keeping you posted of interesting discussions in my classes. this one on the topic of religious pluralism over religious fundamentalism.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
on religious pluralism
keeping you posted of interesting discussions in my classes. this one on the topic of religious pluralism over religious fundamentalism.
on the advantage of religious pluralism
after a couple of points were made, i tried to argue in class my preference for religious pluralism over religious fundamentalism*, but there's so much one can do within an hour of class. what is religious pluralism?
religious pluralism is the view that there is more than one path of salvation.**
we have a pretty good idea that ashoka the great, the buddhist king of the 2nd century b.c. preached a very early form of religious pluralism:
all religions should reside everywhere, for all of them desire self-control and purity of heart. (in the s. dhammika) and this one: contact (between religions) is good. one should listen to and respect the doctrines professed by others. rock edict Nb12 (s. dhammika)
why do i find religious pluralism a preferable option? religious tolerance would be first on my list. then one could argue that pluralism is epistemologically sound. earlier, i said that infallibility is not a trait of the wise (who by principle keeps his/her fallibility in check).
pluralism presupposes fallibilism. the quest for knowledge, truth, (whatever you want to call it) is an open-ended, historic, time-bounded, proposition. coming back to religion, this is the an attitude of the mystic sufi poet rumi:
i looked for god. i went to a temple, and i didn't find him there. then i went to a church, and i didn't find him there. and then i went to a mosque, and i didn't find him there. and then finally i looked in my heart, and there he was.better yet: "how many paths are there to god? there are as many paths to god as there are souls on the earth."***
here is a consequence of pluralism:
even if i believed that my religion is a "better" choice of worship, i understand that "better" are --not objective standards, but-- open-ended biographical, sociopolitical preconditions. there is nothing else that makes my religion "better" except my belief that it does (of course i share this belief with a community of believers that think like me). as a pluralist i have to be aware that i cannot prove that my religion is "better" without begging the question on my own assumption. why?
the reason is that the "ultimate" test rests on my religion's claim to legitimacy: it boils down to saying, my religion is best/better because my religion (church, doctrine, whatever) claims to be best/better. in theology this might be good enough for a test.
not in philosophy.
_________
* islam, christianity and judaism have fundamentalist versions. for example, here are some of the fundamental views of the presbyterian church: 1- the bible is inspired and infallible. 2- christ was born of a virgin. 3- christ's death is the atonement for human sin. 4- christ resurrected in a body from the dead. 4- christ's miracles are real. **keep in mind that pluralism is not relativism. the relativist claims not that there is more than one valid path of salvation, but that all paths are the same. but you see, as a pluralist i'm saying exactly the opposite of this. i believe that religious pluralism is better than religious fundamentalism. ***another mystic virtuoso of this same period, abu hafs al-suhrawardi says: "whoever claims possession of something, his altruistic outlook is not sound, since he considers his self more entitled to the thing by possessing it … altruism is the mark of those who see that all things belong to god." see Paul L. Heck's Common Ground: Islam, Christianity, and Religious Pluralism, p. 205.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Confucius and "Li"
I'd like to start with Li and why Confucius makes rituals so important. American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce considered the formation of habits to be an essentially inductive process. In one of his earliest published articles, he concludes that "the formation of a habit is an induction, and is therefore necessarily connected with attention." Habituation is a matter of induction, but also the process is characterized as being linked to specific acts of attention. Sociologist Clifford Geerts agrees:
It is in some sort of ceremonial form-even if that form be hardly more than the recitation of a myth, the consultation of an oracle, or the decoration of a grave-that the moods and motivations which sacred symbols induce in [people] and the general conceptions of the order of existence which they formulate for [people] meet and reinforce one another. In a ritual, the world as lived and the world as imagined fused under the agency of a single set of symbolic forms, turn out to be the same world."Li" has this quality of being a praxis. It's performative, repetitive. Their repetition brings forth a transformative function. For example, religious rituals can produce a spiritual transformation (purifying, healing, reconciling, protecting, informing, and so on). Through ritual practice, the individual comes to understand and participate in the Tao, the harmonious patterns of individual, social, and cosmic interaction created by the Confucian sages. Simultaneously, the transformative process of moral cultivation occurs.
