The items you list for pursuit would be genuinely of great value, but economists can't measure them and lawyers can't hedge them with rules. And given that we are governed by economists and lawyers, it's hard to see where the incentive would lie for such people to care. The same men and women meanwhile encourage us to share their risk averse, spreadsheet-fetishising view of the world, in which everything is declared to have a price, while its real value (or utter absence of value) is hurriedly skated over.
They really seem to be the enemy of things that people truly like and love, or which make life liveable (as opposed to 'low risk' or 'convenient' or both).
As Iain McGilchrist might say, they are almost exclusively left-brain thinkers. Capable of pursuing a single line of reasoning, but blind to the bigger picture and the web of relationships. And morally purblind.
Isn't it ironic that lawyers, of all people, should be insensitive to morality? Because they live in an artificial world of imaginary rules that, for them, replace morality. They don't ask, "Is this right?" but "Is this legal?"
Whereby all sorts of terrible, harmful things get done without any objection.
A friend yesterday pointed me towards McGilchrist, and it seems like it's time I read some. But I just saw that his latest work is two volumes and more than 1500 pages. So I may have to take a long run up at that.
I think law and morality are weakly linked (in practice, at any rate). I met a someone I was at college with 30 years ago recently. He did a law conversion course and has practised in litigation since then. I asked how often he felt he'd been on the right side, if that wasn't a stupid question. 'Once, maybe, I think?' he replied. I suppose it really was a stupid question, then.
You could try "The Master and his Emissary". Not as complete or up to date, but more manageable. Or some of his online lectures, which are usually good although sometimes perplexing.
So we simultaneously need to be both wealthier (as measured in concrete terms) and more "intimate" (for lack of a better term)? Few would disagree with this assessment but it does surely require a degree of social engineering to make it real. More precisely perhaps, it requires that the best features of town or village life are replicated county or country wide.
As a town-dweller myself I would welcome that way of thinking! The point about social engineering is well taken, although I think this is a danger when the state aims for anything, including economic growth.
"It’s as though they believe that economic growth can be willed into being simply be repeating the word".
It's also as though they are so stupid that they believe perpetual growth is possible or desirable. And when they say, "Well, we'll carry on with growth for the time being", the obvious reply is: "If you won't stop now, when?"
I suppose, as in so many other human affairs, the real reasoning is, "By the time the storm breaks I'll be safely dead". Apres moi, le deluge.
Britain is stagnating because it is now ruled by Landlords again rather than Capitalists or Socialists. There's an implicit tax on production that it weighing everything down, it's just going into private hands now.
The items you list for pursuit would be genuinely of great value, but economists can't measure them and lawyers can't hedge them with rules. And given that we are governed by economists and lawyers, it's hard to see where the incentive would lie for such people to care. The same men and women meanwhile encourage us to share their risk averse, spreadsheet-fetishising view of the world, in which everything is declared to have a price, while its real value (or utter absence of value) is hurriedly skated over.
Perhaps reducing the influence of certain economists and lawyers is part of the answer then. (Unlikely yes, but we are in the realm of thought here!)
They really seem to be the enemy of things that people truly like and love, or which make life liveable (as opposed to 'low risk' or 'convenient' or both).
As Iain McGilchrist might say, they are almost exclusively left-brain thinkers. Capable of pursuing a single line of reasoning, but blind to the bigger picture and the web of relationships. And morally purblind.
Isn't it ironic that lawyers, of all people, should be insensitive to morality? Because they live in an artificial world of imaginary rules that, for them, replace morality. They don't ask, "Is this right?" but "Is this legal?"
Whereby all sorts of terrible, harmful things get done without any objection.
A friend yesterday pointed me towards McGilchrist, and it seems like it's time I read some. But I just saw that his latest work is two volumes and more than 1500 pages. So I may have to take a long run up at that.
I think law and morality are weakly linked (in practice, at any rate). I met a someone I was at college with 30 years ago recently. He did a law conversion course and has practised in litigation since then. I asked how often he felt he'd been on the right side, if that wasn't a stupid question. 'Once, maybe, I think?' he replied. I suppose it really was a stupid question, then.
You could try "The Master and his Emissary". Not as complete or up to date, but more manageable. Or some of his online lectures, which are usually good although sometimes perplexing.
Found a short e-book essay written between the two... Phew. 38 pages
So we simultaneously need to be both wealthier (as measured in concrete terms) and more "intimate" (for lack of a better term)? Few would disagree with this assessment but it does surely require a degree of social engineering to make it real. More precisely perhaps, it requires that the best features of town or village life are replicated county or country wide.
As a town-dweller myself I would welcome that way of thinking! The point about social engineering is well taken, although I think this is a danger when the state aims for anything, including economic growth.
"It’s as though they believe that economic growth can be willed into being simply be repeating the word".
It's also as though they are so stupid that they believe perpetual growth is possible or desirable. And when they say, "Well, we'll carry on with growth for the time being", the obvious reply is: "If you won't stop now, when?"
I suppose, as in so many other human affairs, the real reasoning is, "By the time the storm breaks I'll be safely dead". Apres moi, le deluge.
Britain is stagnating because it is now ruled by Landlords again rather than Capitalists or Socialists. There's an implicit tax on production that it weighing everything down, it's just going into private hands now.