A Brief History of Creative Work and Plutonomy (eBook)

Mathew Varghese works on Middle-Path philosophical thought, and in his works, he ingeniously uses the critical investigation method of employing four-value logical analysis (catu?kot?). He is a critic of the binary logical interpretation method being followed by many modern thinkers after Hegel. He argues that the problem of absolutes like plutonomy against which we have no intellectual freedom is a problem that originated out of the indiscriminate use of binary logical interpretations. Continued philosophical investigation-skepticism using tetralemma(catu?kot?) is an original contribution of Indian philosophy since antiquity. He is a textual scholar of Middle Path (M?dhyamika) Buddhist philosophy and published three books and nearly 40 papers. He is a research fellow at The Hajime Nakamura Eastern Institute and also teaches philosophy at Aoyama Gakuin University, Kanagawa University, and Wako University in Tokyo.

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This book discusses the influence of creative work on human life, and the role it has played in shaping human civilization since antiquity. To do so, it analyzes the history of thought on creative work from three civilizations: Greek, Indian, and Chinese, as well as contemporary neurological studies on consciousness. According to the classical Greeks, humans are instinctively predisposed to use creative work to gain truth, wisdom and happiness; the Indians consider that Dharma (duty, morality, etc.) can be achieved only through work (karma); and for the Chinese, creative work is needed to attain the supreme wisdom (Dao). Modern studies on consciousness show that our brain creates a personal self-model (ego tunnel) when we learn things creatively, and developing such skills provides lifelong protection for the brain. In the 21st century, human involvement in creative work is declining as we use mechanized systems to gain more and more profit, but the wealth falls into the hands of the few superrich: the Plutonomy. As creative work is taken over by AI systems, human work is reduced to operating those machines, and this in turn leads to an exponential growth in the number of part-time workers (Precariat). The declining value of human life today is a consequence of this change in society. Further, reducing creative work means we have no way to distribute wealth, nor do we have any means to address problems like the lack of enthusiasm in the young; the health crisis due to lack of physical activity; or the environmental crisis due to the high demand for energy to run mechanized systems. This book explores these issues.