"Li" is automatic behavior, a kind of psycho-somatic response which helps one deal with the world. Rituals are a form of cultural transmission which involves at least the generation, retention and communication of those representations. "Li" incorporates somatic and affective aspects. "Li" shapes, transforms, and orders certain cognitive and affective responses to our environment. Why?
Because, through "Li" one comes to embody the culture. Not only one internalizes the conceptual categories and ideals expressed symbolically in "Li," but our gestures and movements become ritualized as well. Part of this process of transformation, takes place because of the somatic experience of praxis. That is the key to Confucian ritual ideals.
Monday, October 29, 2012
concerning the fool
humata, hukhta, huvarshta. we had a nice exchange in our last reading. here are my ten cents.
first, what's a fool?
64. If a fool be associated with a wise man, even all his life, he will perceive the truth as little as a spoon perceives the taste of soup.
the spoon perceives nothing. so, the fool is basically ignorant: he/she just cannot tell the difference. thus,
67: That deed is not well done of which a man must repent, and the reward of which he receives crying and with a tearful face.
the fool doesn't understand the cause-effect correspondence between deed and reward. this is pratitya sumutpada: you reap what you sow.
don't take this to be an ethical pronouncement. rather, it's the way things are! in this case, dharma & karma follow a universal law. the fool's ignorance is that he/she's out of synch with reality. the fool wishes the reward to be different than it is when time is ripe. but the deed/reward correspondence cannot be bent. thus:
69. As long as the evil deed done does not bear fruit, the fool thinks it is like honey; but when it ripens, then the fool suffers grief.
the problem with the fool is that he/she doesn't understand that reality is surreptitiously piecemeal. the effect of our deeds is pending in the future. we really don't know when the time comes. this heavy -likely unnoticed weight- pursues the fool -and the wise- wherever he/she goes:
71. An evil deed, like newly-drawn milk, does not turn (suddenly);smouldering, like fire covered by ashes, it follows the fool.
now comes 63, which suggests a possible fool/non-fool limit:
63. The fool who knows his/her foolishness, is wise at least so far. But a fool who thinks himself wise, he-she is called a fool indeed.
acknowledging one's own foolishness is wise "at least so far." this is not really wisdom, but a hopeful sign. obviously, there are degrees. one can be a total fool, or the least-so-far that understand his/her condition, which automatically makes him/her a bit different.
could the wise ever become a fool?
once the wise thinks he's wise there lies an opening for foolishness (as long as the wise's confidence doesn't make him/her less wise by ignoring his/her own potential fallibility, thus opening up the dreaded possibility of self-delusion).
let's problematize 63. we take it that the wise knows, but how much? the wise needs to know (that he knows), but for knowledge's sake, he must leave room for doubt. why? because we're fallible.
infallibility is not a trait of the wise, (who by principle keeps his/her fallibility in check). rather it's the fool who believes himself to be infallible. finally, it seems that being wise is not so much thinking it but doing it. when it comes to talking, the wise should not boast being wise -nor fool.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
forking paths (post for comment)
Lucio Fontana, Spatial Concept, (1960).
In emptiness there is no form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness; No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind; No sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to: No mind-consciousness element; There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth, until we come to: there is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path. There is no cognition, no attainment and non-attainment.-- Paramita Hridaya Sutra
Alfredo Triff
In Buddhist philosophy there are no wholes: only parts. Similarly, there is no progression to an actuality. The Buddhist moment does not progress toward realization.
Tom Friedman, Big Bang, (Glitter and mixed media on paper, 2008).
