Posted on 01/27/2013 11:06:01 AM PST by SilvieWaldorfMD
Pop star SIMON LE BON has urged Westerners to gain a level of "perspective" over the economic slump, insisting problems in Europe and the U.S. are minimal compared to the issues facing Africa.
The Duran Duran frontman has spoken out to share his views on the global recession and admits he is baffled by complaints from affluent families who need to tighten their belt.
He tells The Times, "We have to put this economic slump into perspective. Even though the recession might be tough on us in the West, we have to get through it and should remember how people live in Africa and India, where they have absolutely nothing but family, love, music and fun."
I was playing that one...at Christmas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjQzJAKxTrE
along with this one...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN4Uu0OlmTg
I can’t help it. I like the tunes. :)
Don’t tell anyone...I think I got a teensy, weensy bit of lefty in me...shhh...
See my post #61 LOL :)
http://mrburkemath.blogspot.com/2008/05/trigonometry-jones-and-temple-of-duran.html
http://mrburkemath.blogspot.com/2008/06/trigonometry-jones-and-temple-of-duran.html
http://mrburkemath.blogspot.com/2008/06/trigonometry-jones-and-temple-of-duran_17.html
Family is important
This guys is correct that we need to remember that family is important
Dallas -- those are criminals. More to the point, they are as much worshipers of mammon as rich folks who forget about church and head to the mall each sunday to worship.
All of what you said are useful as you use it. Some folks just buy the latest to have the latest.... and others steal to have the latest....
Not reading everything - the guy is basically right.
Except I doubt there’s lots of love and fun in Africa and India. They’re primitive and despotic and that tends to negate those qualities.
In my view, poverty is a spiritual condition, and has only a tangential relationship to money.
Money is just one form of wealth. Having good friendships and loving familial relationships is another. Yet another is a talent- an ability to produce something that others value, whether that something is visual art, music, software applications, or a robust statistical model.
To paraphrase a Nietzsche quote: When it rains, the poor people sit around their flats, yell at one another, and make one another miserable. This is the true poverty of the poor.
To Le Bon’s point, of course the standard of living in India is lower. There are many reasons for this, not least the fact that property rights (including intellectual property rights) are much weaker than in the developed West.
I do agree with Le Bon that one should put a recession in perspective. This doesn’t excuse the bad policy decisions and hostility to success that are evidenced by the President and his administration.
A similar writer, but one with greater depth (since he wrote about the culture at large, and not just media's relationship to culture), was Christopher Lasch.
Lasch's Women and the Common Life has been my guidebook for having a happy marriage. It isn't a how-to book or self-help book by any means- in fact, Lasch rejected the idea of the "therapeutic model". It's a perspective on how feminism failed women, and failed men, when it could have achieved social goals of lasting value. It's a meditation on how to honor and respect women without ensconsing them on pedastals nor relegating them to "second sex" status.
And Revolt of the Elites was prophetic. Lasch's concerns and fears have been realized, unfortunately.
I have heard of Lasch, but have never read anything by him. Sounds like I should. Thanks.
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