I am refering to the last ten years, in fact, and not in technology, but in reference to change.In my country at least, I think we are advancing. In the last 100 years we've come a long way in terms of racial equality, gender equality, and we're getting there with equality for homosexuals. Technology has brought drastic changes in almost all parts of life. Advances in science have led to huge improvements in quality of life and lifespan. We're in a rapidly changing world, and I think maybe philosophy has yet to absorb all those changes, but it will.
Basically, explaining myself clearly...do you see in the modern youth a real wish for change? Sure, yeah, uh..."we're against war in Iraq, let's protest", yeah, well, but that is not really that serious. I mean, an occasional rebellion against something is just that, but it is not bound to change things. It seems like people today care more about just going the discoteques, having a career that gives them a good job, get money and live "keeping up with the Jones". Now, I can't see how such a hollow life of materialism is going to do any good (American Beauty, anyone?) but if things were really working like this, it would be even potable. However, there are injustices, there is explotation, there is war and on top of all, it is unsustainable. Simply, natural resources don't give for so much.
The problem? Postmodern thinking basically defends the "enjoy the present". Yes, sure, carpe diem, tempus fugit is very nice, but idiotizing yourself and not worrying about anything in the future is a problem. How many times have I heard that "I don't care what happens to the world, I will be dead by then" or "the Amazon rainforest can get cut, it's not like I live there, it won't affect me".
Basically, take Hegel: Thesis- Antisthesis. OK, and where is antithesis? Antithesis has no power! Is this the end of history? If it is, then we're doomed, for reasons stated above.
I am not religious, I am agnostic, yet frankly I can't say I agree with you to a hundred percent. Religion can be good if taken maturely, it can be helpful and develop the person. However, if taken inmaturely or dogmatically, it can lead to idiocy such as this. Or in a more bloody manner, to Al Quaeda, although in that case it is much more than just religion, religion is just a way to hook fanatics into blowing themselves up.Many people are also abandoning religion from what I see, which is certainly a good thing. Getting away from "spiritual" and moving towards reality is always a good thing.
Um..it's preety hard for me to explain in English...thanks God Google exists...I don't know what alienated work means. Does it mean doing a job for which you feel no pride?
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Alienation in the domain of work has a fourfold aspect: Man is alienated from the object he produces, from the process of production, from himself, and from the community of his fellows.
"The object produced by labor, its product, now stands opposed to it as an alien being, as a power independent of the producer. . . .The more the worker expends himself in work the more powerful becomes the world of objects which he creates in face of himself, the poorer he becomes in his inner life, and the less he belongs to himself."29
"However, alienation appears not merely in the result but also in the process of production, within productive activity itself. . . . If the product of labor is alienation, production itself must be active alienation. . . . The alienation of the object of labor merely summarizes the alienation in the work activity itself."30
Being alienated from the objects of his labor and from the process of production, man is also alienated from himself--he cannot fully develop the many sides of his personality. "Work is external to the worker. . . . It is not part of his nature; consequently he does not fulfill himself in his work but denies himself. . . . The worker therefore feels himself at home only during his leisure time, whereas at work he feels homeless."31 "In work [the worker] does not belong to himself but to another person."32 "This is the relationship of the worker to his own activity as something alien, not belonging to him activity as suffering (passivity), strength as powerlessness, creation as emasculation, the personal physical and mental energy of the worker, his personal life. . . . as an activity which is directed against himself, independent of him and not belonging to him."33
Finally, alienated man is also alienated from the human community, from his "species- being." "Man is alienated from other men. When man confronts himself he also confronts other men. What is true of man's relationship to his work, to the product of his work and to himself, is also true of his relationship to other men. . . . Each man is alienated from others . . . each of the others is likewise alienated from human life."34 Marx would have liked the lines of the poet, A.E. Housman, "I, a stranger and afraid/In a world I never made." Only Marx would have replaced the poet's I with We.
Source
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Well,t hat part I copied is at least good. Haven't read thrugh all the document. Also, this one seems more complete, but I'd need to copy it all. Read it if you have time, it's interesting.
Well, there is this amazing Federico García Lorca poem about it, here is the link to it, but please, please ignore the fact it is a site with an Antonio Banderas image with a lens flare. Just scroll down, the last two poems are a translation of the Lorca one. And again, ignore the site, it's the thing that comes up in google.I'd like some examples, sure. I treat everyone as an individual, and I tend to be treated as one. Do you mean things like being identified by a number? Like all the computer-automated things we go through instead of person-to-person communication? I'm not sure what you mean.
And to explain clearly, let's take a look at the life of Ted, the generic employee (Generic, GENERIC, I'm not saying everyone does, but Ted is necessary for the system to work). He wakes up every day, he ggoes to work, he find himself repeating what he did last day, or at least following the same schemes. He does not work, he commands a machine to do the work, there is no contact between the creation and him, it all falls into a grey routine. He is basically some kind of machine, he is a metal gear in the grey system, there is nothing to be learnt, no realisation...
Now, he comes home, he has obtained money, he buys things. Things he has been obsessed over, but in fact, it is just necessities created by advertisments that bomb us each day. He is not, he has. He lives just to have things, he dedicates his life to work and attempt to fill himself consuming. There is not thought, there is no learning or creativity. If Aristotle was right when he said all men search for konwledge, as he opens the terribly boring "Metaphysics" with, then we can say this existance of today is not helping much. Today man lives to produce, and consume. I can't see how this is human.
Also, in case you are interested, Heidegger did quite a critique to technology as a dehumanizing factor, too. However, I won't explain, because I am not sure to explain it fully. Do a google search if you feel like reading about it, it's well exposed but very confusing.
Oh, I do too, but I am talking of general rule.I do call it an ideology, albeit one I think is bad. I know many people who have better ideologies than that.
No, like getting the nipple cut by the edge of a piece of paper. And you don't have to read all the stuff I linked, the whole Rousseau speech is very long. But this Kant document is brief, and above all, it is rather well written and interesting to read, something Kant dosen't tend to do often. He's not worse than Rawls, though.Haven't had time to read all the stuff you linked to, I'll have to try that once I get a chance. Although reading Kant is like being stabbed in the eye with a pin, in my experience.
EDIT: Oh, yeah, theare put where I would put the bad words. I prefer to put them manually just in case you remove the censore thing and then I get banned for swearing.
