dominoes

"the characteristic idea of philosophical pragmatism is that efficacy in practical application, the issue of 'which works out more effectively', somehow provides a standard for the determiantion of truth in the case of satements, right in the case of actions, and value in the case of appraisals." oxford companion to philosophy______"if those theories work satisfactorily they will be true" "truth happens to an idea, it becomes true, is made true by events" "the true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good." william james"pragmatism.______________bill james and john dewey took pierce's pragmatism and made it an uttterly subjective judgement concluding that whatever helped you to achieve an aim...what dewey called "goals-in-view" was "good"...a situational ethic that could bend with events unbound by any objective standard..the preeminent american philosophy that has infiltrated the economic system and certainly foreign policy..."no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only permanent interests"...in the post world war II environment george kennan proposed a policy of "containment" of the spread of communism which led to the truman doctrine and harry publicly unveiling the "domino theory" in support of his aim to supply aid to the greek government during its civil war...eisenhower dusted the concept off to support aid for the french in indochina and after the french collapse as grounds for a growing committment from the first of november 1955 to the twenty-ninth of march 1973 at the cost of 58,220 u.s. lives...the south fell in 1975, the communists won...the rest of southeast asia did not ( withh the notable and horrific exception of cambodia )...and now? the "retail giant" where i engage in what passes for work these days gets its nike clothing from...

in cartons manufactured in what would seem to be...

ho chi minh city...american pragmatism in action.

you will be surveilled

we live in a culture ( or, perhaps, a better description would be society...difficult to think of this as a culture ) of surveillance...there is the state...which can be fairly lax in its surveillance ( for now anyway ) depending on who you are, where you live, and what sort of vehicle you drive...and then there is corporate surveillance which is a good deal more thoroughgoing...think of the advertisers that track you on line or through the apps on your phone ( one reason i have a stupid flip phone and a faraday bag ) or the cameras that watch you when you walk into a bank or a store or a restaurant or on the streets…corporations are nearly as greedy for information as they are for cash and they display no scruples about collecting it…i was talking to a co-worker today about their new vehicle and how it is monitoring their driving behavior…they said they had already disabled the mechanism that tells them when they have crossed the center line ( it doesn’t tell them, however, does it forget or still record that? )…and they were deeply unhappy about the fact that when they look down the vehicle tells them to keep their eyes on the road…or tells them they need to take a break from driving…and if the vehicle knows this and is telling them this who else is it informing? the manufacturer? the police? an insurance company…certainly my vehicle is recording how fast I am going at any given time and the police can access that if there is an accident…why not tell the corporate world at large what your driving habits, routes, and destinations are…it might be time to start walking or get my hands on an old shwinn ( no electric bikes please…they seem untrustworthy as well )…might be time to turn this infernal machine off as well.