(It’s a damned shame Americans prefer German socialism to Henry George’s ideas, which are these days relatively unknown). — NOS4A2

I'm not familiar with Henry George; I'll check him out. Are you familiar with Daniel DeLeon, an American socialist; started the Socialist Labor Party, which in some sort of embalmed state still exists. DeLeon believed that democratic nations offered democratic avenues to socialism -- the revolution could be accomplished through organization, politics, militant unionism, and the vote.

I learned about DeLeon through the New Union Party (defunct after 25 years or so). Another American socialist Eugene Debs, who was actually a popular socialist--just not among the Wall Street set.

American Capitalists were united in detesting, abhorring, and hating socialist ideas and through various means, many foul, did everything they could to discredit and suppress socialist organizing (and this separate from Communist Party-USA suppression which was even more aggressive). American Capitalists have also been united in wishing that their workers were not, or never would be unionized, and they have made continuous efforts to discourage, disrupt, or if need be, destroy unions.

So, there are reasons why so few workers are unionized; so very few people have read any socialist theory (like Debs, Deleon, et al). There are reasons why people have difficult even imagining an economy not organized around capitalism.

What I’d worry about, though, is what you’d do to those who don’t want to take part in it, or seek to make their living from your property. — NOS4A2

One would hope that such an idea would be as disreputable as statism is to you. If "the revolution" was successful--and not just a rearrangement of the deck chairs--people's thinking would be different.

I do not look to the USSR as a model to emulate, rather as a model to avoid. Ditto for China, Cuba, Albania, etc.

In studies of animals, the researchers (and their followers) usually forget the role of the specific relationship between the particular animal and the particular human that are being observed. — baker

Good point, IF there is a relationship between the observer and the observed. Even in formal lab situations (with dogs, at least) it is hard to imagine that experimenters would have zero relationship whatsoever with the subjects.

Have you heard of the movie "Stray", a documentary about stray dogs in Istanbul. "The trio are the focus of new documentary “Stray” which depicts daily life in Istanbul through the eyes of three dogs that roam its streets, searching for food, wandering along the Bosphorus and stumbling upon a women's rights march" among other things. They interact with people IF there appears to be something in it for them. Otherwise, they are just part of the traffic, and they don't seem prone to aggressive behaviors.

can you have a hardworking owner/executive class though? Is it just "hard work" that justifies ownership? That is what this implies. — schopenhauer1

Every society has hardworking people in it, whether the society and its economy are primitive, pre-industrial, post-industrial, agrarian, nomadic capitalistic, urban, rural, socialistic--what ever the organization and level of development. Working hard--stretching one's self--is something that some people want to do--and do do. Back in the day, some people made more and better stone tools than anyone else. They happened to be very good at it. Capitalism didn't invent hard work and striving.

In some circumstances hard work in the form of fighting has justifies ownership. "This land is our land, it's not your land, stay the fuck off this land, else we'll put a rock/spear/arrow/bullet through you!"

Outside of force, which is hard to argue with, I am not sure how we justify the relationship that we call "ownership", "possession". Clearly this is not something that 99.9% of the G20 countries' people worried about. It's taken for granted -- like the existence of "states". We could say it comes from God, but let's not. Let's move on.

"Capitalism" isn't like gravity or Newton's laws of motion. It was invented by people, and people wrote law to shape and manage the operation of capitalistic activity. The people who did this (over generations) started with the idea of ownership as a fundamental right and a justification for doing other things. Ownership was taken to be "natural". Ownership is its own justification. I can own land, buildings, machines, gold, jewels, ideas, and so on. I can even (in some past systems) own people. They were property just like cattle. I can hire you, Schop, to make widgets, and it will be me, Schop, and not you, who owns the widgets you make.

So get back to work, Schop: you are 20 widgets behind, and it's costing me money. What do you think this is, a fucking country club or something? I don't care that you are hungry, tired, bored, sore, lonely. You agreed to make widgets, and by god, I want them made!

The act of managing resources for the common wealth would require a monopoly on the resources, a cabal of managers to govern it, and an army of workers to till for it. I’d — NOS4A2

The USSR was a monopolistic state capitalist organization. So, we know something about that kind of organization. Workers didn't have any more power there than they had in the anti-labor USA.

Managers there will be; last I heard, "manager" was not an obscenity.

A production council, an elected body, will set production objectives. X number of wind turbines, X number of storage batteries, X miles of transmission lines and so on. A socialist factory making large storage batteries, owned by the workers, will have to assign skilled workers to the tasks of procurement -- cobalt, lithium, other metals, plastics, chemicals, and so forth. They would liaise with workers' organizations who specialize in procurement.

Just as in a capitalist economy, there would be material flows through the country. Unmilled wheat from North Dakota to New York; bagels from New York to Chicago. Lox from Alaska to Chicago. Cream cheese from Wisconsin to Chicago. All for the purpose of offering you a bagel with lox or cream cheese.

How would a workers' food service in Chicago know how much lox to order? Demand. Supply. Food service workers in Waco, Texas wouldn't bother ordering lox. Nobody in Waco has ever heard of lox. Bratwurst from Sheboygan, certainly. And bathroom fixtures from Sheboygan too -- from the worker owned former Kohler porcelain factory.

I don't see a monopoly in this -- or capitalism.

Yes, if my unmanageable hair gets into my eyes and causes me to crash my car, then bad hair = bad health.

But really, a system that doesn’t consider managing capital is unimaginable — NOS4A2

Absolutely. A socialist system would have to manage it's capital resources too -- mines, factories, land, ports, and so on. The difference is that socialists manage resources for the common wealth, and capitalists manage resources for the creation of their own wealth.

“Capitalism” has always been a collectivist bugaboo — NOS4A2

to the same extent that "Socialism" has always been a capitalist bugaboo.

Why should I really abide by that defintion? Am I not at liberty to subscribe to any other classification of how people relate to wealth in society, and how their lot in life is determined by that? — god must be atheist

Liebchen, you can subscribe to whatever system of classification you want. There are market research systems of classification that divide the population up into as many 40 classes, depending on where they live, what they buy, what their aspirations are, who their neighbors tend to be, and so on. Could you use those? Sure! It's just unwieldy to deal with a system of 40 different classes. Some sociologists have subdivided the 3 main groups into 9 classes -- lower working class, middle working class, upper working class, lower middle class, on up to upper upper (the top).

One of the problems of "working class" is that it takes maybe... 290,000,000 people (just in the US) and puts them all in the same class. As "employees" of "capitalists" (maybe... 30,000,000 people in the US) all these people have many, many different characteristics above and beyond being exploited. An atheist gay exploited worker living downtown probably looks at the world differently than a fundamentalist married exploited worker with 5 children living in the suburbs. At least, I most sincerely hope the gay guy looks at the world differently.

So, lumping a few billion souls into "worker" obviously misses a lot. So, liebchen, why do we do it, anyway?

Because "working" is such a fundamental part of life. The terms under which we do it makes a tremendous amount of difference in the way we live our lives. A small farmer might be considered a small businessman. Or he might be considered a slave to the inflexible needs of his 35 cows, the schedule of crop planting, cultivation, and harvest, and the market. A low level functionary in any organization (millions of people) has a different experience than the few million night guards who have a little more executive autonomy.

Per @Schopenhauer1, life sucks. It will always suck to some extent no matter what kind of econo-socio-politico system we have, because the means of existence have to be extracted from the earth by hard work, whether you own it or not.

The hope of socialists, communists... whatever, is to eliminate the portion of hard work that goes to producing a profit for people who don't do a whole lot of work at all.

:100: Bravo!

The government and NGOs, as well as survey companies keep track of all sorts of statistics about stuff that can be counted. The government is the starting source for a lot of the stats one reads, about everything from vegetable consumption to wealth distribution: The Bureau of Labor Statistics; the US Census Bureau; The Federal Reserve (quasi-governmental organization that manages the banking system); the Department of the Treasury; the Department of Labor; and the Agriculture Department all look at population and income.

The government publishes the information it gathers. The Federal Reserve, for instance, is charged with maintaining employment at a high level and maintaining inflation at a low level (about 2%). It does this with, among other things, the Prime Interest Rate -- the rate it charges banks to borrow money. In order to do this effectively, it has to know what is happening within the economy on a fairly detailed level. Hence, it's statistical output.)

All the statistics that are turned out do not have the same status as The Word of God, but for all practical purposes, it's the next best thing. The graph below is based on the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances, 2017. "Equitable Growth" is an NGO and is not the source of the table's data.

