Cher ami,. there is a sserious intellectual problem here and you are not addressing it. I don't dispute that there are such thingss a needs and maybe even a hierarchy of them.
But I am very suspicious of puritanical pronouncements by people who purport to know what they are outside the broadest and roughest mesaures.
I'd accept that we need food, clothing, and shelter -- or income and wealth as means to get these things-- before we need yellow dye in our pickles. Or advertising. And shortly above that we need loving parents, then loving partners, free time, good sex, interesting work. Maybe art,
Beyond that I am pretty cautious about pronouncing on what we "need." I think you should be too.
jks
--- Tom Walker <timework at telus.net> wrote:
> Justin,
>
> >I am so pleased that we have the authority on what
> we
> >really need here, no need to consult people; s(no
> >doubt ideological distorted) preferences. Just as
> >Mike. Or the Party. Or the Planning Commission. Or
> >your neighbors. So if you _think_ you need, say,
> >bondage gear to attain sexual satisfaction but
> would
> >rather not discuss it with mike or the authorities
> >(democratic, of course!) or your neighbors, well,
> you
> >never really needed it in the fitst place.
>
> >Do I get a say in this?
>
> >i don't think we need rutabagas. Or chocolate milk.
> >Definitely do not think we need hip hop. Sorry, you
> >hip hop fans, I am the Man, and I know what we
> need.
>
>
> I know what we need, too. Sarcasm. And
> self-righteousness, too. Sarcasm,
> self-righteousness and hyperbole. & a little
> cynicism and opportunism on
> the side wouldn't hurt. I hadn't thought about it
> before but now it's
> perfectly clear: MIKE BALLARD IS STALIN! I mean not
> literally but for
> all intentes and purposes. First they came for the
> yellow dye and I was
> silent because I wasn't a pickle manufacturer, then
> it was the rampant
> commercialism and since I wasn't a cosmetics vendor
> I let them do and
> then before you know it they were the whole place
> was one big Gulag.
>
> The Sandwichman
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