This is an extraordinary piece written by author Ben Okri for the Times about the times we live in, I think it sums up something important, is beautifully written and is well worth the time it takes to read it. See if you think he is on to something.
Our false oracles have failed. We need a new vision to live by
Huge financial success has hidden the moral bankruptcy in our civilisation, We must rediscover our lost values or perish
Ben Okri
The crisis affecting the economy is a crisis of our civilisation. The values that we hold dear are the very same that got us to this point. The meltdown in the economy is a harsh metaphor of the meltdown of some of our value systems. A house is on fire; we see flames coming through the windows on the second floor and we think that that is where the fire is raging. In fact it is raging elsewhere.
For decades poets and artists have been crying in the wilderness about the wasteland, the debacle, the apocalypse. But apparent economic triumph has deafened us to these warnings. Now it is necessary to look at this crisis as a symptom of things gone wrong in our culture.
Individualism has been raised almost to a religion, appearance made more important than substance. Success justifies greed, and greed justifies indifference to fellow human beings. We thought that our actions affected only our own sphere but the way that appalling decisions made in America have set off a domino effect makes it necessary to bring new ideas to the forefront of our civilisation. The most important is that we are more connected than we suspected. A visible and invisible mesh links economies and cultures around the globe to the great military and economic centres.
The only hope lies in a fundamental re-examination of the values that we have lived by in the past 30 years. It wouldn't do just to improve the banking system - we need to redesign the whole edifice.
There ought to be great cries in the land, great anger. But there is a strange silence. Why? Because we are all implicated. We have drifted to this dark unacceptable place together. We took the success of our economy as proof of the rightness of its underlying philosophy. We are now at a crossroad. Our future depends not on whether we get through this, but on how deeply and truthfully we examine its causes.
I strayed into the oldest church in Cheltenham not long ago and, with no intention in mind, opened the Bible. The passage that met my eyes was from Genesis, about Joseph and the seven lean years of famine. Something struck me in that passage. It was the tranquillity of its writing, the absence of hysteria.
They got through because someone had a vision before the event. What we need now more than ever is a vision beyond the event, a vision of renewal.
As one looks over the landscape of contemporary events, one thing becomes very striking. The people to whom we have delegated decision-making in economic matters cannot be unaware of the consequences. Those whose decisions have led to the economic collapse reveal to us how profoundly lacking in vision they were. This is not surprising. These were never people of vision. They are capable of making decisions in the economic sphere, but how these decisions relate to the wider world was never part of their mental make-up. This is a great flaw of our world.
To whom do we turn for guidance in our modern world? Teachers have had their scope limited by the prevailing fashions of education. Artists have become more appreciated for scandal than for important revelations about our lives. Writers are entertainers, provocateurs or- if truly serious - more or less ignored. The Church speaks with a broken voice. Politicians are more guided by polls than by vision. We have disembowelled our oracles. Anybody who claims to have something to say is immediately suspect.
So now that we have taken a blowtorch to the idea of sages, guides, bards, holy fools, seers, what is left in our cultural landscape? Scientific rationality has proved inadequate to the unpredictabilities of the times. It is enlightening that the Pharoah would not have saved Egypt from its seven lean years with the best economic advisers to hand.
This is where we step out into a new space. What is most missing in the landscape of our times is the sustaining power of myths that we can live by.
If we need a new vision for our times, what might it be? A vision that arises from necessity or one that orientates us towards a new future? I favour the latter. It is too late to react only from necessity. One of our much neglected qualities is our creative ability to reshape our world. Our planet is under threat. We need a new one-planet thinking.
We must bring back into society a deeper sense of the purpose of living. The unhappiness in so many lives ought to tell us that success alone is not enough. Material success has brought us to a strange spiritual and moral bankruptcy.
If we look at alcoholism rates, suicide rates and our sensation addiction, we must conclude that this banishment of higher things from the garden has not been a success. The more the society has succeeded, the more its heart has failed.
Everywhere parents are puzzled as to what to do with their children. Everywhere the children are puzzled as to what to do with themselves. The question everywhere is, you get your success and then what?
We need a new social consciousness. The poor and the hungry need to be the focus of our economic and social responsibility.
Every society has a legend about a treasure that is lost. The message of the Fisher King is as true now as ever. Find the grail that was lost. Find the values that were so crucial to the birth of our civilisation, but were lost in the intoxication of its triumphs.
We can enter a new future only by reconnecting what is best in us, and adapting it to our times. Education ought to be more global; we need to restore the pre-eminence of character over show, and wisdom over cleverness. We need to be more a people of the world.
All great cultures renew themselves by accepting the challenges of their times, and, like the biblical David, forge their vision and courage in the secret laboratory of the wild, wrestling with their demons, and perfecting their character. We must transform ourselves or perish.
