Can We Call This Progress?

[coberst]

Originally Posted by Griff

That is a nice smart essay, but to me the rugged individualist is nothing if not a problem solver. I'm going to hazard a guess that you're talking about global warming and population bombs. It occurs to me that heavy fossil fuel usage is more a result of mass society and collective decision making than individual choice. If you travel rural America you would note that people are beginning to choose wind power and would do so more readily if the collective stopped subsidizing fossil fuels. If population is your bugaboo just consider that without immigration US Americans would have little population growth. As individuals we've decided to have fewer children.

“In Mexico, farmers who noticed velvetbean growing wild in their fields used it to increase soil fertility and improve maize yields. In Northern Ethiopia, farmers reclaimed farmland from a river by constructing walls in the river bed and diverting the water flow. In India, an innovative farmer designed a tree plantation that successfully survived a severe three-year drought. Farmers' innovations have stood the test of time and hold the potential to meet the challenges of increasing production and managing the natural resource base.

During the last 40 or 50 years, however, many farmers have relied less on their own experimentation and innovation, and become more dependent on outside information provided through extension systems. This has had the effect of disempowering many farmers, as they became passive recipients of knowledge and technology.”
http://www.farmradio.org/english/pub...s/v2003sep.asp

The US began as a nation of individuals constantly moving west, moving from civilized areas to a new frontier. Such individuals who were capable of hooking up a wagon to a team of oxen and joining a wagon train going west through a wilderness filled with danger represents not only the myth but the reality of America. And Americans like to think of them self in this way although it is no longer true.

The rugged individual had no grocery store or hardware store close by when the need arose. S/he had to make do with what ever they were able to create to solve he immediate problem.

[coberst]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

A middle class MENSA, in tweed jackets with leather elbow patches, that discuss what's wrong with the world at length, but never actually DO anything.

What am I doing to solve these problems? I am posting important ideas on the Internet forum in the hope that a few of the readers will become curious and interested enough to become self-actualizing self-learners.

[regular.joe]

Originally Posted by coberst

Joe

The knowledge about human nature that is available but remains virtually unknown to most Americans is that knowledge that will allow one to answer the question "Why do humans do the things they do that are so harmful to all humans?"

Becker gives us a good look at such knowledge in his books.

Come now, you have answered none of my questions. You've only referred to another person who wrote a book. You are not coming across as very self actualized.

You would have me believe you know something that I don't, come forward and don't be vague. Please answer all of my original questions.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by coberst

Do you feel like a cipher in our culture?

I'm beginning to see how you might feel like a cipher. Maybe you should do something.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by coberst

I seek to make my readers conscious of important ideas. Consciousness of ideas is the first step toward gaining the knowledge and understanding required to comprehend those problems and possibly in dialogue with others to solve the problems discovered.

In other words: most people are so stupid they didn't know they had problems, but you are looking to A) explain to them what their problems are, and then B) to solve them.

(Your plan might not work here, because as you can see, I have a Bullshit-to-English dictionary.)

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by coberst

During the last 40 or 50 years, however, many farmers have relied less on their own experimentation and innovation, and become more dependent on outside information provided through extension systems. This has had the effect of disempowering many farmers, as they became passive recipients of knowledge and technology.”
http://www.farmradio.org/english/pub...s/v2003sep.asp

Farming is hard work, before dawn, till after dark... every day. Farmers don't have time for dialog, they have to do... right now.

For way more than 50 years, farmers have relied on the State University Extension Systems to answer questions about problems with livestock, and how to make their crop fields more productive, from the collective wisdom of all the farmers, the University contacts.

In the recent past, the increasing cost of chemical fertilizers/pesticides, and the growing awareness of possible health problems, have made a large minority of the farmers, want to switch back to a more natural (organic) method of farming. You know what, the Extension Service has that information too! They don't replace, just continually add to, the collective wisdom.

[Flint]

coberst! Quick, take my hand--I can lead you out of this maze...I'm a friend! You've got to trust me--there's not much time! :::slap::: Pay attention, man! This is vitally important. You have used the term "American" to define an intellectual class. Explain...think fast! . . . Bzzzt! Wrong! . . . Bzzzt! Wrong! . . . Trick question--there is no valid explanation.

And that's why everything else you have to say will be dead-on-arrival. People will think one of two things, #1 you're a self-loathing American who projects the microcosm of your experience upon the canvas which occupies your field of vision, ie.e the surface area inside your own borders (Herman Hesse was raised in the culture that gave us [Godwin deleted] but he didn't obsess on German intellectual inferiority in his novels) ; or #2 you're an America-hating European who uses America as a boogey-man for everything that's wrong with the world.

