From: ml (mbtlehn@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Tue Jul 27 2004 - 16:37:50 BST
Hello Paul,
>
> Paul:
> The "community of interest" I was thinking of was society as a whole, or
> perhaps a nation as a whole. Perhaps this is too broad to be meaningful?
>
mel:
Precisely correct... as I've thought about it, it seems that none of
us in our real life live in the abstraction of "society-as-a-whole." We
seem rather to have membership in smaller more meaningful and
more functionally appropriate "Communities-of-Interest."
e.g. I am a member of the local swim club where my kids swim.
I am a member of the local phone exchange, fire district, sewer
district, taxing authorities, & schools. My chosen hobby groups,
hiking groups...etc. (Some defined by where I live, others by what
I choose to do. )
Real life messiness makes such generalizations as "SOCIETY"
a bit less useful, which makes our discussion MORE difficult.
> Mel said:
> So, then subverting the social artifact of money to biological enjoyment
> is an immoral act...?
>
> Paul:
> I think so, when things get over-valued maybe, like a £20,000 bottle of
> champagne - how good can some fizzy grape juice taste? I think this kind
> of thing often provokes a "something wrong there" reaction with people.
>
mel:
So, is a £2 pint of IPA over-valued, or a £2 pint of Bud
(or other watery mass prod'n beer)? (yuck phooie)
The "something wrong there" reaction is an interesting one, given
that the money being spent is not our own. Why do we feel that?
Mark Twain was once asked to comment on the wealth of another
man, with the implicit assumption in the question that the very
possession of wealth was somehow immoral.
Twain replied that the man's fortune carried a taint. Then after his
inquisitor felt his opinion validated, Twain continued: "T'aint yours,
t'aint mine, it's his."
Could part of our reaction be that we are focusing on the money
and not on the meaning of the event or expenditure to the buyer?
Most of us never have the opportunity to question anyone who would
spend that kind of scratch on grape juice polluted by yeast-piss.
We do however, hold an opinion or a value in our own mind, but how
might that same exchange be viewed by the purchaser, what is the
value to him/her?
thanks--mel
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