Does anybody know if a public library pays more for a book than normal, to compensate for the lending?
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From wikipedia:
In December 2004, Salinas, California almost became the first city in the United States to completely close down its entire library system. A tax increase passed by the voters in November 2005 allowed the libraries to open, but hours remain limited. The American Library Association says media reports it has compiled in 2004 showed some $162 million in funding cuts to libraries nationwide.
Oh yes. I think that will pay for about 3 or 4 minutes of warfare abroad. A good deal.
Generally libraries pay "wholesale" or at least "cut rate" price for most books, meaning that it's substantially less than what it costs you at the local regular bookstore. When I was working publishing we felt it was our duty to help out libraries by making sure that, if they didn't have some neat-o deal with the government or with a middle-man, we'd figure out some other form of discount to provide for them.
ReplyDeleteIt's a frustrating arrangement. It might be fair to analyze, that for every copy of a given book that a library buys, there will likely be about five fewer copies that a street consumer buys, so in some ways a mandate for a publisher to support libraries is a mandate to undercut his own sales. But on the other hand, library exposure can lead to a much greater public awareness of a book or an author than would single household sales, and the good-will leads to all sorts of other positive arrangements.
The issue often gets more complicated when dealing with school libraries. Are they educational institutions? Do they get the faculty discount? Will those copies be mis-used as course texts (the OTHER sales of which, generally, are a reliable annual income that publishers depend on for certain types of titles)? And so on.
Cagey librarians have figured out how to abuse these systems to gain acquisitions where they otherwise would not have had any. Some libraries suffer unduly with ridiculously low acquisitions budgets. And most are in that idiotic never-never land of having to spend their time catering to "what people want" -- books about Paris Hilton that rapidly go useless as celebrity preferences change; or yet more pulp paperback bodice-rippers and dragon-slayers -- rather than what most trained librarians might consider "real" literature.
I heard a very intelligent panel discussion about how libraries these days ought to just give up on holding "reading" books for adults. Simply abandon that mandate. Move on to running computers for user-friendly idiot-terminal type internet access, and then acquiring LARGE and usually expensive locally-based reference materials -- phone books, reference guides to local history, genealogical tables, maps to parks within an hour's drive, etc. Thus becoming a neighborhood's "data bank" rather than a location for "reading material." Add to that a wide selection of most of the cheaper (often provided for free to libraries because the advertisers want their ads to get out to the public) periodicals -- national news magazines and papers, local broadsheets -- and you have a whole new concept.
Interesting idea. The ALA and a bunch of other old-hat organizations resist this kind of change, rightly pointing out it eviscerates the intellectual life of the libraries and turns them into service stations on the information super-highway. But I'm sorry to say, the libraries have already been eviscerated. People don't read at the rates they did in the 1960s, not magazines or newspapers and certainly not books. There's the internet and movies and at-home DVDs for all of that time. Libraries are emptied out of book-quality book-content already; the only question is how they'll respond to the empty void. Denial or acceptance.
"Does anybody know if a public library pays more for a book than normal, to compensate for the lending?"
ReplyDeleteNot in this country at least. Of course it's up to publishers whether to sell them or not. Years ago, in a lapse of reason, I did and now regret that.
The public library system, just like public education, is a bad idea and should not be supported.
The public library system, just like public education, is a bad idea and should not be supported.
ReplyDeleteHoly shit. That is stupid. I hope you're joking.
Final Identity, you've really outdone yourself in idiocy this time. Your rambling, incoherent nonsense is especially retarded this time. I mean, really, do you think that Hicksville USA is the whole world? You hillbilly fucks might not read anymore, but people not so inbred are not like that. Btw, you look like a damned fool in that picture.
ReplyDeleteAnon wrote: "Holy shit. That is stupid. I hope you're joking."
ReplyDeleteNot joking at all. But you nailed it. It is precisely the "holy shit" resulting from government involvement in education that doesn't gel with me.
When you tax people to fund programs that are used to control the beliefs of those very tax payers you got yourself a perpetually self-acknowledging biological finite state machine.
The problem with libraries is that by charging $0 for their loans they've eliminated competition. They are only able to do this by forcing us (including their potential competitors) to pay for their operating costs.
Government programs never work. The public library system is no exception, even if due to our indoctrination seeing this may not be easy.
Sorry, but having seen how the public education system works I'd have to say that I would be have been doomed to a different social status if my schooling had not been free, or I would have had to go to a church school.
ReplyDeleteAs I come from working class stock I would have had no education, and took an apprenticeship at 14. With state funded education I was able to get a BSc at 21.
My parents would have been doomed to dock worker and farm laborers wife had public education not existed.
I have two kids who read prolifically, though the local library probably is not efficient with it's funds it certainly enables me to keep up with their habits. We do still buy books, but the library helps us expand our tastes and knowledge.
Being better read and more knowledgeable allows higher earning capacity and therefore more tax generation from us as citizens.
It also makes us more tolerant people overall.
Maybe the education system is slipping a little, GCSE's seem to be given almost automatically and degrees are ten a penny now, with no professional jobs to accept the newer graduates, but this change has only really been in the last 10 years.
Government programs never work. The public library system is no exception, even if due to our indoctrination seeing this may not be easy.
ReplyDeleteThey've been proven to work and work very well. The way to ruin something that works perfectly well is, of course, to privatize it. Then fucknuts like you, who are unable to tell the difference between your ass and your face (an easy mistake to make in your case, I'm sure) don't know what the fuck to do. Of course, rumor has it that your from Finland, and if I lived in a worthless shithole like that I might take the same view. No, probably not - because I was born with a full-size, fully-functional brain. You were not.
The people we are fighting burn libraries.
ReplyDeleteAnd schools.
And schoolgirls.
The public library system, just like public education, is a bad idea and should not be supported.
ReplyDeleteMan you are sooooooooo wrong. If it had not been for "public education" our world would still be grunting and pointing at things. I cannot believe the mentality of some people.
Go to the Wizard and request a brain.
Part of my love of books stems from long hours in the local public library - which, above 18, I think you have to pay for a library card. But this was years ago...
