"Money Talks, Bullsh*t Walks"

One of America's favorite sayings is, “Money talks, bullsh*t walks.”

I have a number of reasons to challenge that saying.

The first is that money does not always talk. Brittney Spears had millions of dollars, but she lost her children to her former husband who was nowhere nearly as wealthy or as famous. The Romans had much more money than did the Vandals, but the Vandals conquered Rome.

Another is that money is not the only thing that talks. Genghis Khan did not have that much money, but he and his descendants conquered half the world. Jesus did not have much money, but He became the most powerful person in history. Marx lived his adult life in poverty, but for a long time two fifths of the world's population followed his ideas. North Korea has per capita GDP comparable to that of Uganda, but it has nuclear weapons. Gandhi, Mother Theresa and many others lived in poverty, but they became very influential in the world.

Furthermore, a lot of money is owed to what people who believe such things would regard to be bullsh*t. Most of what business sells is technology, and technology comes from science. Science, in turn, comes from philosophy - a pursuit that many people regard to be bullsh*t. Philosophy and intellectual pursuits have also had a very large role in conceptualizing, justifying and popularizing capitalism. Adam Smith, Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman were all intellectuals; yet without them capitalism would not have survived.
Then there is the oodles of money that some people make from actual bullsh*t. Many salesmen, lawyers, psychiatrists, priests and Hollywood figures are bullsh*t artists; and many of them make lots of money from their bullsh*t.

The dismissive attitude that many people hold to philosophy and intellectual pursuits has a deleterious effect on the civilization. People fail to avail themselves of crucial perspectives, and they make stupid mistakes. These often lead them to follow genuinely destructive bullsh*t, such as jihadist Islam (https://sites.google.com/site/ilyashambatthought/defeating-islamic-militants), Holocaust revisionism (https://sites.google.com/site/ilyashambatthought/holocaust-revisionism-and-nazism) and political correctness (https://sites.google.com/site/ilyashambatthought/refuting-political-correctness).

In no way am I against money. I am however against ignorance; and this is what we see here. Money is not the only thing that talks; sometimes it doesn't. Much of money made is made from things that these people would regard to be bullsh*t. And much money is also made from actual bullsh*t.

The conflict between the business world and the intellectual world has been ongoing for a long time. Both parties are very much in the wrong. There is no contradiction between prosperity and intellectual and creative pursuits. The people who think that there is have not studied history.

One situation in which business and the creative world successfully co-existed was Renaissance Italy, in which there was both a revival of commerce and creation of what many regard to be the greatest artistic masterpieces ever produced. Closer to home is 1920s America, in which there was both economic boom – as we see in Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Nikola Tesla and any number of others – and cultural unfoldment – as we see in Scott Fitzgerald, T. S. Eliot, Louis Armstrong and many others. In 1920s America became the unquestioned leader of the world. It owes that stance both to business and to culture. It stands to recapture this greatness by resurrecting that spirit.

I do not look back to 1960s; I look back to 1920s. I am in favor of both prosperity and the arts. The two can co-exist; the two have co-existed; and the two should co-exist now. Once that is done, America will regain its greatness, and the outcome will be a golden age that people will remember fondly for generations to come.

https://sites.google.com/site/ilyashambatthought

 

That's just silly. The Renaissance happened because of the hugh amounts of money the church stole from the poor and merchant class and in most cases used to make graven images the chuch used to solidify their hold over the superstitious peasantry.

And I doubt you will ever find an instance where America led the world in any form of culture. Commerece and business of course but culture that seems a streatch.

 

This phrase does not apply to everything you know, it's just a generalization.

Of course you can find examples different from it but as a general rule yes, money does do the talking compared to BS.

 

Ecclesiastes 10:19 "A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things. "

Can money really answer all things?????

And is human productive capability essentially without a cap or limit?

"And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." (Genesis 11)

Would humanity have had nuclear weapons millennia ago if the languages had not been confused?

 

Hi Dennis.

 

Often political leaders are planning something very, very different than what they state publicly they are up to ........ that is really related to money when they come up with a policy.

Can we learn about the Washington Swamp from the Ottawa Swamp?

Hi Spooky!

 

And the lying and cheating of our political leaders is different from the hypocracy of our religious leaders exactly how?

 

Good question........ essentially no difference what so ever except that politicians tend to use the technical jargon of economists and theologians tend to use the technical jargon of theologians.

