__ __ ____ _ _ | \/ |_ _ | _ \| |__ | | ___ __ _ | |\/| | | | | | |_) | '_ \| |/ _ \ / _` | | | | | |_| | | __/| | | | | (_) | (_| | |_| |_|\__, | |_| |_| |_|_|\___/ \__, | |___/ |___/ ========================================= 2023 December 07, 05:38 Thoughts on an Oscar Wilde quote a coworker posted "Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. There lies its immense value. For what it seeks is to disturb monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine." -- Oscar Wilde I'm no opponent of individual rights, sensible autonomy, the freedom to go where you want, form your own relationships, and listen to who you want (relative to being told what to do)--to paraphrase some concepts from "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity" by David Graeber and David Wengrow. However... individualism can and often is overdone in our modern context. While the expression of individuality in art is no issue, and indeed as Wilde says, helps avoid the reduction of men to machines, nonetheless man cannot exist as individuals. To the extent that the drive for individualism separates people from each other (and/or sets them against each other), it violates basic requirements of human survival that were inviolable until pretty recently... humans don't live long alone. (DIR) View Post/Comments(0) ========================================= 2023 December 07, 05:35 Obligatory first post in Scrape's Underground! So, it's a little nuts how I ended up here, but bottom line, I started running out of space in my Google account. I could buy more space from Google, but decided instead to let my money go to SDF to re-up my expired MetaARPA membership and return to the MetaArray. While doing that, I stumbled down the halls of the interwebs... and ended up at Gopher. So here I am... (DIR) View Post/Comments(0) ========================================= powered by germ 0.4.0