Date: Thu, 09 Oct 1997 17:17:53 +1000 (EST)
From: Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan-AT-qut.edu.au>
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: A surfeit of corruption


At 05:46 PM 10/8/97 -0400, you wrote:
>
>Robert P:
>
>>Part of the problem must lie with the personalization of goods and services
>>that is the salient feature of the post-war age.  As more and more people
>>became essentially divorced from the communal aspects of life -- opting
>>instead for the self-actualization that increased wealth brings -- public
>>existence became increasingly de-politicized and impoverished.  Efforts to
>>endow the heretofore "underserved" with political power -- women,
>>minorities, the poor -- proved paradoxically fruitless; "political power",
>>as a franchise exercised by ordinary citizens has become all but
>meaningless. 
>
>Yes, and as parliaments themselves become increasingly irrelevant, shall we
>witness the birth of a supranational corporate citizen, one who has
>successfully equillibriated the realities of personal accumulation with the
>vagaries of "loyalty" to some higher organization?  One becomes more and
>more aware of "self-duty", that is, the obligation to provide for oneself
>(and, by extension, for those in one's charge) irrespective of the
>constraints of some nineteenth century moral reasoning.  This is one reason
>why the outlines of evolutionary psychology resonate with a growing number
>of people.  A "recognition of necessity", Marx's seat of the pants
>definition of freedom, is translated into the acknowledgement that, in our
>quest for security, any strategy is ultimately acceptable, so long as it
works.
>
>I once worked nights as the law librarian at the Adult Correctional
>Institution (Rhode Island's state prison).  I remember with some
>embarassment the "rehabilitation" programs that were tried and tried and
>which almost always failed.  Based as they were on ancient concepts of
>honesty, frugality, self-abnegation, etc., they were wholly unsuited as an
>anodyne for the modern world.  The society outside had long since discarded
>them and the staff (being little better and a lot luckier than petty
>criminals themselves) found such tasks fruitless in the extreme.
>
>The truth is, that with much of the hypocrisy and double standards that have
>been discarded in our personal dealings, that which constrained and
>disciplined us has also been weakened.  The unfettered pursuit of personal
>wealth has at last been accepted to its logical denouement; money *can* buy
>happiness, might *is* right, self-aggrandizement *is* the key to success.
>This is, increasingly, our public -- as well as private -- ethos.  Out of
>that, in time, will come the fashioning of a *new* morality, one based upon
>the realities of the struggle over the division of goods and services, but
>one that casts an ethereal eye over the real purpose of human activity; the
>opportunity for creative activity.
>
>Freedom for all, or freedom for most, as opposed to freedom for some, which
>is the great achievement of our historical past.
>
>Louis Godena
>
>This is a brilliant post and I will try and find time amidst the current
mad chaos that is my private and academic life to give it the attention it
merits.  Some day I promise (absolutely) that I will gewt on to the ethics,
that is after I have finished reading 45 pages of Capital a day.  

regards

Gary



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