To be fair, in many places, no education is taking place. But fair enough- in upper-middle class areas, this may be true enough about emphasis on tech over liberal education. As far as bombs and such, you can replace that with any X products. You make boring things, you perhaps make boring people. — schopenhauer1

I think I do not know enough of your thought to understand it.
Why is anything made?

There are two ways to have social control, culture or authority over the people. The US stopped transmitting its culture when it began educating for a technological society with unknown values. Now we are scrabbling to have social order with authority over the people.

When the bottom line is the dollar, and ethics go out the window, what happens to how we feel about ourselves and others?

Your answer is indicative of the general trend towards radical individualism- the one that self-help books thrive on. — schopenhauer1

OUCH! That's pretty painful.

How about changes at a societal level? — schopenhauer1

a critical task of "revolutionary socialists" ought to be imagining a society operating under socialist principles. — BC

The vision of a better, more humane - human - society comes from a) criticism of the existing society, and speculation about a better society. Any meaningful change in society has to be collective rather than individual. Just because I feel better now. than I used to doesn't mean I think it is up to individuals to solve these problems alone.

For instance, I welcome automation. A lot of boring tedious work really should be done by computers and robots. Coupled with automation should be a universal basic income system to avoid poverty among the displaced workers.

Of course, some people like doing routinized work -- I don't understand it, but they do.

There is the idea that people who have been relieved of boring routinized jobs can shift over to fascinating fulfilling work. Whether any such thing can, or would happen, isn't clear to me. Maybe it is a mistake to suppose that people would fill their days with fulfilling work. Maybe they would do what otherwise unoccupied people have always done: socialize, play, eat, etc. And that would be just fine.

The vision of a better, more humane - human - society comes from a) criticism of the existing society, and speculation about a better society. Any meaningful change in society has to be collective rather than individual. Just because I feel better now. than I used to doesn't mean I think it is up to individuals to solve these problems alone. — BC

:100: :up:

For instance, I welcome automation. A lot of boring tedious work really should be done by computers and robots. Coupled with automation should be a universal basic income system to avoid poverty among the displaced workers.

Of course, some people like doing routinized work -- I don't understand it, but they do.

There is the idea that people who have been relieved of boring routinized jobs can shift over to fascinating fulfilling work. Whether any such thing can, or would happen, isn't clear to me. Maybe it is a mistake to suppose that people would fill their days with fulfilling work. Maybe they would do what otherwise unoccupied people have always done: socialize, play, eat, etc. And that would be just fine. — BC

I think it's even more radical than that that has to happen. You are an old socialist, so maybe this might appeal to your sense of what could be... but imagine if work was a place of shared knowledge rather than bottom line individualism. It operated more like a seminar than output farm. But the donuts have to be made I get it. I don't know how to integrate the two necessities, but this would be something in some worker's utopia fantasy, only slightly different than our world in most other respects except how a "normal" place of "work" operates:

Here is a sample itinerary of a workplace that fosters learning and exploration:

8:00 am - Arrival: Employees arrive at work and are welcomed by a spacious and open office environment.

8:15 am - Morning Reflection: Employees start the day with a short meditation or reflection session to set their minds and focus for the day ahead.

9:00 am - Team Meetings: Teams hold their daily meetings to go over priorities and check-ins.

10:00 am - Workshops/Seminars: Employees attend in-house workshops or seminars on a range of subjects, from emerging technologies to philosophical debates.

12:00 pm - Lunch & Learn: Employees gather for lunch and listen to guest speakers or engage in discussions on topics of interest.

1:00 pm - Collaborative Work: Teams work on projects together, sharing ideas and knowledge, and encouraging cross-disciplinary collaboration.

3:00 pm - Personal Learning Time: Employees have dedicated time to pursue their own interests and learning, either individually or in groups.

4:30 pm - Show & Tell: Employees gather to share what they have learned during their personal learning time.

5:00 pm - Wrap-up: Teams wrap up their work for the day and plan for the next day.

5:30 pm - Departure: Employees head home, with their minds and spirits refreshed and reinvigorated.

