Here is a fragment : A reply to an discussion entry which I never posted.
I didn't post it because I wrote it on my "gaming PC", which use not that regularly for internet access than my "normal" PC, my "office PC", as I call it.
I have dug it out because I found something similar in an interview in the local newspaper from today. I'll add it at the end of this fragment.
Here my fragment ends. unfortunately I never finished my translation, I must have been interupted at one point.
The underlying concept of this fragment of an interview is clear, however : That Money is able to transmute/transform EVERYTHING we can thing of and what is into values of Money.
Like Thoughts in their incarnation as so-called "intellectual propety". Like lust in the form of prostitution. Like anything spiritual, I guess, too.
Today I found in interview with one Colin Crouch from the University of Oxford (Sociology) who is now, as the article states, Professor for Governance and Public Management at the University of Warwick, and he is associated with the Max-Planck-Institute für Gesellschaftsforschung (Society Science is a viable translation, I think) in Cologne.
The part of the interview which interests me here in this context is the following part :
I think, this is Corporatism in its essence.
And the Dream of a Free Market is nothing but - a Dream.
I didn't post it because I wrote it on my "gaming PC", which use not that regularly for internet access than my "normal" PC, my "office PC", as I call it.
I have dug it out because I found something similar in an interview in the local newspaper from today. I'll add it at the end of this fragment.
I think Oblivion is dumbed down to hell and back but many people would say it streamlined Morrowind in a positive and enjoyable way.
That's an interesting point of view.
My thought I get from reading this is :
"Do games have to be rough edges in order to be memorable ?"
Just look at cars. Nowadays they are very much streamlined - for efficiency.
Streamlined for wind. For example.
But just take a look at which cars receive the most attention above all ?
They are always the older cars which are around 100 years old. The cars that still rather look like art. Not streamlined in any way. They are just a pleasure for the eyes to look at them.
Same with buildings. No embellishment nowadays. Nothing at all. Bauhaus eradicated everything in that direction like scorching a tree even deeply into the earth, like eleminating even the slightest traces of roots of them - so to say (I know I exaggerated it, but I often use exaggeration as a means to illustrate what I mean).
We currently live in the "Bauhaus Age of Architecture". You won't see anywhere those embellishments the "Jugendstil" or "Art Nouveau" as it is called, too.
Buildings have just reached a stage of streamlining - a stage where efficiency is king, NOT to be a pleasure for the eyes.
I fear that this is what happens to everything now and then - or is it just a kind of fashion in modern times ? I mean to streamline everything, to be efficiency be the king ?
The underlying thought-model of efficiency is that … the more efficient things are, the less money they cost.
Less efficience = more costs of money (a car which acts like a "rolling wall" against a wind storm needs much, much more fuel than a streamlined car. And fuel = costs.
Which means in the essence, I think, that the fact that "efficiency" rules everything is just a sign that - as the underlying idea - money rules everything.
And this just leads to the rather philosophical approach that we - and everything we are and that is - are measured against money. Costs or "non-costs" ?
To me this means we live in an age where Money actually rules EVERYTHING, because EVERYTHING is measured against its value in money.
Prof. Dr. Harald Welzer of the "Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities" recently put it like this (translation and text layout by me) :
"The perfidy of the capitalistic system and all of its prosperity- , equity- , health- and security gains is,
that it is able to transform any aspect of being into wares
and with that make it potentially accessible to anyone
in case they are lucky enough to be able to buy it.
It is able to appropriate everything ["aproppriate" as a verb is the word I think which fits it most what is meant]
Here my fragment ends. unfortunately I never finished my translation, I must have been interupted at one point.
The underlying concept of this fragment of an interview is clear, however : That Money is able to transmute/transform EVERYTHING we can thing of and what is into values of Money.
Like Thoughts in their incarnation as so-called "intellectual propety". Like lust in the form of prostitution. Like anything spiritual, I guess, too.
Today I found in interview with one Colin Crouch from the University of Oxford (Sociology) who is now, as the article states, Professor for Governance and Public Management at the University of Warwick, and he is associated with the Max-Planck-Institute für Gesellschaftsforschung (Society Science is a viable translation, I think) in Cologne.
The part of the interview which interests me here in this context is the following part :
"Colin Crouch, what is the Neoliberalism ? Is it possible to distinguish it from other forms through sharp definitions ?"
Crouch: "No. This is the secret and the success : The Optimism. If we compare it against Communism : That one was fixed. There was a clear line without any compromise. The Capitalism - compared against it - is flexible, it changes its Gestalt/form/shape at will and will always succeed. There are different forms : The scandinavian, the german or the british Neoliberlism. And the structure changes over the years."
"Is the Neoliberalism a subterfuge of the rich ones and the mighty ones to become even more rich and mightier ?"
Crouch : "Perhaps it is a subterfuge. They say that everything has to do with the Market, and only there is success possible. But the Market is not free. The Neoliberalism is a phenomenon of the huge international concerns/coprporates. The subterfuge is, that they are propagating the Free Market, but at the same time they are controlling this Market, so that there is no Free Market. The concerns have a strong connection to politics, which is very much against Free Markets."
I think, this is Corporatism in its essence.
And the Dream of a Free Market is nothing but - a Dream.