Lene,

  Congrats on this David Brooks piece. First, that is quite a score and great to bring attention to Bildung. That will hopefully set the stage for more attention for your upcoming book. Second, I think he did a nice job capturing the key essence of Bildung and why it is important. Third, I think education of the whole person and the situation WE are in and what we should do about it is a great way to frame some of the moves we need to be making.

  Indeed, I am working with a business entrepreneur who has a wonderful “We, I, It can Thrive” vision for moving forward. We can thrive via Bildung!

Best,

Gregg

Somebody wrote an interesting piece on the topic here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/opinion/scandinavia-education.html ;-)

/ Lene

I could literally talk about this for ten hours.  If you really want to understand what value is, then start reading Mises. But, let me give you a brief explanation since you asked ;  Value is always subjective, meaning that there is no such thing as fixed value or objective value.  So what determines value is the opinion of whoever is evaluating it.  I can find my collection of baby-teeth invaluable, however to another person they can be worthless.
Air has no value if you have plenty of it, however if air is limited the value can become unlimited. However it you are hanging yourself, air wouldn’t be worth anything even if you didn’t have any.  So value is always subjective, however subjectivity isn’t relativativistic, it’s relative to intention.   But in general,  generating value means that you are doing something other people find valuable.  

 

Best

Elung

 

Fra: Chance McDermott
Sendt: 14. februar 2020 02:06
Til: [log in to unmask]
Emne: Re: Interesting critique of life in US

 

Alexander E, 

 

What determines what is valuable?

 

Best,

 

-Chance

 

On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 6:26 PM Alexander Elung <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I don’t actually think success has anything to do with luck.  Unsuccessful people who win the lottery very often ends up broke again within very short time frames.    The amount of wealth you accumulate can be dependent on luck . You can be born rich ( luck)  you can win the lottery ( luck)  - however wealth isn’t success.  Success is the act of generating value.   Which means that you have to bring value to other people, which is rarely something you can accomplish by luck.  

Let’s take an extreme example ; Paris Hiltons success came from her being extremely proficient at marketing herself – she was rich before that, but being successful required her to make something which other people wanted to consume.   That didn’t have anything to do with luck.

You can be lucky and be born rich. You can be lucky and win the lottery – but to be successful, you have to be the one who is generating the value.  

 

Best

Elung

 

Fra: Alexander Bard
Sendt: 14. februar 2020 01:07
Til: [log in to unmask]
Emne: Re: Interesting critique of life in US

 

Touché, my dear Namesake, that was exactly my point.

Then add the humility of chance/fate. If we are ever successful  it helps both us and our surroundings to understand that both hard work, deep studies and a big dose of luck got us where we are at.

Not that it makes society immune against envy and ressentiment, the ultimate social poisons. But it gives us a proper ethical position from which to fight those passive-aggressive delusions.

We hav merely just begun to fight and overcome the horrors of mass narcissism.

Big love

Alexander Bard

 

Den fre 14 feb. 2020 kl 01:00 skrev Alexander Elung <[log in to unmask]>:

” And success is defined as status, wealth, attractiveness, capacity and means to act as one pleases, etc. This is not a fulfilling conception of personhood. The goal, it seems to me, is to seek to change minds and societal structures that reflects our conceptions of what it means to be good persons, what it means to have good relationships, and what it means to cultivate a society that promotes human flourishing rather than merely human self-interest. This, I think, is what will make us feel whole, rather than empty. ”

The problem with a statement such as this, is that you don’t seem to understand what success actually is to begin with.   To succeed at something, you have to create value.  To create value, people have to value what you are doing. Being a good person can make you extremely successful, if you are actually providing other people value.   Helping other people can be extremely profitable if you are good at it – like inventing something which will make peoples lives easier.

The idea that you think changing societal structures, will change the definition of success, leads me to believe that you don’t understand either how success or societal structures work. 

“The “feel less” in the quote, IMO, refers to the emptiness that shallow achievement and consumerism breeds, in contrast to a deeper grounding in being and an awareness of the virtues that guide our sense of personhood. I certainly think that was the point Mike was making.”


The problem has nothing to do with consumerism.  Achieving something is hard and requires work.  What makes a person successful is the creation of something, which other people values.  You can’t change minds and societal structures and then expect everybody to be successful and feel achievement – however you can instill the understanding in people, that they are responsible for their own feeling of meaning and that it’s something they have to work for.

