51 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
    1. Leisure was one precondition: enough people had to be free of the demands of subsistence to have time on their hands that required filling.

      for - boredom - Deep Humanity - boredom - psychology - boredom - adjacency - boredom - insight - history - modernity

      adjacency - between - boredom - insight - history - modernity - Adjacency statement - This is an insightful observation that - the affordances of a technologically sophisticated modernity - promotes boredom by providing a means to escape it, - rather than deal with it. - The notable decline of religiosity in the West also cuts off a traditional means of getting in touch with the wonder of existence - This could explain the tiffin popularity of meditation in the West as a non religious vehicle for centering in the here and now, - as boredom is a condition of avoiding the here and now

      • Leisure was one precondition:
        • enough people had to be free of the demands of subsistence
        • to have time on their hands that required filling.
      • Modern capitalism multiplied amusements and consumables,
      • while undermining spiritual sources of meaning
      • that had once been conferred more or less automatically.
  2. Dec 2023
    1. it's mainly a problem of providing huge quantities of high power density zero carbon energy
      • for: modernity - high energy density

      • paraphrase

        • high density energy sources of a few thousand watts per square meter are required to operate high energy density infrastructure like transportation vehicles and large buildings that consume the same types of energy density
    1. we are certainly special I mean 00:02:57 no other animal rich the moon or know how to build atom bombs so we are definitely quite different from chimpanzees and elephants and and all the rest of the animals but we are still 00:03:09 animals you know many of our most basic emotions much of our society is still run on Stone Age code
      • for: stone age code, similar to - Ronald Wright - computer metaphor, evolutionary psychology - examples, evolutionary paradox of modernity, evolution - last mile link, major evolutionary transition - full spectrum in modern humans, example - MET - full spectrum embedded in modern humans

      • comment

      • insights

        • evolutionary paradox of modernity
          • modern humans , like all the living species we share the world with, are the last mile link of the evolution of life we've made it to the present, so all species of the present are, in an evolutionary sense, winners of their respective evolutionary game
          • this means that all our present behaviors contain the full spectrum of the evolutionary history of 4 billion years of life
          • the modern human embodies all major evolutionary transitions of the past
          • so our behavior, at all levels of our being is a complex and heterogenous mixture of evolutionary adaptations from different time periods of the 4 billion years that life has taken to evolve.
          • Some behaviors may have originated billions of years ago, and others hundred thousand years ago.
      • Examples: humans embody full spectrum of METs in our evolutionary past

        • fight and flight response
          • early hominids on African Savannah hundreds of thousands to millions of years ago when hominids were predated upon by wild predators
        • cancer
          • normative intercell communication breaks down and reverts to individual cell behavior from billions of years ago
            • see Michael Levin's research on how to make metastatic cancer cells return to normative collective, cooperative behavior
        • children afraid to sleep in the dark
          • evolutionary adaptation against dangerous animals that might have hid in the dark - dangerous insiects, snakes, etc, which in the past may have resulted in human fatalities
        • obesity
          • hunter gatherer hominid attraction to rich sources of fruit. Eating as much of it as we can and maybe harvesting as much as we can and carrying that with us.
            • like squirrels storing away for the winter.
  3. Nov 2023
    1. there are armed poachers who shoot at us they steal they kill our pigs we think about it all the time 00:06:53 after the wild pigs it's deer their numbers have decreased dramatically since the poachers forced the jarrow to hunt for them wild game is being sold illegally on the 00:07:12 indian market
      • for: cultural destruction - Jawara - poachers, modernity - disruption of ecological cycle, example - ecosystem disruption

