tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14707730.post2318023224283019544..comments2024-02-24T19:49:45.687-05:00Comments on Schools Matter: Technologies Foster ConformityJames Hornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04462754705431590571noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14707730.post-91029448783526480982013-10-14T18:41:20.349-04:002013-10-14T18:41:20.349-04:00A book I was reading this weekend by Sherman Paul,...A book I was reading this weekend by Sherman Paul, in a piece on Thoreau, says this on "the demands of society."<br /><br />"...life in the woods is now often a way of life correlative with the rejection of the society--no the demands of the society--whose bounty one readily takes, whose bounty makes it possible. In Communitas, the Goodmans say of the third paradigm of rural, subsistence living, that it serves the end of freedom: One chooses to live marginally, at the margin, in order to free oneself from the luxury economy and thereby pursue one's own (usually) creative ends. But from what I have seen those who have chosen the marginal life are seldom Thoreaus. To choose a marginal life is not necessarily to choose a life, to have something purposeful to do, and lacking this wouldn't life in the woods lose its attraction and become dismal, as dismal as one's interior landscape? Life in the woods is not an end in itself: You must have a life and want to live it there, knowing that thereby you may have more life. Doesn't the fact that this is not the rule explain resentment, the frequency of gratuitous acts...like when someone smashed [a neighbor's] iron gate?"<br /><br />Our lives are "exciting" only when gratuitous...and so we work hard to prize the champions of this mode of being: celebrities!stormnemesishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11176778911355352751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14707730.post-8874556335237922742013-10-14T18:40:22.413-04:002013-10-14T18:40:22.413-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.stormnemesishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11176778911355352751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14707730.post-76362276185669306332013-10-14T16:55:58.039-04:002013-10-14T16:55:58.039-04:00Well, we're not slaves, exactly. We swapped ou...Well, we're not slaves, exactly. We swapped our freedom voluntarily for the promise of ever increasing convenience and pleasure.<br /><br />Pleasure ≠ Happiness<br />Happiness ≠ Contentment<br /><br />I think we got what we wanted.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08464418215373077203noreply@blogger.com