Humpy-Dumpty

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"Mandeville's philosophy gave great offence at the time, and has always been stigmatized as false, cynical and degrading. His main thesis is that the actions of men cannot be divided into lower and higher. The higher life of man is a mere fiction introduced by philosophers and rulers to simplify government and the relations of society. In fact, virtue (which he defined as "every performance by which man, contrary to the impulse of nature, should endeavour the benefit of others, or the conquest of his own passions, out of a rational ambition of being good") is actually detrimental to the state in its commercial and intellectual progress. This is because it is the vices (i.e., the self-regarding actions of men) which alone, by means of inventions and the circulation of capital (economics) in connection with luxurious living, stimulate society into action and progress."
From Wiki

This is the philosophy which has ruled the world more or less in the last 3.500 years. A public philosophy without any crumb of morality, of solidarity, of communal spirit: We see the results now. No single citizen understands what happens now in the gravest crisis hitting humanity. People used to buy electronic gadgets (I-Pods, mobiles, etc), SUVS, luxury cars, to make of tourism in faraway islands a seasonal and not seasonal habit, to buy virgin girls snd children for a night in Thailand or Cambodgia, are stunned by the fact that for some time (or forvever?) they will not be able to do these things. It is the philosophy of possessive individualism, the philosophy of Mandeville, of Adam Smith, of Marx too (an enthusiast of economic development and of the bourgeois revolution), of Roepke, of Friedmann and the Chicago Boys, of Reagan and Thatcher and their henchmen in Latin America and elwhere. Now the whole system is crumbling and the “great” statesmen of the world are gathering here and there to try ti resuscitate it (Obama or not Obama). Thr system is a system of progressive corruption and disintegration: Humpy-Dumpty.

Humpty-Dumpty was pushed!

i thought humpty dumpty was a huge cannon that got shot off the walls of the tower of london in a siege or something

No, he was this Egg that sat on a brick wall in London and cracked his head. I guess one of the first historical figures with a TBI or traumatic brain injury. No doubt a kindred spirit of mine.

I was curious, being so old as to not remember if there were any more verses to the nursery thyme.

Apparently there was a canon called Humpty Dumpty. So there you go, you learn something new every day :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty

Never trust a horse to perform a surgical procedure...they have trouble holding the instruments.

Why do people think Humpty was an egg? Where does it say he was an egg? Where did the whole egg thing originate?

I never knew he was an egg

I really don't know where it originated Claire. I learnt my nursery rhymes from an old, OLD book my mom had from the early 1900's. It had illustrations of Humpty or should he be referred to as Mr. Dumpty? He was illustrated as an egg with legs in a pair of striped pants and he had a crack on the top of his egghead.