      • comment

      • example: ecosystem disruption
      • example: human cultural ecosystem in balance
      • the uncontrolled influence of the outside world always follows. Governments are too shortsighted to understand that this always happens and feel they can control the situation. They cannot. Greed breeds resourcefulness
        • In a matter of years, poachers have disrupted the Jawara's traditional diet, forcing them to overhunt deer and disrupt the entire ecological cycle that existed up until then.It's an example of how modernity ruthlessly and rapidly disrupts ecosystems. In this case, ecosystems where humans have integrated in a balanced way.
    1. we don't have anybody in Canada 00:51:56 who's serious about how would you help a whole society that doesn't even understand the depth to which it is modern come to terms of the fact it has no future as a modern culture 00:52:10 and how would you help them understand that in a way that doesn't terrify them and see that as an adventure so we could replace the Alberta Advantage which is about low taxes and money in your pocket 00:52:22 to the Alberta Adventure week Alberta could be earn a reputation at least it could I mean we do have enough Mavericks and things we have the possibility of 00:52:34 earning a global reputation of becoming the most extraordinary place in the world that is taking this work seriously
      • for: perspective shift - modernity to "neo-indigenous"

      • question

        • how do you transform fear of the perceived great loss of modernity to the gains of neo-indigenous civilization?
        • we would have to feature the many potential benefits of doing this
        • it can't be just a big loss, but the pros must outweigh the cons
    2. what I talk about is reaching what I call uh escape velocity from modernity just like reaching escape velocity from the gravity of Earth if if you're trying to get to the moon and you 00:51:45 don't reach escape velocity gravity will bring you back through the atmosphere and kill you in the process
      • for: meme - escape velocity from modernity
    3. we're in a position as a modern techno-industrial culture this is my view that it's false to say what the oil 00:29:32 companies are saying that we can keep producing oil and gas we'll get the society to pay for carbon capture and storage and and other stuff but it's going to be a technological salvation 00:29:44 and then we can keep on with our life that's one version the the other version is the environmentalist version which the federal government has bought into and that is we'll go green and then we 00:29:57 can keep everything
      • for: false dichotomy of sustaining modernity

      • paraphrase

        • The pace of modernity can neither be sustained in a high carbon nor a low carbon green economy
        • No matter what the political party, they all subscribe to a view of sustaining the same or greater pace of modernity
      • comment

        • libertarians want no constraints
        • but nature herself imposes limits
        • populations collapse if resources are overused
        • human populations who adopt a Libertarian approach eventually encounter a limit anyways
    1. the Center for the 01:00:29 Study of existential risk dedicated the study and mitigation of risks that could lead to human extinction or civilizational collapse and the interesting thing is that modernity is 01:00:41 not on their list either in fact it's not on the list of any of the agencies that now are dedicated to do this work
      • for: Center for the Study of Existential Risk - excludes modernity

      • Comment

        • Center for the Study of Existential Risk still assumes a modern framework to solve the polycrisis
    2. the official fantasy of the 20th century after the war but now also the 21st century is this that of course they will 00:53:15 all become like us and after the war we called it development and they were then third world countries would become first world some second world countries as well and the interesting thing is is 00:53:30 that fundamentally that really hasn't changed if you scratch under the paint of the UN's sustainable development goals what you find is they want to take the very best fruits of modernity and 00:53:42 make them in a fair way distribute them more evenly across the planet so that everybody has the advantages of a modern life and as billa suggested that's a 00:53:56 fantasy that isn't going to happen there isn't enough planet for that to happen but nevertheless this is the official fantasy it drives the OECD and the folks at Davos and the UN and most 00:54:08 universities
      • for: key insight - modernity framework is the major narrative, quote - modernity framework is the major narrative

      • key insight: modernity framework is the major narrative

      • quote: modernity framework is the major narrative
        • the official fantasy of the 20th century after the war but now also the 21st century is this that
          • of course they will all become like us
            • after the war we called it development
            • they were then third world countries would become first world
            • some second world countries as well
          • and the interesting thing is is that fundamentally that really hasn't changed
          • if you scratch under the paint of the UN's sustainable development goals what you find is they want to take the very best fruits of modernity and make them in a fair way distribute them more evenly across the planet so that everybody has the advantages of a modern life and
          • as Bill (Reese) suggested, that's a fantasy that isn't going to happen
          • there isn't enough planet for that to happen but
          • nevertheless this is the official fantasy that drives
            • the OECD and
            • the folks at Davos and
            • the UN and
            • most universities
    3. we've got to leave the bottom left-hand corner and that only gives you three other spaces to go to and I've already noted that one of those spaces may be a place that has a certain utility short-run 00:50:27 but don't try to build your culture there because you can't do it it's a place that you want to be in for a while but then you wanna leave so it really only gives you two places
      • for: major cultural paradigms, modernity - leaving, cultural transition, cultural evolution, MET, Major Evolutionary Transition, kiey insight - 4 major cultural paradigms