The Booker Prize-winning novelist Ben Okri will be reporting from the US about race and the presidential election for The Times on Saturday
Consolation in uncertain times
Consolation in uncertain times
"We are never so happy, never so unhappy, as we imagine"
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Consolation in uncertain times
Galbally;1039211 wrote: This is an extraordinary piece written by author Ben Okri for the Times about the times we live in, I think it sums up something important, is beautifully written and is well worth the time it takes to read it. See if you think he is on to something.
Our false oracles have failed. We need a new vision to live by
Huge financial success has hidden the moral bankruptcy in our civilisation, We must rediscover our lost values or perish
Ben Okri
The crisis affecting the economy is a crisis of our civilisation. The values that we hold dear are the very same that got us to this point. The meltdown in the economy is a harsh metaphor of the meltdown of some of our value systems. A house is on fire; we see flames coming through the windows on the second floor and we think that that is where the fire is raging. In fact it is raging elsewhere.
For decades poets and artists have been crying in the wilderness about the wasteland, the debacle, the apocalypse. But apparent economic triumph has deafened us to these warnings. Now it is necessary to look at this crisis as a symptom of things gone wrong in our culture.
Individualism has been raised almost to a religion, appearance made more important than substance. Success justifies greed, and greed justifies indifference to fellow human beings. We thought that our actions affected only our own sphere but the way that appalling decisions made in America have set off a domino effect makes it necessary to bring new ideas to the forefront of our civilisation. The most important is that we are more connected than we suspected. A visible and invisible mesh links economies and cultures around the globe to the great military and economic centres.
The only hope lies in a fundamental re-examination of the values that we have lived by in the past 30 years. It wouldn't do just to improve the banking system - we need to redesign the whole edifice.
There ought to be great cries in the land, great anger. But there is a strange silence. Why? Because we are all implicated. We have drifted to this dark unacceptable place together. We took the success of our economy as proof of the rightness of its underlying philosophy. We are now at a crossroad. Our future depends not on whether we get through this, but on how deeply and truthfully we examine its causes.
I strayed into the oldest church in Cheltenham not long ago and, with no intention in mind, opened the Bible. The passage that met my eyes was from Genesis, about Joseph and the seven lean years of famine. Something struck me in that passage. It was the tranquillity of its writing, the absence of hysteria.
They got through because someone had a vision before the event. What we need now more than ever is a vision beyond the event, a vision of renewal.
As one looks over the landscape of contemporary events, one thing becomes very striking. The people to whom we have delegated decision-making in economic matters cannot be unaware of the consequences. Those whose decisions have led to the economic collapse reveal to us how profoundly lacking in vision they were. This is not surprising. These were never people of vision. They are capable of making decisions in the economic sphere, but how these decisions relate to the wider world was never part of their mental make-up. This is a great flaw of our world.
To whom do we turn for guidance in our modern world? Teachers have had their scope limited by the prevailing fashions of education. Artists have become more appreciated for scandal than for important revelations about our lives. Writers are entertainers, provocateurs or- if truly serious - more or less ignored. The Church speaks with a broken voice. Politicians are more guided by polls than by vision. We have disembowelled our oracles. Anybody who claims to have something to say is immediately suspect.
So now that we have taken a blowtorch to the idea of sages, guides, bards, holy fools, seers, what is left in our cultural landscape? Scientific rationality has proved inadequate to the unpredictabilities of the times. It is enlightening that the Pharoah would not have saved Egypt from its seven lean years with the best economic advisers to hand.
This is where we step out into a new space. What is most missing in the landscape of our times is the sustaining power of myths that we can live by.
If we need a new vision for our times, what might it be? A vision that arises from necessity or one that orientates us towards a new future? I favour the latter. It is too late to react only from necessity. One of our much neglected qualities is our creative ability to reshape our world. Our planet is under threat. We need a new one-planet thinking.
We must bring back into society a deeper sense of the purpose of living. The unhappiness in so many lives ought to tell us that success alone is not enough. Material success has brought us to a strange spiritual and moral bankruptcy.
If we look at alcoholism rates, suicide rates and our sensation addiction, we must conclude that this banishment of higher things from the garden has not been a success. The more the society has succeeded, the more its heart has failed.
Everywhere parents are puzzled as to what to do with their children. Everywhere the children are puzzled as to what to do with themselves. The question everywhere is, you get your success and then what?
We need a new social consciousness. The poor and the hungry need to be the focus of our economic and social responsibility.
Every society has a legend about a treasure that is lost. The message of the Fisher King is as true now as ever. Find the grail that was lost. Find the values that were so crucial to the birth of our civilisation, but were lost in the intoxication of its triumphs.
We can enter a new future only by reconnecting what is best in us, and adapting it to our times. Education ought to be more global; we need to restore the pre-eminence of character over show, and wisdom over cleverness. We need to be more a people of the world.