It harks back to Nagarjuna's doctrine of Sunyata, a crucial concept in Buddhist philosophy. Imagine a universe of correlations, whereby everything is connected. Whatever is at any moment of space-time, consists of conditions or relationships, and these, too, are dependently co-originated:
"The 'originating dependently' we call 'emptiness.' " "Emptiness is dependent co-origination."
Sunyata does not mean absolute lack, but rather a positive meaning of being, the ultimate source of all reality. Lama Govinda interprets the principle:
"śūnyatā is not a negative property, but a state of freedom from impediments and limitations, a state of spontaneous receptivity, in which we open ourselves to the all-inclusive reality of a higher dimension. Far from being the expression of a nihilistic philosophy which denies all reality, it is the logical consequence of the anātman doctrine of non-substantiality. Śūnyatā is the emptiness of all conceptual designations and at the same time the recognition of a higher, incommensurable and indefinable reality, which can be experienced only in the state of perfect enlightenment."*What does it mean to say that reality is ultimately and intimately relational? Sunyata is the reverse of Pratitya Samutpada, the Buddhist law of dependent co-origination. There is no self-subsisting, isolated phenomena. Reality is relation(ship), always in flux, always becoming.
Ghada Amer, Anne, (Acrylic, embroidery and gel medium on canvas, 2004).
Reality is always digested, interpreted, quantified, apprehended. The common sense, everyday perception of things is one amongst many other constructions or versions of the world. What happens is that we "normally" understand the world as made up of distinct, self-subsisting substances, and hence we are able to put things in rational order according to various rules or laws. So, while Sunyata -negatively- means that nothing has a sufficient basis of its being in itself, Pratitya Samutpada means -positively- that one event is dependent on others.
One concept is implied in the statement of the other. Substance, for example would be dependent only on itself, thus excluding both Sunyata as well as Pratitya Samutpada. Therefore, Buddhism doesn't recognize recognizes substance.
The distinction comes from a passage in the catuṣkoṭi of the Mādhyamikas:
a- It is not the case that x is ϕ.
b- It is not the case that x is not-ϕ.
c- It is not the case that x is both ϕ and not-ϕ.
d- It is not the case that x is neither ϕ nor not-ϕ
It seems very complicated, but one can see it as twotruths: Are you warp-yarn or weft- yarn?
"We are typically not aware of ourselves as taking something (P) as real. Rather, its reality 'takes us,' or already has us in its spell as soon as we become aware of its identity (P). Furthermore, it's impossible to take something (P) to be real without, at least momentarily, ignoring or denying that which it is not (not-P). Thus the act of taking something as 'real' necessarily involves some degree of unconsciousness or lack of awareness. This is true even in the simple act of perception when we see a figure that we become aware of as 'something.' In Gestalt psychology, for each figure perceived, there is a background of which we remain relatively unaware. Now, extend this dynamic to text-analysis or speech acts. In hermeneutics, for every text we understand there is a context we miss. With every figure noticed or reality affirmed, there is, inevitably, unawareness. Is this how a spell works?"**
French philosopher Alain Badiou presents his ontology surprisingly close to Buddhism. For Badiou, 1- Being has no latent structure of its own. 2- Being's multiplicity is irreducible to any totality. 3- Ontology is a theory of the void, which is why "the infinite" is a void. It cannot be reduced to a unity. To think of Being means to posit oneself as as "warp" or "waft" (or both?).
Between uncontrolled chaos and absolute disorder:
Julie Mehretu, Dispersion (Ink and acrylic on canvas, 2002).
What drives this "thirst" for being? Let's see it this way: An entity is reproduced through a replication of its states. Each moment comprising a state of the entity. A complete entity can only be the result of an imaginative reconstruction over a series of states. Sculptor Schramm presents it as in-between of place and no/place:
Felix Schramm, Misfit (2005-06) @ SFMoMA
The sequence of the replications is linked together in the mind through the rapid succession of similar moments. This gives the continuity of experience and the appearance of persistence. In Martin Oppel's Untitled, the gravity-defying totem-like sculpture becomes a cipher for legion (one in the many).
