Thursday, August 21, 2014

All Humans Live Socially


We live in a culture. Of course we do; all humans live socially and in culture. And I think we live in a peculiar culture. But what name to give it? Isn't it more difficult to give a name to something that is peculiar? Should we give it a long word? A strange, funny word, or perhaps technical-sounding scientific term? Like: homo economicus! I know! Words are hard: Let's use a lot of math! How easy is it to find a word for something peculiar? Let's just call it “capitalism.”

Is it really "Culture"?

We live in a peculiar culture—the culture of “capitalism.” We can call it that. The “culture” of capitalism. It is neither here nor there. It isn't controlled by a king, or, a famous dictator. It isn't even ruled by democracy anymore. Democracy has gotten sort of weak and soft. Something has to control capitalism. Who? What? What controls capitalism?
     Nobody, apparently. There is no king—and there is no court, with its ministers of war and finance, jugglers, and the occasional “All Fools Day.” We've lost that thing where we let our hair down for a spell. There are only endless shelves of PORNO movies. But no overall theme to the society, you see.


     There are “deals,” there are “properties.” But who owns them? Individuals? Corporations? Corporate individuals? And there is still war—although this is now carried out mostly in other places, other, far-away and less wealthy countries who lack the requisite “development.” What is it, though, that capitalism has developed into? Whatever it is, is it doing us much if any good? Does capitalism help us make  the most of our day? Does it make us wiser or better or more compassionate? What does it do? What is it good for, this culture of ours?


 And what is the value of Milky Way bars...
 
 
[OK, so I repeated myself. So what?]

This is re-igniting.
This blog is being re-ignited. Everyone knows that in the world today everything is in flux. Everybody knows that so I have conceived of some method by which to pick where each text of mine is going to go. Now I am going to have three at once, the new one on WordPress (search for it, you lazy bums!), the one just called "Jack," found at the location: jacksilvermanpontiicates.blogspot.com
AND (doh) this one.

Here is the new post:



We live in a peculiar culture—the culture of “capitalism.” We can call it that. The “culture” of capitalism. It is neither here nor there. It isn't controlled by a king, or, a famous dictator. It isn't even ruled by democracy anymore. Democracy has gotten sort of weak and soft. Something has to control capitalism. Who? What? What controls capitalism?

     Nobody, apparently. There is no king—and there is no court, with its ministers of war and finance, jugglers, and the occasional “All Fools Day.” We've lost that thing where we let our hair down for a spell. There are only endless shelves of PORNO movies. But no overall theme to the society, you see.

     There are “deals,” there are “properties.” But who owns them? Individuals? Corporations? Corporate individuals? And there is still war—although this is now carried out mostly in other places, other, far-away and less wealthy countries who lack the requisite “development.” What is it, though, that capitalism has developed into? Whatever it is, is it doing us much if any good? Does capitalism help us make  the most of our day? Does it make us wiser or better or more compassionate? What does it do? What is it good for, this culture of ours?

 

And what is the value of Milky Way bars...