All great cultures renew themselves by accepting the challenges of their times, and, like the biblical David, forge their vision and courage in the secret laboratory of the wild, wrestling with their demons, and perfecting their character. We must transform ourselves or perish.
The Booker Prize-winning novelist Ben Okri will be reporting from the US about race and the presidential election for The Times on Saturday
Every generation you get writers saying things like this usually lamenting the imagined loss of some mythical nut yet near past when things were so much better then they are now and the present generation has lost it's moral compass etc etc.
The most important is that we are more connected than we suspected. A visible and invisible mesh links economies and cultures around the globe to the great military and economic centres.
Ordinary people understand that far more than our leaders ever have.
We need a new social consciousness. The poor and the hungry need to be the focus of our economic and social responsibility.
Just look at phenomenon like band aid and all the help and money people prepared to give and demand that govt take action to deal with world poverty. ethical investment and concern for the environment plays an increasing part and forces companies to behave themselves as never before yet gets laughed at as ineffectual treehugging nonsense. It embarrasses our leaders yet still they don' take the hint. One lesson that you can take from history is it is ordinary people that push our leaders to make change not them that lead.
Basically I think he's talking a load of cobblers. Part of an intellectual elite that delude themselves they have the answers and lament an imagined better world that was never there in the first place.
Our false oracles have failed. We need a new vision to live by
Huge financial success has hidden the moral bankruptcy in our civilisation, We must rediscover our lost values or perish
Ben Okri
The crisis affecting the economy is a crisis of our civilisation. The values that we hold dear are the very same that got us to this point. The meltdown in the economy is a harsh metaphor of the meltdown of some of our value systems. A house is on fire; we see flames coming through the windows on the second floor and we think that that is where the fire is raging. In fact it is raging elsewhere.
For decades poets and artists have been crying in the wilderness about the wasteland, the debacle, the apocalypse. But apparent economic triumph has deafened us to these warnings. Now it is necessary to look at this crisis as a symptom of things gone wrong in our culture.
Individualism has been raised almost to a religion, appearance made more important than substance. Success justifies greed, and greed justifies indifference to fellow human beings. We thought that our actions affected only our own sphere but the way that appalling decisions made in America have set off a domino effect makes it necessary to bring new ideas to the forefront of our civilisation. The most important is that we are more connected than we suspected. A visible and invisible mesh links economies and cultures around the globe to the great military and economic centres.
The only hope lies in a fundamental re-examination of the values that we have lived by in the past 30 years. It wouldn't do just to improve the banking system - we need to redesign the whole edifice.
There ought to be great cries in the land, great anger. But there is a strange silence. Why? Because we are all implicated. We have drifted to this dark unacceptable place together. We took the success of our economy as proof of the rightness of its underlying philosophy. We are now at a crossroad. Our future depends not on whether we get through this, but on how deeply and truthfully we examine its causes.
I strayed into the oldest church in Cheltenham not long ago and, with no intention in mind, opened the Bible. The passage that met my eyes was from Genesis, about Joseph and the seven lean years of famine. Something struck me in that passage. It was the tranquillity of its writing, the absence of hysteria.
They got through because someone had a vision before the event. What we need now more than ever is a vision beyond the event, a vision of renewal.
As one looks over the landscape of contemporary events, one thing becomes very striking. The people to whom we have delegated decision-making in economic matters cannot be unaware of the consequences. Those whose decisions have led to the economic collapse reveal to us how profoundly lacking in vision they were. This is not surprising. These were never people of vision. They are capable of making decisions in the economic sphere, but how these decisions relate to the wider world was never part of their mental make-up. This is a great flaw of our world.
To whom do we turn for guidance in our modern world? Teachers have had their scope limited by the prevailing fashions of education. Artists have become more appreciated for scandal than for important revelations about our lives. Writers are entertainers, provocateurs or- if truly serious - more or less ignored. The Church speaks with a broken voice. Politicians are more guided by polls than by vision. We have disembowelled our oracles. Anybody who claims to have something to say is immediately suspect.
So now that we have taken a blowtorch to the idea of sages, guides, bards, holy fools, seers, what is left in our cultural landscape? Scientific rationality has proved inadequate to the unpredictabilities of the times. It is enlightening that the Pharoah would not have saved Egypt from its seven lean years with the best economic advisers to hand.
This is where we step out into a new space. What is most missing in the landscape of our times is the sustaining power of myths that we can live by.
If we need a new vision for our times, what might it be? A vision that arises from necessity or one that orientates us towards a new future? I favour the latter. It is too late to react only from necessity. One of our much neglected qualities is our creative ability to reshape our world. Our planet is under threat. We need a new one-planet thinking.
We must bring back into society a deeper sense of the purpose of living. The unhappiness in so many lives ought to tell us that success alone is not enough. Material success has brought us to a strange spiritual and moral bankruptcy.
