>> Rather the opposite...what *is* normative is the family, the
>> band, community, clan, tribe, not the fuckin' Global Empire or
>> mega-corporate state.
>Now you are on thin ice. To propose something IS normative is shaky.
The family or its surrogates are normative because no human society is
found without it. It's the developmental history of any human being. If
you exist, for anyone who has ever existed more than a few hours at best,
you have had a family or its surrogate.
What is normative is our helplessness and our total reliance on others for
our sustenance and development.
>> It is a question of what type of society or culture is bearable,
>> meaningful and -- especially -- *necessary* for a fully human life, and
>> that does not scale well up the ladder of size and complexity.
>And what I have been doing is trying to come up with an idea of what it
>means to be bearable and meaningful. I tried to use the concept of
FREEDOM
>but you quite expertly and properly destroyed that but now I am using the
>concept of DESIRE to try and figure ouy what bearable and meaningful
means.
>Perhaps you have your own thoughts on the subject.
>> >The problem they agree upon: people are godawfully miserable for their
>> >entire lives and want this to change whereas other people seem to have
>> lives
>> >they are relatively content with. (Its important to point out that
some
>> >people are content with their lives so we know its humanly possible).
>> True.
>> >Where Night Fly and Sourceror DISAGREE is the CULTURAL programming
that
>> is
>> >appropriate to grant people the FREEDOM necessary to be less
MISERABLE.
>> (In
>> >caps are words which are not defined clearly enough to ensure
agreement
>> so
>> >watch out).
>> >Before I continue, am I correct in my assessment of the situation (and
if
>> >you re-read my post before this you'll even see the solution I am
>> advancing).
>> I believe the cultural programming is inherent in our humanity, but
that
>> it does not scale well.
>> The attempts at a resolution of scalability is the story of human
>> civilization. It is "dystopic" because we haven't achieved a solution
and
>> dealt effectively with larger cultural systems for maybe 6000 years.
>And the important question I have for you is: what do you mean "it does
not
>scale well"?
I have seen two kinds of dystopiacs. One despairs. The other advocates
and agenda for resolving dystopia, i.e., the "activist".
What is at issue is the creation of a harmonious society. If I am correct
that "dystopia" is genetic (i.e., the human condition) then that cannot be
accomplished by reasonable explication. Therefore it will have to be
imposed somehow. And there is precedence for that in our helplessness and
our total reliance on others for our sustenance and development. On the
scale of the family that works well.
We have our primate inheritance as well for precedence, and so the band or
gang, where the Number 1 Bull Baboon can immediately impose a resolution
of conflict.
Clans and tribes are elaborations of these two precedents.
But they do not scale well beyond that, although some solutions have
worked for a good long time, they are solutions we don't particularly wish
to emulate...or at least, I don't (I am in no mood to fall to my knees and
tug my forelock as the Czar's carriage rumbles by, muttering in awe
"Little Father!")
So that's the "normative" condition I see. That's why I see the breakdown
of insupportable congeries of social power called "cultures" or
"societies", not as fragmentation or collapse (the negative meanings,
always), but as a conservative return to the norm.
That is also why I see viability in subcultures (so-called) and refer to
the remaining empires and mega-nationstates as "redundant".
(__) Sourcerer
/(<>)\ O|O|O|O||O||O "The vale of human suffering is basically a dump"
\../ |OO|||O|||O|O --Sterling
|| OO|||OO||O||O
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