This itinerary provides a snapshot of a workplace that prioritizes learning and exploration. By incorporating educational opportunities and personal time into the workday, employees are able to broaden their perspectives and connect with what they do in a deeper, more meaningful way.

The "workplace" (a social construct just like any other, but one whereby the majority of people garner their subsistence to maintain their material comforts and very survival), is often a killing floor for connecting what one does to anything broader, "mysteries of the universe" or otherwise. — schopenhauer1

Most workplaces exist for business-for-profit activities. Some fields are more privileged than others -- the arts, for example, in which artists can demonstrate their interpretation of the world through their arts. If people are inclined to actually include contemplation of the world into their working hours, and find cosmos meaning in what they do, they'd be disappointed.

We say things like "work-life balance" for a reason. It means, you put in the recommended hours a week to your work, then use the remaining hours for your personal activities.

We say things like "work-life balance" for a reason. It means, you put in the recommended hours a week to your work, then use the remaining hours for your personal activities. — L'éléphant

:vomit: Check please!

Check please! — schopenhauer1

Don't forget to tip in north america.

When the bottom line is the dollar, and ethics go out the window, what happens to how we feel about ourselves and others? — Athena

Agreed. Not just ethics, but whole swaths of how we see value in things, life, and each other.

:wink:

Speculation, on the other hand, involves a more abstract and imaginative kind of thinking. It is about exploring ideas and concepts that are not immediately concrete or tangible, and the satisfaction it provides comes from the mental stimulation and creative exploration of abstract concepts. This type of speculation often involves questioning assumptions, considering alternative perspectives, and pondering the mysteries of existence. — schopenhauer1

I'm not sure if this has been covered, but for what reason do you think this is not happening as often today?

Some fields are more privileged than others -- the arts, for example, in which artists can demonstrate their interpretation of the world through their arts. If people are inclined to actually include contemplation of the world into their working hours, and find cosmos meaning in what they do, they'd be disappointed. — L'éléphant

Fair point - also many people who work in the health sectors, psychology, education, community work, where reflective practice and questioning of assumptions about mainstream culture and values is frequently undertaken.

A walk into many bookshops in my town is to be confronted by hundreds of popular books all about philosophy and spirituality, and alternative values, etc. In my experience, the world seems far more interested and tolerant of this material today then it was 30-40 years ago.

So I reframed the OP a bit further down not as a "today vs. yesterday". That's not really what I was getting at. Rather:

Let me reframe this. I really mean to get at, that in our daily lives, there seems to be lack of "meaningfulness in the mundane", whereby the meaningful informs the mundane. Again, religion tried to inject that (but usually one day a week in Western culture, and in a poorly delivered way to the masses). However, there is something about the minutia-mongering aspect of the post-industrial that does its best to take this away. The "workplace" (a social construct just like any other, but one whereby the majority of people garner their subsistence to maintain their material comforts and very survival), is often a killing floor for connecting what one does to anything broader, "mysteries of the universe" or otherwise. It is soul-crushing, demoralizing, and indeed leads to things like "End Stage Capitalism" and "Boring Dystopia". But it's more than just your token memes of ridiculous societal behavior, but the very connection of one's actions with the cosmos.

Yes, I can se BC coming in with some joke regarding the last sentence, something about scanning groceries at the checkout line and its connection with Plato's Forms, but I think you know what I am getting at. And yes, even that should be connected :grin:. — schopenhauer1

Thanks.

I really mean to get at, that in our daily lives, there seems to be lack of "meaningfulness in the mundane", whereby the meaningful informs the mundane — schopenhauer1

During my hiatus from the forum last year I discovered John Vervaeke, a Canadian lecturer in cognitive science and psychology, who's channel is called 'Awakening from the Meaning Crisis.' This is precisely what he's talking about. You can find an introduction here.

...the very connection of one's actions with the cosmos.... — schopenhauer1

This has always been the focus of my interest in philosophy, although it's certainly not the focus of academic philosophy.

