Monday, December 29, 2014
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Women in power stymied by gender bias
Women in power stymied by gender bias
Gillard's reputation as a negotiator, and what she describes as her focus while in office on ''how you get it done, the pragmatic things, even the compromises, the things that are necessary to achieve change'', made it hard to for the electorate to understand the matters on which she would stand and fight. While a male leader might have been praised for passing more than 570 pieces of legislation and his pragmatic capacity to get things done, Gillard may have been punished for violating the stereotype of female politicians as a moral cut above the rest because of the perception she lacked moral bottom lines.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/women-in-power-stymied-by-gender-bias-20140124-31ehh.html#ixzz2vo2GHQ5E
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Chris Hedges | Suffering? Well, You Deserve It
Chris Hedges | Suffering? Well, You Deserve It
“The basic conventions of public discourse are those of the Enlightenment, in which the use of reason [enabled] us to achieve human objectives,” Offer said as we sat amid piles of books in his cluttered office. “Reason should be tempered by reality, by the facts. So underlining this is a notion of science that confronts reality and is revised by reference to reality. This is the model for how we talk. It is the model for the things we assume. But the reality that has emerged around us has not come out of this process. So our basic conventions only serve to justify existing relationships, structures and hierarchies. Plausible arguments are made for principles that are incompatible with each other.”
Monday, March 3, 2014
Friday, February 28, 2014
This is what I saw in Marechera's writing
Why Creativity Is Risky Business | Psychology Today
Highly creative people, it turns out, break through the usual constraints and let in a lot more of the available information, and thus they need to process and organize this increased information flow in untypical ways. The term for thistrait, Carson explains, is cognitive disinhibition, which Carson describes as “the failure to ignore information that is irrelevant to current goals or to survival.”
Highly creative people, it turns out, break through the usual constraints and let in a lot more of the available information, and thus they need to process and organize this increased information flow in untypical ways. The term for thistrait, Carson explains, is cognitive disinhibition, which Carson describes as “the failure to ignore information that is irrelevant to current goals or to survival.”
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Contentious Disciplines | Clarissa's Blog
Contentious Disciplines | Clarissa's Blog
I'm currently rereading a book that came out a long time ago, in 2001, called THE LIAR'S TALE. It was very big in the USA, I believe, perhaps one of those listed on the New York Times best seller of books (do I have that reference right?)
Anyway, the author just really, really hates postmodernism. It's not like he hates it with nuance, but in a basic, crude fashion. He maintains it is fanciful and immoral. But then he begs the question as to what is not fanciful and what is moral. It's really not so self-evident as his own rhetoric would imply, especially by virtue of his very strong stance against this movement. Although he makes one or two historically-based arguments about what he thinks is going on when movements develop, he falls back on a rhetorical appeal to gender differences, ultimately. At least that his how I read him. He literally says that Descartes thought that to embrace the truth was "manly and strong". So by implicit contrast, postmodernism would be feminine and frail, not unlike Eve in The Garden being deceived by a duplicitous snake. This kind of appeal to "common sense" is common in books written around that time. Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate makes the same implicit argument: science is masculine and ought to be respected, but social engineering is a project of the left and is silly because, biologically, we're just not "like that".
USA intellectuals, it seems, really need to learn to make an argument that does not implicitly and surreptitiously appeal to how American Christians have learned to evaluate gender. What these writers do is very predictable and intellectually fraudulent.
I'm currently rereading a book that came out a long time ago, in 2001, called THE LIAR'S TALE. It was very big in the USA, I believe, perhaps one of those listed on the New York Times best seller of books (do I have that reference right?)
