Trout

iTrader: (1)

Your first point is what I am alluding to. The British still struggle with class legacy. In America, and many other countries, success of an individual is celebrated as, 'That could be me'.

In Britain the sentiment sadly comes across as, 'Why not me?'.


Purely through relatively mundane circumstance I have the privilege of spending some time with one of the world's richest men. He is Indian, although of a muslim cultural background.

There is no doubt he is an amazing man, a genuine polymath. His attitude to his wealth (at one point $22bn) is fascinating. He sees it as a tool for power. However the way he uses this power is as a force for good. He knows that he can leverage his wealth to sway government and has transformed education in India in many areas, created medical capabilities to massively increase infant survival rates. He is building universities, and yet for every dollar he spends of his own, $50 comes from other sources. Very smart.

The point I am trying to make it that he is self-aware of what money can do; and he combines an almost ascetic lifestyle with phenomenal wealth. Which is one hell of a powerful combination.


(BTW he hates bankers with a passion )

joz8968

iTrader: (13)

Chill Lee.

All those comments were made very much with tongue lodged in side of cheek.

As Dr Hammond delivers in Jurassic Park: "...... I like you."

joz8968

iTrader: (13)

Coincidentally, there just happens to be a series running at the mo: Melvyn Bragg on Class and Culture.

SkullFudge

I would agree with much that you say Tony but I believe you are either born with "drive" or born without any form of it.

Like you mentioned there are many people out there who are capable of making millions but without any level of drive, it's impossible.

Ironically it works the other way too. People born with a huge drive & self motivation but no common sense normally spend their lives trying to achieve nothing.

When I was 19 my old boss said to me, "you make your own luck", which at the time I thought was total rubbish.

I now view that saying in full belief.

tony de wonderful

Well I suppose there are different forms of 'drive'.

My experience of the corporate world is that 'drive' is often manifest as a zero-sum game mentality of covetously desiring higher positions in the hierarchy. Basically a desperate kind of ambition which is all about the ego and crawling over the backs of others, where ends justify means. I really maintain there is something pathological and weak about this sort of 'drive'.

Drive can also manifest as a kind of charismatic vision as well (the creator), that is present in 'great' people (although that is somewhat subjective). I suppose this is what Aryan Rand was on about.

I still think that some of the most impressive people I have met are not really that driven, they are too comfortable with themselves and others, too centered....they don't have a need to seek validation in a job title or being atop a corporate hierarchy.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

There are plenty of people with phenomenal drive well away from the corporate culture you describe. There are also some phenomenally successful and centred people in the corporate world, the guy I referred to earlier in this thread being one of them.

Read Spiral Dynamics - you are describing a specific form of consciousness, the striver/driver. It will also provide a counterpoint as to why you dislike it

tony de wonderful

Yes you are probably right about your first point, but your book sounds like cod-social psychology. I suppose I'm 'passive-aggressive'.

Anyway this preoccupation with the material world is to some extend coming from our western world view the way the 'self' emerges from that.

Here is something Jung wrote about his encounter with an Indian Chief. It is just a good view from the outside of our civilization.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

I am not sure it is cod psychology - give it a read. It is nothing to do with pathologies such as 'passive/aggressive'

It is a synthesis of many psychologists view of the seven ages of man. Nothing original in that, however they are particularly well described memes.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

An investment banker justifying his world to one of his colleagues. Nice summary of the Western world.

GlesgaKiss

There's something a little dishonest about a criticism of the way the vast of majority of people choose to live their lives. I mean, from an absolute point of view there is surely no 'right' way. There's also no saying that someone who wants to be wealthy or for their lives to be made easier through the use of utilitarian goods is any less capable of philosophical reflection, or any less of a person in general, than anyone else. Is our lifestyle really not noble? And if it isn't, what is? That surely depends, as everything does, on point of view.

If I'd somehow ended up in the banking world in the 1980s, as described in the likes of Liar's Poker, I'd probably have ended up being the worst of the worst of c*nts. I already have been, just without the immense wealth. I don't think many people would mind that sort of thing; I could be wrong.

What is interesting is how people find different outlets for gaining power and enjoying the other basic and less virtuous instincts we seem to possess. At least bankers are honest. That grates me much less than the dishonest; I think we've all met plenty of them.

tony de wonderful

I am not so sure about that. When the TV put the various talking heads on to justify bankers/executive pay, I heard some of the most dishonest argument I ever heard from some incredibly arrogant people.

Yes I suppose wanting to make money is a kind of honest and open objective, but I am not sure the means invoked are particularly honest in light of the dodgy ratings of CDS's, and the whole bail-out is perhaps one of the biggest thefts in history just called anything but. At least when a thief mugs you they are not pretending to rob you for your benefit.

GlesgaKiss

I know who you're talking about. The people who're dishonest are usually ones in a position of responsibility. They're dishonest for the sake of politics or are just so out of touch they believe the sh*te they peddle. The flash ones who present that image of rolling around in money and enjoying their pursuit of it are the ones I'm talking about. It might be seen as immoral, but they're pursuing the same thing many others are, and in a less sinister way in my opinion.