Wasn't the "Protestant work ethic" an effort to make the mundane meaningful? — BC

I think not. It was specifically Protestant in having been shaped by Calvinism in particular, with its emphasis on 'the elect' and the impossibility of knowing whether you were among the saved. 'Protestants, beginning with Martin Luther, conceptualized worldly work as a duty which benefits both the individual and society as a whole. Thus, the Catholic idea of good works was transformed into an obligation to consistently work diligently as a sign of grace. Whereas Catholicism teaches that good works are required of Catholics as a necessary manifestation of the faith they received, and that faith apart from works is dead and barren, the Calvinist theologians taught that only those who were predestined to be saved would be saved.' This was just as much a source of a kind of deep existential anxiety as it was of meaning.

Western secularity, including its capitalist economy, originated as the result of an unlikely concatenation of circumstances. To survive within the Roman Empire, early Christianity had to render unto Caesar what was Caesar’s, and keep a low profile that did not challenge the state; spiritual concerns were necessarily distinguished from political issues. Later struggles between the Emperor and the Papacy tended to reinforce that distinction. By making private and regular confession compulsory, the late medieval Church also promoted the development of a subjective interiority that encouraged more personal religiosity. New technologies such as the printing press made widespread literacy and hence more individualistic religion possible.

All that made the Reformation possible. By privatizing an unmediated relationship between more individualized Christians and a more transcendent God, Luther’s emphasis on salvation-by-faith-alone eliminated the intricate web of mediation – priests, sacraments, canon law, pilgrimages, public penances, etc. – that in effect had constituted the sacred dimension of this world. The religiously-saturated medieval continuity between the natural and the supernatural was sundered by internalizing faith and projecting the spiritual realm far above our struggles in this world.

The newly-liberated space between them generated something new: the secular (from the Latin saeculum, “generation, age,” thus the temporal world of birth and death). The inner freedom of conscience was distinguished from our outer bondage to secular authorities. “These realms, which contained respectively religion and the world, were hermetically sealed from each other as though constituting separate universes” (Nelson 1981, 74-75). The sharp distinction between them was a radical break with the past, and it led to a new kind of person. The medieval understanding of our life as a cycle of sin and repentance was replaced by the more disciplined character-structure required in the modern world, sustained by a more internalized conscience that did not accept the need for external mediation or the validation of priests.

As God slowly disappeared above the clouds, the secular became increasingly dynamic, accelerating into the creative destruction that today we must keep readjusting to. What we tend to forget in the process is that the distinction between sacred and secular was originally a religious distinction, devised to empower a new type of Protestant spirituality. — David Loy, Terror in the God-Shaped Hole

All of this has the effect of 'subjectivising' or 'privatizing' the notion of meaning, so that it becomes an attribute of the individual's search for truth, in an otherwise mechanical and inherently meaningless universe knowledge of which is mediated solely by science.

All of this has the effect of 'subjectivising' or 'privatizing' the notion of meaning, so that it becomes an attribute of the individual's search for truth, in an otherwise mechanical and inherently meaningless universe knowledge of which is mediated solely by science. — Wayfarer

Yes good analysis.

Isn't this kind of thinking essentially postulating a golden era when people were closer to truth? Do you think this is an accurate assessment?

But the donuts have to be made I get it. — schopenhauer1

No you don't get it. Your schedule indicates that the donuts aren't going to be made until 1:00 in the afternoon. The best sales period (early morning) will have been missed. Workers elsewhere will be deprived of the irreplaceable fried glazed-raised to go with their coffee. The entire city will be negatively affected. I'm calling a group criticism meeting, Herr Schopenhauer, and you will be Topic Numero Uno.

I believe I see your point. We're dissatisfied with the mundane and it is exactly that which we encounter in our daily lives. Every single moment we're reminded of how small we are while our hearts & minds yearn for the great. Soul-crushing it is (for those who recognize the problem).

:100: :fire:

Isn't this kind of thinking essentially postulating a golden era when people were closer to truth? Do you think this is an accurate assessment? — Tom Storm

When were people closer to truth? What truth?

What if our culture blinds us to truth because our culture does do not give us the perspective we need to know truth and the authorities are the only legitimate truth sayers?

