Believe as you Will
All money is a matter of belief.
— Adam Smith (1723-1790)
The Capital Vice is Excessive Consumption
Believe as you Will
All money is a matter of belief.
— Adam Smith (1723-1790)
The titled responsion is...
What are you searching for? Your highest ideals are defined by what you pursue. Minimum disruptions to homeostasis are frontal cortical and autonomic. The combination of the two is highly adaptive. Beyond the biochemistry lies belief despite truthful intent. Can you feel the vice tightening?
Adam Smith
Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.
— Epicurus
We suffer anticipating death and experiencing the death of our loved ones. Epicurus, however, was Epicurean and attempted, through philosophical thoughts to remain immune to the emotional dependency and love of others. Do you agree that self-reflection is a social construct? This is axiomatic to culture and permeates society yet for some reason we run on autopilot for much of our daily experiences and interactions. The value of social and kin-based support structures is educational. If these social mechanisms fail, society is sickly. Vulnerability and dependence versus independence produce a different quality of life. Autonomy is not a factor here and remains unscathed in a model of social interdependence. The flavour of emotion that grows and flourishes beyond the self, formes stable and sustainable community structures. Placating acts of appeasement are insulting and disingenuous! Vulnerability is not the same as risk if we all have skin in the game. Not to say that gestures are not appreciated but achieving harmony is much more systemic. We are a social species. Social flourishing is necessary for individual flourishing and living a life worth living. We value Epicurean thought and philosophy, however, the lack of group dependency and autonomy coupled with isolation produces elbow swinging miners. “Mine… mine… mine,” says the consumer of creature comforts. The fruits of our labour are only “ours” when “they” say so! This is a surrender of sorts and vulnerability of authority. Think of the fallacy of the same name. Dialectic, discourse and dependency are ideal. Let the argument live or die based on the evidence. Death is part of the process. Pulling the ideal from the Utopian requires efficiency of information flow. Time is all we have. Finite and self-similar, “ours” is defined in hours, not individual ownership. This Conservative pathology is contemporary to our present day Politique étrangère (foreign and domestic). Redistribution of wealth is one possibility but hard to achieve and even harder to enforce, hardest to re-enforce - flawed I would say, without destroying fundamental values of Western culture. “Mine” is cultural, “mine” is social, the ability of the individual to assess this value is essential to stability. Models of wealth redistribution must integrate individual autonomy to maintain robust models of utilitarian survival and not threaten capitalist stability. Better yet make them organic. In some regard, consumerism functions as an equalizer. However much we despise the waste and environmental consequences of consumerism, eliminating our consumptive habits will not be realized without the severest of consequences. Believing in materialism, in the consumer sense, functions as an economic exaggerator, spreading an ephemeral version of wealth. No class is immune to the temptations of the market economies, not even the offspring of our cherished liberal democracies.
Manifestly so Communist
There is no proletarian, not even a Communist movement, that has not operated in the interests of money, and for the time being permitted by money – and that without the idealists among its leaders having the slightest suspicion of the fact.
— Oswald Spengler (1880-1936)
The titled responsion is...
Cicero
Blind alleys mixed with ideology are a bad mix regardless of capitalism, communism or something in between. Our values are what have to change, the exchange or which should be traded on the open market of ideas, not ideologies. The baseline equilibrium is measured in homeostasis and ATP.
What's the Cure for Capital Vices?
Everything that used to be a sin is now a disease.
— Bill Maher (Comedian)
The titled responsion is referring to consumption.
Christine de Pizan
I like this reversal of sorts; consumption used to be a catch-all phrase for something deadly. Saying, she died of consumption, probably refers to cancer or some other unknown disease. And yet, ironically so, the crime against humanity is excessive consumer consumption and self-serving capital punishment. The double entendres are everywhere!
Metaphysical Materialism
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
— William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
The titled responsion is a contradiction in terms and yet the wisdom is epiphenomenal; a projection of sorts.
William Wordsworth
Mindful materialism is being aware of the "goods" we consume, the thinking that we participate in and the values we propagate. The art of negation is the simplistic art of minimalism. The reductionist is no longer a Scientific perversion, the crunch of capitalism must be re-invented!
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