Mayer May was born in Bavaria in 1848 and immigrated to the United States in 1869 when he was 21 years old. Bavaria had universal military conscription at age 21. I was born in 1948 and immigrated to Canada in 1967 to resist the draft.
Over the years, I have experienced intense fascination regarding certain topics. For example, in the early eighties, I was intrigued by the story of Moses at Mount Sinai and was convinced that the second set of stone tablets must not have contained the same text as the first because there were abundant clues in the book of Exodus that they weren't the same.
I was very attracted to the writings of Walter Benjamin, whose "Program for a Proletarian Children's Theater" was the focus of the last chapter of my Master's thesis. The last numbered paragraph of the selection "Imperial Panorama" in Benjamin's One-Way Street has become my philosophical credo. It begins:
The earliest customs of peoples seem to send us a warning that in accepting what we receive so abundantly from nature we should guard against a gesture of avarice. For we are able to make Mother Earth no gift of our own.
In the mid-1990s I embarked on a life-long investigation of working time and free time, which remains the central focus of my scholarly research. One investigation I did in the late 1990s I called "Sabbath of the Land or Utopia of Work?" referring to the sabbatical and Jubilee provisions in Leviticus 25.
While researching my great grandfather's life, I have found one essay that he wrote, "The Gamble Discovery," published in The Esoteric: A Magazine of Advanced and Practical Esoteric Thought, in which he refutes the argument of Reverend S. W. Gamble of Kansas that the Jewish Sabbath, established in the Bible was not fixed on a Saturday. Following May's essay the editor adds further remarks that touch on the Sabbatical year and the Jubilee.
As I rummage through these relics from more than a century ago, I get a sense of many of my intellectual affinities were transmitted to me as a family inheritance but only recognized by me as the "resonance" of a particular idea or theme.
I have had the title "Channeling Great Grandfather Mayer May" at hand since before I posted my previous installment on the "Legend of Rabbi Moses May" but I have been procrastinating until tonight when I stumbled across the above article, "An Insulting Lawyer."
13 comments:
The earliest customs of peoples seem to send us a warning that in accepting what we receive so abundantly from nature we should guard against a gesture of avarice. For we are able to make Mother Earth no gift of our own....
[ really, really nice. ]
The sense of how and why you study and write is inspirational; a fierce concentration and determination.
Thank you, anne!
A thought I am working through; I think that the experience of countries in the Euro Area from 2007 on show that having "lumps of labor" is no mirage but real:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=OFjw
January 15, 2018
Unemployment Rate for Euro Area, Italy and Spain, 2007-2018
I finally think you have been right and the likes of Paul Krugman have been wrong on the matter.
http://hussonet.free.fr/lumplab.pdf
2000
The "Lump-of-Labor" Case Against Work-Sharing:
Populist Fallacy or Marginalist Throwback?½
By Tom Walker
Yes, your "lump of labor" argument was correct as even the unemployment experience in the US since 2017 shows.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=ycFp
January 15, 2018
Germany, France and Euro Area Unemployment Rates, 2017-2018
[ The difference between France and Germany is telling of the German job sharing and like efforts at employment. ]
What if rest is the core of a human economy and productive work is necessary but peripheral?
[ Forgive me, but this comment makes no real sense though I have read it a number of times. I do not understand the complaint about work in general, which seems self-defeating if development is going to be possible. ]
Also, I thought this utterly brilliant and just what your excellent reading have shown me:
http://www.china.org.cn/china/2022-04/26/content_78187071.htm
April 26, 2022
The priority of developing the philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics is to establish an independent knowledge system.
Xi Jinping
"...this comment makes no real sense though I have read it a number of times..."
Let's just say that you and I have two different value systems. You say you don't understand mine. I don't understand your incomprehension.
I understand your prioritizing of work. I have spent my whole life studying it, as have you.
In my value system, work that is genuinely productive of a better world is good. But "work" that is destructive is not good. Historically, capitalism generates increasingly more of the latter kind of "work."
For example, say it takes $26 worth of uncompensated damage to the environment to produce a $25 trinket. A factory that produces hundreds of thousands of those trinkets creates hundreds of jobs. Are people better off because they now have more trinkets or are they worse off because the environment is being destroyed?
Thank you so much for explaining. I should have asked the question about meaning more politely and certainly meant no possible offense since the comment that puzzled me still seemed important and given the explanation is properly meaningful to me.
Your response is excellent, and in understanding I agree with the argument.
"Let's just say that you and I have two different value systems."
From my perspective, I find what I understand of your value system completely agreeable. I am so grateful for the patient explanation.
In my value system, work that is genuinely productive of a better world is good. But "work" that is destructive is not good. Historically, capitalism generates increasingly more of the latter kind of "work."
[ Understood, and very important. ]
Again, please understand I am appreciative of all you write but that does not seem to come across properly at times. What I do not understand I point to, but never ever with an intent to be disrespectful. I will be more careful with my language, but I completely respect and am grateful for your ideas.
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