i was walking in the woods the last sunny day I noticed activity as new life turned away the cold winter i ventured on supple ferns could be seen; in the glory mist of the last rain fall migratory birds could be heard against the perfume of sunk and with rising humidity i anticipated, nay smelled, distant rainbow formations the brown earth conceded space to the green dowry each step i took it was all harmony. the flora to fauna ratio being struck secretly, unashamed regulated by a dialectic of infinite knowledge (beyond my understanding) the forest matured again to its wisdom, and I was belittled the more nevertheless (and as I went on), somehow, I knew I belonged I allied with the yellow sun above. it reminded me of latent energy, its centrifugal force, a symbiotic pulling of photons by the demand below (the xylose of deciduous maple trees show indebtedness) meanwhile the rays, like single aggregators, not only stirred the dormant but activated myself too I, then, in the bask of rebirth, started to see contradictions not around me but of myself and those outside the eco-synergy I wondered why, that in a few passing hours, I must leave this sanctuary and go back to toil under abstractions of litigation and capital inensity when all around me, it seemed, that everything was taken care of by this amazing natural law it was only then that I hoped that upon leaving this forest I would be sufficiently charged by the very same sun to free myself and others
the lack of consideration is why people end up needing to make laws that are arbitrary in the context of natural reality. lack of consideration is a choice though. one too often mistaken for the very freedom it robs. sure, maybe a hundred percent of the people could never be a hundred percent considerate a hundred percent of time. but people deceive themselves when the tell each other it would take that. that more then the influence of culture on a simple majority would be required. a culture that didn't hate honesty, consideration and logic.
I'm glad you chose to reply @themnax. I will expand and ask some rhetorical questions that you or anybody may bite on. 1. the lack of consideration is a choice It sure is. But aren't careful thoughts first influenced by external phenomena/social apparatus, which are both functions of representative collective ideologies and serve as passive regulators that guide these considerate thoughts into considerate actions? What are ideas built on? Knowing from experience that set social norms and considerations are already conditioned by past interconnected and continuous activity of the collective taken as one, and dictated by particular social requirements and daily needs that correspond to it, we can then observe how these conditions and connectivity crystallize into a social fabric; where newly shaped considerations are fostered in accord with social needs. The ideology is flexible within limits and is held in confines within certain social parameters. On one hand, the parameter is breached when the social ideology and considerations of the sum total don't nurture the social relation in its reproducing of itself. It then becomes unfit. On the other hand, If the ideology is rejected, by some more or less, but still operates successfully in reproducing the normal social mode of reproducing then society will remain functionally intact. So will its shaken ideology. Though only for a time. But if taken beyond its functionality--i.e. hitting the outer limits then change is on the door step and can be seen manifested (chiefly) in the economic super structure of society. It is the economic base of society that ultimately fashion what social norms need to be for any given era. This functionality is graded by how well the social norm relates to and serves to maintain its relation of reproducing its own image over and over along the changing dialectic (social relations are never static and are always changing). These representation grades may not totally reflect-- in true completeness-- any one individual, but rather the core ideology still goes on to represent the sum of all individuals taken together in a society. The ideal is set. As each individual is guided/pressured by the same social apparatus and phenomena (some more, some less), many may change as single individuals but the collective ideal remains intact, so long as the social relation requires that particular social ideology. The ideology responds and initiates its change as the economic super structure evolves along technological, social-economic, political and capital lines. In other words, social relations change as the way we relate to each other change, which stem from and are guided by the way we reproduce our daily wants. Within reproducing our wants, then, is the foundation on which all our considerations flow into material actions. A social relation is first born in the unique quality of man to depend on others relative and outside of himself for meeting his needs. At that point he is social and his reproduction of daily life continually becomes a social relation. A contemporary example will help illuminate this point. It is can be observed in the US-- by its social/external phenomena/social apparatus in say, 1950s Detroit. Just 10 years prior in the 40's, the US manufactured war to come out of the economic depression. Detroit then, owning to its robust manufacturing capacity became what is called the 'arsenal of democracy' and a barer of the collective ideology that was needed because it was socially necessary for this self reproduction. Life was in orbit around this emergent norm whether an individual was a direct factory worker or a train hobo. He as an individual, even if he wanted, could not escape the emergent property of the whole--which rested on the economic base. The war saw the US become an overnight world power, militarily and more importantly, industrially. The US was an economic marvel. The US social fabric, in turn, changed dramatically from its 1930s economic structure by comparison, but did not do so in a vacuum or outside the spectrum of its past connection. Not outside is own dialectic. But yet a huge ideology shift was present that differentiated both periods as well as distinguishing all standard