Anyway, the author just really, really hates postmodernism. It's not like he hates it with nuance, but in a basic, crude fashion. He maintains it is fanciful and immoral. But then he begs the question as to what is not fanciful and what is moral. It's really not so self-evident as his own rhetoric would imply, especially by virtue of his very strong stance against this movement. Although he makes one or two historically-based arguments about what he thinks is going on when movements develop, he falls back on a rhetorical appeal to gender differences, ultimately. At least that his how I read him. He literally says that Descartes thought that to embrace the truth was "manly and strong". So by implicit contrast, postmodernism would be feminine and frail, not unlike Eve in The Garden being deceived by a duplicitous snake. This kind of appeal to "common sense" is common in books written around that time. Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate makes the same implicit argument: science is masculine and ought to be respected, but social engineering is a project of the left and is silly because, biologically, we're just not "like that".
USA intellectuals, it seems, really need to learn to make an argument that does not implicitly and surreptitiously appeal to how American Christians have learned to evaluate gender. What these writers do is very predictable and intellectually fraudulent.
Monday, February 24, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Monday, February 17, 2014
Friday, February 14, 2014
"Common sense" Vs. the shamanic tragic modality
There is a way in which I write and think, which is often taken for almost its precise opposite. This is due to philosophical unsophistication, but also to the attribution of emotionality to women. I'd like it if we could rise above superficial tendencies, to view historical and personal circumstances in more complex terms. The tragic modality, related to Nietzsche's ideas, involves a double-take in perception of the past. One assumes a capacity for action on the part of all humans, including the protagonist. Then also, one also recognises that fate can overcome the one who would choose his/her own destiny. By putting together these two dynamic aspects of existence, one ascertains the presence of tragedy. But if one responds to a text or a philosophy in a basically passive mode, one will not sense tragedy, but rather pathos. Women's texts are thus read as lacking a tragic component when the critic implicitly assumes that no dynamic action would have been possible either on their parts or on their behalves. The critic thus betrays his or her fundamentally flawed thinking.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
I'M STRAYAN AND I LOVE STAYIN' DUMB | The HooplaThe Hoopla
I'M STRAYAN AND I LOVE STAYIN' DUMB | The HooplaThe Hoopla
Perhaps it’s time for all the human rights advocates and lawyers to stop appealing to Australia’s good sense. Perhaps it’s time we dispensed with the idea that Australians can be reasoned with and if they’re just given the facts, they’ll make the effort to figure things out for themselves. It’s not going to happen. We want short slogans, simple solutions and lots and lots of drama.
Perhaps it’s time for all the human rights advocates and lawyers to stop appealing to Australia’s good sense. Perhaps it’s time we dispensed with the idea that Australians can be reasoned with and if they’re just given the facts, they’ll make the effort to figure things out for themselves. It’s not going to happen. We want short slogans, simple solutions and lots and lots of drama.
The unknown universe: black holes and narcissistic spite
The unknown universe: black holes and narcissistic spite from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.
Not all that exists appears visible to the naked eye, not just in the physical universe but in the realm psychological as well.
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Why Nothing Gets Done | Clarissa's Blog
Why Nothing Gets Done | Clarissa's Blog
It seems to me that groups of people advance their collective interests by making, as it were, chemical changes in the environment around them. Just as different forms of animal and vegetable life alter their environments to maximise their chances of survival, groups congregate together and emit this primeval ooze, which looks a lot like religiosity. That there is no consistency between their professed aims and values and the ooze they emit is no real criticism of this phenomenon. A defensive weapon doesn't have to look like and spell out exactly who you are in order to be effective. In fact, it is far more effective if it looks nothing like you and just appears automagically when you need it.
All the same, an environment protected in this way becomes slimier and less interesting to those of us who do not need, or cannot use, that sort of protection.
It seems to me that groups of people advance their collective interests by making, as it were, chemical changes in the environment around them. Just as different forms of animal and vegetable life alter their environments to maximise their chances of survival, groups congregate together and emit this primeval ooze, which looks a lot like religiosity. That there is no consistency between their professed aims and values and the ooze they emit is no real criticism of this phenomenon. A defensive weapon doesn't have to look like and spell out exactly who you are in order to be effective. In fact, it is far more effective if it looks nothing like you and just appears automagically when you need it.
All the same, an environment protected in this way becomes slimier and less interesting to those of us who do not need, or cannot use, that sort of protection.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)