literarydiscussions.myfreeforum.org

Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

http://sulekha.com/chpost.asp?forum=philosophy&show=0&ci

d=81243

Regarding any sort of progress, in any arena,

philosophy, science, government, technology, it occurs

to me that the novelty wears off, we become bored with

it, or take it for granted, and we are left with a vague

empty desire, ambition for SOMETHING ELSE new, novel,

profound, innovative (and for some of us, we want to be

OUR discovery, creation, insight)

When Solomon said "nothing new under the sun", when

stephan mallarme in "Marine Brise" wrote "all the books

are read, the flesh is weary", when Miranda (o brave new

world) was told "tis new to THEE", .... well... one sees

in such things the human inclination to ennui,

dissatisfaction (even in a paradise).. NOT a bad thing

so much as unavoidable, inevitable, part of our nature

So that "nothing new under the sun" does not mean so

much that there are not new things, discoveries,

innovations, but that we become complacent or bored...

If we try to assess the actual progress of humanity as a

whole during the past 3000 years, we certainly find much

that is positive, encouraging... advances in

science/medicine in just the past 100 years, the gradual

abandonment of monarchies and the appearance of much

more egalitarian stable democratic republics, abolition

of practices like slavery, the notion of inalienable

human rights, books galore (10 translations of

everything),... the list goes on and on i suppose

One may see the very process of globalization (and the

internet now plays an enormous role in that), is

possibly a very good, very positive thing, breaking down

walls between races, nationalities, gender,

Regarding your question of age/experience as a factor, i

would say age in the sense of era (that old age of

aquarius song,e.g.), and regarding intelligence, i would

say the spread of literacy and education around the

world (media plays a great role in this now), and

notions seeping down to "street level", notions like

atoms, microbes, civil rights, ecology, the average

person is neither very smart nor very stupid, but the

average person is now very barraged with information,

ideas...

There are aspects of "progress" for which there is "no

turning back", you cant get rid of plastic, or internet,

or antibiotics, or radio/telivision, (or weapons of mass

distruction), or space exploration even if you wanted

to... one may only return to a previous era in one of

those PBS documentaries, where some people live for a

year as in colonial times (or medieval times)..

i.e. you cant stuff the genie back into the bottle, or

re-wrap pandora's box and label it "return to sender"

Certainly, there well perhaps always be some in society

who chose oh, let us say monasticism, non-possession,

some form of asceticism, but they are just as likely to

have a website devoted to their ideas (well.. perhaps

there are no real Amish websites),.... but even

reactionary groups love the modern tools to publish,

communicate, promulgate

Regarding social attitudes/ ethics, good question....

reminds me of a post i once made where I quoted Gandhi

as saying "Ahimsa (non-violence) is the highest form of

Dharma (righteousness, morality, duty)" and one clever

person asked me "well, if ahimsa is the HIGHEST, then

what might be the LOWEST form (degree) of morality?"

My answer to their question was simply that our very

RECOGNITION, acknowledgement, that there are questions

of ethics, right and wrong (even if we see ourselves as

deficient in areas), ... the mere recognition of the

issue is the lowest form of ethics, the first step on a

journey of progress in the realm of ethics

I was taken aback at first by their clever question, but

felt some duty/obligation to attempt an answer, and I

was rather surprised myself by that answer which came to

me as soon as I began to write my reply

But then, as it seems to me, it is conceivable that our

subconscious is constantly working on certain ideas, and

suddenly, something surprising and quite well developed

will spring into our minds (seemingly effortlessly)...

and yet, as individuals, and as a society, certain

processes have been quietly at work, in the individual

subconscious as well as in the "collective subconscious"

(if you will permit me that jungian/hegelian turn of

phrase)

There is much importance/significance in the phrase "the

time is RIPE",... come renaissance time lines mark the

beginning of the renaissance with the birth of Galileo,

yet I feel that somehow things were at work in the

preceeding century to make possible the birth and

development of a Galileo, (or for that matter, the birth

of the reformation, or the birth of the american

republic)... something more than the appearance of a

Martin Luther or a George Washington or a Lincoln (who

had their own greatness to be sure, but were also

catalysts for things which had been building up until

"the time was ripe"

Isaac Newton once said: "if i have seen further than

others, it is because i have stood upon the shoulders of

giants (galileo, euclid,etc)

I have often been amused, over the years by those

religious conservatives who use terms like "rant" and

"spew" regarding the posts that they are not in

agreement with, yet their own heros (equally verbose)

are "ministering" and "pastoring",... food can be a

banquet, or chow, depends on your tastes, and also on

your agenda

interesting observation.... we like to find broad

patterns in phenomena

reductionism has an important place, but sometimes it is

possible that a whole is more than the sum of its parts

http://www.iit.edu/departments/csep/PublicWWW/codes/

you might possibly enjoy the writings/emails from

www.charactercounts.org , the founder was a lawyer, who

gave up his practice to write and speak about ethics

full time - Michael Josephson

He writes about every day ethical issues that we all

face... on the job, in our family, in school..

A United Nations economist once explained to me that

MICROeconmics is not so difficult, but the MACROeconomic

theory (to account for everything) is seemingly

impossible (Plato spoke of the state as a soul written

in large letters, as did Hobbes in Leviathan)

Get your own free IRC Chat room