representative social considerations as either functional or contrary. What now pressured society would need to match its relations. In a word, the collective representative ideology changed naturally in stride with the way of reproducing society. The 1950s saw the family become vitally important to manufacture via the given technological state of production. Each member in the unit was needed to be united in a single cohesive unit. The family was to accompany and embrace the ideology and practice unique to its social relation. Further, each family (in general) had to be relativity prosperous to meet the demand of US capital investment and to act as the new mass consumer base to absorb this capital commodity, to turn capital over in its circuit. In 1950s communities, the social ideology and its phenomena reflected this in drastic ways. Suburbination was in full force. All the dreams of comfort and relative prosperity became realized and unmatched. The quality of life had been before an unseen, distant dream in the history of all Western civilization. This capital social relation paid back the worker a chunk of the social wealth in ways that will never again be realized in capitalism. It greatly dwarfed the ideology and considerations supporting the social relations of the bleak depression era. The emergent property (a unique quality only observed in the sum of all individuals) hammered out a relatively new social norm to maintain the new way in which the 1950s social relations were reproduced. It was under pressure to do so. To many the 1950s became the 'golden age', the culmination of Western application and practice. In keeping with our example, Detroit is now famous for being a mere shell of this former external apparatus function; its economic base has been dismantled. The old social collective ideology that rested on its old economic base (i.g. the big three auto makers and branches of industry in support) vanished and otherwise withered away due to a more autonomous reproduction schema that became increasingly dependent on technological improvements in production. The glory of the 1950s 'golden age' are still ideological dull points of pride, but yet remain a setting sun. Many fondly recall the life this social-economic relation provided in terms of family consciousnesses, security and relative freedom (in context to capital). It was, in turn, reflected back in their daily, individual thoughts on life in general. This era's collective consideration/ideology made up its sum total fabric--which rested and became dependent on its production. This fabric soon changed as the economic super structure sought technological improvements in its social production. Increased efficiency gave capital new avenues to acquire, new ways to reproduce individuals and new ways to recreate our social relations to one another. By the 1970s the core ideology of the 1950s was being thoroughly eroded by the shift of capital to overseas theaters, or otherwise destroyed (chiefly) by automation. This revolutionary and dynamic activity changed the social relations in the US forever. Technology developed enough to allow capital to break free of its shackles bound to high wages and lower profit margin. The high quality, high paid way of life that had been wrapped in a now old social ideology was mercifully ripped up. The increasingly unnecessary norms and ideologies necessary to maintain that life shifted as it was no longer the current reproduceable social relation. Soon, gone is the need of the 1950s quaint community. Gone was the need for a strong family for manufacture. Gone was the expensive concessions awarded to labor and all the cultural phenomena in support of its state. Today the mode of reproducing daily life is still dictated by capital, but its functionality is not US dependent. Value is not largely created in the US as it was relative to its peak. China on the other hand, for example, is experiencing an ideological shift of its own. Emerging is a new middle-class growing rapidly and its old external pressures, ideology and considerations are being molded by its new capital intensive economic base and need. Because of this life has changed drastically since it open its markets to foreign capital in the 1980s. Today already, Chinese social ideology is reflecting increasingly the similar supporting ideology that was necessary in the 1950s to sustain the US base. For example, China lifted its one child policy in the wake of the growing need to meet its huge economic necessities in order reproduce its new social image over and over. In short, more hands are needed to circulate the growing intensity and density of capital in Asia. Even though the 'nostalgia' of the 'golden age' today is and was always a dying ideal, it none the less lingers until the next cycle consumes its bits. In time the 'nostalgia' will represent a future point of departure, only to be replaced again by a more inverted ideal. It grows more mutated. Humanity is perfecting its amazing system of perfect oppression. We saw high paying middle class jobs of yesterdays capital no longer the same in number and no longer feasible in the process of capitals circuits. Many skills and many processes of reproducing daily life and daily social relations are now obsolete and inefficient to be of competitive advantage for capital. If follows that the family unit is no longer as important to the new emergent fabric, nor the ideology that was necessary to foster that era of capitals 'golden age'. Many are become divided among identity and cultural lines in the wake of the shifts in what we consider to be normal. What is never coming back is a capitalism that scales back its hard fought efficiency and high rates of profit. Capital, according to its own inner law, will press on and iron out new norms compatible to maintain its own health. Its needs that rest on today's economic super structure is met best by dysfunction and individual confusion. Thus new ideology, in steps, sets in among the sum total, the collective and as this is done the individual feels the pressure. He considers how to act within the new dynamic. Galvanized out of the sum total is a current cutting across the old social fabric, across all ideological strata. Men