Any luck on the job front?
On Sat, Dec 15, 2001 at 02:09:06PM +0000, Carl Remick wrote:
> >Carl Remick wrote:
> >
> >>What interests me is that you can find essentially the same view
> >>(absent the vitriol and scorn, of course) in Emerson. Emerson was
> >>sympathetic to the goals of Charles Fourier, with his often
> >>ingenious schemes for utopian socialism, but he thought he was way
> >>too rigid and uncomprehending of psychology. It's certainly
> >>arguable that the growth and spread of the transcendental awareness
> >>that Emerson advocated would produce more socialistic thinking and
> >>the development of nonmarket forms of economic coordination, but
> >>it's not possible to predict exactly what changes in the structure
> >>and operation of society would result.
> >
> >Yeah, but then Emerson could say cranky things like "Are they my
> >poor?" When you traipse through life as a transparent eyeball, you
> >sometimes miss the darker side of things.
> >
> >Doug
>
> Emerson was scarcely oblivious to the darker side. Here's some of what he
> had to say in his essay "Fate":
>
> "Our America has a bad name for superficialness. Great men, great nations,
> have not been boasters and buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life,
> and have manned themselves to face it. ... Nature is no sentimentalist, --
> does not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and
> surly, and will not mind drowning a man or woman, but swallows your ship
> like a grain of dust. ... The habit of snake and spider, the snap of the
> tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones of his
> prey in the coil of the anaconda, -- these are in the system, and our habits
> are like theirs."
>
> Emerson certainly thought that no meaningful social revolution could occur
> without a change in the consciousness of individuals. He was revulsed by
> the urban poverty he saw in England during an 1847-48 visit -- e.g.,
> "beggary is only the beginning and the sign of sorrow and evil here" -- but
> he was dubious about the revolutionary ferment he saw in London in 1848:
> "People here expect a revolution. There will be no revolution, none that
> deserves to be called so. There may be a scramble for money. But as all
> the people we see want the things we now have, and not better things, it is
> very certain that they will, under whatever change of forms, keep the old
> system. When I see changed men, I shall look for a changed world. Whoever
> is skilful in heaping money now will be skilful in heaping money again."
>
> Carl
>
>
>
>
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-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu