It strikes me that most "thinking people" have affinities to bohemianism. It is curious that so many of us are materially comfortable people to the extent that we are in a position to disregard our material needs (relatively limited as they may be). We believe that materialism poses the greatest danger to our world, yet it is our material comfort that allows us to look at materialism from outside. This has provoked nagging judgments of hypocrisy from conservative critics, which are almost impossible to evade. That is not to say that the materialists are always materially uncomfortable, but (with the exception of some exceptionally creative people) non-materialism comes more naturally to the most materially comfortable (especially young people among this class, who do not associate their own comfort with the hardships endured by their parents and grandparents). This feature points Maslows hierarchy, tired as it may be, in another direction: while self-actualization may be a laudable place to find oneself, the self actualized person has little in common with the rest of the pyramid (and therefore looses the point of reference) unless there is some shared external factor.

Humans differ from other animals in the detachment we have from natural circumstances due to our social relationships. I do not need to gather food, I don't even need to have a relationship to the person who produces my food, I just have to pay for it. Our social systems, our market, is our "natural" source of survival and therefore materialism is just an extension of the animal obsession with survival. Obviously animals have other needs beyond survival, but for us these are also informed by our market participation. The point I am getting at is that the human for whom gaining social or material advantage is not a priority is the most unusual kind of animal.

Here are some more thoughts, but less of interest:

Where did the concept of "bohemian" come from? I understand that the term was popularized in the mid to late 1800's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemianism), but HOW did that lifestyle and identity emerge? This theme and its history has permeated both liberal lifestyles and how those lifestyles are interpreted.

I am sure that urbanization, migration, mass cosumption of art/culture, and the mechanization of labor all played a role in the emergence of Bohemianism, but for each to what extent?

My feeling is that while the first three factors where more important as the identity arose, while the third and fourth factors were key to its persistence through time. I will look further into the history of this theme.

How do we by pass judgement (a rural weakness) yet create community values (a rural strength and urban weekness) which permit non-market social behavior change?

A series of discussion over the past month on the theme of sexual attraction and race have long begged to be added to this blog. Here I will introduce the topic, as I've come to understand it.

Human sexuality and attraction is enormously affected by our own identities as well as our perceptions of others identities and sexuality. In short these are SOCIAL values. These values, like most others in an isolated urban modern capitalist state, are heavily influenced by mass media (in these discussions, we must always remember how different mass media is from other media ... it is mass produced with little marginal cost involved and also relatively uniform across individual units of production). This fact is often hard to reconcile, since more than any other preference or desire, matters of love are thought to come "from the heart" or even "from the soul."

In the midst of this context many friends and acquaintances have proudly expressed preference for a particular race or ethnicity, without exception bound up in the gender and sexuality associated with that group. Needless to say these expectations are based on perceptions in an isolated world and with mass media the authoritative and salient voice. Whenever I have brought this to the attention of my enthusiastically ignorant friends, they tend to resent my point of view. I am to be blamed in part for carelessly using the label "racist" which is of course a loaded term that should not be spoken lightly.

A striking article from the Washington Post lays the landscape for dating in the interracial context. Despite the high rate of premature death, incarceration, institutionalization, and general malaise among Black men, Black women are the least likely to date outside of their race. Even before taking to account incarceration, etc., there are 100 single black Women for every 70 single Black men. Yet Black men are the most likely male group to date outside of their race. Among Asian men and women, the EXACT OPPOSITE is true.

My conclusion: there is irrefutable evidence that sexual preferences are heavily informed by racial perception.

This is not a benign situation. I believe that the sexual preference given to men of a race which is "percieved to be more masculine" tends to produce misaligned relationship expectations for both the men and women in these relationships. I have only anecdotal evidence to this effect, with many of my Black male friends looking for a steady relationship and frustrated with women who see them as sexual objects without need for deeper consideration.