Martin Oppel, Untitled (Strata Fiction C, 2008).
Satkari Mookerjee writes that the arrow in its flight "is not one but many arrows successively appearing in the horizon, which give rise to the illusion of a persistent entity owing to continuity of similar entities."
At this point, Jorge Luis Borges can lend us a hand:
"The Garden of Forking Paths is an enormous riddle, or parable, whose theme is time; this recondite cause prohibits its mention. To omit a word always, to resort to inept metaphors and obvious periphrases, is perhaps the most emphatic way of stressing it. That is the tortuous method preferred, in each of the meanderings of his indefatigable novel, by the oblique Ts'ui Pên. I have compared hundreds of manuscripts, I have corrected the errors that the negligence of the copyists has introduced, I have guessed the plan of this chaos, I have re-established -I believe I have re-established- the primordial organization, I have translated the entire work: it is clear to me that not once does he employ the word 'time.' The explanation is obvious: The Garden of Forking Paths is an incomplete, but not false, image of the universe as Ts'ui Pên conceived it. In contrast to Newton and Schopenhauer, your ancestor did not believe in a uniform, absolute time. He believed in an infinite series of times, in a growing, dizzying net of divergent, convergent and parallel times. This network of times which approached one another, forked, broke off, or were unaware of one another for centuries, embraces all possibilities of time. We do not exist in the majority of these times; in some you exist, and not I; in others I, and not you; in others, both of us. In the present one, which a favorable fate has granted me, you have arrived at my house; in another, while crossing the garden, you found me dead; in still another, I utter these same words, but I am a mistake, a ghost."_______
*Lama Anagarika Govinda, Creative Meditation and Multi-Dimensional Consciousness, pp. 10-11.** Kaisa Puhakka, Puhakka, Kaisa (2003). "Awakening from the Spell of Reality: Lessons from Nāgārjuna' within," in Encountering Buddhism: Western Psychology and Buddhist Teachings (State University of New York Press, 2003), p. 134, 145.
I will close this post this sunday at 11pm.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
for you guys interested in political philosophy
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
everything is connected!
suffering exists, but there is no one who suffers,
deeds are, but there is no doer of deeds,
nirvana is, but no one is blissful,
the path is but there is no traveller on it.
(visuddhimagga, XVI, 90)
Notes on Buddhism
Julie Mehretu, Black City, 2006.
... l'homme n'est pas ce qu'il est, il est ce qu'il n'est pas.-- Jean Paul Sartre
Monday, October 15, 2012
why voting now
after a discussion with my phi 2010 classes:
the charge that "both parties are the same" is true only in general. let's understand where we live: america is a center leaning nation, it moves left and/or right depending the time and issues. political parties have to respond and accommodate to this fact. even as the process has been partly co-opted by special interests, change is always possible. it happens daily, and our history proves it. the idea you have of the place you want to be in is the ideal to fight for. it may get close as some issues win. you cannot achieve all you want at once. then what? without the struggle for justice you would have no reasons to fight in the first place. if the world is determined in advance there is no transformation and no place for political struggle.if you want to comment you can do it here (though this is not a mandatory post).
why voting and voting now (post for comment)
last week i presented this question to the class: "are you registered to vote"?
i was really surprised. while some of you are registered, some have actually decided not to vote. some talked about not voting as an "act of protest." the class consensus was: we're very disappointed with both parties and what they represent. in fact there is no difference. they are the same. the argument looks like this:
1- the politics and money problem: after citizens united, corporate interests have taken over the political process.
2- the government/special interests problem: perks, lobbying, campaign contributions, etc.
3- the ongoing secret and overt wars of the US.
4- the US standing regarding "green" issues.