Thought it was a dying breed. — Raymond

It pretty much is.

You keep going after the VERY large CEOs and Board of Director types and NOT the small business owner that started out let's say by himself and grew from there — schopenhauer1

Parsing out the share of GDP derived from arms with revenues of more than 1 billion dollars, and those with fractions of that is possible but I don't want to spend a lot of time doing it now. However, there is this:

"The business sector overall contributes 72 percent of GDP in the OECD, and corporations with more than $1 billion in revenue account for an increasingly large share of that."

Newly founded companies tend to grow fast, attract fresh investments, and (sometimes) deliver new products and services that didn't exist before. Old companies keep on keeping on, whether that's Macy's, Ford, Mitsubishi, Royal Dutch Shell, CBS, Whirlpool, or what have you. I talk about "large corporations" because everyone is familiar with them. You have heard of 3M -- Scotch tape or Post-It notes, headquartered in St. Paul, MN. #90 in the Fortune 500 list. You probably haven't heard of HBFuller Company in St. Paul which makes specialized adhesives and coatings. They are not in the Fortune 500 list--they are 786. There are many small companies all over the country, worth at least a few million, some started by go-getter entrepreneurs; some are new, some are old. Too many, too varied.

It doesn't matter. Since you want a commie's opinion, here it is: Company-starting whizzes are simply engaged in the act of "original accumulation" -- making their first big pile of money. Their relationship to their workers may be even more exploitative than the old companies' relationships to their workers. Or not -- like I said, it varies. But new companies are still expropriating the product of the workers who are not receiving the full value of what they produce.

So, maybe you have a soft spot in your heart for some small businesses, and it makes you sad thinking about them being taken over by the workers. Well... tough. The entrepreneurs aren't going to starve -- they will just be workers like everybody else, and entitled to the full share of what they produce -- but not more (like when they owned the company).

Good! That's what I'm talking about. Now, QM and multiple universes are way beyond my ken. Other people here will share your joy in this.

Material well-being or ownership of means of production? — schopenhauer1

Material well being is the end, ownership of the means of production is the means.

I agree that the term "middle class" as tossed about in media and in political speeches is meaningless. Yes, it's a cudgel. It's also the case that a lot of 'professional' middle class people, like doctors, lawyers, professors, etc. are essentially "entrepreneurs" working in medical, legal, and academic businesses.

But... I still think that there is a class of [whatever one wants to call them] who are not wage or salary slaves, and are not in positions where their status can be changed by a supervisor. (A tenured prof, for one, an entrepreneur who is head of his or her company).

It's also the case that many very "middle class" jobs, like doctor, have been "degraded" into salary positions which are not all that secure. A private practice is one thing, but when the clinic and insurance company tell you to see one patient every 6.3 minutes, you are definitely a worker.

In other words, everyone is comfortable enough.. Would that be essentially the end goal, or does it involve taking down the power differentials altogether whereby the owner class must be removed. — schopenhauer1

The end goal is a decent life.

Yes, the owner class has to go. Power differentials are a current obsession, and real enough. My reason for taking down the owner class is that they are, essentially, parasites. They have the lion's share of the wealth without doing anything to earn it, In fact, it is inconceivable that they could do anything to earn it -- the amount of wealth they own is to great to find justification.

Comfortable enough, yes. Everybody have a boat at the marina? No. Everybody have two or three undocumented workers serving as household help? No. Everybody have a McMansion? No, Everybody drive a $60,000 to $80,000 car? No. Everybody fly to Bali for a friends wedding? No.

Raising the quality of life for the working class still has to be sustainable. So housing in which families are secure (won't be evicted)? Yes. Have access to a healthy diet of quality food? Yes. Have access to quality public transit? Yes. Have security in their employment (won't be laid off for arbitrary reasons or to enhance profit)? Yes. Have access to quality education? Yes. Have access to quality medical care? Yes. Work no more than necessary to maintain the collective quality of life (as opposed to profitability)? Yes.