If we look at alcoholism rates, suicide rates and our sensation addiction, we must conclude that this banishment of higher things from the garden has not been a success. The more the society has succeeded, the more its heart has failed.
Everywhere parents are puzzled as to what to do with their children. Everywhere the children are puzzled as to what to do with themselves. The question everywhere is, you get your success and then what?
We need a new social consciousness. The poor and the hungry need to be the focus of our economic and social responsibility.
Every society has a legend about a treasure that is lost. The message of the Fisher King is as true now as ever. Find the grail that was lost. Find the values that were so crucial to the birth of our civilisation, but were lost in the intoxication of its triumphs.
We can enter a new future only by reconnecting what is best in us, and adapting it to our times. Education ought to be more global; we need to restore the pre-eminence of character over show, and wisdom over cleverness. We need to be more a people of the world.
All great cultures renew themselves by accepting the challenges of their times, and, like the biblical David, forge their vision and courage in the secret laboratory of the wild, wrestling with their demons, and perfecting their character. We must transform ourselves or perish.
The Booker Prize-winning novelist Ben Okri will be reporting from the US about race and the presidential election for The Times on Saturday
Every generation you get writers saying things like this usually lamenting the imagined loss of some mythical nut yet near past when things were so much better then they are now and the present generation has lost it's moral compass etc etc.
The most important is that we are more connected than we suspected. A visible and invisible mesh links economies and cultures around the globe to the great military and economic centres.
Ordinary people understand that far more than our leaders ever have.
We need a new social consciousness. The poor and the hungry need to be the focus of our economic and social responsibility.
Just look at phenomenon like band aid and all the help and money people prepared to give and demand that govt take action to deal with world poverty. ethical investment and concern for the environment plays an increasing part and forces companies to behave themselves as never before yet gets laughed at as ineffectual treehugging nonsense. It embarrasses our leaders yet still they don' take the hint. One lesson that you can take from history is it is ordinary people that push our leaders to make change not them that lead.
Basically I think he's talking a load of cobblers. Part of an intellectual elite that delude themselves they have the answers and lament an imagined better world that was never there in the first place.
Consolation in uncertain times
In general I would tend to agree with your overall viewpoint about intellectual pomposity; however, on this occasion I do not. I really think he has a point in that we are quite lost as a civilization in many ways, and I think we have ditched a lot of what is important in a rush to luxury and inanity, but above all to a sanitized existence where we can exist as disinterested spectators with no direct experience of whats happening, its like JJ Ballard or something. The result has turned Western society into a cauldron of irresponsibility, complacency, ignorance, and arrogance, a heady mix indeed.
I put it to you like this, a culture swimming to find meaning or reason in what it values can wage a brutal war as entertainment for the news, put in beside celebrity gossip and cures for indigestion, while distracted, jaded citizens watch such events like they are another video game or violent movie (to excite their over-indulged emotionally-dead palate) is a culture that doesn't place much value on the consequences of its decisions.
One of the reasons people in the West find it so hard to understand Islamic extremists is that they are motivated by human emotions and impulses that we have deluded ourselves are things of a pre-technological past, and that we have dispensed with because we are so clever and sophisticated.
We live in a culture where only the value of money is seen as having any real meaning, ideals and ideas are something to be avoided, government is just about mananging an economy, countries are just economies, people are just part of an economy that exists to service itself, where young girls become sex objects from about 10 as it sells things, young boys are encouraged to be violent thugs or vacuous feminized airheads, celebrated for their idiocy, supineness, and/or brutality.
Morality is made into a joke, buying things is seen as giving people meaning to their lives, people who actually have religious beliefs are considered to be dangerous subversives, where our cathedrals are shopping malls full of mostly useless products for people who are killing themselves emotionally and physically through their consumption trying to fill empty lives.
We have dispensed with ideas of personal humility, moral restraint, self-denial, and the acceptance of life on its own terms anf replaced them with no-nothing ego-ism, the dream of getting rich quick and getting something for nothing, self-absorption, self-acclamation, the celebration of ignorance and inanity; and unlimited self-aggrandisment.
Now, (given that the rotten house of cards is collapsing as we don't do any of the real labour for ourselves anymore), our middle-classes bleat because they can't have all of the ridiculous levels of luxury they have become used to as if they desrved them simply by existing. Something has gone deeply wrong.
I don't think its a particularly new thing either, but it is usually followed by civilizational decay and retreat, which is precisely what we are witnessing now.
Where I disagree with him is that what we need are "global" solutions is wrong. The time of the Wests global pretentions are over, what we need are solutions for Europe and America and the other parts of the world that are Western culturally and ethnically. Basically we have to decide whether we want to work for a living ourselves or continue to live off the work of others.
