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Feb. 23rd, 2019 06:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Sometime life feels like a continuous Abbot and Costello Routine.
Or just trying to analyze the plot with a soap opera fandom...who apparently has the cognitive ability of Lou Abbot or maybe Costello, and I'm Abbot.
Highly frustrating endeavor. I finally gave up. They said..."Well, just keep watching and see what happens."
ME: Now, where's the fun in that?
2. There were two comments that I saw on DW today that...I thought, "YES, THIS, EXACTLY!, BEEN THINKING THIS FOREVER AND YOU PUT IT PERFECTLY!"
* "how so much of what seems individual is really social context (actually, more and more, I'm dubious that individual selves even exist...) I look around at our miserable society, and it seems pointless to blame individuals; it's not individuals who need to change, it's the context that needs to change."
Although I'd go even further to state that our cultural pursuit of individualism or objectivism as a reaction to communism, socialism and feudalism has led us astray.
In going so far to the right or towards the view that the individual reigns supreme, and individual rights, individual values, individual pursuit of excellence "trumps" all (if you'll excuse the pun) -- has taken us all down a destructive path.
I see it in the media around me. And realize that while nice in theory, individualism or as some may term it "objectivism" doesn't work long-term. We need each other, we are social animals. When we work as a team, collaborate to achieve a final goal -- while imperfect, harmony is achieve. While if we work as individual units and not sharing information and for competitive goals -- chaos ensures and someone always loses and is hurt in order for someone else to succeed.
This leads me to quote number two...which on my DW flist scroll falls directly below it.f
The idea that there are lots of things that are excellent/great/worthy of attention and that it is not necessary, and may be counter-productive, to try and limit them to a selection that is determined to be the [restricted number of] The Very Bestest Evah. Or to set up competitions as to which is the Ultimate In Its Class.
This quote was inspired by this Tweet - Rant: Our cultural obsession with what is "best" leads us to overlook the wide variety of things that are equally excellent"
I've been thinking about both for some time now. In the 1990s, I read Ayn Rand's Fountainhead (you don't read the book -- there's a good movie with Patricia O'Neal and Gary Cooper that says the same things by the way), and Atlas Shrugged (also a movie out, but skip both and just see the Fountainhead film) -- I didn't make it through Atlas Shrugged. Rand got preachy, I got bored. It happens. (Ironically as a Russian co-worker who read it recently point out -- Atlas Shrugged is about the privatization of a railroad or rather the fight to privatize the Railroad. If you've ever worked for one, you know why that would be a bad idea.Rand clearly hadn't. Nor had I, when I first read it.)
When I first read the philosophy of objectivism or individualism, I thought cool - individual rights! All hail the individual. But upon further analyzis, I saw the problems and pitfalls...if you put the individual above all, does that mean you put every individual above every other...and what happens to the individuals at the bottom -- does it become some bizarre class/economic struggle of the survival of the fittest? Also what happens if you decide not to help the people who you beat out to get to the top ..for whatever reason? What if they come down with some contagious disease, that you don't treat. Or their house catches on fire and you don't put it out...
See, I've begun to realize there is a definitive pattern to our existence, and we all play an integral part in it. Interwoven together in complicated tapestry...and if you pull one strand, you unravel it. We can't see the pattern, it may appear random to us or non=existent, for the same reason threads in a tapestry can't see it and see their role as meaningless.
How you interact with the other threads -- creates the pattern in the tapestry, and since we all have free will or all the threads do, the pattern constantly changes and is not stagnant or determined.
Individualism doesn't work in human society -- because one thread doesn't take precedence over the others, or can't be separate. Viewing the world as being made of individuals who aren't connected to one another and do not have a profound effect, most likely will cause societal collaspe == which is happening in a way or what we are beginning to see -- cracks.
Anyway...I don't know, just been tossing this around in my brain for a bit.
In addition...on the other quote...this societal obsession with being the best or what is the best in specific pre-ordained categories -- to the point that we have billion dollar awards ceremonies televised and give out statues to the so-called winners -- has gotten out of hand. And become rather silly.
There were a lot of films, television series, and books worthy of attention. To determine the most worthy based on a bunch of random people who happen to work in the same industry is well..silly and sort of meaningless and doesn't really advance our culture or help anyone all that much -- outside of giving the winning films undue attention.
3. Tired. Did laundry today. Had a little Bangladash boy try to help me. At least I think he's from Bangladash -- could be India proper. Doesn't speak a word of English, nor did his mother speak much of it. Some days I wonder what country I'm in although New York City is admittedly a country in of itself. He started to scream at one point and his mother had to come and rescue him from the laundry room.
When I went to pull my stuff from the dryer. He was back, watching the machines.
ME: You again.
Five year old Boy: Nata Wahta Mugga. Ayia.
Me: yes the laundry is rather interesting.
Mother: I'm sorry. (Something in Bengali) and carts squirming boy off.
Also put new sheets on my bed, went grocery shopping, bought wine (which I don't need but got anyhow..one of the privileges of being an adult who lives alone, no one can tell you what to do), talked to mother, and made corn muffins.
Groceries required a lengthy hike -- about a mile to and from. It takes about 20-30 minutes to get to the grocery store, longer back -- because lugging groceries.
