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Leftover System StuffNovember 21, 2005 Some musings in the wake of yesterday's blog . . . Melting PotThe good ol' American "melting pot" was the dominant system's attempt to assimilate lots of incoming systems: out of many, one. Plenty of people have called attention to serious defects in both the theory and the practice, not least that the goal tasted more like processed cheese on white bread than, say, cassoulet or goulash. What we're still working out is whether a nation can comprise all those competing, and occasionally even mutually exclusive, systems. In my women's community days, nearly everyone was searching for, trying to build, rhapsodizing about "community." Me too. The town/community I was born into was disintegrating as I grew up, and my family consisted of four electrons who were trying to get as far as possible from the nucleus before the nucleus blew apart. Plenty of us community-seekers had similar background, or we'd run like hell from home towns that were deeply suspicious and often openly hostile to anyone who was different -- creative, intelligent, gay, lesbian, loud . . . Trouble is, a whole bunch of people incessantly, determinedly, self-consciously doing their own thing does not a community make. Everyone's got to give a little, subsume a little, for the common good. And there's (yet another) rub: Who gives up what, and how much, for how long? EfficiencyMy system has evolved -- is still evolving -- to suit me. I decide what goes where and how much clutter is too much. It's a grass-roots thing. I call the shots. Works great. The assembly line was not invented by factory workers; it was invented for factory workers. Big difference. Can This Marriage Be Saved?The neoconservatives and probably quite a few other USians have conflated democracy and the market economy, and they're exporting them abroad as a package deal, a do-it-yourself kit for other countries. Call me contrary, but I don't think the two systems should be conflated, at least not till we've worked out the more obvious bugs. Assuming, of course, that these are just bugs and not symptoms of terminal incompatibility. Consider: The market economy is about allocating resources, and its primary mechanism is price. Priceless and worthless come, in effect, to mean pretty much the same thing: does not compute, can't be computed. Democracy is about the common good, the voice of the people, etc., etc. Rather hard to price, eh? Why are we surprised that political offices become commodities to be traded on the market? Rampant ReligionI'm told that before monotheism took hold, deities drew their power from particular places -- a great stone, a sea, a mountain, etc. The places couldn't be moved, so the gods didn't travel very far. Each religion was local, and uniquely suited to its adherents, because it evolved from their circumstances. I wonder if we could draw on that wisdom and not be so sure that what works for us -- if indeed it does work -- will work for anyone else?
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