      • comment

      • key insight: 4 major cultural paradigms

        • This matrix doesn't quite capture what Ruben is proposing because he later talks about neo-indigenous, which means taking elements of modernity but within an overall indigenous framework, so a hybrid
        • It would be worth exploring implications for an evolutionary framework of Major Evolutionary Transitions (MET)
    4. let me put in a good word for post modernity to say that it may not be a space you can build a house in and live in but it may be a kind of 00:48:27 wilderness it may be a space you can escape to for a while from modernity to get a different perspective on modernity and one of the things postmodern thinking has done for us is give us perspectives on modernity we hadn't seen 00:48:39 within modernity
      • for: post-modernity - temporary perspective of modernity
  4. Jan 2023
    1. Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, "Brief Mention," American Journal of Philology 20.1 (1899) 108-113 (at 108): With all our advance in scientific astronomy, the average modern man is not so familiar with the sky as was his antique brother, and some of the blunders in modern works of fiction that are scored from time to time in scientific journals would hardly have been possible for a ploughman of antiquity, not to say a sailor. The world needs every now and then a reminder that the modern head holds different things from the ancient brain-pan, not necessarily more.

      How painfully true this may have been in 1899, it's now much worse in 2023!


      Specialization of knowledge tends to fit the lifeways of the people who hold and maintain it. Changing lifeways means one must lose one or more domains and begin using or curating different domains of knowledge.

      In a global world of specialization, humans who specialize are forced to rely more heavily on the experience and veracity of those around them who have also specialized. One may be able to have a Ph.D. in astrophysics, but their knowledge of the state of the art in anthropology or economic policy may be therefore utterly undeveloped. As a result they will need to rely on the knowledge and help of others in maintaining those domains.

      This knowledge specialization means that politicians will need to be more open about what they think and say, yet instead politicians seem to be some of the least knowledge about almost anything.

      This is just the start of a somewhat well-formed thesis I've developed elsewhere, but not previously written out... more to come...

  5. Dec 2022
  6. May 2020
    1. Using a very different theoretical approach, Robbins (2009a) suggests that one of the primary reasons for Pentecostal expansion among those most disenfranchised by late capitalism may very well be the ease with which this religion creates social cohesion despite the ‘institutional deficit’ of the neoliberal global order (B. Martin 1998: 117‐18

      This is very interesting to me because of the absence of the state and Catholic church, which led to the growth of prosperity gospel within the Brazilian lower classes. In other words, a clash between "pre-modern" and "post-modern". "Institutional deficit" is a key word coming from the available journal article Robbins (2009a). Martin (1998) is a book chapter that interested me a lot as well, and it is available at the library but not eletronically (maybe Libgen?).

  7. Sep 2017
    1. The keen feeling of hazard and loss that attends Elizabeth’s point of view—the caution Jane gives her that Elizabeth’s habit of interpretation will “ruin [her] happiness”—is lost in a critical interpretation that celebrates her character as a representative of either social progress, cultural conservation or aesthetic consolidation.

      Moe excellently addresses how narrative and Elizabeth's ideas interferes (and mislabels) the possibilities of progressive and modern actions. Elizabeth ends her friendship with Charlotte (essentially) because of their difference of interpretation (of the "modern" action)

    2. This “Jane Austen,” the author of a body of texts that circulated across four continents within decades of their publication in England, has a less obvious relationship to the western ideal of the liberal autonomous individual

      A weak aspect to this article is that Moe often makes unclear transitions in her argumentation. This is one of these cases.

      Further, does this then mean that Austen has her own individual understanding of "modernity"? Then, perhaps, both Elizabeth and Charlotte are modern in their own respective ways.