You may be thinking: "So am I supposed to ignored my desires and behave contrary to that which makes me passionate?" I do not advocate that anyone actively try to reorient themselves sexually (though a little less TV wouldn't hurt), I would just hope that everyone would be a little more humble and a little more considerate in expressing their race-oriented sexual preference.

in these posts i often rail against the stylized "urban" and "rural" ... it is clear that much of the heartache and isolation in urban life is attributable to a falling from rural communal values (though in many communities instead as a dissonance between their own communal values and that of the urban whole).

i don't yet understand what should be next to come ... i am drawn to the freedom and open-mindedness of urban society ... yet i yearn for the communal and spiritual groundedness of rural life. I have yet to see an example where these values have been seamlessly expressed -- I especially struggle against the racially or religiously homogeneous examples in the world, which may bubble to our minds in this discussion.

admittedly, I often question my own values. I have accepted other mildly contradictory paradigms in my life, why is my current state of mind so truthful? As this state of mind is quite oppositional to the contemporary human identity, it is sometimes difficult to not find myself struggling against the naturalizing tendencies of human society.

Yesterday I discovered a significant purpose of this mindset ... yet it is a purpose borne of necessity, hopefully not overstated: true anti-racism is achieved through destruction of the identity (as opposed to the ego per se).

Within this fast moving, cosmopolitan society we come in contact with many people who we expect to never interact with again -- or if we do, it would be at arms length. How are non-monetized conflicts to be resolved in this space? I would contend that the most common non-verbal and non-physical expressions of retribution is attribution of a wrong to a race, a gender, an age, a lifestyle ... whatever. People are grasping for ways to punish other people that they've judged (for evidence see the success of crime dramas, such as the 'Law and Order' production machine), when there is no formal monetary recourse, and legal recourse is far too cumbersome, the bad blood often falls to prejudice.

Loosing identity is a very painful experience ... blameful fingers are pointed towards urbanism and capitalism ... it is becoming clear that these sorts of neutral conditions cannot be scapegoated ... if deeper causes are to be identified, the "religion" of modernity, of knowledge, might be taken to task.

Extremism

... continuing to pick and choose our own realities as the world becomes more isolated, differentiated, polarized

Modern humans seek to either pollute their minds ("antisocial") or uphold an unexamined collective sense of reality... precious few have poked at reality yet avoided the idle traps of the normal world

These dangers expand to the extent that social nous is unrepresentative of individually held values and that such contradictions are broadcast and perceived

Weakened minds are easy fodder for this cold world

so you might be wondering, "the rural have been moving to urban centers in droves for over a hundred years now ... how do these people cope with their immersion in differentiation"?

i believe that rural to urban migrants over the past century have been able to take advantage of three phenomena key to their prosperity in new urban settings: a massive growth in marginal productivity among the least skilled workers, enclaves of the "rural" world, and sometimes legacies of urban culture. (I must mention the notable, yet not exclusive, example of the Jews and Chinese who have successfully adapted to thousands of years of urban life and immigration. These groups have successfully engaged "rural" collective values towards urban needs such as creating mutual credit organizations. They have also famously sought education, the ultimate act of differentiation, in their attempts to integrate to the urban society)

the industrial revolution ensured that massive amounts of new tools were provided to the "bare handed" and usually these tools were adapted to the "bare handed" by the desire among capitalists to turn laborers into commodities. "rural" enclaves have taken the shape of actual places (in the US usually in flood prone areas where land is undesirable) where property rights are non-existent or nearly so. most of these physical rural enclaves were eliminated after the drive to build levies during the eisenhower (?) administration. yet "rural" rural enclaves also took social manifestation. this social manifestation cuts both ways: on the one hand ethnic differences such as language often binded immigrant communities together, such that livelihoods often improved collectively. on the other hand "rural" values often run counter to urban ones -- protecting rural-urban migrants but also setting them against their own best interests according to the urban society. where racial differences were perceived, urban societies have had a tendency to affix these differences to race.

when the "tools ran out" and rural places were no longer to be found in the city, the rural-urban migrants fell back on their rural values -- but in the city, community and family values became exclusionary in nature. looking out for one's family and community also meant fighting against those who were perceived as not being in that community.