Yes, that’s what I’m asking. Personally I’m not in the truth business unless it’s about mundane matters like what time the train to Sydney leaves Southern Cross Station.

Great! My bus today passed a new Dunkin' Donuts on Snelling Avenue in St. Paul -- I was happy to see it, since they don't have a big presence here. Glam Donuts and A Baker's Wife in Minneapolis both do a fairly good job. But I used to think that DD's glazed raised were definitive. Are they, still?

Here is a sample itinerary of a workplace that fosters learning and exploration: — schopenhauer1

I had two jobs that both achieved your goals. One was in the AIDS Prevention program at the Minnesota AIDS Project starting around 1987. Our work day was loosely structured, and some of us had work which was done outside the building. We collaborated a lot, shared information, worked together on editing pamphlets, and so on. We could still smoke indoors at the time, so the smoking lounge was the place to take the pulse of the agency.

The critical piece was the sense that we were involved in a common struggle, and while there were major differences in education background, no one pulled rank. Crisis-urgency helped us, of course. Many AIDS programs around the country had similar highly successful years before AIDS became deeply established. By the time it became clear that HIV was here to stay, and then became somewhat treatable, then very treatable (but not curable) the sense of elan was gone. Then it became humdrum public health work.

The other very good job was in the media center of a college library -- early 70s. This job taught me a lot. There was no crisis here, no life or death issues. The program leader was immensely enthusiastic about all sorts of instructional technology, and engaged faculty in his projects. Possibilities were wide open and co-workers were encouraged -- more like compelled -- to try out anything that seemed like it might work. It wasn't a 3 ring circus -- this was, after all, an over-all tightly wrapped Catholic men's college, and there were people in the hierarchy who didn't hesitate to slam on the brakes if they didn't like something, We would have been successful instructional technology revolutionaries if the Internet, wide bandwidth, and more powerful desktop computers had been available to us. It's what we were reaching toward.

I won't go into the assorted crummy jobs, but they were alienating and alienated; dull; routinized; tradition bound, discouraged innovation; hierarchical, and so on.

the authorities are the only legitimate truth sayers — Athena

Well, yes. What's the point of being a powerful authority if you can't decide what is true? "We'll decide what the Truth is, thank you, and perhaps we will provide you with an abbreviated, sanitized version at some point in the future, depending on our estimate of what you need to know. People don't like being burdened with disturbing information. In any case, don't call us, we'll call you."

what time the train to Sydney leaves Southern Cross Station. — Tom Storm

Who gave you permission to go to Sydney?

Porca puttana!

'Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. — Wayfarer

Wow, I really enjoyed that and bookmarked it so I can return to it. I have a lot of thinking to do with that information. Thank you.

:up:

__

I wonder if the following rings a bell?

Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin (4 February [O.S. 23 January] 1889 – 10 February 1968) was a Russian American sociologist and political activist, who contributed to the social cycle theory.

Sensate (Materialistic) Culture

Sensate/Materialist culture has these features:

The defining cultural principle is that true reality is sensory – only the material world is real. There is no other reality or source of values. This becomes the organizing principle of society. It permeates every aspect of culture and defines the basic mentality. People are unable to think in any other terms.
Sensate culture pursues science and technology, but dedicates little creative thought to spirituality or religion.

Dominant values are wealth, health, bodily comfort, sensual pleasures, power and fame.
Ethics, politics, and economics are utilitarian and hedonistic. All ethical and legal precepts are considered mere man-made conventions, relative and changeable.

Art and entertainment emphasize sensory stimulation. In the decadent stages of Sensate culture there is a frenzied emphasis on the new and the shocking (literally, sensationalism).

Religious institutions are mere relics of previous epochs, stripped of their original substance, and tending to fundamentalism and exaggerated fideism (the view that faith is not compatible with reason). — The Visionary Theories of Pitirim Sorokin

Every single moment we're reminded of how small we are while our hearts & minds yearn for the great. Soul-crushing it is (for those who recognize the problem) — Agent Smith

Nailed it, Dude. :cry:

:lol:

:lol: Random shots do hit the bullseye on occasion.