Whether we are going to actually take on difficult challenges such as climate change, or globalization, clashes of civilizations and have the self-belief to do it wholeheartedly in the knowledge that it may cost us but its all worth doing, is now the question of our times. Our spoiled generations response and certainly the one of the next one coming may well be what defines the end or the renewal of the Western world. Let the other great civilizations and peoples of this world use their own answers, which they will anyway, and perhaps their answers are better than ours nowadays, we seem to be a bit bankrupt in the ideas department lately.
I put it to you like this, a culture swimming to find meaning or reason in what it values can wage a brutal war as entertainment for the news, put in beside celebrity gossip and cures for indigestion, while distracted, jaded citizens watch such events like they are another video game or violent movie (to excite their over-indulged emotionally-dead palate) is a culture that doesn't place much value on the consequences of its decisions.
One of the reasons people in the West find it so hard to understand Islamic extremists is that they are motivated by human emotions and impulses that we have deluded ourselves are things of a pre-technological past, and that we have dispensed with because we are so clever and sophisticated.
We live in a culture where only the value of money is seen as having any real meaning, ideals and ideas are something to be avoided, government is just about mananging an economy, countries are just economies, people are just part of an economy that exists to service itself, where young girls become sex objects from about 10 as it sells things, young boys are encouraged to be violent thugs or vacuous feminized airheads, celebrated for their idiocy, supineness, and/or brutality.
Morality is made into a joke, buying things is seen as giving people meaning to their lives, people who actually have religious beliefs are considered to be dangerous subversives, where our cathedrals are shopping malls full of mostly useless products for people who are killing themselves emotionally and physically through their consumption trying to fill empty lives.
We have dispensed with ideas of personal humility, moral restraint, self-denial, and the acceptance of life on its own terms anf replaced them with no-nothing ego-ism, the dream of getting rich quick and getting something for nothing, self-absorption, self-acclamation, the celebration of ignorance and inanity; and unlimited self-aggrandisment.
Now, (given that the rotten house of cards is collapsing as we don't do any of the real labour for ourselves anymore), our middle-classes bleat because they can't have all of the ridiculous levels of luxury they have become used to as if they desrved them simply by existing. Something has gone deeply wrong.
I don't think its a particularly new thing either, but it is usually followed by civilizational decay and retreat, which is precisely what we are witnessing now.
Where I disagree with him is that what we need are "global" solutions is wrong. The time of the Wests global pretentions are over, what we need are solutions for Europe and America and the other parts of the world that are Western culturally and ethnically. Basically we have to decide whether we want to work for a living ourselves or continue to live off the work of others.
Whether we are going to actually take on difficult challenges such as climate change, or globalization, clashes of civilizations and have the self-belief to do it wholeheartedly in the knowledge that it may cost us but its all worth doing, is now the question of our times. Our spoiled generations response and certainly the one of the next one coming may well be what defines the end or the renewal of the Western world. Let the other great civilizations and peoples of this world use their own answers, which they will anyway, and perhaps their answers are better than ours nowadays, we seem to be a bit bankrupt in the ideas department lately.
"We are never so happy, never so unhappy, as we imagine"
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Consolation in uncertain times
I think that it is very well thought out and very well written. There are many points that I agree with. The idea of having heroes to look up to these days are all but gone, fame has been replaced with notoriety and there are many things that are not right.
However, there are many things that are going well.
The world is more global, and people react worldwide when there crisis, look at the response to the tsunami in the Indian ocean in 2004, the earthquake in Turkey and Pakistan, the earthquake in China, the response to Hurricane Katrina.
There is more and more work being done to fight starvation, although in many cases it feels like it is failing, but this is more due to local corruption and internal conflict that the lack of people trying.
Yes, the rich has gotten richer, but more people have moved into the ‘middle class’ than ever before, and although there are many that fall into the definition of ‘poor’ in our society, the poor are not nearly as poor as they use to be as there are very good social welfare programs in many countries.
I agree that we are at a cross roads in global society, people are losing their tolerance for war, I think that this is where the states, and even Russia are not in tune anymore, the world no longer admires the strongest kid in the yard, they are now seen as the bully and people are sticking up for the underdogs.
The environment is in daily conversations like never before, which is a good thing, but again it leads to major decision on how we want our future world to be, that is the reason behind the whole ‘drill baby drill’ debate. Is it more of the same, or do we as a global society say no, we don’t want to rely on the same resources that got into this situation anymore, we want investment into natural renewable energy.
But this comes with sacrifice. A community here in Ireland managed to stop a project on off shore wind power, because it would ‘ruin the view’ even though the turbines would have been 5 miles out. Everyone wants change, but just as long as it does not impact them.
So at a cross roads, yes, but is it as bleak as outlined in this authors writing, I don’t think so.
I remain hopeful.
However, there are many things that are going well.
The world is more global, and people react worldwide when there crisis, look at the response to the tsunami in the Indian ocean in 2004, the earthquake in Turkey and Pakistan, the earthquake in China, the response to Hurricane Katrina.
