into evil doings in any culture with widespread acceptance of authority and control.
Blindness to inderect causes of human suffering is the primary reason that most of the world is a mess. While 1 Billion people in the underdeveloped part of the world are starving, 1 Billion in the industrialized nations are obese. There is no greater symbol of the great and glorious history of global capitalism.
As usual, I think you are a bit too polemic and demagogic. I guess that is the blog world for you? But still, that is part of the problem, people are more intetrested in shouting at each others from their own entrenched position than to actually try something new. Mixed economies like the one we have in Norway, Sweden and Denmark where you have a free market with regulations (few, if any, of the serious free market philosophers equates "free" with "no regulations" by the way) where that fits best, and a governmentally controlled system where that fits best.
It does seem to work quite well.