    3. subjective orientation toward freedom, progress, and self-growth that is so clearly formative for Elizabeth Bennet is not taken for granted by Austen as normative for all women. Charlotte Lucas marries Mr. Collins and expects to live a fulfilling life with him. Conscious of Elizabeth’s differing views, Charlotte anticipates being hurt by her friend’s disapprobation, but makes no excuses for her marriage as an act martyrdom or of submis-sion to crushing necessity

      Moe argues here that Elizabeth is the progressive one, yet it seemed to me earlier in the article that Charlotte's actions would be expressed as modern in their own way (at least that is what I gained from reading aspects of this article). Is Moe trying to prove both?

    4. While the varieties of couples and companions demonstrate Austen’s interest in multiple modes of intimacy, for Elizabeth, Charlotte’s deviancy from “proper” intimacy in one area of her life disqualifies her in another.

      Something that I believe Moe should address is the question of whether "deviancy" is considered the same as "modernity"?

    5. One of the most powerful effects of Austen’s novel is to show how attitudes toward marriage provide overriding norms that dictate forms of intimacy outside those cultivated within the conjugal couple.

      Yes, and this is where the reconsideration of "modernity" also comes into play. What is a "modern" marital decision? Who is allowed to make such judgements?

    6. Elizabeth treats Charlotte’s marriage as a form of moral deviancy

      Wouldn't "moral deviancy," then, be considered "modern" in a sense?

    7. Charlotte’s marginalization highlights the limitations that Elizabeth’s views about intimacy place on her emotional and intel-lectual curiosity.43 Austen reminds us of the lack of communication between the two former friends by having Elizabeth hypothesize at the end of her visit that she knows Charlotte’s real feelings, though they go unvoiced: “Poor Charlotte!—it was melancholy to leave her to such society!—But she had chosen it with her eyes open; and though evidently regretting that her visitors were to go, she did not seem to ask for compassion” (P, 233). Though Woloch argues that Elizabeth, by this point in the novel (after visiting Rosings and having read Darcy’s revealing letter) “has become the consciousness around which the novel—as a totality—is oriented,” Elizabeth’s parting interpretation of Charlotte’s inner life offers another example of Elizabeth reading social situations aslant: she is confident Charlotte is “evidently regret-ting” her departure, but perplexed that not only does Charlotte not ask for compassion, but she does not even seem to.

      Wow! This is a great excerpt. Here, Moe not only identifies Elizabeth's misjudging of what a "modern" woman chooses, but she again also points out Elizabeth's flaw in putting words/thoughts in other peoples' mouths/minds. Charlotte is (assumedly) content in her role, but it is Elizabeth projecting her own fears onto Charlotte's decision that makes her, in the end, a poor friend to Charlotte. This, again, further the nearly impossible question: who is the more modern woman?

    8. But, Charlotte’s cathexis of marriage as an institution stands in striking comparison to Elizabeth’s acute surprise at her own hidden internal depths and her sudden discovery of a change of heart about the object of her affection. Charlotte does not experience a sudden change of heart, nor does she acknowledge that fear of approaching middle age prompted her sudden engagement, since I think we are supposed to believe her (Elizabeth certainly does), when she reveals “marriage has always been [her] object.”

      Moe's comparison of Elizabeth and Charlotte strengthens her arguments about the institution of marriage within this time frame. Though both women have different expectations of what mate they will end up with, they are both inherently and consciously seeking marriage. But how does this play into the concept of modernity? Does that make them both un-modern? Or does the method of how they both were marriage make their distinct in their different levels of modernity?

    9. Charlotte seems to inhabit the worst of both worlds; even in the domestic sphere her movements, conversation, and enjoy-ment are all checked.

      Moe seems to contradict herself at times. Is Charlotte "modern"? Within the same paragraph, she seems to promote Charlotte choice, while also diminishing it. Or is Moe trying to argue that despite an optimistic, "modern" thought process, women's happiness and success are still in the hands of the men they marry? It is unclear.

    10. From Charlotte’s perspective, personal fulfillment, growth, and happiness progress (or regress) with equal precariousness inside or outside the couple, and a loving marriage appears to her as an external, only occasionally relevant condition of her future internal well-being. Marriage is a tolerable constraint within which her flour-ishing does not have to be seriously curtailed.

