Two people have written to me privately about this. If you can, please use the comment form, because I'm liable to lose emails in the muddy tide. Also, I'd like it if readers argues among themselves, as well as with me.
Money is the permanent possibility of desire-satisfaction. My moral system is simple, consequentialist, and axiomatic, including the following theory of value:
Axiom: well-being is desire-satisfaction—getting what you want, whatever it is
Fundamental Theorem: money is good; work is bad.
Proof: Money promotes desire-satisfaction: ceteris paribus (though ceteris are rarely paribus) the more money you have the more options for getting what you want. Work impedes desire-satisfaction: it prevents being where you want to be and doing what you want to do when you want to do it.
As for Guyon, I got dumped into a seminar on _The Fairy Queen_ when the instructor of the 16th Century Lit course for which I'd registered went on medical leave. Ugh!
I disagree with your axiom, since the things we want are often incompatible with each other.
I disagree, too, with your fundamental theorem. Providing gross material needs are met, work is more satisfying than money, at least for people with our sort of work. The lack of work, or purpose, or use, is more dreadful than the relative lack of money.
Our enjoyment of epic poetry is obviously differently calibrated. Never mind the argument, who could not delight in the descriptions of hell? But it's lovely to have you here.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BTMEqC2ud/ See the link. This is work. This is what most work, and almost all pink-collar work, is like: mind-killing, soul-sucking drudgery. There is nothing satisfying about work. It has nothing to do with purpose. I don't work: I'm a professor.
Two people have written to me privately about this. If you can, please use the comment form, because I'm liable to lose emails in the muddy tide. Also, I'd like it if readers argues among themselves, as well as with me.
Money is the permanent possibility of desire-satisfaction. My moral system is simple, consequentialist, and axiomatic, including the following theory of value:
Axiom: well-being is desire-satisfaction—getting what you want, whatever it is
Fundamental Theorem: money is good; work is bad.
Proof: Money promotes desire-satisfaction: ceteris paribus (though ceteris are rarely paribus) the more money you have the more options for getting what you want. Work impedes desire-satisfaction: it prevents being where you want to be and doing what you want to do when you want to do it.
As for Guyon, I got dumped into a seminar on _The Fairy Queen_ when the instructor of the 16th Century Lit course for which I'd registered went on medical leave. Ugh!
I disagree with your axiom, since the things we want are often incompatible with each other.
I disagree, too, with your fundamental theorem. Providing gross material needs are met, work is more satisfying than money, at least for people with our sort of work. The lack of work, or purpose, or use, is more dreadful than the relative lack of money.
Our enjoyment of epic poetry is obviously differently calibrated. Never mind the argument, who could not delight in the descriptions of hell? But it's lovely to have you here.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BTMEqC2ud/ See the link. This is work. This is what most work, and almost all pink-collar work, is like: mind-killing, soul-sucking drudgery. There is nothing satisfying about work. It has nothing to do with purpose. I don't work: I'm a professor.