Having it both ways

"Yet all forms of industrialism are on one hand attractive to humans and on the other intolerable to them. Partly, that's their revolutionary character. It is in the nature of industrialisation that markets rise up and disappear because new technologies rise up and disappear. So whole industries vanish, with some of the ways of life that are associated with them. People have to move or change their skills, or find other things to do. It's not a transition to a stable state. It's permanent change.

"It's not really about capitalism. Industrial civilisation itself is inherently dynamic and revolutionary. I think Marx got that right. That's partly what human beings like about it. That's what's attractive. What's unattractive is that it is very difficult to reconcile its actual operation with the human needs for security and stability. People do want security and stability. But they also want possibility and thrills. They do want happiness, but they also want excitement, which is quite different. And these are ubiquitous human conflicts."

From a great interview with John Gray in The Independent

Comments

[wirearchy]

What's unattractive is that it is very difficult to reconcile its actual operation with the human needs for security and stability. People do want security and stability. But they also want possibility and thrills.

Unfortunately it seems that dishonesty and a willingness (conscious or not) to prey on others also accompanies (not always but all too often) the marketing of security, stability, possibility and thrills (all to be found in a 'free' market near you.

;-)

[claudio alegre]

Not sure there is a dichotomy there Euan.

Are the longing for excitement and the need for security in constant conflict?

I think those two can overlap and in the shade of that overlap is where we need to be.

The problem with us is timing and extremes, we want it when we want it and we want all of it and uninhibited, regardless of whether the time is right or not.

[Euan]

I guess it's about balance and it has been in the interests of commerce and the media to keep us off balance.