Dear David f.,

I don't believe that Koestler in "The Ghost in the Machine" was advocating individuality over community, but pointing out that everything exists as a component of hierarchical order....and he deals with much more in the book than just the human condition.

Dear Poirot,

Heirarchical order is a human idea. Taxonomic classifications, charts of military and corporate hierarchies, critical classifications of literary genres and values and many other items are placed in hierarchical order by humans. However, their existence is independent of the hierarchical order imposed by humans.

Murray Bookchin in "The Ecology of Freedom" finds original sin in our society in the development of hierarchy. He is a former Marxist and has constructed a narrative in which hierarchy replaces private property as the cause of the Fall.

If I run across Koestler's book in the library I will look at it. He is an entertaining writer.

I do not have a good feeling about Koestler. One reason is that he apparently persuaded his wife to commit suicide with him. I think that is a tremendous exhibition of selfishness. When I go I do not want to take anyone with me especially someone I hold dear.

Dear David f.

Hierarchical order may be a human idea, however, I think it contains some merit. Who can deny all the substructures that depend on a more complex over-structure for their existence....cells - organs - body...or planets - solar systems - galaxies, etc.
I'm not qualified to get into this to any great extent, but Koestler's theory seemed to make a lot of sense - and he wasn't just referring to the material realm - he also included things like language structure too.
Interesting!

Dear DavidF,
I made that comment in the context of what preceded it. However, I stand by it. We put on a brave face and try to make the most of our lives, and we kid ourselves we're happy with the shallow and scripted existence we're forced to lead under the capitalist system. But the statistics on suicide, depression, violence and antisocial behaviour etc. tell a different story. Of course we trace all these ills to individuals and try to treat, council and punish them accordingly, (while religion offers hope in God's love and the next world) putting it all down to human nature, and never thinking to criticise the system that propagates such "human nature".It's quite bizarre really. Mobs like beyond blue are so intent on treating the diseased individual, rather than the culture. Great for the pharmaceutical industry! I have to pinch myself sometimes to make sure I'm not dreaming, and that people really do accept and accord guilt and blame so readily among themselves rather than attributing the blame to a chronically dysfunctional society. As if their isn't ample evidence that we are cultural animals and all drink from the same well, or that the results of so-called "happiness indexes" vary from culture to culture, or that particular maladies are peculiar to particular demographics.

I'm very fortunate in being resilient against the "disease," having long tempered myself with philosophy and humour, which seldom fail me. I only wish I could help the culture my kids have to grow up in, rather than having to steel them.

My statements are definitely debatable, but its a pleasure being contradicted and forced to think :-)

Dear Squeers,

I'm probably coming in a bit late on the thread with this, but I found a passage by Ivan Illich which touches on Aristotle's philosophy.

He wrote: "Aristotle had already discovered that "making and doing" are different, so different, in fact, that one never includes the other. "For neither is acting a way of making - nor making a way of truly acting. Architecture is a way of making...of bringing something into being whose origin is in the maker and not in the thing. Making has always an end other than itself....Perfection in making is art, perfection in acting is virtue". The word Aristotle used for making was "poesis", and the word he employed for doing was "praxis"...Modern technology has increased the ability of man to relinquish the "making" of things to machines and his potential time for "acting" has increased. "Making" the necessities of life has ceased to take up his time. Unemployment is the result of this modernization: it is the idleness of a man for whom there is nothing to "make"and who does not know what to "do" - that is how to "act".

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Dear David F.,

.

You wrote to Poirot:

"Heirarchical order is a human idea".

I enjoy watching BBC Nature documentries on TV and am constantly amazed at the hierarchial order observed by many wild biological species in their natural habitat, whether it be within a particular family or group of the same species or among different species when they all seek the same objective.

This is striking when it comes to who sits down for the first course after the slaying of a prey. Nobody has to be told who gets the first ration, who gets the second and the third and so on ...

The male and female roles are also clearly defined and respected, the queen and the labourers etc., without any need for army, police or judicial system.

They all seem to instinctively obey, unwritten natural laws.

What makes you think "hierarchial order is a human idea" ?

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