[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')It's kind of like what lawyers call the "crystalline nature of legal thought"; i.e., each issue has arguments that cleave in the same way that crystals do when looked at closely.

[yeahbut]

Nice topic Tex. It's a question well worth asking, because despite the thoughtful definitions provided in this thread, for most people the word progress has only one, rather less considered meaning- material growth and technological advancement. This orthodoxy gives rise to one of my most detested phrases(usually delivered during the discussion of the loss of an area of natural beauty to a housing 'development' or suchlike): "hey, ya can't fight progress!".

As has already been pointed out here, the notion of progress is entirely subjective. Most people consider the spreading of humans across the globe, and the ever increasing human utilisation of planetary resources and domination of the biosphere to be an inherently good thing and the embodiment of progress. A few don't. As one of those cranky few, I resent the hijacking of the very word progress to its current, generally accepted meaning, and for some time have been trying to think of an alternative word or phrase for the ever increasing growth that most define as progress. Any ideas? Something with less implied positivity would be good- regress? nogress? Sorry to go slightly off topic but man that phrase pisses me off...

[BigTex]

How about "infection"?

It reminds me of a great passage from Thoreau where he talks about how it's good to be able to sell your services or wares, but it's better to figure out how to avoid the necessity of selling anything.

Learning how to do without something, as opposed to learning how to do it more efficiently, feels the most like progress to me.

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'L')earning how to do without something, as opposed to learning how to do it more efficiently, feels the most like progress to me.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dinopello', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'L')earning how to do without something, as opposed to learning how to do it more efficiently, feels the most like progress to me.

[coberst]

Can We Call This Progress?

Rugged individualism might be an appropriate expression for all the creatures in the world, with one exception. Humans have, in the last few hundred years, moved from being rugged individuals to our present state in which we have fashioned an alien environment in which we have become chess pieces or ciphers. We have invented the Artificial Kingdom where, as Simone Weil once noted, “it is the thing that thinks and the man who is reduced to the state of the thing”.

I think that we, women and men, have become chess pieces. We have become objects to be manipulated by the market and the corporation. We spend our days like the chess piece; we have a quantified value and are placed on the board and used as desired by some one who may be a real person. The real person has still the human characteristics of creativity, spontaneity, improvisation, spontaneously reactive, discontinuous, a mosaic more than syntax or cipher. Just what we find is missing when using the telephone to contact someone out there.

In an effort to understand where we are now it might help to start back in time and move forward. In frontier days each person was very much an individual. Rugged individualism was a popular expression. Each man and woman was a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. Each husband and wife was a team that together could and had to do everything that was needed.

In early America we were an agricultural economy. Most families were farm families we were all rugged individualist. The farmer was very much the jack-of-all-trades and the master of his or her domain.

As we move forward in time we see this team become a man working in a factory or office and the woman was at home raising the children and maintaining the day to day necessities for all family members. She washed, cleaned, shopped, sewed, and was still much of a rugged individual. Slowly the man became a specialized worker in a clockwork factory or office.

Moving forward in history we arrive at the present moment where not only is the man working in the factory or office but the woman joins him there also.

When we examine the factory or office workspace we find a very different occupation for the man and woman than the rugged individualism of emerging history of human evolution. We no longer are masters of our own domain but are ciphers in a clockwork that functions upon modern economic principles.

A pertinent example of this mode of commodification is how we have converted what was political economics into the modern economics. Political economy is the study of social relations. It is the study of culture. Political economy focuses upon the problem of how to regulate industrialization within the context of a healthy society, it worries about the problems of labor within a context of the laborer as an end and not a commodity—an object of commerce.

Economics, however, in its modern form, has replaced political economics. Economics has removed the pesky concern about labor as being human and has replaced labor as being a commodity—an object of commerce. Modern economics is now the study of scarcity, prices, and resource allocation. Economics has legislated that labor, as an end, is no longer a legitimate domain of knowledge for economic consideration. In doing so, over time, society has become ignorant of such concerns. Our culture has replaced concern about humans as ends with humans as means to some other end.

In the rugged individualist mode of living the individual was creative and master even though the domain of mastery was small. An individual’s personality is dramatically affected. Labor has become an abstract quantity and calculated into the commodity produced. We are the only creatures who have completely removed our self from what we were evolved to be. We are the only creatures removed from our grounding in an organic world. We came from a long ancestry of rugged individualist and now reside in the Artificial Kingdom. To what end only time will tell.

Do you feel like a cipher in our culture?

[Hagakure_Leofman]

You seem to be looking for answers coberst.
That puts you in a distinct minority.

To answer your question from my humble point of view; I don't feel like a cipher any longer. There was a time in my life when I could relate to that idea - and to the other thoughts that clearly swirl inside your mind.