      I would argue that this is a "modern" determination of marriage for the period.

    11. Defending her future against the claims of the present (her embarrassing family, her disappointing friend), means that the future expands, freed of its current burdens, to accommodate a future self who will have grown with “greater importance” and a future couple whose mutual progress demands a marital space purified of all intrusions.

      It's interesting that so many contemporary readers see Elizabeth's marriage as very conventional, when she is striving to fulfill this "future self." I would be interested in seeing Moe identifying the many critiques of Elizabeth's marriage as non-modern, and working through them to defend her argument.

    12. By doing just what she ought, Charlotte falls short of what Elizabeth would have a self-respecting woman do: surpass expectations by getting the more pedestrian ones wrong. She later gets Darcy to admit that his attraction flourished under her practice of not trying to please. Much of the flirtation between Darcy and Elizabeth draws on a mutual desire not to meet expectations

      Moe defines what Elizabeth considers a "self-respecting," modern woman to be. By clearly stating this, Moe clearly accentuates the points and support to her argument.

    13. Elizabeth’s process of self-realization through discovering how wrong she was is consistent with her more general practice of negatively inhabiting social expectations. Her course of self-affirmation through negation is opposite to that of Charlotte Lucas, who, despite her age and appearance, surprises and overjoys her family by doing just what young ladies are supposed to do and what everyone supposed she would fail to do: marry.

      Moe purposely poses the two characters against each other to express their severe difference in behaving "modernly." Yet, this succinct sentence is a disservice to the full reasoning for Charlotte's choices. It is easy to judge Charlotte as a contemporary reader, but her decision--though not remarkable--it still not something we should completely bash.

    14. Elizabeth’s discontent stems from the way that she grafts individual choice onto social forms. Marriage, for Elizabeth, should not be defined by its being an omnipresent social form; it should be made meaningful by the intentions behind it.

      Moe aptly presents her argument again, as she argues that Elizabeth's frustration with Charlotte, for example, has to do with her own issues managing her frustration with "social forms." Moe allows the reader to "fill in the blank" here, as the reader can use this piece of information to better understand Elizabeth's reaction to Charlotte--her frustration is in Charlotte's refusal to resist the social forms that inherently oppress women and impact the emotional aspect of marriage. By giving her reader room to make this judgement herself, Moe's argument consequently becomes more concrete.

    15. older woman reminds Elizabeth, that to call such ubiquitous events injurious is to place mistaken emphasis on what is merely ordinary

      Another conflict of modernity. Young thought versus older thought.

    16. Elizabeth’s confidence that “independent” young men with “indepen-dent” fortunes always act freely is undercut at several points by the sly Austenian voice, who lauds “the fire and independence of [Mr. Collins’s] character”

      This is also interesting for a modern reader in the discussion of what makes a young man act "manly" or not, bringing up, again, a discrepancy in modernity, but now this difference is between Austen and her contemporary reader.

    17. ******

      The different theses Moe presents to her reader are all an original take on reading Charlotte and Elizabeth's argument, and Charlotte's individual views, especially considering the extensive description of the typical reading of these characters which Moe provides us with.

      This introduction, though at times distracted from the main point through inclusion of so many outside theories and readings of Elizabeth/Charlotte/Austen, definitely engages the reader, provides grounding for Moe's argument, and makes this subject appear significant in understanding the conflict of modern viewpoints in Pride and Prejudice, as well as to better understand Charlotte as a character and her decisions.

    18. Austen’s work might instead be interpreted as the scene of agonistic coexistence in which the discus-sions between Elizabeth and Charlotte and the deterioration of their friendship animate competing conceptions of self, moral agency, and modes of affective living

      THESIS part 4: differences based on modernities animate "competing conceptions of self, moral agency, and modes of affective living." This ties Moe's earlier points about agency into the discussion of narrative and modernity.

    19. Charlotte Lucas offers a compelling point of departure for bringing the critical perspective of “multiple [ / ] modernities” into eighteenth-century novel studies.