ReplyDeleteInteresting concept, Final Identity. I never thought about it that way. My very first thought is to throw it out the window because I loved that library and still miss it. Yet if that's the way to survive... there will always be a need for those kinds of reference materials, things that are in books but not online.
The world is changing so fast these days, hard to figure out where to jump. And by the time you land, that rock may already be gone anyway.
Ok, philosophical mood over, I hope.
Hehe ... stirring the pot a little, am I.
ReplyDeleteCool down. And enlighten up! Watch Sir Ken Robinson's TED-talk: Do schools kill creativity? Or something.
Funny how people make the deductions:
no public education -> no learning for the poor
no public libraries -> no reading for the poor
Without even allowing for the possibility that the basic premises might be wrong.
But without public education there was no education for the poor.
ReplyDeleteWhere my dad grew up the schools were sponsored by the church. A few generations before that there was no education.
As for University, the dynamics there have changed rapidly and repeatedly since the 60's.
My parents had no chance at Uni, they'd been put through schools that were geared towards churning out proles. There was little scholarship money for hopefuls. University was for public school and occasionally state grammer school. 2ndry Modern and Comprehensive pupils were earmarked blue collar and clerical only.
I went through fully funded state schooling. That even took care of tuition an accomodation at Uni. Student loans had not even been thought of at that time in that country - had state funding not existed I would have not been able to go.
It seems that the economy has shifted enough, an economy aided by public education, that now, when government withdrew funding of university education, then industry stepped up and paid for it. This is only something that happened because of the white collar industry that evolved.
I don't believe that industry would have made the change happen. A sufficient base of available work force had to exist before the economy could change. Now industry has to maintain the employee base to support itself.
I do believe that if schools were all privatised, then a large number of people could not afford to send their kids to school.
If there was scholarship to allow gifted students to enter schools, then if you have not proven yourself by age 4 you will not get an education.
The only way private education would work is if the schools were incentivised (by mandate or grant) to build in communities that need schooling, and to accept all students regardless of ability, and not to charge unreasonable amounts for the schools. Does the government then need to means test people before they assist with education fees.
"But without public education there was no education for the poor."
ReplyDeleteI am not at all sure it is in the interest of the poor to have "education". Education is an institution. It creates a form of pluralistic ignorance. It's also one of the most powerful tools of mind control. Identities of whole nations have been changed in very short periods of time through education.
Education is not a requirement for becoming wealthy (when that's the goal for a poor person). It may even be a hindrance.
It's also not a requirement for learning. The only thing you need it for is "grades", an artificial ranking system stemming from the institution itself.
What you need is social interaction. Also, you need to know what you want in life. And you need to have the courage to seek out someone more experienced than you to show you the shortest path to where you want to go.
Says the guy who had the benefit of an education - even if it was a waste. You remind me of those nuts who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Idiots.
ReplyDelete"You remind me of those nuts who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Idiots."
ReplyDeleteAnd yet I've heard vaccinations can do more harm than good. Considering I nearly died from vaccinations I received as a child, I can certainly believe it.
I've got to love people who think that their own personal experiences somehow say something for the population as a whole.
ReplyDeletePeople take vaccinations for granted, just like they take public education and public libraries for granted. We would not want to go back to the days before we had those things.
ReplyDelete"I've got to love people who think that their own personal experiences somehow say something for the population as a whole."
ReplyDeleteYou'll note I didn't say my experience was representative of the whole. ;)
"People take vaccinations for granted, just like they take public education and public libraries for granted. We would not want to go back to the days before we had those things."
ReplyDeleteLibraries are obsolete. That doesn't mean I'm for doing away with them. Browsing the library with a hot cup of tea in hand is the perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon. But its purpose-the free sharing of information-is now served by the internet. I can find entire libraries worth of information on a single subject with a few keystrokes, and I can do this from virtually anywhere.
If libraries were to vanish there are many who wouldn't notice the difference. Of course this is also due to a different reason- illiteracy. That's another subject for another time. However, I think it backs what ttl had to say. You can't look to these systems and say, "make use smart! keep us informed!" Education is first and foremost a personal responsibility. I believe this is part of what he was getting at. IE, there's a fundamental flaw in the assumption that we have to rely on external sources (the government, schools, teachers) to shape our minds into something worthwhile.
We can argue over the flaws and merits of a construct all day but there is one undeniable fact: a system is only as effective as the people putting it to use.
Your knowledge of history is obviously seriously lacking if you believe this too be the case. That's all there is to say, really. Arguing it would be pointless because you lack the most basic knowledge on the subject.
ReplyDeleteI can find entire libraries worth of information on a single subject with a few keystrokes, and I can do this from virtually anywhere.
I'd like to know where those few keystrokes are going to get you all the content of a library for free. There are many, many people who do not own a computer. There are a lot of people who would notice if libraries disappeared.
I can see that the above might come across the wrong way, but what I mean is that if you look at how things like public education came about, and what it was like before they existed, then they cannot be seen as unnecessary. Certainly public education is a flawed system, but that doesn't mean you scrap it.
ReplyDeleteMy knowledge of the history is irrelevant; I'm not looking at it from the same perspective as you. Nor am I necessarily saying to scrap the whole thing, although I do see how I gave that impression. I'm saying the system is flawed and will remain so until the underlying assumptions are changed. Personally, I see no merit in holding on to flawed constructs. But this applies to me and me alone. That is not to say there aren't others who agree, but it is a personal choice whether I work within the system or not. I don't deny they can be helpful to others. However, there's no permanent solution that doesn't involve empowering every individual that creates and takes part in these constructs.
ReplyDeleteI didn't say no one would notice if libraries disappeared. I did say many wouldn't. But even then this is not so tragic, it would simply require more proactivity on the part of those really thirsting for knowledge. If someone has friends with similar interests, surely they have books they'd be willing to lend. If one does not have such friends, they can always seek those kinds of people out. Libraries are convenient, yes. They are a major avenue for the exchange of information. They're not the only one. A determined man wouldn't be stopped by their loss, he'd forge a new path.
What is it exactly that I said which was so offensive or typically "hicksville"? I'd love to address specifics ...
ReplyDeleteI'm fully with Alex's first comment here. Free culture is essential. Nothing to add.