 

I agree with most of this, but I disagree on one item in particular: science came from philosophy. No, that's wrong. Science came out of a sincere desire to understand the natural world, while philosophy was mostly divorced from the natural world, particularly during the Middle Ages, shortly before science came into its own. Philosophy in the Middle Ages concerned itself with weighty questions like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and predestination. This article suggests that science came out of art more than anything else.

It's worth remembering that as great as the 1920s were, and I agree as far as art goes, they were funded by borrowed money, and when the piper came to call, as he always does, the country spiraled into a depression that wouldn't end until WWII. Better were the 1980s, when the country grew based on capitalist principles and solid money. There was no flowering of art and architecture during the 1980s, but it was a golden age, nonetheless, only brought to a halt by George H.W. Bush and his reversal of the Reagan policies of the previous eight years.

 

That is an interesting take on things..... Over this last year I heard quite a few things about George H. W. Bush that were not good at all. Apparently President Reagan was forced to make him V. P. or the elite who owned media companies threatened that they would so malign him in the media that they owned.... that he would be un-electable.

 

What in God's name are you talking about? We are, and for generations have been, the world's most culturally influential nation. American food, music, film, video games, internet culture, and literature are all the most widespread in the world.

 

"Forced" is probably too strong a word. It was believed at the time that Reagan was too conservative to be elected, so he "needed" a moderate Republican on the ticket to "balance" it, and if it was a Northeastern establishment country club Republican, so much the better. Bush, you remember, was the one who disparaged Reagan's economic plan as "voodoo economics". The left picked it up and ran with it, but it was Bush who came up with the term. I honestly don't believe we've had a conservative president since Reagan, but it's clear that running as a conservative wins elections. G.H.W. Bush proved it by winning his first election and losing the second, and G.W. Bush proved it by winning two elections. McCain and Romney were moderates who ran as moderates and lost. Trump ran as a conservative and won. But both Bushes and Trump were all moderates in terms of policy, especially economic policy, and not conservatives.

 

Point taken.

Though I must pick (it is my nature). The Roman Empire split into the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman (aka Byzantine) Empire. The split was over taxation and treasury disputes. The East had the trade routes through Asia and was tired of funding the West. The West did indeed fall due in large part to lack of revenue (relative to its massive spending, of course), though poor leadership and political division also contributed. The Byzantine Empire, which took all the revenue in the split, remained strong for hundreds of years after the West fell.

 

Sorry, didn't understand you meant popular crap culture. Was thinking of culture in the more elitist sense of the word as in education and refined tastes.

But you are absolutly right America has done a great job of infecting the world with lowbrow culture.

 

You for real? You're like a bad caricature of an elitist liberal.

 

To the undereducated everyone is a bad caracture of of an elitest. Of course if your idea of American culture is McDonalds or the Kardashians you are certainly entitled to be a peasant.

 

This is great, you're like a Sacha Baron Cohen character.

I was thinking more like Dr. Dre, Metallica, burgers, Breaking Bad, Star Wars, the internet.

You know, cool stuff. Not that I have anything against the Kardashians, I don't know enough about them to have an opinion.

 

This is healthy. People should have this debate.

 

To the undereducated everyone is a b

Thank you for proving my point.

 

Which is that I'm a "peasant" because I like Star Wars and Dr. Dre?

 

Cetainly is no proof of an educated or sophisticated taste,

 

What does it mean for taste to be "sophisticated," and how can one have "educated" taste?

Seems to fly in the face of contemporary sociology and philosophy.

 

Usually one acquires an educated taste by education. Sophistication comes from discernment and experience.

But exactly what is contempory philosophy?

 

Mmm, go on, how did education refine your musical tastes, for example?

Discernment and experience have taught me that I can find meaning in any form of genre of art. And they've taught you, what, that you're above us peasants?

I think, maybe, that you're not very good at interpreting your experiences.

Well, we're going to have a be a bit loose with definitions and descriptions if we're going to have this conversation in less than twenty hours. So, bearing that in mind: Contemporary philosophy tends to stress to what extent we're products of our environment, and how much of what we take for granted is cultural artifice. It has also, since Quine, stressed the underdetermination of theory by evidence. The implication of this latter point is that belief systems are necessarily subjective.

 

When I was at the university I entertained people by singing Bow wow wow yippie-yo yippie-yeah Doggy Dogg yappin in the house. People found it funny. Imagine a nerdy Russian kid singing that while wearing ridiculously colored pants.