There is more and more work being done to fight starvation, although in many cases it feels like it is failing, but this is more due to local corruption and internal conflict that the lack of people trying.
Yes, the rich has gotten richer, but more people have moved into the ‘middle class’ than ever before, and although there are many that fall into the definition of ‘poor’ in our society, the poor are not nearly as poor as they use to be as there are very good social welfare programs in many countries.
I agree that we are at a cross roads in global society, people are losing their tolerance for war, I think that this is where the states, and even Russia are not in tune anymore, the world no longer admires the strongest kid in the yard, they are now seen as the bully and people are sticking up for the underdogs.
The environment is in daily conversations like never before, which is a good thing, but again it leads to major decision on how we want our future world to be, that is the reason behind the whole ‘drill baby drill’ debate. Is it more of the same, or do we as a global society say no, we don’t want to rely on the same resources that got into this situation anymore, we want investment into natural renewable energy.
But this comes with sacrifice. A community here in Ireland managed to stop a project on off shore wind power, because it would ‘ruin the view’ even though the turbines would have been 5 miles out. Everyone wants change, but just as long as it does not impact them.
So at a cross roads, yes, but is it as bleak as outlined in this authors writing, I don’t think so.
I remain hopeful.
Consolation in uncertain times
mikeinie;1039260 wrote: I think that it is very well thought out and very well written. There are many points that I agree with. The idea of having heroes to look up to these days are all but gone, fame has been replaced with notoriety and there are many things that are not right.
However, there are many things that are going well.
The world is more global, and people react worldwide when there crisis, look at the response to the tsunami in the Indian ocean in 2004, the earthquake in Turkey and Pakistan, the earthquake in China, the response to Hurricane Katrina.
There is more and more work being done to fight starvation, although in many cases it feels like it is failing, but this is more due to local corruption and internal conflict that the lack of people trying.
Yes, the rich has gotten richer, but more people have moved into the ‘middle class’ than ever before, and although there are many that fall into the definition of ‘poor’ in our society, the poor are not nearly as poor as they use to be as there are very good social welfare programs in many countries.
I agree that we are at a cross roads in global society, people are losing their tolerance for war, I think that this is where the states, and even Russia are not in tune anymore, the world no longer admires the strongest kid in the yard, they are now seen as the bully and people are sticking up for the underdogs.
The environment is in daily conversations like never before, which is a good thing, but again it leads to major decision on how we want our future world to be, that is the reason behind the whole ‘drill baby drill’ debate. Is it more of the same, or do we as a global society say no, we don’t want to rely on the same resources that got into this situation anymore, we want investment into natural renewable energy.
But this comes with sacrifice. A community here in Ireland managed to stop a project on off shore wind power, because it would ‘ruin the view’ even though the turbines would have been 5 miles out. Everyone wants change, but just as long as it does not impact them.
So at a cross roads, yes, but is it as bleak as outlined in this authors writing, I don’t think so.
I remain hopeful.
Oh certainly giving into despair, or thinking that we are at some point in history that is somehow "special" are not wise. There is still much to be positive about, and as GMC says, many ordinary people are a lot less deluded than their leaders and of course also periods of rapid change can be hugely positive as well as hugely negative. I just hope that we start taking things a little more seriously once more, and stop this nonsensical way of living we have sort of fallen into collectively and indivdually.
When I think about it, there are aspects of the economic crisis that may in the long term be seen as something positive, where the party mood ended and their was a collective recognition that just because we ignore problems or expect them to not effect us, that is doesn't mean that we are safe from the consequences. Thats imperative particularly with climate change, as people just seem to be in total denial about the reality of it, or the implications, this credit crunch might help underline the point that if you ignore problems, they tend to grow and eventually become uncontrollable.
However, there are many things that are going well.
The world is more global, and people react worldwide when there crisis, look at the response to the tsunami in the Indian ocean in 2004, the earthquake in Turkey and Pakistan, the earthquake in China, the response to Hurricane Katrina.
There is more and more work being done to fight starvation, although in many cases it feels like it is failing, but this is more due to local corruption and internal conflict that the lack of people trying.
Yes, the rich has gotten richer, but more people have moved into the ‘middle class’ than ever before, and although there are many that fall into the definition of ‘poor’ in our society, the poor are not nearly as poor as they use to be as there are very good social welfare programs in many countries.
I agree that we are at a cross roads in global society, people are losing their tolerance for war, I think that this is where the states, and even Russia are not in tune anymore, the world no longer admires the strongest kid in the yard, they are now seen as the bully and people are sticking up for the underdogs.
The environment is in daily conversations like never before, which is a good thing, but again it leads to major decision on how we want our future world to be, that is the reason behind the whole ‘drill baby drill’ debate. Is it more of the same, or do we as a global society say no, we don’t want to rely on the same resources that got into this situation anymore, we want investment into natural renewable energy.
