2.) looking at community through Spain

Ok, so Spain does not elect a Man--a president--they elect a party, and that party comes with a president.

That is so symbolic.

I understand Barthe's Death of the Author so much better now. The USA is all about authorship, which really is about personal importance, not about authors of books, the idea that the individual is stronger than or an exception to his environment. For example, most stores here are just the name of what they sell "Cervezeria, Cafeteria, Paneria, Posteleria," etc. The name brand, the author of that store, is not so emphasized.

But damn, I'm American and I love those brands. Really. But I see how this can be detrimental. You can rally behind a name, treat the name as though it is responsible, the only one capable. It reduces the community and environment. It takes the credit. Is this necessarily wrong? I understand how it is argued that it is, but it definitely APPEARS that individuals can be quite powerful, however, that doesn't equal rising above the environment I suppose. As Clover says, we don't have free will, and, he makes a pretty convincing case for that.

What I'd like to think about further is what this says for "the meaning of life." For example, the meaning of life in the US seems to be 'to achieve and amass as much as you can.' So then in a place like spain would be be more along the lines of 'to live as happily as you can," ??

so, 'living' vs. 'accomplishing' ??

If things go smoothly in the world, there isn't as much need to 'achieve.' And what I mean by achieve is that drive to always be moving forward and progressing, versus enjoying the now, or something.

Although, do things ever go smootly? that's partly answered by your take on death. Should it be as big a deal for ONE person to die? Caring about each individual deaths makes things a lot harder...

So then is "no on should die," a common modern liberal idea pertaining to war, etc, then preventing progress towards a more "liberal" community oriented world?

It wants to take care of everyone, but when everyone is SOOO important, that's tough.

But people like feeling important. Just like they like being conservative...which'll be my next post.