Consider this : those who control our food control our lives. So therefore, personal food gardening is a radical act, for it threatens to set you free.

[WildRose]

Coberst, for me, the most blatant example of what you're describing has revealed itself to me watching my kids in school over the years. I used to think that the school as an institution valued individualism and creativity, but as I observed which behaviors and strengths were rewarded and which ones were not acknowledged, I realized this was not so. There are forms we are supposed to fit into and many of us do not reach our potential unless we can develop our own talents and interests to the fullest. Personally, I have only in the past few years started to think more outside the stream, and I encourage my kids to do so, too.

[Hagakure_Leofman]

I believe Michel Foucault's work pertains to this discussion. Specifically, his Discipline and Punish.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?"

[coberst]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Hagakure_Leofman', 'Y')ou seem to be looking for answers coberst.
That puts you in a distinct minority.

To answer your question from my humble point of view; I don't feel like a cipher any longer. There was a time in my life when I could relate to that idea - and to the other thoughts that clearly swirl inside your mind.

Consider this : those who control our food control our lives. So therefore, personal food gardening is a radical act, for it threatens to set you free.

[coberst]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WildRose', 'C')oberst, for me, the most blatant example of what you're describing has revealed itself to me watching my kids in school over the years. I used to think that the school as an institution valued individualism and creativity, but as I observed which behaviors and strengths were rewarded and which ones were not acknowledged, I realized this was not so. There are forms we are supposed to fit into and many of us do not reach our potential unless we can develop our own talents and interests to the fullest. Personally, I have only in the past few years started to think more outside the stream, and I encourage my kids to do so, too.

[jdumars]

Coberst, nice essay!

I am not sure if you intended this or not, but you essentially described the rise of civilization.

When people lose their connection to their specific piece of land, it brings about a whole host of terrible consequences that spiral into what we have now. Things like separation of labor, factory farming, mass extinctions, all of these bloom from the desire to be greater than the Earth -- to see rugged individualism as beneath us, or savage.

One of the main tools of this transformation is hidden inside our language, which I think is something you were starting to get at. Language shapes perception -- and perception shapes thought -- thought shapes action.

In botany, there are what are called "toxic mimics" -- poisonous plants that look the same (or similar) to another nontoxic plant. This concept applies perfectly to so many parts of our lives. Think about an emotion or experience, then think about what language and culture tries to tell you about it, then look inside yourself and see how your own desires differ. Concepts like success or failure. Love, ownership, progress, advancement, education. Everything is twisted from something beneficial to yourself into something beneficial for someone else. Think really hard about that for a second, and start walking through the words.

[coberst]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdumars', 'C')oberst, nice essay!

I am not sure if you intended this or not, but you essentially described the rise of civilization.

.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('coberst', ' ')we have fashioned an alien environment in which we have become chess pieces or ciphers.... women and men, have become chess pieces. We have become objects to be manipulated by the market and the corporation.

[Ludi]

Homo sapiens did not evolve as "rugged individuals" but as members of a group.

The American ideal of the rugged individual paddling his own canoe through life is not a healthy model for most of us.

There are some primate species who are rugged individuals, but Homo sapiens is not one of them.

Rugged individual:





edited to try not offend

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'H')omo sapiens did not evolve as "rugged individuals" but as members of a group.

The American ideal of the rugged individual paddling his own canoe through life is not a healthy model for us.

[Ludi]

Oh I definitely think there are some "rugged individuals" - mountain man types, but they are relatively rare.

Most folks need other folks.


Why would you think someone who is different is "subhuman"?

I posted the orangutan as a rugged individual primate (they live solitary), not as a "subhuman" because I don't consider them subhuman. So I'm not sure where you got the subhuman part, mos.

You seem to dislike me discussing anthropology for some reason...

[coberst]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('coberst', ' ')we have fashioned an alien environment in which we have become chess pieces or ciphers.... women and men, have become chess pieces. We have become objects to be manipulated by the market and the corporation.

[shakespear1]

I like many of the ideas in this thread. They are in sync with my experience and interpretation of this experience. The idea of "playing make believe" is IMO spot on. The division of humans and the fitting of specific "dress" to their roles neatly fits in with the human species way of life as "playing make believe". Even at the primitive level (watched a documentary last night on a tribe in Papua New Guinea ) we can see this at play.

However humans adapted this mode of life because it was advantageous to them. I suspect being a rugged individual in a jungle for most would spell quicker death than being part of a group. The store of knowledge gathered by the group must certainly trump that of someone heading out solo and doing it all by themselves.

[Hagakure_Leofman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shakespear1', 'I') like many of the ideas in this thread. They are in sync with my experience and interpretation of this experience. The idea of "playing make believe" is IMO spot on.