Six figure and seven figure workers, are still workers. — StreetlightX

Was it Lenin or Stalin who said, "Quantity has a quality all its own." I think if I went from a low 5 figure income (<25,000) to a 7 figure income of say... $9,000,000, I would experience a significant revision of reality. I would no longer fit into the status of "worker". I wouldn't be ruling class, either. I'd belong in the income range of about 10% of the American population--the segment below "indisputably rich" whose entrance fee is about $2,000,000. These people do not work like, and do not live like "workers". For one thing, if they have any money management skills at all, they will soon find them in a position which can not be taken away from them by a pink slip.

Actually, a good share of Americans think they are Middle Class, despite their rather straitened circumstances.

Commies (and sociologists) define "middle class" quite differently than you do here. You define it as being able to:

quote="schopenhauer1;d12437"]to live in a house, buy some entertainment goods, a car, have all their daily living met[/quote]

That just describes people who are making ends meet.

There are roughly 3 classes (in the real world, not in theory): The working class -- the people who provide the labor to drive the economy -- everybody from agricultural workers picking tomatoes to people charting sales of goods in a corporate office tower. Teachers, nurses, laboratory workers, plumbers, electricians, sales, accounting, car repair, toilet cleaners, etc. (Workers produce all wealth.). Workers have a small share of all the wealth.

The ruling class is the small group of people who actually own the machinery of the economy -- land, factories, mines, warehouses, railroads, stores, banks, etc. Some of their names are familiar: Rockefeller, Ford, Gates, Dupont, etc. Most of these people you have never heard of unless you specialize in tracking large wealth. This group calls the shots for their own benefit. They possess most of the wealth,

The middle class consists of a fairly small group of people who manage the economy at a fairly high level; they are also the professionals who provide special services -- lawyers, doctors, dentists, polling, planning, professors, high level engineers, and so forth. They quite often have independent practices (otherwise known as jobs). The members of the "middle class" tend to be quite financially comfortable.

So, what you are asking is unclear. What if everybody became middle class as it is officially defined? You'd have 130,000,000 doing what 20 million do now. Who, then, would do the basic work o society?

Are you asking what would happen if everybody in the working class (who call themselves middle class or jack shit) actually had more money? Well, they would experience less stress, that's for sure. They might be happier, but not a lot happier. You can buy only so much happiness with a 10% or 15% ncrease in income.You aren't proposing a revolution here, you are just rearranging the deck chairs.

No, I won't read it. You read it. run it through your brain, and come up with an opinion. Then ask us if we can buy into your idea, or not.

Posting a link to an article about a 'deep' topic and then asking, "what do you think?" is the easy and lazy way of doing things. We want to see you suffer more for your philosophy.

Pigs and humans are different. Bees and alligators are very dissimilar, more than pigs and humans. Chickens and whales are different. Individually and collectively there are differences of magnitude all over the place.

Take a dog and its best friend. The man has a bigger brain, but the dog ha a much better nose. Walking on 4 legs has some advantages over walking on two: my dog rarely slipped on the ice; I, on the other hand had quite a few gravity-driven encounters with ice. I was capable of manipulating my dog's behavior and she was capable of manipulating me. A man and a dog can be very much on the same wavelength. You can play hide and seek with a dog; try that with an alligator.

There is a lot of collective and individual variability and similarity across the board (animals and plants). By reflecting on how animals compare among themselves we can see there is nothing remarkable about humans being different than alligators. We all have found a niche to fill.

Many animals have unique traits; so do humans, some good, some bad. In a way we are like feral pigs: we do our thing, which in the pigs case is tear of the soil looking for edibles. We also tear up the soil -- on a vastly greater scale -- for the same reason. Neither pigs nor humans have much of a self-imposed "automatic stop" point. We just keep going till there are no frontiers left.

the more it gets suppress'd, the more it will stand up. — god must be atheist

When you take away my freedom, you free my mind! : — Agent Smith

That is the most positive construction we can apply to suppression.

We hope that suppression of thought will rebound to inventive free thought! Alas, quite often suppression works quite well. When it does, the suppressed ideas eventually disappear, not just from public view. That's not the end, of course. Ideas that were suppressed occur afresh in another generation.

Emperor Augusta's wife, Livia, gives pep talk to the gladiators. Pretty sure you've seen this bit from I Claudius by Robert Graves, based on Suetonius, et al.

Claudius got to be a god, apparently. I haven't read Robert Graves's sequel to I Claudius, Claudius the God, and there hasn't been a BBC / PBS production of it. unfortunately. Given the straitened circumstances of public broadcasting, there probably won't be.

