A second bill of rights?

The other day I saw Moore's documentary "Capitalism: A Love Story".  While it's subject matter is not directly related to my job, it affects all of us.  I was introduced to names and ideas that I am not very familiar with, but am curious to learn more about.  The critical experts introduced in the film included: Wallace Shawn, William K. Black, Elizabeth Warren, and Christopher L. Hedges.  The film seemed to suggest that we could be living in an alternate reality if Franklin D. Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights had been acted upon here in the U.S., and not just implemented in Japan and Continental Europe when their constitutions were re-written in the aftermath of WWII (Cass Sunstein wrote a book about the second bill of rights).  If this had happened, we might never have seen such memos as Citigroup's Plutonomy Reports.

The second bill of rights, an "economic bill of rights", looks much the same as the lower half of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  If people are to reach their potential, their immediate needs and safety must first be provided for.  The documentary also reminded me of Noam Chomsky, who promotes a line of thought that began as early as Zhuangzi (see the first paragraph of chapter 11 in The book of Zhuangzi). 

When a global plan for reducing pollution could not be agreed upon, the mayors of major cities created their own plans of action.  The same can be done for the second bill of rights, if not enacted on the federal level, we could work on a local form at the community level. 

rant and rave

What are we working for? To make life easier, not harder. To make life better, healthier, more fun and safe. To free up as much leisure time as possible for serendipitous discovery or to spend however we want. And when our collective efficiency improves, we can better fund science research and other self-actualization/growth needs. There is no reason for people to work two or three jobs and have few to no vacations (unless that's what they like). That is all backwards! I'm not an economist, but something seems wrong here.

I'll admit it... I like the flute hook in ABBA's song "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A man after midnight)". If I had to pick a ring tone for a cell phone, that would be it. Or it would be a Wong Kar-Wai film song like Baroque (from Chungking Express), Perfidia, or Siboney (both from 2046).

As of the 29th of last month, I am once again a fish owner. I forgot just how amazingly relaxing keeping fish is.

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07 Feb 2009 postscript to entry:

While utilitarians, and more broadly, consequentialists might agree, Nietzsche would not, as he expressed an opinion that we owe many of our advances to the effects of suffering, which has urged humankind to become better than we otherwise might be (Beyond Good and Evil p225). This is a train of thought within normative ethics that I have returned to many times, and by now it is becoming quite old. Each time I try to approach it differently and elucidate something new that hadn't been considered before. Viktor Frankl stated a common observation once, that when we stop striving for something at that moment it is most easily obtained.

"...as long as you are pursuing happiness, as the phrase reads, as long as you are aiming at happiness you cannot obtain it. The more you make it a target, the more you miss the aim, and you miss the target." (Interview, South Africa, 1985).

What are we working for? We will understand why we work when we stop working.

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08 Feb 2009 post-postscript:

Returning to Nietzsche's apparent objection to the goal of making life easier, it is important to reflect that suffering would not lead to achievement were we not urged by the desire to relieve it and make life easier. Suffering is a relative condition, everything has its own threshold. Within existentialism, even the mere fact of existence and personal freedom leads to angst, a form of suffering. So Nietzsche need not be concerned that life would be free from suffering or too easy some day. That day will probably never come. His point, of course, is that we should not forget its important contribution toward shaping who we are. To make life easier one must not be apathetic about the world nor feel one's own actions are inconsequential.

concentric spheres of social groups from local to global

I was thinking about how my life is fairly well laid out before me and I like what I see. It seems to be just maintaining and improving what I already have at this point, to a large extent. I was reviewing a workbook on citizenship completed by one of my students and began to reflect on the inclusion of this value in most ethical systems. Off the top of my head the definition of citizenship that comes quickly to my mind is a quote from Spock in The Wrath of Khan: the needs of the many usually outweigh the needs of the few. You're right, usually wasn't part of the original quote, but I don't think it is an absolutely true statement anyway. So what does it mean to be a citizen? A lot of social service organizations are built around this ideal, and I think Thomas Paine along with many other early writers had a lot to say about this subject. Incidentally, recently a civics class has become a requirement in the UK educational system. Is citizenship the same as patriotism or nationalism? No. Further explorations may be forthcoming...