ReplyDeleteAnd #2 Anon's ad hominem rants make me go a big rubbery one, but this is really stating the obvious. :-)
"The way to ruin something that works perfectly well is, of course, to privatize it."
I have to fully agree with that.
I'm in an agreeing mood today. :-)
It's a pity that mood was immediately ruined by the following motormouth "argumentation".
Rudeness can oh so swiftly ruin a good cause.
I globally disagree with Final and TTL on this issue. And yet I believe we can disagree in a civil manner, which will eventually lead to a profitable trade of views.
For instance: "Go to the Wizard and request a brain." Now that's a cultivated insult. Basically, it implies the targeted person knows the Wizard of Oz. So it's more like gentlemanly fencing than rabidly lobbing rocks with inarticulated grunts. "Not Flintstone material", indeed! :-)
Hannah, thanks for reminding me of my own book-devouring youth. Oh, the stories I could tell! (And some day, I will.)
Alex reminisced...
"I went through fully funded state schooling."
Wasn't so fortunate. It took my parents lots and lots of efforts and sacrifices to send my brethren and I to a decent private school in wartime Lebanon. Let's not even mention the sorry state public scholl was in - and still is!-.
Getting an education in today's system is better than getting none at all. TTL, you're not about to convince me that learning to read, write and count is a bad -or even pointless- thing. Among much admitted rubbish, I learned very useful things until my last year in school. My personal culture far from depended solely onthat, but some of it was really useful, maybe even priceless.
Peaceful Blade enlightened...
"Education is first and foremost a personal responsibility."
"Official" education is essentially a tool for developing your own mind. Aptly using it is up to you. But, I'm positive that with no tool at all, things would generally be much harder.
Joe Dick relevantly pointed...
"There are many, many people who do not own a computer."
We're in the "taking good things for granted" all over again. :-(
The whole of the internet is vulnerable, a few nasty viruses could shut it down, at least temporarily, and it would perhaps take only one cyber-terrorist to do it. Or a single government decision, like in Burma. Or in China and most Arab countries, where it is strictly monitored and filtered by a few softwares. Too frighteningly easy to control, I'm not about to give up the more classic ways just yet.
Plus, in a great part of the world, the internet is far from "free, fast, convenient and reliable". I pay my connection by the hour, added to the ISP monthly subscription fee. It's markedly more expensive than in Europe or Northern America. And with a measly optimum speed of 33.6 kilobits/second. If I'm going to download an average You-Tube page, it's got to be worth the 20-30 minutes it'll take me. Similarly, any lengthy search has got to be worth both the time AND the cost. And some big movies you guys watch just for fun are beyond my technical abilities, it's just impossible to get the whole file without the link failing.
Some days, it takes me more than two hours just to receive the e-mail jokes some of my privileged friends forward to me.
Oh, sure, there is the budding possibility of DSL in Lebanon. If you're loaded with moolah. "To begin with, you have to pay for the cable getting to where you live. If less than [arbitrary number] people in your building intend to get it, fuhgeddaboutit. Loo-hoo-hoo-se-her!"
Wireless? Oh, it's theoretically possible. If it weren't outlawed by the politicians. They wouldn't be getting their cut of the cake with such a system...
Oh, incidentally? There ARE no public libraries in Lebanon. Culture ain't a priority for our fearless leaders. I can notice the difference on the country. It's part of a global scheme, you know. Small details missing here and there, and you find yourself living practically on a different planet, in a different universe, where civic liberties are like God: you've gotta believe in the abstract notion even though you'll never actually see it in your lifetime.
Peaceful Blade analyzed...
"I'm saying the system is flawed and will remain so until the underlying assumptions are changed."
So, it is better to patiently correct than to destroy without a darn convincing replacement plan! :-)
"But even then [...] it would simply require more proactivity on the part of those really thirsting for knowledge."
Call me paranoid again, but exclusion of whole classes of a population, such as the darker-skinned folks in New-Orleans, is usually an accumulation of many "small hinderances requiring more proactivity". When you work too long and too hard just to survive, many extra efforts become a luxury beyond your means. My father missed out on a big part of my childhood because he had to work, sometimes spending more than a year abroad. My school's library was one of my favorite places, I must've read more than half of what they had there. (Okay, small lebanese school, small lebanese library, but you get the point.)
Hicksville? Say, is that near Duckburg, in Calisota?
Pascal argued: "Free culture is essential. Nothing to add."
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! That's why I strongly advocate privatising all of it! :-)
You see, I don't really consider culture for which the funds are obtained through confiscation, and allocated by a small comittee of power hungry socialists, all that free.
"TTL, you're not about to convince me that learning to read, write and count is a bad -or even pointless- thing."
Not at all. On the contracy, I advocate privatising education because in my opinion everyone deserves to learn these things from motivated teachers and in an environment that caters to the child's individual needs.
I note that the readership of this blog don't agree with me, but many of my friends do:
"Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education" - Bertrand Russell
"School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is." – Ivan Illich
"Schools have not necessarily much to do with education... they are mainly institutions of control, where basic habits must be inculcated in the young. Education is quite different and has little place in school." – Winston Churchill
"The millions of dollars which we devote every year to high-school education are, for the most part, money spent for the retarding of intelligence, the discouragement of efficiency, the stunting of character." – Bernard Iddings Bell (1949)
"There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison." – William Glasser
"Together we have come to realize that for most men the right to learn is curtailed by the obligation to attend school." – Ivan Illich, "Deschooling Society"
"What's the difference between a bright, inquisitive five-year-old, and a dull, stupid nineteen-year-old? Fourteen years of the British educational system." – Bertrand Russell
"I think we've tied acquiring knowledge too much to school" - Arno Penzias (Nobel Prize winner)
"The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school." – George Bernard Shaw
Pascal said:
ReplyDeleteHicksville? Say, is that near Duckburg, in Calisota?
No, it's down the road from Anytown, USA.
Pascal-
ReplyDeleteAye, the internet is vulnerable. But so is most of what we have in place. I'm not really suggesting that the internet is the end-all-be-all, but that regardless of what happens there's always another resource we can tap, or something we can create. It's not the end of the world nor even society, though society may crumble for a time.
