Posted on 08/29/2007 2:56:39 PM PDT by shrinkermd
I heard it stated as three groups:
Those who enjoy talking about things.
Those who enjoy talking about other people.
Those who enjoy talking about ideas.
Everything else is pretty much corollary.
Yeah, I think they do, kind of sort of.
I just sent my kid off to college, to get a degree in business.
I sent him with a hot-dog machine.
See, there is talking, and doing...
He is learning (I hope, I cringe), but he is also selling hot dogs, and making a fortune at it...
LOL!
Ok where does he fit into the matrix?
We can rule out "old money", but that's about it.
I sent my daughter off to the School of "Foreign Service". Misleading, that.
It is a very thorough education into World history, World finance, business and management.
When she was done she still did not have a clue.
I honestly don’t know where he fits.
It is one of those things, where it depends...
I trust him to make a go of it. And I pray. Every Day. ;)
I was assigned to read the original version of Banfield’s work in an undergraduate municipal government course in 1972, shortly after it was written. At that time, I lived in a slum ridden eastern city and Banfield’s observations about the philosophical shortcomings leading to poverty and urban blight, as well as the cynicism of many of the recipients and brokers of governmental largess, seemed sensible, if not obvious from my empirical observations. Unfortunately, Banfield’s observations, and more importantly his prescriptions for ending the embryonic “victim” culture, received more results in the form of threats to the author than in sounder urban governance. At the same time, more of the middle classes and productive members of the working classes fled that city as well as others around the country and those cities continued to decline. And that is the key importance of reading Banfield in 2001. Time has proven him correct, every bit as much as it has demonstrated the carnival barker’s fraud that encompassed every portion of the so-called “great society.” These debates exist today as well and the education debate is one of the best examples. Similarly, our national and local city politics are replete with countless snake oil salesmen promising a new Jerusalem if we can just redistribute more wealth from the productive to the grasping victims. This does work very well for the redistributors, but a review of Banfield’s text 30 years later demonstrates beyond reasonable dispute that it does not for the cities or their slum dwellers. A generation was wasted ignoring these realities; hopefully another one won’t have to be.
As Sociology (as a field of study) continues to mature, we find that his view on the players is as on target today as it was 30 years ago - one only need look to the mess in N.O today.
Very interesting thoughts.
Thanks for the follow-on post from a couple of weeks ago — think I will request these books from the library for further study.
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