5- obama did not honor his promise to change things. he sold out.
though 1-5 is true to an extent, it's quite naive to suppose that not voting is a decision "outside" the current political system. you're IN the present, INSIDE this milieu.
not voting is a political decision that counts in the becoming of the winner ("winning" is the emergence of a social decision). not voting will not make the problem go away (a "third party" will not necessarily solve it, as pluralism in europe shows). the problem is not the generalities, the problem here is the details. and the devil IS the details!
democracy happens IN time. and time IS change. democracy means self-determination: a fragile, unpredictable, malleable, perfectible, process that is being realized @ each moment. democracy is a subtle (often patient) negotiation between freedoms, rights and equality. and the balance can go one way or the other. in fact, democracy can -and has- turned into its opposite (germany & spain, 1930's, chile, 1970's. there are better and worse moments for america). we're no different.
the paradox of democracy
take the supreme court ruling decision in favor of citizens united. freedom is one of democracy's pillars. yet, it is that very freedom which opens up the possibility of the supreme court ruling in favor of corporations now becoming "persons." what does this mean? that freedoms are crushed by special interests. the paradox is that democracy can create a process of exclusion under the plea to secure its "democratic" character.
democracy secures itself by by restricting itself, thereby threatening its own principles. this is what french philosopher jacques derrida calls autoimmunity of democracy. this constitutive character is structural to democracy & we have to live with it. democracy can go the other way. democracy can subvert itself. these aporias are not aberrations of democracy. they belong in the democratic process.
what to do?
becoming part of the political process is the only way to change this dynamic. abstention, cynicism, is at this particular juncture, equivalent to copping out. it presupposes a false idea of democracy: if "my idea" doesn't come to fruition, i abandon the process.
the charge that both parties are the same is true only in general. let's understand where we live. america is a center leaning nation, it moves left and/or right depending the issues. parties have to accommodate to this fact. true, the process has been partly co-opted, but there is always room for change. that idea you have of the place you want to be in is the idea to fight for. your idea may or may not succeed, but you win nonetheless. what matters is being part of the process of change, the process that opens new possibilities for the future. without your frustration & your struggle for justice, you would have no reasons to fight in the first place. without your struggle there would be no change.
let's find the themes that we care for. it's obvious that each candidate offers different versions of america. if you don't see it you're blind.
what do you really care for as a student, as american, as an individual? education, balancing the budget, political transparency, innovation, jobs, medicare, foreign policy, etc. stop having faith in "candidates." instead, have faith in democracy.
as imperfect as it is, there is no other way to change our lives. it's up to us to make the present (future) better or worse. when you don't choose you choose.
i'll close this post sunday at 11pm.
Friday, October 12, 2012
can philosophy debate theology? you bet
our discussion on theology was intense but, a couple of points:
in case i was too overpowering (my apologies). i failed to defend a larger point about what this class is about.
1- philosophy is a discipline about critique & analysis of ideas
2- religion is a practice & a collection of beliefs (ideas)
3- theology is a branch of religion
so, given 1 & 2 & 3, theology is up for philosophical discussion
the discussion of theology is a legitimate philosophical concern. no need for apologies now. by discussing ideas, philosophy is not stepping into anybody's turf or property.
___________
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.--Isaiah xiv, 7.
the quote above is from isaiah. the question is how is god so lenient with satan? he can destroy him, instead, keeps him at arms length. why? hint: what is the book of job without satan?
the devil represents evil, but why evil?there are several ways to look at this:
*ontological: good & evil are ontologically together. one cannot be thought without the other.
*cosmological: history begins with goodness. evil is a "perversion" of things in time. some, not all good, becomes evil. after the end of history, evil disappears and we return to the original state of bliss.
*instrumental: (defended by spinoza): goodness is what is useful to us, evil the opposite.
*there is a beyond good and evil of nietzsche's transvaluation of all values which aims at erasing traditional christian theological borders.
