Keith,
When
is enough, enough. What do we do with our success? Run faster?
What is wrong with "resting on our laurels" and taking stock of just how fast
development has been and what have been the costs and benefits of such
development.
arthur
-----Original Message-----Ray,
From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, October 8, 2003 11:02 AM
To: Ray Evans Harrell
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: I'm trying! (was Re: [Futurework] A truce in the Nature versus Nurture argument
At 07:44 08/10/2003 -0400, you wrote:
Keith Hudson said:
It is no longer Nature versus Nurture. Each of us is a product of Nature and Nurture. Thus, each of us, by our own individual decisions can to some extent influence the way our genes behave. For example, it is possible for an individual to avoid an illness, such as a form of cancer, to which certain of his genes might have made him vulnerable by being sensible about his behaviour. Avoiding excessive sunlight is one obvious example.
At last, the third way. How wonderful to be finding your way out of the X/O duality trap of Western Thought. Now, how about doing the same for economics and political Socialist vs. Capitalist thought or is that too much to ask?
REH
No, it is not too much to ask -- because, at the fag-end of my life, I'm trying. (I have reservations about using "Capitalism" as a label, whether pejoritavely or otherwise. Every activity needs capital; even socialism needs capital. Immediately after the Russian Revolution in 1917 Lenin said something to the effect that what socialism in Russia needed more than anything else was an electrification grid.)
This is indeed what I am struggling towards -- one of my recent struggles being at the end of my recent posting "Lumps of unskilled labour".
I say, proceed with globalisation and free trade (and "capitalism" in the sense that you use the term, if you like), because if any people, or region or country doesn't and tries to isolate itself, then it will face penury. However, particularly in the most developed countries, there are many reasons to believe that social buffers and institutional instabilities are gradually grinding the whole process to a halt. Even if we are to say -- on the basis of sound polling evidence -- that we are distinctly less happy in the developed world than we used to be in the '60s and '70s. This seems trivial to say but it is true. Conventionally, if we are to listen to the orthodox economist, this should be an absurd statement. But it isn't. We have several times the abundance of energy and consumer goods than we had half a century ago but we are more deeply mired in daily stress and unhappiness than we were then. But it is not just about our daily happiness, of course. Our present institutions means that we are vulnerable to sveral different types of disaster.
But, in continuing the way that we are, we are at least buying time and are able to invest in scientific understanding -- of which, in my view, by far the most important is the investigation of what sort of species we really are and how we can get along in this wonderful world of nature around us more felicitously. Among all this we have to be able to honestly define, and then accept -- warts and all -- certain deeply engrained behaviours that were appropriate in times past but are dangerous now. We cannot go back to some arcadian past because we have already destroyed most of our bridges. We have to go forward. However, there is no reason why we should not be able to design societies and institutions which are more appropriate and which can marry ineradicable genetic dispositions with our high-tech systems.
We can never achieve this in a purely intellectual way (as I personally used to think when younger), such as by starting new political parties and new ideologies within the present system. Our emotions to try and keep what we already have are far too strong for that. However, once we start entering an era of increasingly expensive energy, shortages and social and political breakdown of our present sorts of institutions, then this will force us into new directions. It is then that I think we have a chance of getting away from the bands of iron that enslave us now.
But first, I think we have to be very much clearer as to just what sort of creature we are. Otherwise, we will continue to be a menace, both to ourselves and the rest of the natural world.
Keith Hudson
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk>
