A really interesting article here (below).
In general, this navigation essay touches on how much of the cultural-baby to throw out with the cultural-bathwater, with every, asynchronous step in generational turnover. Yes, there's always more ritual than most appreciate, which can theoretically be shed, but differentiating cultural baby-fat from a pound of cultural flesh, and when to shed it ... can easily get to be rather dangerous.
One has only to study embryology to appreciate the 2-stage art of recombination PLUS fabrication. We all know that lemons occur, despite all efforts at assembly line control.
That's before some people even realize that human culture is in a state of continuous, interleaved cultural-embryology.
Many things not necessary for adults are QUITE necessary for different stages of development, whether during early embryogenesis or during childhood. In general, the more you know, the less you need ... but ONLY after you've learned that much. :)
Then, finally, you realize that WE need recombinant kids just to parse the unpredictable things your aggregate will need next. That occurs even though you no longer personally need kids, and you eventually realize that at some point, your aggregate no longer needs YOU!
Get over it.
Hence, "oops" occur every generation within groups, and every singe time groups meet and merge. That's why large, current cultures spend as much or more time looking back as we do looking forwards. Recovering from our own mishaps is a large part of cultural as well as individual survival. Eventually, every individual metaphorically hammers their own thumb hanging a picture ... and every culture shoots a million of it's own feet. It's how we recover & adjust that counts.
Hence, "oops" occur every generation within groups, and every singe time groups meet and merge. That's why large, current cultures spend as much or more time looking back as we do looking forwards. Recovering from our own mishaps is a large part of cultural as well as individual survival. Eventually, every individual metaphorically hammers their own thumb hanging a picture ... and every culture shoots a million of it's own feet. It's how we recover & adjust that counts.
In the end, we're all still Context Nomads, individually & culturally, and there are endless, unique tricks & shortcuts to optimally dealing with every context. The glory of survival really does go to those who re-orient and re-adapt soonest. That process goes on regardless of which individual or distributed thumb was hammered, or which pound of component or cultural flesh was usefully or harmfully shed.
(hat tip Kevin, in a prior comment)
1 comment:
By assuming there are no tricks & shortcuts ... we quit looking for ways to rapidly make unpredictable - and insanely valuable - adaptations to every given context.
I heard an Amish farmer describe this pretty well. If we don't stay connected to simple ways of doing things, we lose contact with the fundamentals of why and how to do things differently, when the time comes.
That means fewer shortcuts, and slow adaptation.
That's a perfect description of how economists ended up with ideology, & lost contact with basic banking operations. That's how they end up suggesting Pink Elephant solutions to non-existent problems.
Feel the ebb & flow of bank operations? :) Be ONE with the Reserve Flows? Observe the demonic winds of Output Capacity? Maybe a little more imaginative mysticism could help orthodox economics. Nothing could hurt that dead horse much more.
Post a Comment