It seems that we have become so preoccupied with practicalities that we have lost touch with the abstract and speculative. Religion, while perhaps no longer a productive avenue for speculation, at least offered a framework for considering the world in a more imaginative way. The monotony of our daily tasks - from crunching numbers and programming data to constructing material objects - may be necessary for the functioning of society, but it leaves little room for speculation. Even drug experiences, or escapist entertainment such as movies, have become our go-to for exploring the non-mundane. Unfortunately, speculation about the nature of existence and metaphysics, is not popular and remains a niche pursuit. — schopenhauer1

In other words, the pleasure of hard tasks is rooted in the accomplishment of a specific, concrete goal, while the pleasure of speculation is rooted in the stimulation of abstract and imaginative thinking. Both can be enjoyable and rewarding, but they offer different types of satisfaction and involve different types of thinking. — schopenhauer1

Let me reframe this. I really mean to get at, that in our daily lives, there seems to be lack of "meaningfulness in the mundane", whereby the meaningful informs the mundane. Again, religion tried to inject that (but usually one day a week in Western culture, and in a poorly delivered way to the masses). However, there is something about the minutia-mongering aspect of the post-industrial that does its best to take this away. The "workplace" (a social construct just like any other, but one whereby the majority of people garner their subsistence to maintain their material comforts and very survival), is often a killing floor for connecting what one does to anything broader, "mysteries of the universe" or otherwise. It is soul-crushing, demoralizing, and indeed leads to things like "End Stage Capitalism" and "Boring Dystopia". But it's more than just your token memes of ridiculous societal behavior, but the very connection of one's actions with the cosmos. — schopenhauer1

I think these are different questions. One is about the dying art of abstract speculation, and the other is about the lack of meaning.

The end of abstract speculation: Kant signalled the end of speculative metaphysics. Thereafter, abstract speculation was replaced by science and mathematics.

The lack of meaning: Weber, and Horkheimer and Adorno, described the disenchantment, desacralization, and intrumental rationality of the Enlightenment and of capitalism.

Both of these came out of the Enlightenment, so how do they go together?

In the enchanted world of religiously-dominated, pre-Enlightenment society, most people were not in the habit of engaging in abstract speculation--the so-called enchantment of the world amounted in the field and the marketplace to a set of hard socio-economic limits to freedom and thought. But the meaning inherent in the world according to religion--your "meaning in the mundane"--made it reasonable for educated elites to subject it to rational speculation, rather than leaving the world to experimental scientist-technicians as would happen later. (Of course, religion imposed limits on the content of this speculation, but the very idea of abstract speculation was legitimate).

In the disenchanted world of the Enlightenment, even the educated elites found there were limits on their ability to speculate--intellectual and ideological ones, imposed respectively by the increasing success of science and the instrumental rationality of capitalism. Abstract speculation didn't cut it any more, and nothing had to be meaningful anyway. (On the other hand one could equally say that the Renaissance and the Enlightenment were part of one of the most fertile periods in philosophy, almost as if this transient crossover between philosophy and science stimulated speculation in a way that religion could not do--and from that point of view I'm tempted to view it, very vaguely, as a crucial lost opportunity, as the period may have ultimately been in politics also).

How have things changed in our postmodern world? On the face of it, all of the above has merely accelerated. In the post-industrial, consumer society, the last vestiges of meaning have been eroded too: social institutions, civic life, and the very idea that society can be changed through collective action, leaving us with "capitalist realism".

I don't know if I'm terribly concerned about the lack of abstract speculation in ordinary life, unless this is taken to mean that most people remain excluded from the world of ideas and do not have the leisure or education to take part in intellectual discussion. What would be nice are two things: (1) a non-religious re-enchantment of the world, and (2) a re-organization of society to make this possible.

That's extremely simplistic and cartoonish, but there it is.

:up:
Agree with analysis.

What would be nice are two things: (1) a non-religious re-enchantment of the world, and (2) a re-organization of society to make this possible.

That's extremely simplistic and cartoonish, but there it is. — Jamal

See my utopian workplace itinerary post above in response to BC.