african americans came to the northern cities in the largest numbers when the "tools" were dwindling and other rural-urban groups were already established. this set the stage for persistant racism towards (and among) Black people in the US.

the rural world can be a place of reconnaissance. just as the urban world usurps land it does too with ideas and creativity. in this urban world an idea must always have an "inventor" or "discoverer" or "author" or whatever -- the creative economy is a cloak for a larger problem: having been immersed in our differentiated culture for so long, we are actually beginning to believe that we (and all the people we know) are much different from the famous songwriter or inventor ... so are we similiar to the people on tv? maybe just a weak comparison? this is a pretty depressing identity for ourselves that our "creative economy" is constructing for us. the truth is that we are all relatively similiar, but with different ideas of who we are and then these ideas actually do shape "who we are" by influencing what we consume and what we produce (which is the lens through which those in this society view eachother).

technology and "innovation" can be described under the more "neutral" heading of "differentiation."

as differentiation occurs and accelerates not only do people have additional trouble understanding each other and themselves (a fact that I've highlighted earlier), but economic output is driven to extreme poles.

i sometimes think of two farmers, equal in all respects, but with one inheriting some piece of agricultural machinery and the other with nothing but bare hands. of course the farmer working with bare hands must work much harder to match the level of production of the farmer with the piece of machinery. now consider that in a more realistic setting, these two farmers are only two people amidst a world of people. the farmers depend on a common market to supply anything that they need or want that they cannot produce themselves. in this setting, not only do they compete for food and goods, but even for the land itself. Introducing yet more realism, arable land close to urban markets is where farmers can actually make an income, that is becoming ever more scarce because of climate change and urban sprawl (try not to think of walmart for a moment and try to imagine the sprawling slums of the developing world). the situation quickly moves from being one of romatic competition in the face of hardship to being a dire struggle against impoverishment and landlessness.

yet this example is even too generous, for that market must satisfy the needs and desires of the entire world -- a world filled with people -- some filty rich and others wretchedly poor. one might object to the usurpation of resources, land in particular, given the marginal benefit to the poor being so much greater than to the rich. furthermore land is a contested resource within the framework of orthodox economics (or at least it should be), for it is not a commodity and cannot be re/produced. land is the original thing -- the original space -- before humans made tools or languages there was land -- before humans there was land. on the other hand, hernando de soto, on of the more popular proponents of property rights in the developing world, points out that there are benefits to accrued through property rights in poor countries. the productivity of land can change drastically upon the improvements made to it.

i agree with de soto that in the "urban" world strict and widespread property rights should be sought after and inforced. yet in the "rural" world, property rights can be just another differentiation used by urban folks or those in power to exclude the poorest from a decent life. this fact was widely seen in brazil in the early eighties when huge tracts of land were all but forgotten by absentee landholders, while the landless workers suffered from unstable food prices).

what i mean to say is that rural places can provide a buffer to differentiation, such buffers are needed in a world where the farmer with bare hands (in my simple analogy) is more likely to be a farmer with no land! these are maybe not the rural places that you know, though those places might give you some sense for what a "real" rural place might be like.

... i will shortly write something about the centralization of creativity ... thought and art ... how this drives and is driven by ego-centricity

The logic underlying the decision-making of the powerful is driven by their own exercise of judgment -- this may seem an obvious or moot point ... what I am getting at is the "modern" logic by which our society operates. On the international front this logic is applied by Israel and its allies towards the Palestinians ... certain Palestinians are acting (and perhaps the majority is thinking, as evidenced by the rise of Hamas) against Israel, often in violent ways. Since as far back as I can remember Israel has engaged the Palestinians in a "game" of logic -- according to the little I know of game theory (a "triumph" of modern thought) they are actually operating optimally ("tit-for-tat"), yet ... their actions are despicable (writing from the perspective of an American citizen, I feel that we are wholly culpable in this tragedy).

The Palestinians are equal to the Israelis, if not worse in their exercise of judgment ... the ill will built up over the years has brought nothing but bad faith to the bargaining table.

