I do not remember where I read this but it was a very long time ago. A german plane fell on an enemy field during WWII, and the allies were amazed at how much work was spent on every individual plane (now that I think about it, it could have been in a book from Peter Drucker, which is one of my favorite authors), anyway, the germans didn´t have much planes. The americans, on the other hand had lots of planes built on assembly lines, very fast, but of inferior quality (I never verified this fact, so feel free to do some reserch if you really want to be precise). I always think of how people are raised up and the effect that this has on society at a larger level.
Let´s leave aside individuality for a while, and let´s focus on raising a large scale society for a while.
Some societies put a tremendous amount of work on every individual they produce, try to imagine the amount of time and money it takes to feed them well, dress them well, teach them, let them travel, let them have some money to spend, giving them all kinds of practical and theoretical experience, pushing a huge amount of material, flavors, colors, sounds, feelings, materials (mines have to be dug, and forests have to be cut to provide this materials), the same chemistry and physics experiments will have to be repeated over and over, teaching the same integrals over and over, some of this individuals will die young, maybe cancer, or a car accident. The rest will, by chance and statistics, use this knowledge to produce some richness that will mantain society (ok, the contract of generations seems like a fairy tale right know, but please bare with me).
Now, some societies will make small communes or groups that will distribute this knowledge more less evenly, with some handpicked individuals putting more at a higher level, but each individual entity will still have a lot of potential.
Some societies massificate this process, putting less emphasis and what each individual entity does, but still providing if not the means, at least the opportunity.
And some societies simply have an elite, to which every imaginable opportunity is given, (in comparison to the rest) who will be the intelligence of society, while the rest will get the very basics ... sometimes not even that.
But what will the elite do? Because of the way of things, It will rejoice in it´s beauty, it´s intelligence, it´s power, and will spend it´s time flattering itself. It will fall to petty desires, and petty vanities. It will follow it´s interests, and act like a small spoiled brat at a large scale, it will not even recognize any responsibility at all, and because after a certain age, again, because of the way of things, will be unable to do it, even if it wants.
We will all die, anyway, so let's think what we do will bring in the long run, or what we could do in the long run. Unfortunately, because of the way of things, many good intention do not last very much. We can take the view, that at the end we are just a bunch of molecules on a void that will disappear anyway, but if you do, your software deceives you, since a bunch of molecules wouldn't care in the first place, ask a stone.
I could go on and on, but now I really have to go.
Let´s leave aside individuality for a while, and let´s focus on raising a large scale society for a while.
Some societies put a tremendous amount of work on every individual they produce, try to imagine the amount of time and money it takes to feed them well, dress them well, teach them, let them travel, let them have some money to spend, giving them all kinds of practical and theoretical experience, pushing a huge amount of material, flavors, colors, sounds, feelings, materials (mines have to be dug, and forests have to be cut to provide this materials), the same chemistry and physics experiments will have to be repeated over and over, teaching the same integrals over and over, some of this individuals will die young, maybe cancer, or a car accident. The rest will, by chance and statistics, use this knowledge to produce some richness that will mantain society (ok, the contract of generations seems like a fairy tale right know, but please bare with me).
Now, some societies will make small communes or groups that will distribute this knowledge more less evenly, with some handpicked individuals putting more at a higher level, but each individual entity will still have a lot of potential.
Some societies massificate this process, putting less emphasis and what each individual entity does, but still providing if not the means, at least the opportunity.
And some societies simply have an elite, to which every imaginable opportunity is given, (in comparison to the rest) who will be the intelligence of society, while the rest will get the very basics ... sometimes not even that.
But what will the elite do? Because of the way of things, It will rejoice in it´s beauty, it´s intelligence, it´s power, and will spend it´s time flattering itself. It will fall to petty desires, and petty vanities. It will follow it´s interests, and act like a small spoiled brat at a large scale, it will not even recognize any responsibility at all, and because after a certain age, again, because of the way of things, will be unable to do it, even if it wants.
We will all die, anyway, so let's think what we do will bring in the long run, or what we could do in the long run. Unfortunately, because of the way of things, many good intention do not last very much. We can take the view, that at the end we are just a bunch of molecules on a void that will disappear anyway, but if you do, your software deceives you, since a bunch of molecules wouldn't care in the first place, ask a stone.
I could go on and on, but now I really have to go.