      MAIN POINT/THESIS part 3: Charlotte is a different kind of character, applies to several forms of "modernities" and should be critically examined.

    20. development of modern subjectivity, where the modern subject is assumed to be oriented toward freedom and inner-directed action, overlooks some of the most intriguing aspects of disagreements among women in Austen’s novels and foregoes an opportunity, which becomes more pertinent to feminists every day, to make the novel relevant to subjects and especially to female subjectivities whose self-cultivation takes the form of perseverance, self-discipline, and the daily prac-tice of living in accordance with social practices that do not appear germane to liberation. Charlotte Lucas presents conceptual challenges to feminist theorists and gender analysts because her expectations do not fit those of a romantic plot.

      THESIS part 2: the development of "modern subjectivity." This can sometimes draw attention from disagreements between women in Austen novels. Charlotte challenges the "social practices that do not appear germane to liberation." She does not follow a romantic plot.

      Moe questions the problem with viewing Elizabeth as the sole modern, feminist character.

    21. Austen develops heroines like Elizabeth Bennet to be ambassadors for novelistic generic acceptance at the same time that they are agents of social reform. The marriage plot is the exemplary union of both, carried forward by Elizabeth Bennet as the upwardly mobile bourgeois female subject who becomes responsible for the modernization of aristocratic culture into which she is accepted.

      Moe acknowledges Elizabeth as the "modern" character, though her modernity is still restrained by the necessity of her getting married.

    22. In the tradition of feminist criticism I’ve been discussing, the Austenian heroine and her romantic choices are exemplary not only of the modern individual, but also the novel genre, so that the interaction between genre and indi-vidual agency unfolds through the marriage plot

      Now we seem to be back on topic, concerning narrative and modernity, in reference to the marriage plot.

    23. Austen exposed the patriarchal conditions of her historical moment and the way romantic conventions coded for power and wealth, while simultaneously using the constraints of her provincial and domestic settings to her advantage, demonstrating the duplicitous aptitude of romantic narratives to make those conditions visible

      Important point. By evaluating Austen's patriarchal setting and consequential ability to write about women during this constrained period, Moe extrapolates upon Austen's achievements as a writer, further subverting Lewes' critique. Thus, she denounces the past reading of Austen to promote her own, modern and feminist, reading.

    24. My focus on Charlotte Lucas resonates with recent critical trends that depart from the assumption that the novel’s telos, particularly as revealed in the courtship plot, is the representation of personhood through characterological depth and interiority

      One of the main purposes of the article. Moe sets out to oppose, or at least challenge, previous readings of the novel (and is thus her placement within a scholarly discourse), to reconsider how actions of "characterological depth and interiority" are formed within the courtship plot, and how it is impacted by cultural modernity. She does this through a reading of Charlotte Lucas.

    25. Narratives have limited resources—formal development, narrative attention, and thematic social goods—that are unequally distributed between protagonists and minor characters. In the process of being “minored,” the many clarify the one; in Pride and Prejudice, minor characters “contribut[e] to the development of Elizabeth’s consciousness.”5 As Elizabeth’s close friend and, in many ways, catalyst for her development, Charlotte is both a minor character par excel-lence and a register of the costs of such a system of individuation

      It is important to relate the concept of cultural modernity and Charlotte's choices to narrative, as that is the main point of the argument (though Moe's thesis is not clearly stated just yet). Also fascinating to label all the minor characters are developmental aspects to Elizabeth; this is quite dehumanizing, but is quite arguable. Austen, therefore, purposefully has Charlotte marry Collins as part of further promoting Elizabeth's vehement feelings about marriage.

    26. Yet, Charlotte’s stance is important to think through two hundred years later as a reminder of the multiplicity of attitudes toward intimacy, conjugality, and self-fulfillment in Austen’s fiction. This multiplicity remains unstudied by a tradition of Austen criticism that too often remains bound, even in contemporary feminist forms, to the analytic and prescriptive parameters of liberal personhood as those are under-stood to have emerged at the end of the eighteenth century.

