Poverty Wages

Wages aren't too low for the poor, they're too high for everyone else.

Lonely Projects and Faraway Dreams of Deep Solidarity

Working on projects on my own is not a situation I consider ideal. I would rather be part of a group collaboration. These individual academic projects feel to much like a competition for intellectual superiority. However, that is not the point! The point is contributing ideas that will enhance the happiness of humanity.

Ideally we would all be working on the same project, just on different aspects of it or in different ways. But in today's world of deep ambiguity of purpose we are very far from this ideal. But how can a deep solidarity be built under these conditions? I see no way. Not until we begin examining our own hierarchy of purpose will we be able to even compare them with those of others. At this second stage we must then refuse to shy away from conflicts of purpose, for the alternative is a civilization with a high degree of moral indifference and a high toleration of moral contradiction. This indeed is our present predicament.

There is a way out from this however. It consists of developing a moral clarity comprehensive enough to be active at the lowest rungs of the hierarchy of purpose. And in terms of creating compatibility amongst our various moral systems, much progress toward this can be made through civil, compassionate discussion. Until the situation has developed to this point--at least at a micro level--I see my problem of lonely project work persisting.

Material and Cultural Poverty

There is much suffering in the world. There are many people living lives of ridiculous poverty. Somehow this continues even those we in the developed world have developed all of the technologies necessary to pull those people out of their primitive situations. Yes, many in the developed world have tried to improve the situation of the poorest of the World's inhabitants, but grand-scale success has remained illusive. Now I don't want to get into the technicalities of why this is the case. There are many scholars that have already dealt with this (ex. Jeffrey Sachs, William Easterly). Instead what I want to focus on is OUR society. Even with all of our technological innovation we still have immense problems of our own. There is much stress, frustration, dissolution, and acquiescence in our society. Thus, this leads me to the thesis that we ought not try to improve the lives of other societies until we achieve a much more perfect state within our own borders.

We must ask ourselves: "How is it that with such advanced technology we are still so far from perfection?" One major problem is that we focus too much on the products side and not enough on the production side. It really is just another example of the Prisoner's Dilemma: We all want the best products, yet also want the best work environments. However, instead of collectively agreeing to help each other support humanistic work environments we follow the "best response" and end up perpetuating our own miserable work situations. So I now proclaim that it's time to face up to this deep seated problem and begin to start taking serious steps toward solving this grand coordination problem.

Improving One's Environment

I'm realizing how important it is for me to create the right environment for myself. I'm reading Durkheim's The Division of Labor in Society and am listening to my old music. I need an environment that allows me to make music on a regular basis. I need to be able to compose and sing when I feel like it. It is not fun being cooped up in an apartment with no stereo system other than my laptop. I feel that I could get a lot more work done if I was in the right environment. This idealized environment would calm me down and allow me to read for longer periods of time, rather than being distracted by a snack break here and an email check there. In this new environment those activities would lose importance. Or maybe not. I don't know; I just know that things could be better than they are. I need an environment that is much better optimized to my particular psychophysiology.

Music and Such

I've felt freer with my decisions lately. It's weird, usually I think hard before I act, but I've been more "oh what the hell" lately. It gets tiring stressing over every little decision. Let me live! And so it's nice to be free, though there is still much thinking to do; there are still big problems to solve that are not going to solve themselves. And so I'm pursuing a productive yet joyful way of being.

But I'm supposed to write about music here! I'm listening to Nena right now. She's German. I really love this song Wir Sind Wahr. I'm also a big fan of Roger O'Donnell's Tiny Little Pieces. You see, music I really like does something special to me. Other things are fun too, but outside of love I don't know what compares to great music.

I've been thinking a lot about those little things in life and how they are really at the core of the big things. We invent all these huge problems, yet at the end it's really about those particular things that bring us happiness. What we want is more positive stimulation and less negative stimulation. But how do we do this? How do we get around the chains of all of those obligations? Is this the real challenge? Or rather, is it figuring out what really makes us happy? Ask yourself: "What makes me happy?" What is keeping you from attaining that happiness? Are the answers clear? I hope they are, though they sure are not with me.

Seminar Life

I got back from class a little while ago. We discussed the approach of Weber and Geertz. I get frustrated sometimes when there is a big group and I don't get the chance to express much of what I'm thinking. Really, after 3 people it gets problematic. But also, I was listening today and I was thinking, "I hate the way we are approaching these issues." It seemed to me that were were analyzing in an inefficient way. I like to start with the roots of issues, with the motivation behind an action. I take the pleasure principle for granted and then try to map out why individuals are oriented toward this or that. Why do they value what they value? Why do certain particular experiences have those particular effects on their state of being? What interactions have led the individual to react in that particular way to that particular stimulus? What THINKING has led the individual to react in that manner? So this is where I like to start. It just seems so wrong to go about it another way.