Monday 16 January 2012

The Unconscious Civilisation

After my tirade about corporatism on the 12th of Jan it brought to mind the book The Unconscious Civilisation by philosopher John Ralston Saul. I was introduced to it via a radio series played on ABC Radio National. Saul began his Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio Massey Lecture series;

“The acceptance of corporatism causes us to deny and undermine the legitimacy of the individual as citizen in a democracy. The result of such a denial is a growing imbalance which leads to our adoration of self-interest and our denial of the public good.

The point of these received wisdoms of the second half of the 20th century is that the very heart and soul of our 2,500 year old civilization is, apparently, economics, and from that heart flowed, and continues to flow, everything else. We must therefore fling down and fling up the structures of our society as the marketplace orders. If we don't, the marketplace will do it anyway.”

Saul is an outstanding speaker and his engaging Massey Lectures can be listened to at the following http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/massey-archives/1995/11/06/massey-lectures-1995-the-unconscious-civilization/

Fine and sunny day max 31.1 C min 13.1 C. Continued with cleaning and counting daffodil bulbs. Completed another 4 bays and are up to Z in the div 1 & 2 bulbs. Worked out what had disabled the ride-on mower, a woodruff key that holds the drive gear to the drive shaft had sheared off.

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