      Moe points out that many Austen critics do not view Charlotte's decisions regarding marriage as "modern," yet as a victim of the 18th century patriarchy, Charlotte's actions make a lot of sense.

  8. Apr 2017
    1. Bohr’s philosophy-physics (the twowere inseparable for him)

      Something Latour does in We Have Never Been Modern is highlight Robert Boyle and Thomas Hobbes as both scientists and social theorists, in spite of later, Modern divisions between the fields. He sees them differing in both fields on the same issue, related to the air pump and whether impartial observers or mathematical calculations as the verification of knowledge.

    1. As a community, they had evaded most of the standards of modernity for a community: they lacked a full literacy rate, did not possess a written language or written history, and pertained to ritual practice as a primary mode of expression and entertainment.

      As was oft the dialogue during the time, the Soviet Union had claimed a victory for modernity of the Northern People following its firm establishment as a nation, beginning most prominently in the 1950’s. As indigenous communities, the Soviets had believed they had succeeded in transcending the communities across time and into the present: they had taking a primitive society and bypassed it through the developmental modes of production (slavery, feudalism, capitalism) to achieve the pinnacle of socialism. Thus, these communities were largely perceived to be drawn out of “timelessness and brought (them) into history” (227). This would serve to not be the case, as the resilience of the Nenet community would show.

      An interesting discussion on the restructuring of the Siberian indigenous identity is found in chapter 13 of the following text:

      Gayla Diment and Yuri Slezkine, Between Heaven and Hell: The Myth of Siberia in Russian Culture (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993).

  9. Mar 2017
    1. System A is all about integrity and health and the folk not as nodes in a machine, but as a growing, adapting, distributed and living whole. It is the difference between a neighborhood and a housing development.
  10. Oct 2016
    1. There is not even solitude in the mountains But red sullen faces sneer and snarl From doors of mudcracked houses                                       If there were water

      This continues to remind me of the film Taxi Driver, where De Niro's characters calls for the rain to waste away and cleanse the city of its all it's vices and sins. He drives late into the night, disgusted with his environment and fueled with anger and rage. Moreover, the mountains which is the anthesis of the city is also affected by the absence of rain.

    2. I think we are in rats’ alley Where the dead men lost their bones.

      This is about modernity and how we inherit this world where the past remains and death residents in the slums of the streets. It's the grit and the grime, it's the hustle and bustle, it's the city life at its rawest form.

    3. when the human engine waits Like a taxi throbbing waiting,

      A taxi is a symbol of modernity, where one can get from point a to point b to point z and back. Eliot descibes this restlessness people feel when they are anxious and dying for some form of action or stimulus.

  11. Aug 2016
    1.  As Neil Selwyn (2013) notes, the expansion of technology (and the rise of EdTech) coincides with a growth in libertarian ideals and neoliberal governmental policies, a one-two punch of individual exceptionalism and belief in the power of the outsider.
  12. Jul 2016
    1. “The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.” 

      Been having issues with the ways this quote has been handled in various contexts, but it’s quite fitting here. One potential issue, though, is in the embedded assumption that the future is a solid. Goes so well with Modernization Theory that the focus on global inequalities can be skipped over.

  13. Apr 2016
    1. But I have emphasized many times that ”modernism” carries with it another idea, that of emancipation from some stagnant, archaic and stifling past, so that ”modern” is always a way to orient action according to an arrow of time that distinguishes the past from the future. An essential component of the concept of modernity is the idea of a future toward which we travel after a radical rupture with the past.

      The crucial formulation of Latour's argument—in tandem with the corollary, below, that "we have never been modern in the very simple sense that while we emancipated ourselves, each day we also more tightly entangled ourselves in the fabric of nature."

    2. Now for the definition of ”nature”. I think we could easily agree in this assembly that since nature is not ”wilderness” nor the outside, nor the harmonious providential balance, nor any sort of cybernetic machine, nor the opposite of artificial or technical, it would be much more expedient to forget entirely the word “nature” or to use it in William James’ definition: ”nature is but a name for excess”.

      This quote from James by Latour is priceless, and deep: nature is but a name for excess. I need to track down the source.