http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/
See also the entries 2003-11-05 and 2003-11-11.
This led me via a few links I cannot remember to *A Study Of Our Decline* ². In the introduction, he writes:
It was not that incompetence was a qualification, but ability meant disqualification, some process worked against the promotion of competent people into decision making roles. Any officer who may have given serious consideration to bold and sensible innovations would long since have been weeded out of the service; discouraged and alienated until they gave up or resigned. Considering this idea was like discovering the key to a puzzle, it seemed to explain everything. ³
That seems to be the key, here. And I certainly have heard and said similar things. For example, the reason why so many politicians are corrupt? All the good guys left a long time ago! And certainly I left Academia because I couldn’t stand the corruption and stupidity of our award-winning department head.
So eventhough I find the title misleading and alienating, the basic idea here is correct. And the correct solution to fight incompetence, apathy and cynism? Getting involved, while avoiding the burn-out.
Blogging (and thereby creating an alternative media landscape) might be one of the ways out, for certainly the media seem to be concentrating on the lowest common denominator right now... :D
#Books
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*So even though I find the title misleading and alienating, the basic idea here is correct. And the correct solution to fight incompetence, apathy and cynism? Getting involved, while avoiding the burn-out.*
Alex, I’d bet *big* money that you didn’t read much of that book..! Don’t bother. I believe the author hates your kind.
Incidentally, his recommended response is *basically to do nothing.*
– LionKimbro 2004-02-14 06:16 UTC
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Indeed, there is much foolishness in the book. Prompted by you commented I read some more chapters.
Determine if the general use of language is losing discipline, for this can only mean the general use of thought is also losing discipline, which is a decay of understanding. ¹
How does language change and evolve, if not by loose associations, misappropriations, foreign influence, random chance, playfulness?
That is, each generation is charged with rearing its progeny as dutiful (unselfish) citizens who revere the morality, hence the manners, customs and traditions, of their parents. When this process fails and most citizens no longer revere their parents’ morality but the morality of convenience (selfishness ), then the community stops improving its manners, customs and traditions and starts discarding them. And the rot progresses a generation at a time, with each succeeding wave of offspring discarding more manners, customs and traditions, which in turn means showing less restraint, and thus less understanding, than the last generation. ²
Where did our ancestors find their manners, customs, and traditions? Assume that wherever they found them, they did in fact raise us to our present level of civilization, who is to say that there are not *other* manners, customs, and traditions, that will help us improve our lot even faster?
The list of popular delusions include:
AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease caused by the HIV virus.Corpulence is the result of eating too much.Democracy is good governmentetc. ³
It would take a lot of effort to discuss these issues and I don’t believe there’s much to gain, here. Corpulence has to do with behavioral norms and nutrition composition as well as food quantity, democracy means many things, and clearly doesn’t solve all our problems, but it seems to me that it certainly prevents *some* of our problems, given the right framework. (Which shifts the question to the right framework, of course.) As to AIDS, I’m not that sure of what to make of it. There certainly *are* many unexplained factors to AIDS...
– Alex Schroeder 2004-02-15 01:33 UTC