Why not give both men a new heart? — pfirefry

I might be mistaken, but my understanding is that there was no competition for the pig heart. After all, fresh pigs can be conveniently provided -- pigs grow a lot faster than we do.

The risk the xenotransplant patient is taking is that his immune system will react the pig heart. True enough, he was going to die fairly soon without the transplant, but waiting to discover whether the transplant will fail has to be very stressful. Second, organ rejection is probably not a pleasant experience.

He deserves credit for his willingness to receive the xenotransplant. There is only so much one can learn in an experimentation lab. Eventually, new techniques need to be tried in vivo -- real life.

In one article, the New York Times reported on the risky transplant procedure (xenotransplant). The patient was not eligible for a heart transplant, which status was a medical -- not reputational -- issue. So far, so good.

In a separate article the New York Times revealed that the xenotransplant patient had a record of assault (stabbing the victim multiple times).

Ethical Question: What moral justification did the editors of the New York Times have for revealing this highly prejudicial (but irrelevant) information? What public good did the NYT article serve? In my opinion it didn't serve any public good.

On any given day, the number of organs available for transplant fails to meet the need by a very wide margin. It is hoped that xenotransplant from pigs (which are genetically modified to reduce the likelihood of organ rejection) would solve the problem. People could help solve the problem by making organs available for transplant in the event of their timely/untimely demises, but they don't do so often enough.

The implantation of a properly obtained organ poses no ethical issue with respect to the history of the recipient.

We could, of course, require transplant donors and recipients to be of unblemished sterling character. Fortunately for everyone concerned, we don't.

Indeed. I have no idea, really, of how to end poverty in the world. The main difficulty is not the poor; it's the rich. So much of the world's wealth is hyper-concentrated in the hands of a very small number of people -- something like the richest 1%. Below the richest 1% is another layer, maybe 5% to 10%. that are only relatively rich--rich compared to to most of the world's people, but not rich compared to the top 1%.

The richest 10%, all together, control a very large share of the world's wealth. They, being Homo sapiens, are predictably NOT going to give it up. And even if they were willing, it would be difficult to convert that much wealth, much of it in kind of abstract paper instruments, into wealth the rest of the world could use productively. [the 1% and 10% mostly apply to the developed world. Wealth outside the developed world is even more concentrated.]

The world economy is a horrendously complex machine and who knows where to begin pushing buttons, pulling levers, turning wheels, opening and closing valves -- etc? Not I.

The poor are screwed because once they are poor they are generally going to stay that way, unless their economic environment changes--which it might, or might not. In general the same is true with people who are have reasonably stable, if barely adequate income. Barring some change, they will probably stay that way. The rich stay rich, the poor stay poor. So do most people, wherever they are at on the economic ladder.

Of course [it costs so little each year to end severe poverty] but the problem is much more complex than money. — Tom Storm

If it's so easy to end poverty, then why is it more complex than money?

Order of experience, setting, context -- all important,

In my youth, ending in let's say, 1968 at 22. I had not seen much in the way of serious films or serious dramatic or cinema art. I grew up in a very small town in rural Minnesota and attended a state college in a relatively small college town. "Art films" were few and far between. But about this time a boyfriend in Madison, Wisconsin introduced me to Bergman. Madison was then a much more radical left bohemian place than in recent years. Leonard was trying to educate me into being a more sophisticated boyfriend. I appreciated it.

The upper midwest, places like Minnesota and Wisconsin, are kind of Bergman territory -- chilly Scandinavian influence all over the place. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Fanny and Alexander and Secenth Seal are my favorites. But since the early 70s I've seen hundreds of film, most of which were not particularly Bergmanesque, and my tastes aren't the same now. Bergman got at a kind of gloomy religiosity which feels very familiar to me. Winter Light, as one theologian said, is the perfect depiction of a church so dead that not even God showed up.

Pretty much the case.

music is just sound frequencies of particular dynamics and duration; and so on. — baker

'Too many notes, dear Mozart, too many notes' is what Emperor Joseph II supposedly said after the first performance of the Entfuhrung aus dem Serail [Escape from the Seraglio--harem] in Vienna's old Burgtheater. Mozart's reply was: 'Just as many as necessary, Your Majesty. Or, as in Amadeus,

"Just cut a few!"
"Which ones did you have in mind, your majesty?"

