Lex Anteinternet: Live Simply and Other Musings

Sunday, January 28, 2018

Live Simply and Other Musings

Back on December 8, I published this item:

Lex Anteinternet: D'oh! Rediscioverying what was already obvious. ...: Goose decoys in a farmed field, Goshen County Wyoming. Why a leading political theorist thinks civilization is overrated ...

A very interesting podcast interview by the BBC of the author of the book discussed in that entry can be found here:

The origins of civilisation

Political scientist James C Scott explores some of the key questions around early agriculture and state-building

Ironically I listed to this while on my way to go goose hunting. A hunting trip unfortunately interrupted mid morning by one of the primary evils of modern civilization, the cell phone, with the receipt of a panicky work telephone call I had to address. Following that, I received news of a not unexpected but none the less tragic arrival of "the undiscovered country" for a family member, and packed up and headed home.

Anyhow, it's a poor idea to post on things of this type while in a poor frame of mind, but I am anyway. As I do that, I'm sitting getting ready to go to Mass. But as I'm a western American Catholic, I'm in my Sunday street clothes, which in this case includes a t-shirt which has a spork and a the works "Live Simply" on it, a gift from my teenage daughter who obviously knows my heart.

Exactly. And, yes, Sunday morning wear of a type. I'll wear a hooded sweatshirt over it. It's winter here, after all.

I'm noting all of this as I'm both linking in an interview of the author, but as I'm musing, and in a bit of a despondent mood as well. And that reminds me of the footer photograph that I added to this blog after the turn of the year. . . a minor but not insignificant revision to it.

I know that a human population the size we now have can't really go back to our pre civilization state, and we don't even really want to. But a society more like that romanticized (as it surely papered over the bad parts) in I'll Take My Stand, existed not only in the region addressed but in most regions up until then. And all of the objective evidence is that that situation was generally better than the current one. A goal, albeit a return goal, for a society, perhaps, that seems to be aimlessly sweeping away the best parts of its existence and making itself incompatible with what it is creating.

No comments:

Lex Anteinternet?

This blog has been around since 2009. In the very first post, we asked the question: "What the heck is this blog about?"

Our answer to the question was: "The intent of this blog is to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?"

We also noted: "Part of the reason for this, quite frankly, has something to do with minor research for a very slow moving book."

All of this is still true, but the focus of the blog has changed somewhat. It now focuses on the era from 1890 to 1920 in general, rather than on the law and lawyers specifically, although that may be far from obvious. It's also become the location where we comment on anything we feel moved to comment on.

We hope you'll feel moved to comment as well. While we moderate every comment, so as to weed out Spam, we greatly appreciate the comments where they are offered, and hope to see more.

Thank you for stopping in!