Nothing we set in place, regardless of its form, is truly secure. Books burn. So do buildings. Security in this world is a myth and will remain such so long as we seek to establish it through constructs rather than by searching our own hearts.
How did our existing systems get put into place? It started with determined individuals that held visions of a better world. (Or tyrants seeking control by providing the masses with a lesser-of-two-evils scenario) As they began, so too can they be remade. However, there's a repeating pattern within the history books. Men rise, men fall. The same things keep happening over and over again. Human nature hasn't changed, we've simply gotten shinier toys. Tossing all we know to the wayside may not be the answer, even if there is no value in it. That's something we need to discover as we go. But we're not getting to the core of the issue. As long as we skirt around it there will be victims, the poor will be oppressed, and we'll keep ending up right back where we started.
There were times people worked so long just to survive there was no time for anything else. (It continues today for many) But was this ever really necessary? What events lead to it? Some things, like pestilence and famine, are legitimate reasons. On the whole, however, human suffering is the result of our own foolishness. The poor and oppressed exist because we insist on splitting people into classes. You can create laws that force the rich into spreading their wealth amongst the commonfolk, but it doesn't eliminate greed. In fact it breeds resentment. It's one of the reasons things eventually fall apart. We all play a role in this.
We certainly can't ignore the practicalities of life while we figure ourselves out. However, we can't keep doing the opposite- mistaking the practicalities for our real issues. Self-examination has been lost in lieu of countless circular debates. "If this guy becomes president, if this law gets passed, if my party becomes dominant... Then I will be happy." It hasn't worked but we're still doing things that way. I have to ask, despite the vast amount of tools at our disposal, have we really learned anything? If we answer no, what we have will inevitably be lost.
Looking at the educational system we have now, at least in America, I fail to see how its absence would do us harm. I've met people my age who stumble over their own tongues while reading lines from "Dick and Jane." I've met highschool graduates from the 70s who can barely read roadsigns (ironic, considering some of them were truckers) and had to think when adding 2 and 2 together. We are wasting the taxpayer's money and the children's time on a system that often fails to accomplish its most basic goal. It seems to me the only purpose it serves today is to pacify people by leading them to believe something is being accomplished when in truth it is not, at least not by the schools at large.
People do learn from public education. This is because there are willing students and, rare as they may be, enthusiastic teachers. However, the way the system is designed it sucks the joy out of learning. It turns it from exploration of the world and human nature to a rote question-and-answer routine wherein the only goal is to score a high letter grade on each of your tests. Learning takes place, but it does so despite schooling.
Don't misunderstand; I'm not condemning what we have in place nor am I disguising cries of anarchy in longwinded posts. I'm saying we can do better, we could have been doing better all along and whether or not we hold to what we've got for the time being we need to put our creative energy to use and figure out new solutions. There is reluctance to mature to the point where this is possible, but I sense we as a species ache for this evolution. We desire it, we need it, but we're not sure we can do it. (Or that we'd want to. The status quo is incredibly appealing, thus lending indecisiveness to the mix.) We're deeply afraid of what will result from our decisions. I see no other reason we'd keep trying to push responsibility for what happens in this world onto another's shoulders. It's odd how when everything goes to hell we feel so much better that we can point and say, "he did it."
Pascal knows. Peaceful Blade talks like a pampered baby who knows nothing about real life.
ReplyDeleteOur host says: Wikipedia says: Salinas almost became the first . . . 2004
ReplyDelete-almost-
Might that mean Bridgewater Massachusetts IS the first? in the summer of '07.
Closed their public library.
perfidy
John
final identity, you'd better square your ass away and start shitting me Tiffany cufflinks or I will definitely fuck you up!
ReplyDeleteTTL conciliated...
ReplyDelete"Free culture is essential. Nothing to add."
Absolutely! That's why I strongly advocate privatising all of it! :-)
Alas, I can picture the kind of education we'd get if you just went and privatised schools in Amerikanistan:
"Ronald orders a Big Mac with double fries, but doesn't take a Coke because he's a (boo!) Pepsi fan. Condoleezza takes a veggie menu with rice, and mineral water for her diet. How much will each be charged on their American Express account (plus tax)? Bonus question: calculate how much they will really pay in the end, after cashing in their fidelity points for valuable corporation gifts, and filing a refund as a "business meal" at taxpayers' expense.
Next exercise: if a Ford 4x4 guzzles 11 gallons per 100 miles, but a crummy european import has expensive parts, and you just KNOW it'll break down every 14.6 days, which one should Daddy buy? Remember, we are winning the Iraq war, so oil prices are going down any week now. And your Daddy will lose his job if you don't buy american."
(Enough already, I think you get the Flatron® HD picture.)
Power hungry socialists are no worse (or better!) than power hungry capitalists.
(Ha-hem!) OK, more seriously. Private education is notoriously better, BUT... if the poor can't afford it, and there's no other available option, it'd be a regression. There needs to be a system where decent education is guaranteed to all. Anybody knows one?
I'm not sure, alas, that private education has more teaching integrity than State schools. Often, they'll just have different biases. (Granted, that diversity is already a progress. Sad to say.)
Wow, TTL, you really have some important friends. Could you get me some autographs, to trade at school with my buddies?
raf said...
"Pascal knows. Peaceful Blade talks like a pampered baby who knows nothing about real life."
Um... beging your Resident Anonymous Forgiveness, but I never claimed myself to know any such thing about Peaceful Blade. ;-)
In fact, that last PB post had some very interesting points in it.
My personal belief is, better than rebuilding everything from scratch after we've unleashed the bulldozers, we can reform what reasonably working system we have now, and start reforming the things that don't work properly. Better safe than sorry, at such a large scale and crucial area. Just doing things the way they were MEANT to be done, by the letter of the law, would be a giant leap forward compared to today's fiasco.
Plus, from what I see of problems being linked to school in France, some people just prefer to demand that school entirely educates their children while doing no parental effort themselves at home, for manners, civic sense, etc... School is not meant to replace a family that's too busy doing other stuff. School teaches knowledge. The PERSON is built at home, by responsible parents. Ultimately Stating the Obvious, U.S.O.
Responsible parents... I know, sometimes I'm asking for too much.