After all, Kinkade was an alcoholic and died as a consequence of it — baker

The gods of art criticism are just!

Yes, I agree that "classical music" appealed to many more people than the elite who could hire a composer to produce work for them. Bach wrote music that was performed for the rank and file in Lutheran churches (and elsewhere). The music swerves back and forth between clear statement of text (recitative) and the often thrilling chorales, with added instrumental interludes. A performance of a Bach passion, in English; excellent choir and soloists; a baroque orchestra, preacher -- et al, is still a pretty good show (if one is in the right mood, the setting is ecclesiastical, etc.)

I don't know how much access the larger part of the population of Europe had access to Mozart's or Haydn's, Handel's or Beethoven's music, and in what form they heard it when they did have access. Later on, opera composers sometimes kept selected parts of a new opera under wraps until shortly before the premiere, in order to prevent musicians and opera house workers from taking the piece into the streets, spoiling the surprise for the paying audience. I don't know how fast Haydn's Piano sonata #35 (one of my favorites) published in 1780 diffused into the parlors of Europe and America.

18th and early 19th century Americans were eager to hear 'new music' from Europe. Benjamin Franklin recommended attending Moravian church services because the Moravians used small orchestras and choirs in their services (no organs) and regularly used fresh music from their homeland, composed in the latter 1700s. "The first known public performance in the US of an instrumental work by Mozart took place on December 14, 1786, in one of the Twelve City Concerts at the City Tavern in Philadelphia."

One way classical music diffused was through small amateur groups, cheaper sheet music, and later, cheaper pianos which "middle class" people could afford.

So we cannot rightfully compare a piece from the classical canon and just any piece that is now played a lot on the radio or YT. The latter hasn't yet stood the test of time, while the former has. — baker

No, there is no comparing The Magic Flute and rap. There's no comparing a Bergman film and a porno, even if we may prefer a porno to The Seventh Seal or Winter Light on a given occasion. There's no such thing as 24 hour Bergman coin operated video parlors--perish the thought!

As previously said, excellence in posting.

Competitive, body contact sport (football, boxing, wrestling, etc.) operates under an overlay of "character building". My guess is that if you want to build character, try something else.

The nonsense that justifies body contact sport disguises the action in which a lot of people find pleasure. I don't know whether bloody sports are good or bad, but a lot of people clearly get a charge out of them. The Romans seemed to have been quite open about their blood-sport pleasure. If the gladiatorial games were governed by rules and regs, that would reflect the costs incurred in putting the games on. An expensive dead gladiator wouldn't fight again.

My guess is that the number of programs featuring track and field meets (high school on up) attract paltry audiences--non-existent in comparison to football/basketball. The competitiveness of track and field doesn't (normally) involve aggressive body contact.

Art, deface →Acid Attack — Agent Smith

That's a very sick pun.

And why is that, actually? — ssu

The primary reason is that a large percentage of younger people (under 50) have not had much exposure to music for orchestras and/or string/wind/brass ensembles, or choral music. They have not been exposed in school, or from public media. Many adults do not have experience with classical music to share with their children.

As a result, when they are out on their own, the cultural milieu of orchestra concerts doesn't appeal to them. The cost of orchestra concerts tends to be fairly high, and while there are less expensive but quality concerts by small ensembles and semiprofessional groups available, one has to actively seek them out.

There are efforts, here and there, to connect school students with classical music, by bringing it into the schools on an occasional basis. Some public radio groups are programming music with some sort of tie in for younger children and older teenagers. These efforts are all good, but there needs to be much more, IF we are going to interest American youth in formal music.

In the 1950s CBS Radio carried the New York Philharmonic concerts on Sunday afternoon on its A.M. network. Either NBC or CBS carried the Metropolitan Opera broadcast on Saturday afternoon. There was some "upmarket" religious music broadcast too, featuring trained choirs and professional musicians--not a lot, but some.

PBS carries a small amount of classical concert music; there is a loose network of classical music stations across the country -- lots of areas are out of their reach -- and the number of classical music stations is declining.

