only means
there are no means
only ends"
And I blame philosophy, if not for all our ills, then, at least, for all our woes.
Yes, philosophy would seem to be exclusively the preserve of intellect and language, but, come on now, let's think again...
Or to misquote Jesus; we must do philosophy with all our heart, with all our strength, with all our mind.
As Nietzsche said, "others do philosophy, as if they were riding on a train but, as for me, I am the train!"
We have institutions and interventions.
Some people like to say that we have values that we choose to live by in a civilised society; that it all comes down, in the end, to the choice we make collectively, to choose what kind of society we want to live in.
This last sentence is an example of a thought form produced by established discourse.
We could go on... but, in the end, it's humbug.
Wire up and plug in your bullshit detectors.
Turn up the dial to the max!
Some form gives pleasure; some form gives comfort, and some form will take it all away, so that nothing that is left is ever quite the same again.
Forms that intervene in the smooth running of outmoded institutions, no longer fit for purpose, relics of the past; in these forms we find the fountain head of new life; that strange mixture of energy and consciousness, the mind and the matter, that constitutes the world.
All things being equal, and things being as they are, I think there would have to be something seriously wrong with you anyway if you didn't have a total mental breakdown at least once in the course of your life, or contemplate the act of suicide from time to time.
And, once you have attained a certain degree of self-knowledge, and insight into your condition, I think it is only fair enough that you should be blamed and held to account for the consequences of your actions, even though you are unwell, if your condition causes you to harm yourself or those around you.
Crisis management and support for people recovering from mental illness;
what's not to like about that?
It's a hopeless situation. Yes, but let's work with it a bit.
Let's look at the left and the right, and see where it takes us.
But first, we must question our motivation.
When you read this, are you hoping to find answers?
Is there something that you want?
Will you ever get it???
What is money? What is time?
Do you have enough money? Do you have enough time?
Yes yes yes. Of course contentment is my practice;
joyful effort, in service of others, realising emptiness and bliss.
But if I were to offer you more, do you think you'd take it?
Do we want to believe? In scarcity? Or in abundance?
How can there be a scarcity of love???
Or a scarcity of ideas???
And what sense can we make of your faith in the protean rational economic agency of man?
In the production, distribution, and consumption, of goods and services; we can look at all things two ways. We can look at the demand side; and we can look at the supply side.
If psychological experiments are leading us to question our assumptions about rational economic choice (and thereby lose faith in nineteenth century notions of the balance of nature, maximisation of marginal utility, opportunity cost; equilibrium expressed by the meeting point of two sloping lines on a graph; one line rising, to show supply in terms of rising price, and one falling, to show the corresponding fall in demand); if all of this is now being opened up for re-evaluation, then let's try to look at things another way.
Let's get back to ideology and culture; back to the mental furniture, conditioning where we like to rest our bones, where we like to stand, and what we like to say.
What is our habit? What makes us feel at home?
And now let's use philosophy to make an intervention...
In British politics today, we have reduced our thinking to little more than a display of sloganeering, for either one of two brands of intransigent conviction, with regard to what works best to our advantage, in stimulating growth on the supply side.
On the right we have the brand of competition; on the left, the brand of public service.
Ultimately, both claim to be kind;
if we will allow that sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.
In either case, if they are correct, then we could deem the outcome to be a social good; so it is not easy to say, here and now, who is being more compassionate.
If the end justifies the means, then it's hard to say who holds the moral high ground. It all depends on who is right; or as David Cameron likes to say, "what is the right thing to do."
Well he would say that, wouldn't he!
See how they play with words - see how they delight in them!!!
But, "in the end", the end can never justify the means. And why do I say that?
Because there are no ends - only means!
So which side do I come down on?
Of course, I am in favour of public service. And yes, of course, I am against competition.
But I think, perhaps, I need to explain my position in more detail; because I do understand why competition would appear, to some people, to be a necessary evil and an instrument by which we can leverage lumpen humanity, to achieve something better for itself; while on the other hand, there are many misgivings I have about signing up wholeheartedly for public service, as the panacea for all our ills.
Political ideology, in all its forms, is something we must unmask.
As they say at GCHQ, "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to be afraid of." If ideology could do its work without obfuscating itself in the process, then, perhaps, there would be no harm done. But the hubris of human kind seems to know no bounds.
Let me end with a tribute to Tony Benn. He said there are people who create wealth by hard work. (I suppose they would be the "honest hard working families" we hear so much about these days.) Then there are those people who own the wealth...
And the problem, as Tony Benn saw it, was that the people who own the wealth have too much power.
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