Ray Evans Harrell wrote:
>
> One of the problems is that it is not realized, or admitted, that
> communication and travel are the food of industry and should be as cheap as
> possible in order for the country to function as a society.
>
> The second issue is that, in order for there to be a healthy environment for
> the greatest amount of work to be done, there must be sufficent attention
> given to play. The human spirit needs play in order for invention to be
> operant at the highest levels. When the only play that is available is
> sexual or other forms of physical exstasy the problem comes, like with the
> rise of AIDS in the gay community years ago, in the limits of the human
> body. We should find as many different and complicated forms of play as
> there is work. You need transcendance, closeness, work and play. That
> is what my people believe and I do as well.
Of course my previous email was one-sided.
There is more to the story.
I would not dispute that communication and the travel of goods
are the food of industry and should be as cheap as possible, etc.
But I think the slave trade is over, and do we really want
as cheap as possible a world-wide commerce in the renting
or persons (The sixth post-Aristotelean element: "manpower",
AKA employees)?
I have no problem with FedEx, except for fedexing things that
could well wait for truck, rail or barge transport.
Of course we need play! Does waiting in airports (or
in traffic jams) really prime us for exstasy?
I disagree with you about an elaboration of sexual
recreation necessarily increasing AIDS -- and I would not
willingly bet my life on a condom. Is telephone or
even email sex something never known on earth? Since
sex, unlike REPRODUCTION (God bless the foeti!), is
in large measure even though by no means entirely
in the imagination, I think the situation here is
not so discouraging.
"You need transcendance, closeness, work and play." How
heartily I agree! But I also agree with Robert Musil,
when he lamented that more engineers did not have
mystical experiences in doing their more exacting
technical work. *There*, to my way of thinking and
feeling, is *one* of the ways up and out of our
present post-modern morass: The integration of
feeling and intellect in productive creative
work. As my computer genius friend explained to
his unappreciative manager:
When I am cooking a gourmet meal,
I am doing my work; and when I am
in the office I am doing what I
enjoy doing. [He said it far better than this.]
I am not at all sure there is hope for humanity.
The population bomb, the pollution bomb, etc.
may have gone off already and we just haven't
fallen victim to the fallout yet.
But I do think we know how technology and
"luxe, calme et volupte" -- Leisure which is
the basis of culture, without the need for
slaves (or wage-labor-rentapersons...) could
be realized in our lives on earth. To borrow
from Jan Szczepanski:
Credo quia non absurdum est.
(Please excuse the faulty latin -- the only
"classical education" I got was its
late decomposition products: memorizing
vocublary words for the sake of being
tested on whether I had successfully
accomplished the specified memorizations.
Hammurabi's children made their houses
of slavery's bricks, imprimatured
by some mad priests's imagined good:
The good is gone, the priest stamps on....
(--George Delury)
\brad mccormick
>
> Ray Evans Harrell
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "jan matthieu" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: "Ray Evans Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Mantle, Rosalyn"
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Anthony, David" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
> "Bradskey, Teresa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Cole, Karen Watters"
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Dawn Anthony" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Downs ,
> Jason" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Dunn, Darcy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "H, Joan"
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "harrell, jane" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Krueger,
> Jack A." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Sagowa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Sleigh,
> Ben and Roz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Watters, Valorie" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
> "futurework" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2002 1:05 PM
> Subject: Re: Whining (Pay the real cost for it! )
>
> > jan matthieu wrote:
> > [snip]
> > > On the other hand, and from my green angle, I think it's high time there
> > > comes a world wide tax on kerosine for planes.
> >
> > My feeling is that maybe air travel taxes should pay for
> > the cost of all the security measures to keep the
> > planes flying, and also pay a living wage to the
> > folks who do it.
> >
> > Teleconferencing eliminates the NEED for face-to-face
> > meetings between multinational corporation
> > executives.
> >
> > Vacation travel is a luxury. Let people pay its
> > real cost in comparison with other forms of
> > leisure (OK: "free time") activities, such as
> > having a glass of good spirits with good friends
> > in a place with a good view (or a good library,
> > or both or more...).
> >
> > I would be surprised if the percentage of
> > air travel that is actually necessary was
> > higher than it would be cheaper (and, surely: safer!)
> > to provide for their travel by chartered planes -- which
> > would have the interesting "side effect" of
> > making the conditions of travel far better for those
> > who have to fly. Occasional passengers can also
> > be accomodated on cargo planes (andf government
> > personnel could sometimes use military planes that
> > were already going where they are going).
> >
> > Of course, as with other addictions, we probably
> > would not want to go "cold turkey", but rather
> > do an intelligently socially managed gradual transition from
> > people flying around, to people flying only for
> > exigent reasons.
> >
> > Man, unlike the donkey, walks in a straight line
> > because he has a goal.
> > (--Le Corbusier)
> >
> > Three things are not possible:
> > The desire of the rich always to have more,
> > The desire of the sick for something different, and
> > The desire of the traveller to be any place but here.
> > (--Arthur Appel)
> >
> > \brad mccormick
> >
> > --
> > Let your light so shine before men,
> > that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
> >
> > Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
> >
> > <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------
> > Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
