The notion that one is born with natural talents completely independent of the privilege of being privileged by one's social class, is theideology of giftedness. and in no field is this belief more strongly heldthan in art and architecture.
I've always had this idea that talent can only get you so far. Practice and work is the only way to "excel" at a certain skill. But the ability to practice and have the time to work on a skill is also a privilege to have.
Yet here we are, more than six years after the hurricane, and not one of these works is under construction. The BIG U is effectively dead. Although many of the same design firms are involved in the new scheme for Lower Manhattan, the city has tossed out years of community planning and announced a conventionally engineered solution: extend the land area with fill, add near-shore walls, and unleash another round of hyper-luxury real estate development to help pay for the cost of new coastal infrastructure
What are ways to ensure that these types of projects are actually built? Why do we tend to default to these more "conventionally engineered solutions"?
An architect may claim to be powerless, but the question remains: Howare architects connected to the workers who erect their buildings? How canarchitects understand that the problems endured by migrant constructionworkers-poor worker housing, lack of access to social spaces and civic life intheir off-time, and the treacherous route of recruitment are inherently spatial,and because of this would benefit from design expertise? Why Is it a challengefor contemporary architects to comprehend their connection to labor?
This disconnect between the designer and the worker is a theme that I've noticed in many of our landscape classes. The separation between the conceptualizers, the laborers, and those who enjoy the fruits of that work reenforces this disconnect that leads to many of the problems discussed in this text (i.e exploitation of workers).
central Japan, I was offered attractively potted peasant forest his-tories not just by scholars but also by foresters and rural residents. Oncetrained inside this discourse, my work was easy; all I had to do was lookand listen. Thus trained, I was surprised in Yunnan when the very ideaof a peasant forest history provoked confusion and defensiveness. Every-one wanted peasants to be good forest managers, but it was throughtheir skills as modern entrepreneurs, not traditional stewards, that theywould know how to manage. Peasant forests were a modern object—aresult of decentralization—not an old one, and the goal of forest ex-perts was to make modern rationality possible. If the forests were in ba
I think it's interesting to note that the only way to continue to use these forests, ones that have been subjected to massive human intervention that has drastically changed the landscape, is with more human intervention.
Women learn to sew growing up at home; salvage accu-mulation is the process that brings this skill into the factory to the ben-efit of owners. To understand capitalism (and not just its alternatives),then, we can’t stay inside the logics of capitalists; we need an ethno-graphic eye to see the economic diversity through which accumulationis possible
It's interesting how we sometimes fail to understand/look for these backgrounds. I wonder how these types of observations through "an ethnographic eye" can help us understand capitalism in a more cultural lens and how it change our understandings.
t might become too blighted, to spoiled to save. It could only becut off, amputated, pulled out by the roots so as to halt the spread,and save the crop. Tough decisions. But the results would be worthit. They quoted Socrates: "We can easily forgive a child who isafraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraidof the light."
Who determines this tipping point? What attributes characterize this tipping point? What does amputating these neighborhoods look like?
l.The emancipation of man is the emancipation of labor and theemancipation of labor is the freeing of that basic majority of workers who areyellow, brown and blac
It's interesting how Du Bois highlights how labor and the need for mass amounts of labor contributes to the dehumanization of people, specifically Black people. This demand for production seems to constantly outweigh the value of human life.
This moment of global inequality demands incompetentsubjects
From my understanding, this systematic incompetency is essential to capitalism because it requires people to work to pursue a "better" job (better, meaning that the job is perceived as a higher status/more important job). Would the dissociation between labor and identity help diminish the perception of incompetency of marginalized identities, specifically in Black communities? And how so?
Being structurally incompetent injects friction into everyinteraction, between people, and between people and orga-nizations, and between organizations and ideologies. Fric-tionless living is the promise of neoliberal capital-that is,if you are on the winning side of power. But when blac
During a social work class, my professor talked about how Black babies, under the care of Black nurses and doctors, had a much higher survival rate than Black babies under the care of white nurses and doctors. I think it's important to discuss how this structural incompetency is fueled by colonial and white supremacist ideologies and strengthened by capitalism.
ve never considered the level of labor to be the measure of myself
I think it's interesting how difficult it is to remember that our work or type of labor does not equivocate to a persons worth. Social status is deeply tied to job title, but I think people are learning that all work is necessary in some capacity and does not reflect someone's value as a person.
people view the "good life" or "living well" (terms that date back toAristotle) as a materially secure, indeed highly affluent life. R
I think many people also view living well as leaving the workforce (i.e retiring and being able to choose when and what you work on). It's interesting to see how this view of a good life has developed from service/familial commitment.
When I think back on her friendship with Hazel, I suppose thatthe deep respect they had for each other was rooted in such things: bothwere women with feet planted deep in the earth who took pride in aback strong enough to carry a load for others
Hazel and the mother's relationship is one built on a mutual respect for the work they have done in their lives. Reading about their friendship was very moving.
The breaks between the lines of these hammer songs coordinated thecomplex movements of drilling. The hammer came down at the end of theline, forming what would decades later be called a backbeat. Sometimes itwas the hammer man who sang, telling his partner with his rhythm andlyrics when the next blow would come.
This reminds me of scenes in movies where people will sing while hammering nails in railroad tracks or how people rowing a boat may sing to stay in unison. It's interesting how music functions in our lives.
Here is a problem of false security. The musical child's problem re-calls Victor Weisskopf's caution to adult scientific technicians that "thecomputer understands the answer but I don't think you understand theanswer."
