tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post7480604149713126008..comments2024-03-28T08:37:58.136+01:00Comments on Limited, Inc.: for brianRoger Gathmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-17366375542005793062007-08-16T18:34:00.000+02:002007-08-16T18:34:00.000+02:00Brian, I can't give you a 'goal' that people had o...Brian, I can't give you a 'goal' that people had on the long lost continent of the Ancien Regime. Survival, for us, has a Darwinian overtone, and so I distrust that word. Truly, though, to reach the age of sixty in 17th century Germany required some kind of cunning. One had to avoid disease, starvation, plundering armies and the like. So one aspiration was definitely to grow older - to grow into your full estate, and die redeemed. But it is a mistake to look back and see a uniform pattern. Notice how, in Shakespeare's plays, the value of being old is always in play - Lear is a classic example, but seeded all through the plays are old men whose social positions are in contrast to their emptiness: Polonius types. <BR/><BR/>There's a great bit in Akenfield in which Blythe interviews the 'survivors' - the eighty somethings, the farm laborers and farmers - in that British village. All of them welcomed WWI - such a relief to get away. One of them says, "I had nothing in my childhood, only work. I never had any pleasure." And then he corrects himself: 'But I have forgotten one thing: the singing. There was such a lot of singing in the villages then, and this was my pleasure, too." <BR/><BR/>Anyway, the point is, this older society had its pleasures, had a strong religious side, but to put together what its psychological 'goals' were is, in a sense, to come at it the wrong way.Roger Gathmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-69157413095054185852007-08-16T06:51:00.000+02:002007-08-16T06:51:00.000+02:00Sure...I just lack your udnerstanding of history a...Sure...I just lack your udnerstanding of history as to what th psychological goal was pre-happiness. Survival (for most)? Religious faith and waiting for an afterlife? <BR/><BR/>My favorite theme is this, though: Both Marx and the chamber of commerce agreed on the need for industry and growth. Capitalism seems to name a particular economic system that is fundamentally different from socialism. I don’t think so.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com