I don't think that either one of those positions describes where you're coming from--but it doesn't matter, because when you go throwing around "Americans this" and "Americans that" it sets off a red flag. Everybody knows that there are problems in modern society, just as there are problems in every society; and America being one of both of the above, it is going to have problems. Is that due to a magical force-field that renders American people a hive-mind philosophy? I might agree with that, except I'm an American! In order to posit that theory, I have to make the assumption of my own unique qualities.

And the point is that I can't logically attribute to myself a quality which renders me capable of analyzing the culture (global human culture) of which I am a part without admitting that I am a part of it. See? I'm here to make you conscious of important ideas. Oh, wait. Now it seems like I'm a pompous ass, and I'm calling you a fool. Hmmm. Well, I'm sure when you do it, it's different. After all, I'm just a loathesome American.

[Sundae]

Coberst, to expand on Flint's point from my own perspective. I live in Britain and most of the people I know are neither anti nor pro American. But if they (I) have an issue it is that Americans sometimes appear to think the rest of the world - savour that phrase - doesn't count.

If you're going to denigrate every single "developed" country for their lifestyle, at least acknowledge them. If your issue is only with Americans then you might find a better audience on a US-only forum. This forum is US-based, but thanks to UT and the intelligence and experience of the American Dwelars it is a welcome home to a small but vocal "foreign" contingent, whose views are appreciated if not always accepted.

Bottom line - do your homework rather then posting a set piece. This is a community, not a soapbox.

Although I admit I did read your post with interest and if you can discuss your views intelligently I don't necessarily need the elusive dialogue to take them on board. Welcome.

[Flint]

My only gripe with the foreign contingent is that you put a u in color and you call the wrong thing football.

Edit:
Seriously, though, it would never occur to me that this is an "American" board (I would think the mere idea of the internet itself would preclude that possibility); if anything, I feel that there is a predominate number of people here from the Philidelphia area (a residual quality of the Cellar's origins).

I mean...let's get down to nuts and bolts here, and attack the intellectual properties of people from the geographic region surrounding Philidelphia.

Edit:
First we have to determine the exact center of Philidelhia, and then measure the distance of each user from that point. A sliding scale of intellectual properties will be applied using an algorithm based on physical proximity to ground zero. Line up now, or be rounded up forcefully by our intellectual jackboots. This is for your own good (the first step toward gaining the knowledge and understanding required to comprehend [your] problems).

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by coberst

I seek to make my readers conscious of important ideas.

Good thing I am not one of your readers--I have yet to read all of, or even a majority of, any of your posts. However, you are now one of my readers. Sucka!

I won't tell you what I seek to make my readers do; that would spoil the surprise.

[Flint]

Shit! Now I'm one of your readers too!

[lookout123]

I R her reader and so can U!

[xoxoxoBruce]

I for one, welcome the Clodfobble overlord.... ess.
Beat me, whip me, make me read bad posts.

[coberst]

Humans are artifact adoring artisans

Humans are meme (idea) adoring creators.

Humans create symbols (abstract ideas) upon which they place value sufficient for killing and dying.

Americans create a flag (an artifact of cloth) which symbolizes the value they place in a nation (artifact, idea, meme) for which they will really kill and die (nothing artificial here).

Humans require meaningful symbols upon which to give life sufficient purpose for living, dying, and killing.

Because humans can create their own meaningful artifacts why does our species place meaning into such dangerous artifacts (memes, ideologies) as religion, nation, capitalism, communism, etc?

The freedom we have to create that which is meaningful to us is poorly used, why?

Why do we waste such a precious freedom on such dangerous toys?

We do so because we lack the courage (self-reliance) to go against the flow.

Our adaptation to society as infants and children has left us without the courage and confidence required to go against the flow of society. We have the freedom but not the energy and courage to overcome the blind habit of conformity.

We are not determined atoms; we do have the potential to do much better. How can we overcome what we have become and thus become something better?

We can overcome our present predicament by creating a new reality, a new set of meaningful symbols that we choose to give value.

Imagination is the instrument by which we can overcome.

[DanaC]

Our adaptation to society as infants and children has left us without the courage and confidence required to go against the flow of society. We have the freedom but not the energy and courage to overcome the blind habit of conformity.

Define 'our', 'we' and 'us'.

Personally I do not see a flag as being worthy of killing or dying for. That said I would take up arms and defend my country were it to be invaded. Does that make me a hopeless conformist? And what of the 'new set' of meaningful symbols? Will they be worth dying and killing for?

I get the impression that you believe humanity to be fundamentally broken. I also get the impression that the very last thing you would look to to fix that break is politics. Imagination is the instrument by which we will overcome is it? Overcome what? Overcome how?

Your posts hint at some deep philosophy but I fear in reality, they point to a lack of understanding.