I used to play piano when I was younger and the principles of the Suzuki method reminded me of how musicians, especially those of a higher level, become very sensitive with their instruments. No two instruments are a like, and because your hands have become so sensitive to the sound and feel of one specific instrument, any changes to that disrupts how well you may perform.
What rain? It barely sprinkled. I'll come presently, then. You had anice day, then? Well, that's excellent.' And Levin went to get dressed
This part of the reading reminded me of how industrialization has encouraged a more distant relationship to nature. Nature and weather are more of nuisances (i.e things to prepare for) rather things to be appreciated as a sign of the living world.
at strikes us here in the initial proclamation of empiricism is its decidedanti-intellectualism, its suspicion of the activity of the mind, whose salient fea-ture seems to be its constant temptation to construct something illusory, and indoing so to lose touchwith the real world. The purpose of philosophy in thistradition is not to enhance, but primarily to restrain, the intellect
This part of the reading reminded me of how often times, too much thinking is more harm than good. Especially when looking back on my past experiences, I will often catastrophize situations. Only when experiencing them, do I realize that my thinking was wrong or stunted.
In offering relief to needy families of the disabled and deceased,all nineteenth-century companies made the recipients sign com-prehensive waivers agreeing not to bring suits against the firms
This situation reflects how often times, gestures or actions are largely motivated by money, a system that capitalism continues to encourage.
"The only thing," Viligelmo said, "is to give 1t back tothe nursery, in exchange for a plant of the right size!
I thought this story was very indicative of how we have domesticized things to an extreme degree, almost creating a different species of plants or animals.
roots of perennial grasses and legumes are often larger thantheir stems, leaves, and flowers-an underground cache that expandseach year
I never really considered root systems and their effect on the consistency or the soil when choosing species of plants. In the future, looking more closely at how a plant may impact its soil would be important to consider in combatting harmful effects on soil.
Colonial expansion cemented the power of the global north bygiving access to the best land all over the world, controlling its usage,monopolising the fruits of its production and enshrining the reality ofpoverty and limited freedoms for those excluded from its resources andfrom land 'ownership'
This part article reminded me of my studio class, where we discussed how rewilding (i.e reintroducing keystone species of endangered animals to habitats to reinforce/revive an ecosystem) often leads to the displacement of rural and indigenous communities. Conservation efforts must take into consideration the people in close proximity to the areas affected.
Those brought across the Atlantic insubhuman conditions and subjected to lives of misery were not onlythe backbone of fortunes and status for their 'owners', but were doingwork that the latter were poorly suited to do themselves. Far from being'inferior', chose put into chains were not only stronger but geneticallybetter suited to the Americas than those who exploited them.
It is ironic how ideologies about how those growing up in colder climates are superior both physically and mentally are plainly debunked as shown through the malaria outbreak.
On overlappinghurdles made of branches and of the heather and brushwoodthat grew there, he laid sand, earth, and gravel, thickly coatedwith cinders, until at last he got a firm but elastic road to carrythe railway
When reading about railways, I assumed that this article would mainly focus on how we have disrupted the land through subtraction (i.e substansial regrading), not thinking about how building railways also requires adding things to the land, changing the ecosystem and potentially introducing new species to the area.
niversal relativity, that a thing existsonly in relation to other things, and loss of intrinsic worth, thatnothing any longer possesses an "objective" value independent ofthe ever-changing estimations of supply and demand, are inherentin the very concept of value itself. 3
A thing's value changes depending on how others view or value it. This universal relatively can be seen in our own lives: we may value products more because of the opinion and review of others. How much others' value a thing, the more we value it.
he perfect elimination of the pain and effort of laborwould not only rob biological life of its most natural pleasures butdeprive the specifically human life of its very liveliness and vital-ity.
This quote kind of reminds me of the movie inside out, where joy realizes that sadness is an essential part of life that enables the joy you feel to be more meaningful/true. Similarly, pain and effort are necessary for happiness and fulfillment.
It seems to hefar from A. Smith's thoughts that the individual, •in his normalstate of health, strength, activity, skill and efficiency', might alsorequire a normal portion of work, and of cessation from rest.
"The Human Condition" also touches on this necessity of labor to the life process. Even when people are "free" from labor (have freetime from their jobs or other responsibilities), people desire labor in other forms (like hobbies).
"The capacity for agricultural expansion would always, necessarily, be limited by technique and land area, and thus the variable that shifted to cause problems was growing numbers of people: 'It is an an obvious truth that population must always be kept down to the levels of the means of subsistence'" (30). It's interesting how this concept is reflected in our own society. The demand for certain foods leads to inhumane factory farming practices and deforestation in pursuit for more land to farm on. At what point will we be unable to sustain our population growth with current practices?
Because theyoften evaluate their income in relation to purchasing power and con-sumption levels at home, migrants are more willing to work for lowerwages and fewer social rights. General insecurity in terms of residencypermits adds to this perspective, driving them to view family networks astheir primary social safety net
I wonder how different cultural values/values placed on family and ancestry could impact migrant workers reasons for migrating and the working conditions they tolerate.
y reducing every man's business to some one simple operation,and by making this operation the sole employment of his life, necessarilyincreases very much the dexterity of the workman
It's interesting to see how cyclical this model of dividing labor is. The more one does work, the more skilled they become. The more skilled they become, the more products they must produce, and the more they must work.