andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> I agree with Ian's thought if not his manner of
> putting it. It's a sort of "I got mine" attitude.
> Personally, I like iPods, new drugs, quieter mass
> transit, and so forth. As do most people, so I'm not
> worried about Carrol's Luddite tendencies.
So do I like a lot of the stuff. But change -- even pleasant change -- does hve a negative effect on the human immune system. Tthe person you love replies yes to "Come live wirh me and be my love" and two days later you have the worst cold of your life. I think it really obtuse, and insulting to the humabn imagination, to believe that change occurs only if encouraged or forced by social arrangements. But capitalist ideology fetishizes chang for the sake of change, and capitalist (and possibly the market, cap or soc) relations of production force change whether desirable or not.
I've made it clear many times that I reject moral judgment of people _under present conditions_ who go shopping for the sake of shopping. There is nothing AT ALL wrong with identifying shoppong for new gadgets with the richest form of living. Such Shoppong should be seen as a fine and admirable exemplification of the human capacity to triumph over and find delight in the weirdest conditions. Perhaps even societies of the future will have a scattering of specially designed obstacle courses (i.e, shopping malls) fust as we have acquariums and art museums.
But there ids no way for humanity to get control of its own history (not to speak of global waming and peak oil) without bringing the dynamic of endless product differentiation and expansion to a screeching halt, to be reintroduced to some finite extent only after a century or so of careful thought and debate.
Carrol