You also have a highly chauvinistic view of the world if you're prepared to dismiss all art created under communist regimes.
Perhaps I have a chauvinistic view of the world, but a balanced one.
In turn, the last part of your statement is highly exaggerated since I didn't dismiss all art created under communism. I said it was state created. But it is highly entertaining.
spike wrote:In turn, the last part of your statement is highly exaggerated since I didn't dismiss all art created under communism. I said it was state created.
I was referring to your earlier statement:
spike wrote:There would be no intellectual or art world without a business world first.
Either you admit that there was a business world in communist regimes and therefore there was also an art world or you deny there was a business world in communist regimes and consequently deny the existence of an art world. Which is it?
There always seems to be a crises somewhere. And in a sense that is good because of the philosophical challenges that arise from them. What would philosophy do without a crises? A philosopher without crisis is like a lover without passion.
Anyway, this is not quite a crises, but it is about people bashing corporations because of how they are seen as imposing themselves on society and democracy. I say, if we didn't have corporations we would not have democracy. In many ways they counterbalance big government from becoming too domineering and all powerful. Often they do get in bed with government. But more often than not corporation challenge government's assertiveness, which is good because this helps keep societies open and diverse.
I admire corporations. So sometimes I come to their defence when they are attacked by errant thinking. This is my latest effort in their defence, in response to another forum writer who finds them despicable and a corrupting influence:
Corporations are monsters. But they are a necessary evil. I think even Jefferson and Lincoln, who saw them as a troubling business development, would appreciate that in this day and age. Why? Because they have had a role in ending segregation between the races and empowering women and minorities throughout the land, thus enhancing democracy (albeit in a perverse way). Corporations have given citizens the platform and venues to engage each other on a mass scale so as create the social networks that moderate and sustain society. If Egypt and Syria had these social networks in place there would not exist the troubles that are there today.
The laws that have passed in America to protect workers and minority right's were not founded or incubated in government. No! They were founded in the hurly burly of the corporate workplace and among the people corporations employ. In contrast, small family businesses would not have had the capacity or clout to transcend and surmount the social intransigencies (such as race, religion, sexual bias and harassment) that corporations and big business have been able to do. For instance, if it wasn't for corporations the gay right's issues would surely not have come to the forefront or gained traction, if gays hadn't been first employed by pragmatic corporations that value them as employees and for their work ethic