"You can create laws that force the rich into spreading their wealth amongst the commonfolk, but it doesn't eliminate greed. In fact it breeds resentment."
Maybe. But I'm positive it can't breed as much resentment as a System that deliberately allows the rich to get obscenely richer and richer, by working less and less, and exploiting the poor with ridiculously meager salaries. Leaving things as they are may very well lead to the same as the Russian 1917 Revolution.
And I really dislike that scenario. We all know what came out of it in the Eastern Animal Farm. Proper change emerges far more difficultly from the turmoil of violence and anarchy. (To put it mildly!)
"We are wasting the taxpayer's money and the children's time on a system that often fails to accomplish its most basic goal."
Don't expect me to contradict you: this IS a grave problem when/where it exists. And exist it does.
If the system functioned the way it was designed, I'm sure the picture would get clearer.
The system was also designed to protect New Orleans from floods...
"Don't misunderstand; I'm not condemning what we have in place nor am I disguising cries of anarchy in longwinded posts."
Mister, you've just stolen another flamer's job by using that expression yourself. ;-)
No wonder the Corporation of Flamers don't like you and go to the streets every other day in angry demonstrations. You're sabotaging their trade tools.
"I'm saying we can do better, we could have been doing better all along"
How do we change things in the current System?
How do we change the current System without ending up with an even worse one?
How many lifetimes will sensible change require?
I have questions, but does anybody have guaranteed &/or convincing answers?
"I sense we as a species ache for this evolution."
I don't see much evolution in Lebanon, but that bit about ache, man, that's no fib!
It's odd how when everything goes to hell we feel so much better that we can point and say, "he did it."
You're such a smooth talker, with phrases like that last one, you should be President of the United States. :-(
"How do we change things in the current System?
ReplyDeleteHow do we change the current System without ending up with an even worse one?
How many lifetimes will sensible change require?
I have questions, but does anybody have guaranteed &/or convincing answers?"
The only answer I can see is for the human race to grow up. We're at each other's throats both at home and abroad. No doubt we have some valid reasons. The Iraqis have every right to be pissed at the US for our unwelcome invasion into their country. Black people are feeling the repercussions of slavery to this very day so I can understand when some of them are angry towards white-skinned folk. But these grudges and wars aren't getting a damn thing done. If we could say, "I don't like you but I'll work with you to establish something better" we'd take our first step towards fixing things. (So long as it was sincere)
When I look around, I get the feeling the world is run by children dressed up as adults. Children pout when they don't get their way, children cry injustice when someone gets a little more ice cream on their cone, children will horde every toy in the room and shove anyone who tries to play with one of them. Adults cry blasphemy when gays try to get married, adults get penis envy when someone drives a slightly nicer car, adults will horde wealth and spend it frivolously while homeless rot in their own nation's streets.
This is a problem for us as a collective that can only be solved through individual responsibility and through individual action. When a child hits another child we don't accept, "she started it!" as a valid answer. Neither should we say, "the terrorists started it!" and use it as a valid excuse to hoist "liberation" on other countries and rob our own people of their freedoms. Neither should we say, "they blaspheme Allah!" and fly planes into buildings.
When the children stop playing dress up and realize just how much growing up they've yet to do, we'll see things change. This isn't the solution to all of our problems, but it will put us closer to the mindset we'll need to be in to come up with those solutions.
This change can occur at any time. It probably won't take lifetimes, though it may take that long to really get the hang of living that way. If things aren't going to fall apart in our present day, the initial change can't take lifetimes. We don't have that long. We're at a critical time in our history. We can't face it with fear and dread. We don't need to face it with wide-eyed optimism either. We do need to take an honest inventory of the world we live in, the part each individual, government, and nation has played in it, and get to work on our real issues.
try living in the real world, you sheltered little baby. The world's problems are not going to be solved by people like you, thank God. What a damn fool.
ReplyDeleteAs the great prophets Bill and Ted said, "Be excellent to one another dudes".
ReplyDeleteThe trouble with bending to concur with someone is that you have to compromise, and with this everyone gets a little closer to winning, but everyone looses.
The trouble with a hard either/or situation is that someone will win, and someone will lose.
Everything from here on in should be done for the greater good, but we need to find out what the greater good is.
Some people, after given the basic tools of reading and writing, basic mathematics and a smattering of thinking skills (as promoted by literature and history) will have all the tools they need to become successful writers, merchants, traders, artisans.
Some of us need a framework to help us grow. Be it a formal structure as school, college, university, or a looser regimen of apprenticeship and guild certification. Others are seeking to learn other things, more spiritual, there a monastic training would be more beneficial.
The thing is, what are the common tools people need? Can we build the fundamentals in the years from 5 to 10? Remember the 11+ exam used to decide your educational fate for the next 5 to 15 years, depending on where you landed on the curve.
If the three "R"s are taken care of in a suitable environment, then the rest is opt in, then we might have the solution everyone is looking for. However, does such a system accommodate those who's agenda change as they grow up, and realize there a skills they should have picked up, but skipped them?
I guess one of the problems is the mandated learning, instead of the encouraged learning. Carrots and sticks.
I am simply appalled that Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted Theodore Logan should be misquoted! It is "Be excellent to each other" and "Party on, dudes!" said separately by Bill and Ted respectively.
ReplyDeleteFor the dangerous of self-education, look to Wolf Larsen.
All of Peaceful Blade's careful cogitating is clearly pointless.
ReplyDeleteThe world's problems will only be solved by beople who can shit Tiffany cufflinks. While going a big rubbery one the size of a giant elephant cock.
Any volunteers?
"The only answer I can see is for the human race to grow up."
ReplyDeleteThere, that wasn't too hard to say, was it? Now then, all that remains is to DO it. That should be the easy part... :-/
Alex pondered...
"Everything from here on in should be done for the greater good, but we need to find out what the greater good is."
That part's easy! Vote for me so I end up in power, and I'll soon show you the greater good is me getting very rich very fast.
And if, four years from now, I turn out to have been mistaken, I promise to say "I'm sorry". (Diamond smile.)
"The only answer I can see is for the human race to grow up."
