In the theater of the absurd, the Republicans just keep taking center stage. What is staggering is that in this day and age an acolyte of Ayn Rand might be called the main intellect of the party! This just about tells us everything we need to know to understand why my previous post on the political (broken) system coming apart at the seams is a valid observation.
Rand's views on collectivism have been so thoroughly debunked by evolutionary psychology and systems sociology that it is truly hard to grasp how anyone who is supposedly an intellect of any worth can possibly hold to her tenets. Someday I will spend some time going over this area.
But now I need a break. I'm taking a week off and I don't think I will have time to respond to any comments from prior posts until after I get back. This last few weeks have been brutal, trying to meet some deadlines for various publications. So it is time to log off the computer and go see some interesting sights while they still exist!
George-
Ayn Rand was is often seen as the most strident of the Modernists. But most developmental research indicates that we can develop beyond this stage -- to a more communal stage. However, it is important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Modernists had good qualities as well as bad qualities -- just like every stage of development. "Spiral Dynamics" (google it) has helped me understand these stages.
On a related note... I am reading Karl Jasper's "The Idea of the University" and just a moment ago came across this passage: "The university, in turn, achieves self-knowledge only as it achieves objectivity." I would submit that all universities could use a little bit of Ayn Rand's philosophy. *As an institution*, they have failed miserably in dealing with the problem of not understanding the limits to growth and its consequences. It should have been their primary mission for at least the last 40 years.
Posted by: Matt Holbert | August 15, 2012 at 06:00 PM
The real fun ride will ensue in September (& from then on).
Enjoy your time. i'm going to try to make it to a N.J. beach and personally apologize to the Atlantic Ocean and offer myself up in sacrifice.
Posted by: Tom | August 16, 2012 at 01:52 PM
Why do you think it is absurd?
It is definitely theater but it is all by design to get Obama re-elected.
Obama is the perfect front man for the Oligarchy. He is slicker than Clinton and best of all a Democrat(even if in name only).
Don't even bother getting upset with the "political system" it is completely rigged and each actor in the show is pre-vetted by the real rulers to ensure that no matter what happens they will always have a tool in front of the public.
The USA hasn't been a democracy for a very long time...........
Posted by: porge | August 17, 2012 at 06:09 PM
Check out these titles:
Manufacturing Consent...Chomsky an oldy but goody about the media as the ultimate propaganda tool.
Democracy Inc....Sheldon Wolin
He coined the term "inverted totalitarianism"
Everything that is in the corporate media is dis-imformation designed to create a culture of dependent, fearful and ignorant followers.......and it has worked marvolously for the handfull of true rulers.
Let me ask you a question...
Why does a Nation have to borrow it's own currency from a private entity.
I will give you a hint to the answer........IT DOESN'T!!!!
Colonial Script
Continental Currency
Green Back Dollars
Even 1930s Germany issued their own government printed non debt based fiat based on labor not gold or any other privately owned commodity that represented the peoples efforts.
The whole mess of inequality starts with the control of the currency.
Posted by: porge | August 20, 2012 at 08:27 AM
marvelously
Posted by: porge | August 20, 2012 at 09:37 AM
here is an article on global 1% - the industries they are coming from, the organizations they spearhead and some specific names
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/the-global-1-exposing-the-transnational-ruling-class/?utm_source=Media+Freedom+foundation+List&utm_campaign=72cfb80560-Desperate+Times+Demand+Revolutionary+Measures&utm_medium=email
of course specific individuals do not matter but the institutions and structures do
back to bruce's postings:
only the beliefs and actions of those individuals that represent 0.0001% of population _matter_; the rest of us are simply "acted upon" (in the words of RIP Stephen Covey) even if we prefer to think that we "act"
an in so much as those individuals are unlikely to be higher-sapient human condition and the planet will continue on the evolutionary trajectory discussed by george and others here, in this corner of the blogosphere
as a species we are incredibly primitive and have a lot to learn
Posted by: Aboc Zed | August 26, 2012 at 06:39 AM
Take a vacation. All of these issues will still be here when you get back. Enjoy your sight seeing!
[Moderator edit: removed commercial URL]
Posted by: american home mortgage servicing reo | August 28, 2012 at 06:41 AM
When I first glimpsed the headline it read, to me, "After the Ryan pick - I need a vaccination!"
Posted by: Salient Green | September 21, 2012 at 03:37 AM