I suspect this is also what Bard meant with the John Wayne allegory.

best

Elung

 

 

 

 

 

Fra: Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx
Sendt: 14. februar 2020 00:49
Til: [log in to unmask]
Emne: Re: Interesting critique of life in US

 

Alexander,

  You do have a way of putting things 😊. I think your (somewhat justified) frustration with the modern state of America and its problem with infantile narcissism may cause you to read the quotation differently than I did. The “feel less” in the quote, IMO, refers to the emptiness that shallow achievement and consumerism breeds, in contrast to a deeper grounding in being and an awareness of the virtues that guide our sense of personhood. I certainly think that was the point Mike was making.

 

Peace,

G

 

 

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Alexander Bard
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2020 6:31 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Interesting critique of life in US

 

Dear Mike

 

As aa European I'm actually tired of Americans who feel too much and rely on their feelings for absolutely everything. We get stuck in Californian hippie talk if I'm brutally honest.

I like John Wayne who as an ethical figure does what is right without feeling a thing. Philosophers like Zizek and Badiou probably even jerk off at his feet.

So the problem is American Inidividualism going to into a supernova phase as American hypernarcissism. As if John Wayne only defends himself and not his community.

We are all sick and tired of that and we know that the proper response is concepts like "congregation" and "community", the nicest damn words in American English.

But am I the only one here sensing that "emotions" communicate a brat stuck at his mother's tit rather than a properly adult American?

Just asking.

 

Best intentions

Alexander Bard

 

Den tors 13 feb. 2020 kl 20:12 skrev Michael Mascolo <[log in to unmask]>:

HI All:

 

I found this article to be quite illuminative of our current condition.  I particularly found this quote to be very valuable:

As the American physician and psychotherapist Alexander Lowen acknowledged: “The modern individual is committed to being successful, not to being a person. He belongs rightly to the ‘action generation’ whose motto is ‘do more but feel less.”

I think that this really gets at the core of the issue — even more than the idea that we are acquisitive commodity seekers.  The idea that contemporary capitalist society is organized to foster a sense of acquisitiveness has always struck me as appropriate, but secondary to something else.  This is the something else that I think is more important.  

The most powerful of all human motives, I think, are identity motives.   We are motivated to uphold images of who we want to be and, morally, who we believe we should be.  In the current version of our capitalist culture, the images of “who we want to be” are defined by “success”.  And success is defined as status, wealth, attractiveness, capacity and means to act as one pleases, etc. This is not a fulfilling conception of personhood.  The goal, it seems to me, is to seek to change minds and societal structures that reflects our conceptions of what it means to be good persons, what it means to have good relationships, and what it means to cultivate a society that promotes human flourishing rather than merely human self-interest. This, I think, is what will make us feel whole, rather than empty.

 

My Very Best,

 

Mike

 

Michael F. Mascolo, Ph.D.

Academic Director, Compass Program

Professor, Department of Psychology
Merrimack College, North Andover, MA 01845
978.837.3503 (office)
978.979.8745 (cell)

 

Blogs: Values Matter

Journal: Pedagogy and the Human Sciences

Coaching and Author Website: www.michaelmascolo.com

Academia Home Page: http://merrimack.academia.edu/MichaelMascolo

"Things move, persons act." -- Kenneth Burke
"If it's not worth doing, it's not worth doing well." -- Donald Hebb

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Feb 13, 2020, at 12:55 PM, Chance McDermott <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 

Hi all,

 

This article seems to well-describe the frustrated situation that many experience.  It is an absurd and awkward situation. 

 

 

 

On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 7:57 AM nysa71 <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 

Gregg,

The article is simply  neoliberalism / late stage capitalism in a nutshell. We need to stop trying to adapt to such a system, and start shifting to a system that adapts to us. The current Democratic primary is a perfect reflection of those two competing sentiments, with most candidates (if not all but one of those candidates), a reflection (to varying degrees) of the former sentiment. That simply will not --- and cannot --- do. It's why I'm a Bernie guy, and couldn't care less about the rest of them.

~ Jason  

On Thursday, February 13, 2020, 07:04:07 AM EST, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 

 

Hi TOK List,

 

  Someone recently shared this article with me.

https://medium.com/@erikrittenberry/the-american-life-is-killing-you-9e7e68135f4a

 

Would love to get reactions if folks have them.

 

Best,

Gregg

 

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