ReplyDeleteThe only way that's going to happen is if they are somehow able to genetically alter human beings to reduce aggression and other unpleasant aspects of human nature. Otherwise things will never change. Libertarianism, like Communism, only works if you change human nature.
We haven't managed to leave infancy in 5000 years of civilization, so it's not going to happen anytime soon.
"We haven't managed to leave infancy in 5000 years of civilization, so it's not going to happen anytime soon."
ReplyDeletePerhaps not. And it doesn't need to happen all at once. But we do need to be willing to take the first steps toward it. It's got nothing to do with genetics; aggression is not a disease we inherit, it is a choice. Our only permanent solution is to grow past the point where we keep making the same stupid choices over and over again. In the mean time, there's nothing wrong with slapping a band-aid on things while we consider how to progress.
Remember that this shift must first occur on an individual level. It doesn't matter what the rest of the world is doing. We're never going to grow up if we yell, "YOU! You're the ones that need to change!" It has to begin within the individual. The collective will change when the individuals that comprise it seek to better themselves toward enlightened self-interest. (Seeking what is best for me and is also best for you. We are one; harming you is no different than harming myself.)
Changing the world is too big a task for anyone to undertake. Send as many or as few as you like, in the end it floats as well as a boulder strapped to the deck of the Titanic. Changing yourself is far more manageable. Indeed, we do that on a daily basis, sometimes without realizing it. A leap in our evolution is certainly possible but it will only happen when we work from the inside out. Whether or not our next door neighbor starts changing in positive ways, or the guy across the street, or the president of America, or a Pakistani man in a cave... It's none of our concern. Of course their actions impact us. I'm not saying they don't. I am saying we need to place the bulk of our focus on the one thing we control 100%: ourselves.
Remember also that we are a species wherein strong individuals set the trends for everyone else. The collective are followers, not leaders. This makes change far easier to come by because it means only a few influential figures need to effect the kind of change I'm talking about for it to spread on a mass scale. The loud-mouthed bigots and fools of our age are good at grabbing attention and bringing out the worst in us. It makes it difficult for strong, reasoned, kind and diplomatic souls to gain the spotlight. But it doesn't mean they can't, or they won't. They'll just need to realize that the way to drown out the noise isn't by making a louder noise. That's playing on the same level as the aforementioned fools and they're experts at what they do. Knife to a gunfight, anyone? No, they'll have to find another means to snap the crowd from their stupor.
It's got nothing to do with genetics; aggression is not a disease we inherit, it is a choice.
ReplyDeleteIt has to do with the design of the brain, including the Amygdala and medulla oblongata but no doubt a lot more. Choice has absolutely nothing to do with it. Saying that we can choose is like saying that a schizophrenia can just "snap out of it." The human brain has not changed for tens of thousands of years, and we are still equipped for a time when life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
We are more than the wiring in our brains. We are sentient, we're aware of this aspect of ourselves. Awareness is the key to choice.
ReplyDeleteIf someone is holding a gun to my head and he's of sound mind, it makes little difference what drives him. It is a conscious choice that leads him to pull the trigger or toss the gun aside. If a schizophrenic is aware of his condition, he's responsible enough to choose whether or not he seeks treatment. If aggression is hard-wired into us, we've no excuse for letting it become our master. There's countless ways we could channel that energy and gain a modicum of control over ourselves. To say otherwise is merely to excuse our own horrendous acts by way of victimhood.
Keep in mind I'm not saying this is easy. I'm not even taking difficulty into account. I'm saying what I ultimately feel is necessary. Regardless of difficulty, it needs to get done. If an obese man with numerous health conditions knows that the only way to save his life is to change his lifestyle by exercising and eating better and he doesn't do it, is, "it was hard" an acceptable answer? Of course his choice is his choice regardless of the outcome. He and he alone has that right. But if he gripes about his aches and pains, if he searches for sympathy and yet changes nothing, knowing full well what will happen long before it ever does, then the difficulty of his plight is meaningless. He could have done something, he is responsible. (This is under a scenario where he didn't gain weight because of a genetic defect, disability, or illness, and there was nothing preventing him from losing the weight and becoming healthy if he was willing to put forth the effort. There are people who have such conditions who manage to do that. Whether or not we attain the optimal result, we always have a say in what our destiny is.)
We are more than the wiring in our brains.
ReplyDeleteThe science tells a different story.
I'm beginning to wonder if you read what anyone else writes here.
I'm beginning to wonder if you read what anyone else writes here.
ReplyDeleteHe writes a lot but I don't think he reads the other peoples responses. He writes novels like Mr Pascal which includes many useless words and says very little as an answer. That's all folks. News at 11.
A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
ReplyDelete"If they are somehow able to genetically alter human beings to reduce aggression and other unpleasant aspects of human nature", you can bet your life "they" will start doing it in the manner of Big Brother, rather than for helping humankind grow up. "They" are far more immediately interested in ruling obedient sheep, while "themselves" remaining the lame same.
ReplyDeleteWe've got to evolve through education and wisdom, not by some "concerned higher authority" toying with our innate nature. It's more than enough what they are doing with our food, water, air, and media. Just entering a supermarket today is stepping into a small brainwashing machine designed to make you buy.
Schizophrenia is the exception, not the rule. While common foolishness in people with a normally-functioning brain hardware is, well, ordinary. Too ordinary to be considered a mental disease. Schizophrens are not responsible for their LITERALLY mindless acts: they have fundamental abnormalities of their thought processes causing, first and foremost, great suffering to themselves. Many would love to just "snap out of it", but they can't. They need outside help, and medication, their brain has an objective illness. A bit different from epilepsy, and far more complex, but genuine. A psychosis is far more than an extreme personality. Maniaco-depressive psychosis is often a genetic syndrome. And genuine paranoia is quite different from extreme narcissic neurosis. Trust me, I've seen it, felt it, touched it firsthand.
Let's keep medical psychiatry and daily psychology distinct. We are so fortunate to HAVE complete free will when some just don't.
With a measured lobotomy for all, you could have a planet populated exclusively by perfect citizens. They just wouldn't be full human beings anymore. That too, I've seen, after brain traumas. The Doctor can assure you, this is not the way. (But the dictator might find it the PERFECT way...)
"Libertarianism, like Communism, only works if you change human nature."