Some ingredient is missing from this picture: good faith. I mean, faith in your brother, your fellow man, over both tribe and nation. It was a principal taught by many of the great prophets of this holy land. How cruelly ironic that today there is so little good faith to go around.

The powerful loath to let the advantage fall to the powerless.

How fitting that the touchstone of contemporary politicians is to "put politics aside," when political parties (which are, as far as I know, still deeply involved in politics) are the engines of the national political arena. Just to give a sense for the influence of political parties over the federal government, here is the very short list of senators not re-elected in party primaries. Note the newest "member of the club" Sen. Lieberman, with whom I often disagree, is a perfect example of a senator politically breaking with the party.

from "Dethroned in Primaries" printed in the Washington Post on Sunday, April 13, 2008; Page A08

Senators defeated in party primaries since 1970:

· Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) defeated by Ned Lamont (2006).

· Bob Smith (R-N.H.) defeated by John E. Sununu (2002).

· Sheila Frahm (R-Kan.) defeated by Sam Brownback (1996).

· Alan Dixon (D-Ill.) defeated by Carol Moseley Braun (1992).

· Donald Stewart (D-Ala.) defeated by Jim Folsom Jr. (1980).

· Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) defeated by Clark S. Gruening (1980).

· Richard Stone (D-Fla.) defeated by Bill Gunter (1980).

· Jacob K. Javits (R-N.Y.) defeated by Alfonse M. D'Amato (1980).

· Maryon P. Allen (D-Ala.) defeated by Donald Stewart (1978).

· Paul Hatfield (D-Mont.) defeated by Max Baucus (1978).

· Clifford Case (R-N.J.) defeated by Jeff Bell (1978).

· William Fulbright (D-Ark.) defeated by Dale Bumpers (1974).

· Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) defeated by John Glenn (1974).

· David Gambrell (D-Ga.) defeated by Sam Nunn (1972).

· B. Everett Jordan (D-N.C.) defeated by Nick Galifianakis (1972).

· Ralph Yarborough (D-Tex.) defeated by Lloyd Bentsen (1970).

opiate or ...

was just thinking about the nearly stale quote from marx about religion being the opiate of the masses relates to the history of facism (especially the mussolinist flavor) and to my thoughts about form and unity

Population Density, Industrial Agriculture, and Poverty

just thinking about population density for a minute: the population density of Bangladesh for example is tremendous, perhaps the "vent for surplus" theory has a larger parallel to equality and growth of industrial capitalism

also i heard a comment the other day ... i think it was a rural indigenous person in bolivia which was something like "we are rural people -- we do not need much -- we make what we need." i was thinking of something a day or two previously about the unending role of the city in driving consumption -- the cultural engines of the city in turn thrive of of it and drive it to further heights (and consider what that does to our urban centered world and our own understandings thereof!) -- investing in education and other things that boost marginal productivity through borrowing -- the rural way to mantain your own demands so that they do not surpass your own output. when production outpaces demand this surplus is expected to be used for investment and to make up for lean times.

Form and Unity

So salient are themes of form and unity in the modern setting, that by going unmentioned in so many connected discussions, highlight the acceptance which with they've been treated.

The repetitive discussion of "culture wars" within bounds of the "left/right:liberal/conservative debate" is just such a discussion, "clumsily" standing in for "deeper" conversations about the proliferation of form.

Latent trends of market and technological growth are responsible for much of the differentiation we are seeing. This shift has been widely been interpreted as a movement in the opposite direction. Yet, the market is implicitly based upon differentiation -- with technology but a tool of the market.

: how big could the market be if demands were simple? What if my desires could become reduced to food, shelter, and companionship. Furthermore, as scholars of command economies could confirm, the failure of the command economy is due to (besides the technological challenge of adjusting industrialized agriculture with differentiated growing conditions) the inability to create the many differentiated intermediate inputs going into modern scale economies.

let us be innocents

let us be innocents
unaware of doubt and envy ...
...facts and figures ...
...theories and laws ...
may the beauty of creation be our lone inspiration