Friday, April 14, 2017

"Marxian" and a few other words & phrases I've coined

By no means a comprehensive list!!! Merely the tip of the iceberg, if even that!!! At any rate, here are a few: Marxian. I was reminded of this one of mine while attending a Hegel conference at the University of Pittsburgh. I use this term to describe someone who believes that political systems are derivative of economic systems or economic circumstances, but who doesn't necessarily buy into the whole notion of "class struggle" or the like. Those people would be called Marxists, as I guess most could deduce. Note that many Marxians are not of the political left!!!! Many so-called conservatives or free-marketeers are actually Marxians!!!! One sees this especially in debates about free trade and open markets and the like, when comments like "Only when the Chinese economy develops can we have a situation where the Chinese people have political rights or a democracy." Many Marxians' bank accounts grow in size bigly while people in Third World countries wait for their political rights. "Depression millionaires." People who grew up in the Depression, who learned frugality during that time, and who, after World War II, just started to save money without any real desire to get rich. However, with the stock market booms of the 1980s, 1990s, and 200s/2010s their net worths reached well into the seven figures...all without making any specific or direct effort to become "millionaires." (Note that, coincidentally, not a small amount of the increase in their assets came from policies enacted by the "Marxians" as described above). "Gray-haired hippies." Fairly obvious what this one means!!!! People well into their 60s or 70s, who still in many ways have the mindsets or at least ideals--and in some cases hairstyles!!!- of hippies :) "Twentysomething teenagers." Well, I guess this would be sort of a complement of "gray-haired hippies." In today's economy and society, it is very difficult to "get started" with any serious career outside of a few privileged fields even well into one's 20s. So, they are living in many ways like teenagers!!!! Not that, given their options, there's anything wrong with that. "Thousand geeks in garages." People who (in many cases are "twentysomethings" or even actual teenagers!) are launching startups, often high-tech, in garages. "Excel @$$hole." A person who has no idea of what he or she is doing but just sits there and moves numbers around on an Excel spreadsheet, thinking that he/she is being productive or is saving his/her company some money. I have quite a few more of these but figured I'd get some of these out now on this lunchbreak; some of these need to be used in wider if indeed not general circulation!!!!!!! One that can be added to this is "the Rip van Winkle" test. Imagine yourself going to sleep for 5/ 10/ 20+ years. You have to bring something with you that, in a particular filed or area, will still be "going strong" when you wake up. E.g., you have to teach a class on the US Civil War. What text would you take with you? Et cetera to the maxxx on this one!!!!!