I agree that libertarianism sounds just as much of an utopia as the rest. Democracy and liberty theories all assume that the individual will always sponatneously be good and kind.
That may be so, still with exceptions, the day all individuals are first raised in a balanced society and dedicated loving family. As long as "all that's wrong with our country" keeps spawning envy, resentment and spite, we're not anywhere near the end of the rectum, I mean TUNNEL! (Sorry, freudian slip)
Every time I look back at the huge way forward our kind has managed to come, in spite of EVERYTHING, I can't help but feel that there has to be a collective mind and drive for progress, invisibly straightening the crooked statu quo. Otherwise, having the public opinion demanding that Guantanamo be shut down, the Myanmar regime pressured, and the 2008 Olympic Games boycotted failing that, it would be as impossible as it was just 100 years ago.
Today, even when a regime that's rotten to the core discriminates whole categories of its citizens, they dare no longer admit it openly, they lie, control the media, and go to great lengths to twist and cover the truth of their ways. Today, a tyrant just can't be so admittedly and openly, because there are some consequences. (Even though, I admit, there could be much MORE consequences were our politicians not so hypocrite.)
There IS something evolving, I don't know how, but I see it. It's not all black, and many shades of grey are lighter than in a still recent past. It's slow, but it's there. God has not forsaken us yet, He just works in invisible ways. Probably always has...
"Remember that this shift must first occur on an individual level."
May I remind you that it's always easier to shift a straw than a beam? I'll start by cleaning my neighbor's eye, thank you. ;-)
"A leap in our evolution is certainly possible but it will only happen when we work from the inside out."
Odd coincidence, I just blogged lately about the same thing, and it involves islamists! (English translation coming soon.) Looks like more people do it than we imagine or give them credit.
"The human brain has not changed for tens of thousands of years, and we are still equipped for a time when life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
That is perfectly true. But it is only half the truth. Here's the other half : the human brain is the most advanced thinking tool in the Universe, and its adaptability is nearly infinite. Where there's a will, there's a way to change our minds. Our babies are born with archaic reflexes, like hand and feet grasping, which are superceded by new, more elaborate circuits when we start learning the world. Some of our atavistic reflexes are actually pretty positive, like solidarity and compassion. Others, like the taste for violence or the tendency to reject those who look different in aspect from our home group (the root of racism and xenophobia), should and can be replaced today with more evolved patterns, through education and choice. Archaic reflexes only ever reappear if there is extreme damage to the higher brain structures, usually in poor prognosis comas. Our archaic social reflexes can be just the same: outgrown so efficiently that only the most extreme trauma could ever reveal they were ever there in the first place. A trauma AT LEAST as extreme as the world becoming once more a hostile and completely primitive place. And probably more extreme than that, if we've learned well. The human brain HAS changed, simply because today its basic design grows in, and adapts to, a world and environment that are forever different. For each of us, our brain changes every day. This is why we become less foolish as we grow older. Needing to be careful that this victory over foolishness and recklessness doesn't go too far, making us passive and resignated. We're so adaptable, we need to always be self-aware and think things over. ALWAYS think things over. Including what we hold for granted.
In fact, this is so essential, it should be taught in school, as soon as our child minds reach enough maturity. I'd say around 14 is a good age. 13 for girls, they're more precocious in wising up.
"If a schizophrenic is aware of his condition, he's responsible enough to choose whether or not he seeks treatment."
Alas, I have to contradict you on that specific point. It seems that you're unaware of the core definition of psychosis.
It all depends on how severely that person't thought processes are disturbed. Some just can't take decisions any more, because their own self becomes alien to them. Sometimes they are, to the full extent of the word, irresponsible. If they are readapted to society, strict monitoring of their following their normalizing treatment may me essential.
I'll tell you the honest truth: there's one thing, and one thing only, that I've learned about in Medicine that truly frightens me. It's not an unresponsive advanced cancer. Not a 90% fatal wildfire epidemic like an airborne version of Ebola. It's the idea of schizophrenia. Of being no more fully human. Of having your thoughts escaping your control to refuse basic logic and coherence, perceiving your body as not your body in various ways which you cannot convince yourself out of, of getting imprisoned into an inner, unescapable nightmare of not being you, and being partially aware either of it, or of that gaping absence in yourself.
And because I understand it, I can't help but feel compassion for those who undergo it. They, more than anyone else (except sick children), need our help and comprehension.
I won't give a course on psychotic syndromes, it would require a whole book. Just take my word for it, or seek further documentation, it's easy to find.
To specifically adress your comment, a schizophrenic may be aware of his condition, and still be unable to do much (or anything) about it. It will really depend on the person, and perhaps on whether you are skilled enough to reach them. Perhaps. You can never know in advance. Which is why in schizophrenia the consent of the patient is legally unnecessary, albeit very desirable (for treatment compliance, and basic human considerations).
Those much-hyped college shootings? Grave schizos, undiagnosed until it was too late. All of them, I believe. From the most discrete and silent to the most hateful bellowing ones. That's why it is pointless to try and understand their motivations every time. Their motivations were the unpredictable delirium and/or hallucinations hatched in their psychotic mind. It's not a social phenomenon, it originates from an intrinsic abnormality. So you don't try to understand their motivations: you spot/diagnose them before it's too late, then let the shrinks understand how to help them return to normality as much as it'll be possible. This is why insane people are not put to trial, however shocking this may feel to the families of victims.
Personally, I'm in favor of systematic psychiatric screening around the middle of puberty. For the sake of the people they might kill, and for the sake of those youths locked in their pain which most normal people can't even conceive if they haven't studied psychiatry. A college shooting is the moment when an untreated shizophrenia becomes terminal, for the subject and for many innocent bystanders. Have you noticed how they typically end with the shooter's suicide?
As for the rest, including pathological neurotics, your argumentation is all good to me. They have different opinions, standards, etc... but their minds work like yours and mine, they are ACCESSIBLE. At worst, they'll be stubborn. But never cryptic and puzzling.
There is also the matter of "borderline states". These are perhaps especially delicate. They are "borderline" between neurosis and psychosis, and may tip either side, sometimes only after years or some emotional trauma. (I personally know two or three people like that.) Consider them as accessible a priori, but expect some surprises. They're seldom dangerous, unless they get manipulated by someone else whom they trusted too much. If they "picked the wrong anchor to normalcy".