But this comes with sacrifice. A community here in Ireland managed to stop a project on off shore wind power, because it would ‘ruin the view’ even though the turbines would have been 5 miles out. Everyone wants change, but just as long as it does not impact them.
So at a cross roads, yes, but is it as bleak as outlined in this authors writing, I don’t think so.
I remain hopeful.
Oh certainly giving into despair, or thinking that we are at some point in history that is somehow "special" are not wise. There is still much to be positive about, and as GMC says, many ordinary people are a lot less deluded than their leaders and of course also periods of rapid change can be hugely positive as well as hugely negative. I just hope that we start taking things a little more seriously once more, and stop this nonsensical way of living we have sort of fallen into collectively and indivdually.
When I think about it, there are aspects of the economic crisis that may in the long term be seen as something positive, where the party mood ended and their was a collective recognition that just because we ignore problems or expect them to not effect us, that is doesn't mean that we are safe from the consequences. Thats imperative particularly with climate change, as people just seem to be in total denial about the reality of it, or the implications, this credit crunch might help underline the point that if you ignore problems, they tend to grow and eventually become uncontrollable.
"We are never so happy, never so unhappy, as we imagine"
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
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QUINNSCOMMENTARY
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Consolation in uncertain times
We need a new social consciousness. The poor and the hungry need to be the focus of our economic and social responsibility.
This could have been written a thousand years ago, two hundred years ago or any point in the middle. When haven't the poor and hungry not been a focus? How many institutions are now in place to help with this problem and yet over the centuries it still exists?
We look in the wrong place for the solution. A thriving economy is the only way to solve the problem. The key is to find a better way to involve the poor in a growing economy, not to bash the robust economy as part of the problem.
Doesn't it all come down to people really, really caring about the problem as opposed to the supposed socially conscious railing about it year after year?
This could have been written a thousand years ago, two hundred years ago or any point in the middle. When haven't the poor and hungry not been a focus? How many institutions are now in place to help with this problem and yet over the centuries it still exists?
We look in the wrong place for the solution. A thriving economy is the only way to solve the problem. The key is to find a better way to involve the poor in a growing economy, not to bash the robust economy as part of the problem.
Doesn't it all come down to people really, really caring about the problem as opposed to the supposed socially conscious railing about it year after year?
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." George Bernard Shaw
"If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody is not thinking" Gen. George Patton
Quinnscommentary
Observations on Life. Give it a try now and tell a friend or two or fifty.
Quinnscommentary Blog
"If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody is not thinking" Gen. George Patton
Quinnscommentary
Observations on Life. Give it a try now and tell a friend or two or fifty.
Quinnscommentary Blog
Consolation in uncertain times
posted by quinns commentary
We look in the wrong place for the solution. A thriving economy is the only way to solve the problem. The key is to find a better way to involve the poor in a growing economy, not to bash the robust economy as part of the problem.
We didn't have a thriving economy, that's the problem, but one built on illusion sold on as good security to create imaginary wealth.
We look in the wrong place for the solution. A thriving economy is the only way to solve the problem. The key is to find a better way to involve the poor in a growing economy, not to bash the robust economy as part of the problem.
We didn't have a thriving economy, that's the problem, but one built on illusion sold on as good security to create imaginary wealth.
Consolation in uncertain times
gmc;1039373 wrote: posted by quinns commentary
We didn't have a thriving economy, that's the problem, but one built on illusion sold on as good security to create imaginary wealth.
Yes, and its the way that playing fast and loose with the rules in the name of a quick profit that is so symptomatic of why we are here in the first place.
We didn't have a thriving economy, that's the problem, but one built on illusion sold on as good security to create imaginary wealth.
Yes, and its the way that playing fast and loose with the rules in the name of a quick profit that is so symptomatic of why we are here in the first place.
"We are never so happy, never so unhappy, as we imagine"
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Consolation in uncertain times
Galbally;1039383 wrote: Yes, and its the way that playing fast and loose with the rules in the name of a quick profit that is so symptomatic of why we are here in the first place.
I blame thatcher-at last in part. something in our spirit died during those years when yuppies and flash cars became acceptable. When did greed and conspicuous consumption become the in thing?
Though I don't think things are that bleak. One generation always underestimates the next. Lack of respect for authority also means less likely to follow blindly and a readiness to question the status quo.
Besides what is there to respect about Blair and new labour when telling lies and taking advantage of positions of power became the norm and church leaders are more interested in persecuting homosexuals and single parents and bleating because nobody listens any more without questioning than preaching tolerance and understanding.
I don't think we are lost as a civilisation we're just constantly changing.
I blame thatcher-at last in part. something in our spirit died during those years when yuppies and flash cars became acceptable. When did greed and conspicuous consumption become the in thing?