*mythological: good & evil are needed opposites: in egypt there's ra, osiris & isis against apep the serpent and set, the ravager, father of deceit and of lies. the phoenicians opposed baal to moloch and astarte, in india indra is opposed to vritra and the asuras. in persia ormuzd has to contend with ahriman for the lordship of the world, etc. so, there is a deeper mythological prototype that brands this good/evil association.
___________
now my thought experiment. can satan be forgiven? well, it's conceivable (here we count with god's omnibenevolence).
1. to be forgiven, satan would have to repent. repentance implies change, which is implicit in the notion of being. being is not what one is and it is what one is not (more of this sartrean lemma later). satan hasn't changed, presumably because he's chosen not to. his "fall" rests on this premise. one cannot invoke satan's "nature" causing satan's becoming, since the being of satan has a prehistory, i.e., lucifer. this prehistory of satan would have to be rejected to rule out this possibility for this prehistory is what causes satan.
2. satan's being cannot be self-ruled since "being" is what one finds as one exists. being is not self-presence to itself. being is time and time is not ecstatic. in fact, satan's being is related to the very exclusion of goodness from satan's nature in order to avoid thinking, reasoning the good (i.e., even in the heart of evil there must be a space for guilt). satan's evil (what we call "satanic") responds to perpetuating his own "nature" by restricting himself to thinking the good (or guilt, which is thinking one's erring). in order to be satan, he has to constantly defer goodness. so, in a sense, satan is not what he is. that is to say, there is always more or less to being than itself. this more or less is time, the unpredictable future. satan's "being," as stereotyped and beleaguered as it is, is no exception.
3. satan's repentance takes a reversal of that primeval rebellious act in his prehistory. though he cannot become lucifer (since time & history cannot be undone), one can only speculate that he takes a more subdued role.
this reformed angel-who-was-satan wishes no more of his past. now he's content with god's forgiveness in oblivion. will it be time for another proud & inexperienced angel to take his place? but then, could there be a universe of goodness without evil?
below, the list for the midterm and this week's post.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Yoga socio-political manifesto
atRifF
Nature should have priority.1 It's here first and sustains everything.
The guiding principle is ahimsa. Non-violence translated into deep & skeptic ecology, i.e, the interdependence of human and non-human life in a world out of joint. We cannot understand ourselves if we estrange ourselves from nature, but we're already estranged!
Socio-political should start bottom-up, not top-down.2 We don't need to wait for the top to change. As actors close to the local/regional nodes of action, we can acquire the know-how to build connections and mobilize public opinion to challenge institutional and social alienation.
* From the bottom ---> up: The initial transformation is individual but it doesn't stop there. We are ONE: There is no true path without some form of dharma/activism.3
* The aporia of human anthropocentric emancipation: We need to see non-human life under a different optic. The Greeks of ancient times didn't realize that non-Greeks were persons. American plantation owners in the late-18th Century didn't realize that blacks were not inferior brutes. The majority of Americans don't realize that non-human animals are more than just foodstuff. We have an obligation to treat animals with dignity4 (our present animal farming needs to be transformed from intensive farming ----> extensive farming).
* The aporia of pollution vs. development: Blaming corporations in order to feel safely excluded from the pollution cycle, while feeding the very thing we try to prevent. We are the world's worst polluters! 5
* Though it may be a little late, the move towards eco-conservation is a social imperative. Let's fight to stop deforestation, to protect sea life from extinction (due to overfishing), ensuring ecological diversity for future generations. Yes, it seems daunting, but it begins by understanding, doing & telling others.
* The aporia of technology vs. emancipation: What makes us human is a result of our cultural evolution: language, rituals, arts and technology. Yet, our anthropocentric-based culture is leading us to a dead end. Let's move from an anthropocentric to a bio-centric culture!6 Technology = Culture. Technology is not the enemy. Humans cannot live without technology. Yet, technology has the imperative to preserve the delicate balance of Nature.
