[[*---Virtu contro al Furore---*]]

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

______________________________

Disdain

Sometimes i laugh.
At who? Myself, and others.
Why? At the folly of all our actions, here and there.
When? All the time. Folly is never lacking.
About what? Hypocrisy mostly. What goes around always comes around dearies.
Where? Especially when i see the effects of these people.
How? Silently, and anonymously, of course.

In other news, finished Machiavelli's The Prince (since the last post about it). It would seem that the advice given is quite decent, even applicable to modern day politics, except of course, that media transparency and the proliferation of term-based democracy did not exist at that time, so that would accordingly affect the modes and style of governance adopted by the government, which the prince represents.

Also finished Marx/Engels' Communist Manifesto, which is, at first reading, utter crap in a verbose and lyrical shell, and on closer examination, it is mainly inapplicable to modern day life and politics on two counts: Firstly, that the systems of exploitation and arduous labor present at the beginning of the industrial revolution no longer exist. Well actually, the entire manifesto is hung on this point and this point alone. Marx assumed that the bourgeois would continue to miserably exploit the workers under their jurisdiction, of course not realizing that eventually, avenues such as unions, strikes, and of course medical science (the unhealthiness of the general industrial age working conditions) would naturally push said bourgeois to alleviate working conditions in general, which is naturally what we see in modern day life. To that effect, communism was an outdated form of governance even before the bolshevik revolution, because industrial conditions had necessarily improved a great deal since the time of the writing of the manifesto. At any rate, despite Marx's protest to the contrary, the whole meritocratic ideal still stands in diametrical opposition: that people, if they no longer get paid as much as they deserve, but instead as much as they need, then of course the incentive to work hard is removed. Marx also, in a critical error, failed to determine what yardstick would be used for measuring the amount to be redistributed to the people.
Basically, communism could work, if one managed to factor some form of meritocracy into it, otherwise, all we see is the general stagnation of economy and agglomeration of power into a few individuals, e.g. the USSR.

Starting on Kafka's Metamorphosis now, for ERP. Seems from the outset to be quite an intriguing book. Still, may perhaps be a little deep for just 650-1000 words. If all else fails will just go back to the school library and pull out Ishiguro's Remains of the day.

And as for you hypocrite, here's something.

You've got a hole inside that you have to feed
You've got a hole you'll use to get what you need
And then you look to see if I care
But I can't, and I never did
What'd you expect me to give
You never deserved my respect

How many ways can you try
It burns a hole inside my mind...

---Anthrax, HyProGlo

[[ Sagacious Musings ]]*|6:27 PM|

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