Though I don't think things are that bleak. One generation always underestimates the next. Lack of respect for authority also means less likely to follow blindly and a readiness to question the status quo.
Besides what is there to respect about Blair and new labour when telling lies and taking advantage of positions of power became the norm and church leaders are more interested in persecuting homosexuals and single parents and bleating because nobody listens any more without questioning than preaching tolerance and understanding.
I don't think we are lost as a civilisation we're just constantly changing.
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QUINNSCOMMENTARY
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Consolation in uncertain times
gmc;1039373 wrote: posted by quinns commentary
We didn't have a thriving economy, that's the problem, but one built on illusion sold on as good security to create imaginary wealth.
Not sure whose economy you are referring to, but the only illusionary part of the US economy was people living above their means. The Wall Street crisis is not the illusion, it is the substance that created it, that is people buying what they could not afford and could not repay. The market crisis is one of confidence generated by accounting rules (at least in terms of the immediate crisis impact). If you gave a 100% loan on a home for $400,000 and the loan is being paid does it really matter that the market value is now $300,000, only if the loan is not paid and the house is actually sold for $300,000 and yet based on accounting rules all these loans are marked down today assuming they will never again appreciate which we all know is not true. That is the essence of the crisis which is compounded by people not knowing what they bought or the true risk followed by panic.
The US economy at least is always driven by the consumer, now the consumer for awhile may be driving it on a level that is back to reality in terms of paying for what one wants to have. Getting back to a realistic level is going to hurt for quite a while and innocent people are going to pay the price, but the fundamental structure is still strong it merely has to be realigned. Just watch. It may take two to five years, but it will all be back...that is if we in the US don't socialize ourselves into a long term malaise.
We didn't have a thriving economy, that's the problem, but one built on illusion sold on as good security to create imaginary wealth.
Not sure whose economy you are referring to, but the only illusionary part of the US economy was people living above their means. The Wall Street crisis is not the illusion, it is the substance that created it, that is people buying what they could not afford and could not repay. The market crisis is one of confidence generated by accounting rules (at least in terms of the immediate crisis impact). If you gave a 100% loan on a home for $400,000 and the loan is being paid does it really matter that the market value is now $300,000, only if the loan is not paid and the house is actually sold for $300,000 and yet based on accounting rules all these loans are marked down today assuming they will never again appreciate which we all know is not true. That is the essence of the crisis which is compounded by people not knowing what they bought or the true risk followed by panic.
The US economy at least is always driven by the consumer, now the consumer for awhile may be driving it on a level that is back to reality in terms of paying for what one wants to have. Getting back to a realistic level is going to hurt for quite a while and innocent people are going to pay the price, but the fundamental structure is still strong it merely has to be realigned. Just watch. It may take two to five years, but it will all be back...that is if we in the US don't socialize ourselves into a long term malaise.
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." George Bernard Shaw
"If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody is not thinking" Gen. George Patton
Quinnscommentary
Observations on Life. Give it a try now and tell a friend or two or fifty.
Quinnscommentary Blog
"If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody is not thinking" Gen. George Patton
Quinnscommentary
Observations on Life. Give it a try now and tell a friend or two or fifty.
Quinnscommentary Blog
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Oscar Namechange
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Consolation in uncertain times
Some-where along the line, we have created a 'me' gerneration.
People don't give a stuff about other parts of the country sufferung famine, loss or death. You only have to look at 'New Orleans' to see how much of a priority that was to America's leaders and the rest of the world.
I see kids daily not happy with building a camp in the woods anymore, they have to have the p.c.'s, the nintendo's, i pod's, wii' etc. And i know parents on benifit racking up the credit cards to make sure they get it.
God forbid, when these kids are on their own, benifit had been reduced due to economic problems, and they have to actually work and contribute something to their country.
With the economic crisis, all i hear and see daily is folk wondering how it's going to affect 'them'.
There is little human passion left in this world for true sufferer's. It's all me, me me.
I often think that if there was a world war three, it would not pull the country together as it did in the blitz, it would just produce more criminals. The 'Me' generation who will not give up their life style at any cost.
People don't give a stuff about other parts of the country sufferung famine, loss or death. You only have to look at 'New Orleans' to see how much of a priority that was to America's leaders and the rest of the world.
I see kids daily not happy with building a camp in the woods anymore, they have to have the p.c.'s, the nintendo's, i pod's, wii' etc. And i know parents on benifit racking up the credit cards to make sure they get it.
God forbid, when these kids are on their own, benifit had been reduced due to economic problems, and they have to actually work and contribute something to their country.
With the economic crisis, all i hear and see daily is folk wondering how it's going to affect 'them'.
There is little human passion left in this world for true sufferer's. It's all me, me me.
I often think that if there was a world war three, it would not pull the country together as it did in the blitz, it would just produce more criminals. The 'Me' generation who will not give up their life style at any cost.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. R.L. Binyon