Eva Durant wrote:
>
> >
> > (1) Jay's predictions are probably pretty "right on", and it would
> > make good sense to act as if we were *sure* they were true, since, at
> > worst, such a strategy would maximize our chances for survival of the
> > human species and for minimizing suffering for those of us currently
> > alive. To *count* on "the human spirit and creativity" pulling
> > a big enough rabbit out of the hat to meet all our growing(sic!) needs
> > seems to me a foolish bet -- and highly irresponsible, since
> > it's a bet on which those who make the bet are staking 5+ billion
> > *others* lives and not just their own skins.
> >
>
> How can it be done without counting on that "human
> spirit and creativity" which is also selfishness/
> self-preservation once all those billions are aware
> of the problems? Even if we have all the brilliant
> solutions - forcing them on the rest of humanity
> against their will, won't work.
I can see where I might have been misunderstood here. Yes, we
need all the "human spirit and creativity" we can get. The
distinction I was trying to make was between deploying
the human spirit and creativity we have to working in
a "conservative" (in the sense of trying to conserve
ourselves from Jay's "dieoff") way, versus counting on
human spirit and creativity to *work miracles* (e.g.,
somehow sustaining planetary wellbeing through continued
accelerating growth).
[snip]
> > If our culture bestowed the highest honors
> > on people who solved problems of preventive medicine, minimizing
> > resources needed for production, etc., then that's what the
> > brightest minds would eagerly
> > work on, rather than searching for ever more
> > elementary particles in physics, devising ever more complex organ
> > transplant procedures, planning ever bigger corporate mergers, etc.
> >
>
> I don't like the idea of utilitarian research;
> of not doing science for science's sake,
> you might as well say the same thing about art.
> Particle physics and organ transplant research
> cannot be rated with corporate mergers.
> Obviously, first people should be fed
> and resources concentrated on survival-
> science, but if there are enough resources,
> science should go on wherever it wants to
> go, as most major breakthroughs came from areas
> that looked most superfluous.
> Particle physics could still solve
> our energy problems etc.
The directions in which science goes today certainly
are not just "science for science's sake". We all
see that where science goes depends on what can get
funded, especially things like "particle physics"
and the Internet. There is "steering" going on here,
even if by "market forces", and certainly anybody who
does "science for science's sake" into such areas as
whether there are racial differences in intelligence
finds social forces in their way. Surely it's not
simple, but it seems to me that if the "dieoff" agenda
really took root in our culture's imagination,
it offers all sorts of opportunities for persons to do
research that is both useful *and* intrinsically
interesting, just like, in our current mindset,
particle physics, organ transplants and corporate
mergers offer themselves to persons as things
that are intrinsically challenging as well as socially
sanctioned (utilitarian).
>
> > There is a phrase from medieval Christian monasticism:
> > "peregrinatio in stabilitate", which was reiterated by one
> > of the early Jesuit missionaries to China (a "space
> > traveller" of his time):
> >
> > To go on an adventure,
> > one does not need to leave one's native town.
> >
> > *That* seems to me to be the *hopeful* ideal
> > for humanity. And it seems to me to be powerfully synergistic
> > with Jay's and the greens' ideas.
> >
>
> I don't understand this bit. If we have enough
> resources, we should go boldly everywhere...
The point I was trying to make is that intelligent
minds can find rich opportunity for boldly exploring
without having to use up a lot of resources.
Perhaps Freud's explorations of "inner space" were
even more exciting than Werner von Braun's explorations
of "outer space" (I have purposely picked two
historically ambiguous figures here to emphasize
that there are dnagers everywhere -- lots of people
today think Freud's particular explorations of inner
space were wrong, and von Braun worked for Hitler before
he worked for "us").
My point was that there are rich resources in
our cultural heritage (I mentioned the contemporary German
philosopher Habermas, e.g.) which can inform Jay's
and the greens' "utilitarian", "boring", etc.
vision of a world in which instead of watching space
ships go out beyond the moon, we focus on the dirty
problems down here. But even this may be an
"optimistic" vision vis-a-vis such problems as how
to safely lay to rest Chernoble and all the other
pollution nightmares from the former "Soviet bloc".
These may require large quantities of persons
to be wounded and die in a battle against radiation
and toxic chemicals, and/or spread cancers (etc.) over
the planet. To the extent this proves true, then
the human spirit has its hands full just succoring
the victims....
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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