Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 02:07:21 +0200
Fortunately, spring break is coming up next week, so I may actually have some free time to wrestle with it. Somehow the fact that he considers envy to be a principal element of human happiness does not place very severe limits on the harmoniousness of individual happiness.
Therefore, the increasing wealth of the society will not increase happiness because people measure their well-being relative to the group, not by their absolute prosperity. His theory is that above a certain level of material subsistence people are motivated primarily by status-seeking and the desire for a high rank within their social group. Now do it with another pair of points, but make sure they meet somewhere else.
Somehow the fact that he considers envy to be a principal element of human happiness does not place very severe limits on the harmoniousness of individual happiness. The intuitive picture is that of a smooth surface.
On the face of it, of course, this is patently absurd, but if you have the right picture in mind, this is the sort of thing you might have guessed.
When the facts or events are given, anyone can interpret them, and the fact that these events are known can mask the relative merits of the theory which interprets them.
That formulation is, as I believe I have said before, perfectly monstruous.
Imagine taking a point on the sphere, and its antipodal point, and pulling them together to meet somewhere inside the sphere. America is running into the sand. But we shouldn't forget an equally important lesson, articulated most forcefully by Nietzsche: The health of a person and a people also depends vitally on the capacity to forget.
The author avows his fealty to Jeremy Bentham, not Marx, and calls it utilitarianism not Marxism, but there are many illegitimate fathers along this line of thought.
Nor is the notion that rape is bad an example of state coercion.
America at one end is now easily outweighed by any substantial grouping at the other, and most of those powers are on friendly terms with each other.
In that case, of course, political theory is entirely superfluous, which is why this is all a waste of time.
In other words, only indviduals can determine their own sources of happiness.
However, the author does not make the slightest effort to apply these wonders of modern science to actually determining what the alleged sources of human happiness are. And, of course, make good pictures.
Math is all about abstraction, about generalizing the stuff you can get a sense of to apply to crazy situations about which you otherwise have no insight whatsoever. Which seems to be the thing to do these days, anyway.
His theory is that above a certain level of material subsistence people are motivated primarily by status-seeking and the desire for a high rank within their social group.