They can be nice/charismatic people when they take their loot. Much better than the bullying little hitlers I despise in positions of middle or lower management or on the public sector payroll making their subordinates' lives a misery, day in, day out.

But hey, each to their own.

hodgy0_2

imo often it is about self image (whether conscious or unconscious) and how you define yourself

some people define themselves purely by material possessions

i have met many people in my life, who outwardly are very successful, but dig a tiny bit and their lives resemble a car crash

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Which all goes back to what Lee was saying.

Having things is not necessarily the same as being things.

For many people they are defined by owning a car - whether it be a Skoda or a Veyron. For some reason we are happy to forget the person who aspiration it is to own a Skoda and at the same time condemn the person with the Veyron.

Is it more important that we lead congruent and authentic lives? And with authenticity comes respect for other peoples models of the world. All of them are different.

If everyone in NSR was asked to write down the top three things that are most important to them, I am pretty sure they would all would be different. And at different stages of life these things change too - ten years ago what was important to me is completely different to what it is today.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

...the kids are watching Ponyo - I am sure TdW is Fujimoto

Lee247

Phew, thanks David. Thats the point I was making. I like people. I care not what they own or what they earn. It's people I like. My first point of conversation is not what car do you drive or how big is your house.
People get pi$$ed off with you on here as they think you are bragging. I know you are not. And if you are, who the hell cares. If you want to brag, do so and enjoy
Me, people are so much more important as people. Not what they have, just what they are. I have the same amount of time for the person living on the streets as I do for one of my Clients who has just bought himself a Ferrari

Maz

iTrader: (34)

America is the only place to go from barbarism to decadence without a civilization in between, that may explain the difference in ideology.

Maz

iTrader: (34)

I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms: greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Whereas Britain cloaks its decadence with civilization. Which is worst?

Maybe our issue with America is that it is too close to being a mirror of us when the cloak is taken away?

Leslie

How do you define "Greed"?

Les

Maz

iTrader: (34)

That was Oscar Wilde's observation. Civilization should precede decadence, otherwise you have a load of people with a surfeit of money and power over intelligence.

Maz

iTrader: (34)

That was a passage from Wall St.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Isn't that a conceit? Both in terms of believing we are any more 'intelligent' or any less decadent?

There is a deep concentration of wealth and power in the country. Is is because, or in spite of our civilisation?

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Indeed - however I am sure you quoted it for a reason.

tony de wonderful

We'd have to define what civilisation is then and how it comes about.

Decadence is normally a prerogative term for a type of civilisation one feels is corrupt, declining etc.

I guess it would be what Kierkegaard is on about when he talks about reesentiment is a society. A society become cautious and weak after a period of expansion and risk taking.

So the society in ascendancy would praise a man who went out on an icy lake to retrieve something, his risk taking and boldness would be deemed morally virtuous, but one with reesentiment would denounce him as reckless and foolish.

Maz

iTrader: (34)

It is open to personal interpretation. What construes wealth and power? Indeed what can be accurately described as a civilisation? Does education make us any more civilised than someone living in a rain forest? History has shown certain cultures that we may consider uncivilised and barbaric to have lasted thousands of years. Whereas some 'civilised' cultures failed to stand the test of time.
Certainly I can't see the current Western model lasting for eternity.

Maz

iTrader: (34)

It seemed an apt summary for justifying some less than savoury things that go on.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Given your earlier comment I was hoping you could describe what civilisation means?

It is all relative and deeply culturally entrenched. Remember what Gandhi said when, on visiting Britain, he was asked what he thought of Western Civilisation.

"I think it would be a good idea".

tony de wonderful

Yep what we tend to consider as civilisation is a kind of Christian morality of compassion etc, so a society where the weak are stopped from being too weak and teh strong are stopped from being too strong. It's very much Neitzche's slave morality.

Freud said that when we first had morality and taboo to regulate and control our animal urges we then first has civilisation and we stopped being part of nature. Maybe the further from nature we go and the more we control our animal urges, the more civilised we become but to someone like Nietzsche that is a weak man who is unable to unlock his inner creativity and is stifled; the 'noble man', the 'barbarian' otoh is able to fulfill his whole potential.

It's interesting though that the West at its height in the imperial period was ostensibly civilised...all sorts of power deployed to regulated behavior, law, morality, science etc but went around the world asserting itself in perhaps the least restrained way, so you have a kind of emergent behavior on top of that which is totally ruthless although not necessary cruel...a bit like Capitalism.

Marx would say we started having civilisation when we stopped being hunter-gathers and we have division of labor. Out of that an elite emerges who own and control the means of production and then impose control via morality, law etc on the exploited class who work for them. This is the start of politics too.

Ok my stream of consciousness is over...

Trout

iTrader: (1)

EFA





PS You also spelled ressentiment incorrectly