what you get here

This is not a blog which opines on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers to muse about our social endeavours.
So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!

The Bucegi mountains - the range I see from the front balcony of my mountain house - are almost 120 kms from Bucharest and cannot normally be seen from the capital but some extraordinary weather conditions allowed this pic to be taken from the top of the Intercontinental Hotel in late Feb 2020

Thursday, April 18, 2019

Making sense of it all

It was in 2000 or thereabouts that I first started to feel that the world had taken a wrong turning – a short paper called Guide for the Perplexed captured these thoughts….
The global economic crisis of 2008 just confirmed those initial feelings. It was at this stage I started the blog – using it to record notes on my readings.
 Then one day, I had the bright idea to gather the posts in one file – just to see if there was an underlying pattern which might be of wider interest…In 2015, this was a 115 page file called Ways of Seeing…the global crisis – which consisted mainly of a critique of our political and intellectual elites. But it was a couple of years later before I realised how badly served we were by most books on the crisis and when I started to develop my own annotated list of the key books – which suggested that the “crisis” actually began in the 1970s…That’s a list with almost 100 books – which you will find in Part II of Dispatches to the next generation – the short version.

As the book has developed more or less of its own accord, it is about time for it to be given some aims – against which it might better be edited. And I have not forgotten the advice I have given to authors (and publishers) about needing powerful arguments to convince us that yet another book should be inflicted upon them

So, rather belatedly, here are the reasons why I offer the book
It puts the crisis in its proper context – social, historical and moral
It is clearly written
Its guided hyperlinks allow you to select the further reading which seems appropriate eg this unique list of books worth reading
- It's written by someone who understands your uncertainties and confusions
- you can use the book lists to make you appear more knowledgeable!  

Let me try to persuade you it’s worth dipping into -

PART I
I love what I imagine was the Victorian habit of giving sub-titles to their book chapters which offered explanations of what the reader might reasonably expect to find in them. And I’ve discovered that they are a good discipline for anyone trying to edit his own text……… In this next section therefore –
- An indictment is read
- Different ways of looking at the world are sketched out
- Some explanations are offered for our discord
- The scale of moral collapse and greed is exposed
- A staircase tale about the devil is recounted
- It is suggested that Management and Economics have become the new religion
- A letter to the Younger Generation is discovered
- History is revenged

 Title

Tags
Bottom line?

Seeking the common ground
How I saw the world in 2014


Frame analysis, tropes, memes,
Different ways we try to make sense of the world

Wicked problems
Pity no one has yet applied frame analysis to the global economic crisis
Corporations, politicians, greed, lying, growth, spying, inequality
Has human nature changed?
Corruption, accountability
A famous Bulgarian parable
The new religion

Management, economics, faith
the high priests of the latest religion

Egocentricity, universities
How ethics has been marginalised
Hope, mutual support, organisation
Sound dying words
Spengler, Toynbee
Explain the significance of the table used as a frontispiece

In a following post, I’ll give you a taster for the second part of the little book – which is by way of being what the academics call a “literature review” ie not just a list of books but brief comments which give a sense of what sort of value it adds to the discussion..
As I cast my critical eye over the book as a whole, I realise that although part 1 is strong on judgements, part II is probably too descriptive and insufficiently opinionated!

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