Or just trying to analyze the plot with a soap opera fandom...who apparently has the cognitive ability of Lou Abbot or maybe Costello, and I'm Abbot.
Highly frustrating endeavor. I finally gave up. They said..."Well, just keep watching and see what happens."
ME: Now, where's the fun in that?
2. There were two comments that I saw on DW today that...I thought, "YES, THIS, EXACTLY!, BEEN THINKING THIS FOREVER AND YOU PUT IT PERFECTLY!"
* "how so much of what seems individual is really social context (actually, more and more, I'm dubious that individual selves even exist...) I look around at our miserable society, and it seems pointless to blame individuals; it's not individuals who need to change, it's the context that needs to change."
Although I'd go even further to state that our cultural pursuit of individualism or objectivism as a reaction to communism, socialism and feudalism has led us astray.
In going so far to the right or towards the view that the individual reigns supreme, and individual rights, individual values, individual pursuit of excellence "trumps" all (if you'll excuse the pun) -- has taken us all down a destructive path.
I see it in the media around me. And realize that while nice in theory, individualism or as some may term it "objectivism" doesn't work long-term. We need each other, we are social animals. When we work as a team, collaborate to achieve a final goal -- while imperfect, harmony is achieve. While if we work as individual units and not sharing information and for competitive goals -- chaos ensures and someone always loses and is hurt in order for someone else to succeed.
This leads me to quote number two...which on my DW flist scroll falls directly below it.f
The idea that there are lots of things that are excellent/great/worthy of attention and that it is not necessary, and may be counter-productive, to try and limit them to a selection that is determined to be the [restricted number of] The Very Bestest Evah. Or to set up competitions as to which is the Ultimate In Its Class.
This quote was inspired by this Tweet - Rant: Our cultural obsession with what is "best" leads us to overlook the wide variety of things that are equally excellent"
I've been thinking about both for some time now. In the 1990s, I read Ayn Rand's Fountainhead (you don't read the book -- there's a good movie with Patricia O'Neal and Gary Cooper that says the same things by the way), and Atlas Shrugged (also a movie out, but skip both and just see the Fountainhead film) -- I didn't make it through Atlas Shrugged. Rand got preachy, I got bored. It happens. (Ironically as a Russian co-worker who read it recently point out -- Atlas Shrugged is about the privatization of a railroad or rather the fight to privatize the Railroad. If you've ever worked for one, you know why that would be a bad idea.Rand clearly hadn't. Nor had I, when I first read it.)
When I first read the philosophy of objectivism or individualism, I thought cool - individual rights! All hail the individual. But upon further analyzis, I saw the problems and pitfalls...if you put the individual above all, does that mean you put every individual above every other...and what happens to the individuals at the bottom -- does it become some bizarre class/economic struggle of the survival of the fittest? Also what happens if you decide not to help the people who you beat out to get to the top ..for whatever reason? What if they come down with some contagious disease, that you don't treat. Or their house catches on fire and you don't put it out...
See, I've begun to realize there is a definitive pattern to our existence, and we all play an integral part in it. Interwoven together in complicated tapestry...and if you pull one strand, you unravel it. We can't see the pattern, it may appear random to us or non=existent, for the same reason threads in a tapestry can't see it and see their role as meaningless.
How you interact with the other threads -- creates the pattern in the tapestry, and since we all have free will or all the threads do, the pattern constantly changes and is not stagnant or determined.
Individualism doesn't work in human society -- because one thread doesn't take precedence over the others, or can't be separate. Viewing the world as being made of individuals who aren't connected to one another and do not have a profound effect, most likely will cause societal collaspe == which is happening in a way or what we are beginning to see -- cracks.
Anyway...I don't know, just been tossing this around in my brain for a bit.
In addition...on the other quote...this societal obsession with being the best or what is the best in specific pre-ordained categories -- to the point that we have billion dollar awards ceremonies televised and give out statues to the so-called winners -- has gotten out of hand. And become rather silly.
There were a lot of films, television series, and books worthy of attention. To determine the most worthy based on a bunch of random people who happen to work in the same industry is well..silly and sort of meaningless and doesn't really advance our culture or help anyone all that much -- outside of giving the winning films undue attention.
3. Tired. Did laundry today. Had a little Bangladash boy try to help me. At least I think he's from Bangladash -- could be India proper. Doesn't speak a word of English, nor did his mother speak much of it. Some days I wonder what country I'm in although New York City is admittedly a country in of itself. He started to scream at one point and his mother had to come and rescue him from the laundry room.
When I went to pull my stuff from the dryer. He was back, watching the machines.
ME: You again.
Five year old Boy: Nata Wahta Mugga. Ayia.
Me: yes the laundry is rather interesting.
Mother: I'm sorry. (Something in Bengali) and carts squirming boy off.
Also put new sheets on my bed, went grocery shopping, bought wine (which I don't need but got anyhow..one of the privileges of being an adult who lives alone, no one can tell you what to do), talked to mother, and made corn muffins.
Groceries required a lengthy hike -- about a mile to and from. It takes about 20-30 minutes to get to the grocery store, longer back -- because lugging groceries.