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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.
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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...
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