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Lawrence 9547 posts |
Sep 22, 2003, 20:47
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Let's not forget the infamous Butil Nitrate 'incense' that many of my fellow fags use with the same name!
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Dog 3000 4611 posts |
Sep 22, 2003, 20:54
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Christianity has been around for a very long time, I don't see any direct connection to "capitalism." I also don't blame Jesus for the crap his followers have pulled and tried to justify using his name . . .
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Dog 3000 4611 posts |
Sep 22, 2003, 20:55
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| Er, deceiving anyone who believes it you mean. | |||
morfe 2992 posts |
Sep 22, 2003, 20:59
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There is a huge fundamental connection between Capitalism and Christianity, and not just because their most ardent subscribers see 'nature' as the enemy. http://www.ahs.cqu.edu.au/humanities/history/52148/modules/westC.html
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morfe 2992 posts |
Sep 22, 2003, 21:06
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http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen0709.html What else could he be??? ;-)
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Dog 3000 4611 posts |
Sep 22, 2003, 21:11
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I've actually read Weber's book about "protestantism and capitalism" -- but "protestantism" and "christianity" are not the same thing. His point was all about the social upheavels in the church (reformation) spilling over into economic matters. He wasn't saying Christianity gave birth to Capitalism. More like it was "the spirit of the age" that gave birth to both protestantism & capitalism. My own opinion is these changes were driven by adaptation to demographic changes (primarily population density) and technology. Though there is something key about the man vs. nature thing as described in Judeo-Christian culture. (Frankly I detect it in your writings . . . you talk about "nature" as if it wasn't real.) Whatever so-called "capitalists" think about the issue, I argue that a) humans are fundamentally "natural" in everything they do, and b) "markets" are a socialized form of "natural" competition (like sports, in a sense.) And I certainly don't consider myself to be a "capitalist" either . . . more like a "humanist" if I get to pick my own label. ;-) Man! Here's a whole bunch more huge topics . . .
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morfe 2992 posts |
Sep 22, 2003, 21:28
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"Frankly I detect it in your writings . . . you talk about "nature" as if it wasn't real.) " That's floored me. Since I was a boy, I have always been amazed that there is actually a 'word' for nature. As I stated in my post above, there *isn't* anything else. I can see how it's easy to confuse my anger at humankind destroying itself and this world because it thinks it 'better' than 'nature', but the dichotomy is that one has to view 'nature' as an 'outside' force in order to cross that line. Depends I suppose whether you call the 'Universe' nature or call the Earth and it's ecology 'nature'. Or do you think that 'Nature' is somehow a huge blameless process of progression (I can't understand the concept of linear progress it seems like a lie when we could all die tomorrow, yet in the Bronze Age people could live for umpteen generations without war and their time was so free it would feel like living 5 lives on our schedule, that's not to say one is better than the other, just how do you measure quality of life without being resorting to pure subjectivity, denying the voice of the other?) If 'nature' is a blameless process of evolution, then everything we do as individuals must be ok? All is permitted, but all is not wise.
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Dog 3000 4611 posts |
Sep 22, 2003, 21:32
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Didn't see God giving his opinions in that article . . . (unless you believe he really wrote that silly book, I don't . . . ) I already said I don't hold Jesus, Mohammad, et. al. responsible for the crap their disciples pull in their name. The prophets tossed out some very good memes . . . predictably their followers have produced even more bad memes and tried to attach the prophets' names to them. For example: show me where in the bible it says anything about "purgatory" or "indulgences." Church bureacracies are a problem for basically the same reasons any bureacracy is a problem. Not because they are "capitalist" but because they are "bureacracies." That was another topic Weber liked to write about . . . http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/politics/y64l09.html But although Weber regards bureaucracy as supremely efficient, he regards its inevitable triumph with distaste. Paralleling the distinction between 'goal-rational' and 'value-rational' (and perhaps the same distinction in other words) is a distinction between 'formal' and 'substantive' rationality. Society is 'formally' rational when things are organized to maximise the attainment of people's goals, whatever they are. But it may be formally rational without being 'substantively' rational, because this organization is inimical to values rationally paramount over the goals actually served. One of these values is personal freedom, to which bureaucracy is inimical. 'The quality which best guarantees promotion [in a bureaucracy] is a measure of pliancy toward the apparatus,... of "convenience" for his superior', ES, p. 1449. Socialism would mean one unified bureaucratic system: at least now there are alternative and competing bureaucracies; see ES, pp. 1402-3, 1453-4, and Beetham, pp. 82-9. So for Weber bureaucracy occupies the place capitalism has for Marx, of the admired enemy, spreading inexorably throughout the world and into every department of life. But Weber foresees no 'death-knell'. Bureaucracy is inescapable.
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Lawrence 9547 posts |
Sep 22, 2003, 21:51
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I think about what Eric Lunde also said to me in his letter (which I mentioned in my "kook" thread....) Real ability and nobility are extinguished in modern society in favor of value and image. I think that's why leaders like the Bushes deceive themselves and also why they --and Hitler especially -- manage to get enough support to obtain power.
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Dog 3000 4611 posts |
Sep 22, 2003, 21:52
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Well see how easy it is to read things into someone else's posts! Never pays to presume things do it? ;-) Very thought-provoking what you said. My take is that "nature" involved "evolution" which means organisms attempting to adapt to their (always changing) environment as efficiently as possible. That may or may not mean what you call "progress" towards some "higher" state of being. Basically animals (humans included) are instinctively driven to reproduce as much as possible. And we've done a great job of it by reducing mortality and getting better at producing food on a finite amount of land, etc. Technology and "evolution", "progress" whatever are basically all in the service of growing the population. This is "natural." Now of course you could argue that we've reached the point where we can't keep "progressing" without it being counter-productive: wars, plagues and pollution will wipe out what took so long to build up, maybe it was all for naught. But of course "nature" plays no favorites with the human species -- after we're gone there will be cockroaches and bacteria, and life forms will continue to evolve into new "species." Maybe "humans" will become extinct and only whatever-evolves-after-us will remain (in fact that's what I think will ultimately happen.) I guess I see "nature" as simply "life." (It's also a synonym for "god" understood in a non-religious way.) Which brings up the individual vs. the collective again . . . individuals vary, that's what makes "evolution" work. We can argue "individual" issues, but things that effect everybody (like "nature") are almost not worth debating (I mean we can discuss "what are we talking about?" but not "what can we do about it?" -- we can't do nuthin' "to" nature.)
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