have become woman and woman have become men is an example. Yet, this is by no means the only example. The 1950s are roiling in its grave (this is not a defense of the 1950s). In conclusion: In the essence of things, what is considered a good social output via some considered good social input can in itself be fundamentally contrary to humanities best interest on an individual level and on the collective level. It is the individuals and their idiosyncrasies taken together that define the unique property of the sum; which in turn functions the social ideology. Our ideology leverage our considerations. Greatly beneficial to the economic base however, are these ideologies crystallized in the collective mind and are necessary guides to maintain the social relation. The interconnection here is a dynamic process. Its intent is bound up in its rhetorical devise, both are prominent features in binding social action to its master the economic base. What the base needs is for society to bend its mind to meet it. It follows from this that exploitation (for lack of a better word) can seem to be inherently good. On the one hand, as norms are established and permeate out, society naturally turns away from becoming a conscious observer of the debilitating economic base under its own feet. Why not destroy capital? Why not free the culmination of all human knowledge that has been objectified in the machines and technology for the soul purpose of profit and kept alienated from individuals for human need? Why not socially produce for society and not socially produce for the private few: capital personified a.k.a the capitalist. Destroy the capital relation and replace the capitalist economic super structure with a just structure. Watch how quickly social relations, norms and ideologies equalize out to human functionality. Women now want to be women. Men want to be men. Anything else would be contrary to a life worth living in a society worth reproducing.
i may take these one at a time, or more when i'm more awake. "A social relation is first born in the unique quality of man to depend on others relative and outside of himself for meeting his needs. At that point he is social and his reproduction of daily life continually becomes a social relation." this is by no means a unique quality of the human species, but is quite common among cooperative hunting predators of many species, and equally so of herbavours that form cooperative defense stratigies. on the other paw of course, neither is it universal. but its not some unique specialization of the human species. really just another evolutionary adoptation that some species have followed this path and some have followed others. canis lupis is an example of one that shares it. felis concolor, an example of one which follows a different path. people tie things together that have no other relationship then people being used to doing so, and used to convincing each other to do so. connecting an economy of symbolic value with the accumulation of objective knowledge, is an example of people doing so. the rather threadbare claim that if it wasn't all about money it would be all about guns, has one tiny problem, that is that it is because it is all about money, THAT it is all about guns. when people get tired of reason though, they burn the libraries. when the library at alexandria burned, it presaged the thousand years of poverty now remembered as the middle ages. i'm sure i'm missing some interesting points, which hopefully i will remember to come back to when i'm more awake to examine them more closely.
thank you themnax for the dialog, i am currently digesting your input and its giving me something to think about ...i do plan on replying to see how far this goes. so far so good. you don't have to hit point by point, just respond as you feel- according to your interest to do so -and where others may take the thread , if at all. it's good to get thoughts out in writing to help solidify what it is you actually stand for and believe. the concept of our natural evolution as a 'species' is also an interesting aspect that i see connected in one way or another to the economic base. still the that idea of evolution is as old as the hills. the Egyptian mind understood humans to be evolved from distant animals out of the great Nile river. i like the direction here..i hope to back
born in 1948, i was two years old in 1950, and 12 in 1960. maybe it was because i was a child, but the only thing i remember as being good about the 50's, and i do remember my childhood quite clearly, it being neither so painful to occlude, nor so easy to forget, was the abundance of public transportation, to and from rural areas, and the non-universality of building codes. this may also be due to my dad having worked in infrastructure, towerman/telegrapher/clerk, for the railroad, and this enabling us to live in small towns and villages in mountains, surrounded by forest, a long way from urban concentrations, which were mysterious places to visit for the fun of the trip and to explore. the other side of that coin, there was so much so wrong with the 50s, i can't for the life of me imagine, why anyone would want the kind of combination of conditions that prevailed, aside from the two i just mentioned. of course population was small enough, that a person of modest means, could live, and even find work, as far as they wanted to get, away from urban areas. and it wasn't until i was in my teens in the 60s, that i ever met an adult who wasn't able to read and write. but ideological fanatacism and prejudice of every kind, being winked at and even smiled upon, if superfiscially called naughty, is not my idea of any kind of utopian paradise. it was even the non-crime that people were treated like criminals for, to not worship self serving so called conventionality, or in otherwords, you could be locked up, and many people were, simply for the honesty of not being mundane. a few people would say imagination was a good thing, but fewer stil meant, or acted like they actually believed it. that was what the 'social revolution' of the 60s began to change. the idea that people could and should be honest with themselves, even when to do so, was at odds with dominant cultural assumptions.