Many psychotics, most of them actually, are also seldom dangerous to anyone but themselves. I am always careful to remember that. Crimes are only in extreme cases. Most "active" ones just commit suicide, leaving the oblivious world puzzled as to "what got into them?". The answer being: nobody understood what was going on with them. So sadly simple.
Autism has been considered as the step further down from schizophrenia, in terms of disturbed thought mechanisms. I tend to think this is a bit simplistic. But autists won't kill someone else. They just wouldn't care about doing it anyway.
Trisomics are also notoriously harmless. Only extreme circumstances like self-defense (real or perceived) could even bring about the IDEA of violence in those innocent natures.
reporter cupp said...
"He writes novels like Mr Pascal"
Not everybody had the talent to be a good reporter who can do brief, relevant reports.
This forces humility. :-)
Any news on the panties of Paris, or Britney's britches? What about Madonna's leather bra, heard some juicy news lately? (As you see, I am ALSO interested in relevant topics, not just in books and psychos.)
Anonymous said...
"A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Bill Shakespeare, everybody knows it's you! So why don't you use your name, hunh? Hunh?
Afraid the library crowd will hound you for autographs?
Or afraid the world finds out it REALLY wasn't you who wrote all those masterpieces? ;-)
"If they are somehow able to genetically alter human beings to reduce aggression and other unpleasant aspects of human nature", you can bet your life "they" will start doing it in the manner of Big Brother, rather than for helping humankind grow up. "They" are far more immediately interested in ruling obedient sheep, while "themselves" remaining the lame same.
ReplyDeleteWe've got to evolve through education and wisdom, not by some "concerned higher authority" toying with our innate nature. It's more than enough what they are doing with our food, water, air, and media. Just entering a supermarket today is stepping into a small brainwashing machine designed to make you buy.
I was only half-serious about tinkering with our DNA. I think the Federation has the right idea on that score. For one thing, it might do away with useful mutations, such as the one the apparently saved some peoples’ asses from the Black Death. I was merely pointing out that our behaviour is partly a result of hard-wiring, and aggression is part of that. I don’t mean that we are simply slaves to it, or no one would ever be charged with a crime. Of course free will comes into it. And of course, to an extent, we can overcome some of our baser instincts. But not totally. For our behaviour to evolve is going to take a long, long time – but we’ve progress with some backsliding here and there.
Schizophrenia is the exception, not the rule. While common foolishness in people with a normally-functioning brain hardware is, well, ordinary. Too ordinary to be considered a mental disease. Schizophrens are not responsible for their LITERALLY mindless acts: they have fundamental abnormalities of their thought processes causing, first and foremost, great suffering to themselves.
I don’t disagree with you. My point was only that some things, being due to something in the brain, can’t be beaten just by willpower. To an extent this is true, but I was saying that just by willing it humanity is not going to overcome the dangers of primitive emotions and other things just by willing it – partly it is hardwired into us and we can’t do much about it. We’re only going to get something through a combination of willing to change, which hopefully might – over thousands of years – bring about a physical change in the brain. Who knows? Then again, if that happens and civlization crumbles, we’ll be stuck back in a primitive world without the mental capacity to survive.
With a measured lobotomy for all, you could have a planet populated exclusively by perfect citizens. They just wouldn't be full human beings anymore.
Not to make light of it, but didn’t they cover this in Star Trek? Kirk was split into two parts, and discovered that he needed his “dark” side to survive.
Every time I look back at the huge way forward our kind has managed to come, in spite of EVERYTHING, I can't help but feel that there has to be a collective mind and drive for progress, invisibly straightening the crooked statu quo.
If everyone was like most of the people here, that might be true. But it doesn’t seem to me that most people really care too much about making the world a better place. That is where my comments about the design of the brain and the possibility of tinkering with that ourselves comes into it. Otherwise most people are not going to care. All most people seem to care about is getting drunk and cheering on their favourite sports team. Watching people hurt each other for money. That sort of thing.
There IS something evolving, I don't know how, but I see it. It's not all black, and many shades of grey are lighter than in a still recent past. It's slow, but it's there. God has not forsaken us yet, He just works in invisible ways. Probably always has...
If He exists. I admit the universe looks pretty bleak if he doesn’t, but if he does exist He’s got a lot to answer for. You should read The Bible According to Mark Twain.
the human brain is the most advanced thinking tool in the Universe, and its adaptability is nearly infinite.
Pascal, I am surprised at you! We don’t know if there doesn’t exist a more advanced thinking tool somewhere in the universe. But relax, I know what you mean.
I am aware that the brain changes over our life, but those changes are probably not any different than the changes that have always occurred in the modern human brain. We just use it in different ways than our ancestors did 10,000 years ago.
everybody had the talent to be a good reporter who can do brief, relevant reports.
This forces humility. :-)
I don’t mind long posts, but when someone is essentially repeating themselves, it’s kind of pointless. I didn’t mind your long post above, for example.
Or afraid the world finds out it REALLY wasn't you who wrote all those masterpieces? ;-)
I know you’re joking – thanks to that emoticon, without which I’d be lost – but I’ve never understood this idea about Shakespeare. I mean, it’s not like a lack of education has ever been a barrier before. What about guys like Srinivasa Ramanujan? I’m sure there are other examples.
Speaking of slow evolution, I'd be curious to have your opinion about the latest post I made on that very topic on my own blog. There's material for a very active discussion there:
ReplyDeletehttp://p-04referent.blogspot.com/2007/11/nie-khatim-fatima-ulema-fadlallah-part.html
Joe Dick apeased...
"I don’t disagree with you [about schizophrenia]."
No you didn't. Unless Peaceful Blade is one of your multiple personalities. ;-)
"You should read The Bible According to Mark Twain."
I should be so lucky as to find such a book in Lebanon! The DaVinci Code is outlawed here, in spite of it being a fiction the Vatican OFFICIALLY doesn't mind one bit...
And don't even bother to mention The Satanic Verses... "You wanna spark a civil war, or sumpin'?"