[henry quirk]

"...to an extent, I can see something admirable about a desire not to be dependant, not to be caught in the trap that dependency can create. But, it seems a cold creed to me. An unnecessarily harsh way to meet the world."

Why 'cold'? Why 'harsh'?

It seems perfectly natural to me that I should self-direct, self-determine, self-rely. My living is not 'cold' or 'harsh'.

#

"The thing that allowed humans to survive and thrive as a species, more than any other factor, was arguably our capacity for communal organisation and complex communication. The more we have met and organised, pooled our collective imaginations and energies, the further we have got. And the less we have each needed to supply everything."

No argument with this on the face of it, but (perhaps unintentionally) embedded in the above is the notion of a universal standard of 'sociability', a uniform baseline of interaction.

As I said elsewhere: no doubt many, perhaps most, folks NEED the company, aid, support, of others...without that company, aid, support, those folks just plain 'die'.

The mistake, however, is to apply the needs of the many to the (admittedly aberrant) one.

Let's use the cockroach analogy (for every roach you see there are 100 hidden in the walls): for every 10,000, 1 million, 100 million, folks who are '*the luckiest people in the world', there is one who (by nature) only **needs him- or her-self.

There is the uncomfortable suggestion (it seems to me) that this 'one' needs 'rehabilitation' and this is a rather large problem (for every one).

As this relates to the thread ('occupancy'): those in favor rally those against (and vice a versa) and both sides scratch collected heads at one who's indifferent to the pros and cons and thinks it's all a silly attempt at envy-fulfillment.

#

"If everybody took self sufficiency and absolute independence as our goal, there would be no ipads."

And this would be a 'bad' thing?

If so, why?

##

"I would say that is well beyond argument."

Allow me, then, to etch out the beginning of a bare-bones opposition.

Some time back, in the 'New Scientist', there was ***piece about the roots of language. Some recent anthropo-/archeo-logical findings indicate language has its beginning with the individual as he or she apprehends the world (and its contents) and, through symbols, attempts to apply significance to the world, for him- or her-self.

The killer of the piece: that language promoted 'community' was incidental to its fundamental purpose as tool of the one (a refutation, perhaps, of Wittgenstein's assertion that there is no 'private language').

My point: 'community' is perhaps the tool of the one, not the creation of the 'we'.

#

"Division of labour, cooperation, and creation and transmission of culture (especially "knowledge") are the keys to our success."

No doubt, but keep in mind: the labor of, the cooperation in, the creation of, the transmission of, 'culture' begins with one doing all those things for his or her own reasons. The tendency to relegate 'one' to cog in the machine of 'many' is deplorable...and (despite my personal preference and the above cited anthropo-/archeo-logical findings) probably perfectly natural.

As I posted elsewhere: no doubt the individual is a relic or deviance...the future (and probably the past) belongs to the many, the 'we', 'the people'.

*shrug*

If this is indeed the case: then dinosaurs, cancers, and aberrations (like me) are obligated to give all of you one helluva show before each of us is buried deep and forgotten.

I'd prefer to be just 'left alone', but (especially after Mr. Obama's 'we, the people' speech) this may not be possible.









*people...people who need people...are the luckiest people...in the world!

**wanting company is not synonymous with needing company...'need' and 'want' are two very different animals.

***if I find a link for the piece, I'll post it...I don't expect any one to take my word for it.