The majority of my age cohort and younger of parents have done a poor job of transmitting national / western cultural traditions to their children / grandchildren. I'm not exactly sure what is wrong with them. Maybe it has to do with everything that happened in the 1960s and 1970s, and then the slow decline of the working class. A lot of thinking back then was just sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

That it's something "old" that we can disregard, that is politically incorrect? Pop music or some other "not-western" music is profoundly better? — ssu

Obviously pop music is not "better than" the store of Western Orchestral music. Pop music and classical music serve different needs. I spend much more time listening to classical music than any other kind, but I would feel a great loss if all popular music disappeared. (Well, rap could disappear without any suffering on my part).

Well, if people are so critical of their own Western culture, what do you think will happen? — ssu

I hear people nattering about the defects of western culture, using their recently acquired moral superiority to weigh the sins of the west, while (usually) overlooking the sins of the rest of the world.

I don't know what will happen to the nattering nabobs of negativity, or what influence they will have on future events.

Let's get one thing straight: Classical music (and classical Western art) aren't goddam capitalist, it isn't something for only the rich for starters, so don't be against it! Why wouldn't we like the music of our own heritage? — ssu

My sentiments exactly.

art forms are born, they live, and they die. Poetry is dead. The novel is dying. Music is dying, actually. — Noble Dust

I don't buy this. You say poetry is dead but that, if it's true, just means that there is a shortage of good new poetry. — T Clark

I don't know whether to buy it, either; maybe I'll just rent it for. a while.

When did novels get sick enough to say they were dying? Maybe... by 1975? When I perused the shelves of The Hungry Mind in St. Paul, I starting finding new 'novels' bu authors who didn't seem to feel it was necessary to tell a coherent story with interesting characters. The sickness didn't spread to older novels, of course, but it did persuade me to look elsewhere in the store. There were science fiction titles that were better literature. Hell, Phil Andros' soft core gay books were better. (Phil Andros, aka Samuel Steward, was an English professor at Loyola in Chicago who was fired when the university discovered he was running a thriving tattoo business--way before tattoos went mainstream.) The Hungry Mind is long gone, by the way, avant garde novels and all.

The poetry section of bookstores aren't very big, usually. When I page through the collections on offer, I find very little of interest. I wasn't reading it in the 1960s, but the Beat poets are interesting to me now. There are some poets who claim "working class" status who write very down-to-earth poetry.

Too much poetry strikes me as just so much fancy word processing, but some of it is down to earth

Poetry has ran this gamut before. (gamma ut = Medieval Latin). John Skelton (1460–1529) wrote stuff that was "by turn lyric, passionate, vitriolic, learned, allusive, bewildering, scriptural, satiric, grotesque, and even obscene". In the Tunning of Eleanor Running, Skelton tells the story of an inn keeper whose barrel of ale was under a chicken roost, giving it a special flavor. Chaucer, of course. But then there is the epic Faerie Queene by Edmund Spencer (1590), and I can't tell you how glad I am I don't have to read it again.

Why did Spencer bother?

Chaucer, Skelton, Spencer, Ferlinghetti, Ogden Nash, and Allen Ginsberg (long list of others) wrote for interested audiences. If poetry is dying now, it's probably because the audience is dying--maybe literally, maybe not. Art needs a lively audience. Dead audience, dead art.

A great artist (any form?) can probably enliven a dead audience. maybe.

Joshua Bell, a very fine, famous violinist of our time tried playing in a Washington DC subway station. The response? Total indifference. The PBS (Pile of Boring Stuff) News Hour interviewed Bell about it (below).

If you go to orchestra concerts, choral performances, etc., you'll notice a lot of older people there, and not too many young. The writing on the wall is not hard to understand.

@Tom Storm @T Clark @pile of bricks

This work is clearly MUCH better than Pile of Bricks.



The lighted sign on the wall is apt: You have nothing.

is that all there is to your being — Leghorn

Yes. That's all, folks! According to The Church Without Christ, the dead stay dead, the lame don't walk, and the the blind don't see.

So... make the most of being alive.

It's past your bedtime. Go to sleep.

Shakespeare said, "To sleep, perchance to dream."

I'm old; I don't fear dying while I'm asleep. Seems like that would be the most convenient time to die. Children have all sorts of ideas about death, dying, the here after, the before here, up there, down there, etc. My fears about death were shaped by horror films. Maybe they still are?