* We must learn to curb and manage our waste: Reuse, donate, recycle! Food is the primary ecological exchange of energy. Our corporate-driven, production-intensive food paradigm needs to be redefined, from fast food ----> slow food. 7 Let's switch our eating habits and bring back food sacralization. Let's turn environmental degradation and human exploitation into eco-erotics!8
* The aporia of development vs. under-development9: Our post-Capitalist global society is craft-deprived. Globalization has outsourced our manufacturing and trade/skills base. Let's get back to cooking, arts and crafts, organic horticulture,10 etc. We should balance our individualistic tendencies with cooperation & communitarianism!
* Let's change our cities, fighting urban decay with environmental sustainability, changing ugliness into beauty.
* Let's become eco-Romantics!11 engaging in heritage conservation, infrastructure efficiency, mass transit, regional integration, human scale, and institutional integrity.
* Let's transform our neighborhoods, building sustainable structures, limiting urban sprawl, reducing car dependence, promoting pedestrian friendly urbanism.12
What to do?
Flipping Marxist formalism, let's turn the base into the superstructure. Our bid is for a different form of emergence:
ACT NOW!
____________
1 Aristotle's naturalism can be seen as a forerunner of eco-thics, as expressed by his dictum that Nature does nothing in vain. John Clearly, Aristotle and the Many Senses of Priority, (Southern Illinois University Press, 1988) p. 60. 2 We don't have to choose between markets (Welfare Capitalism) or governments, as instruments of emancipation (Communism, planned-economy Socialism). Nor is there need to eliminate markets, trade, private ownership, the welfare state, or the institution of the corporation. What we need to do is bring about new practices for each of these institutions appropriate to a balance between prosperity and conservation. This task belongs neither to corporations nor to states: They are incapable of questioning the legitimacy on which their present institutional form is based. Citizens, not big-money interests, have to set the terms of the economic and political agenda. This is the force of emergence: Millions of people joining voluntary movements, discovering that the good life is more fulfilling than the endless cycle of accumulation and consumption. Professor Steven Buechler makes a similar (hopeful) point: "Movements can be crucial switching stations in the direction of history (...) vital free spaces that promote democratization and restore a meaningful public sphere." See Steven M. Buechler, Social Movements in Advanced Capitalism: The Political Economy and Cultural Construction of Social Activism (Oxford University Press: 2000) p. 214. Enacting Niyama at the social level can bring about a life of material sufficiency with cultural, intellectual, and spiritual abundance in balance with the environment. By osmosis, the social level can bring about needed changes in the political sphere. 3 One's embeddedness in a particular context: job, household/family, or community can lead one to recognize a problem, learn about community needs, and find a way to make life better through new -or reconfigured- social linkages. 4According to philosopher Tom Regan, animals have "inherent value" as subjects-of-a-life, and cannot be regarded as a means to an end. See, Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights, (University of California Berkeley, 2005) p. 245. 5The United States has 4.2% of the world's population and produces 24% of the world's C02 emissions. 6One must be careful not to write off culture, as if humans have fallen from paradise straight into some artificial exile of civilization. This is where the ancient Greeks can help. They understood that us humans are not completely "natural" but rather the site of a collision of nature and culture, which uniquely defines us. See Bruce Thornton, Plagues of the Mind: The New Epidemic of False Knowledge (ISI Books, 1999) p. 96. 7 "Slow food" goes against the received notion that cheap food = good food. Carlo Petrini, the man behind this movement defends the "unpolitical" idea that cheap food is really expensive, bad food, when compared with good, clean, carefully harvested food. He is right. In his book, Petrini advocates the idea of "gusto" (taste) and diversity. There is a correlation between slow food and health, which makes slow food more enjoyable. The locus for this revolucion is la osteria, a place where one can find "traditional cuisine run as a family business with simple service, welcoming atmosphere, good wine and moderate prices." See Carlo Petrini, Slow Food, the Case for Taste (Columbia University Press, 2003) p. 51-58. "Cheap food" is a Capitalist ploy to misrepresent real capital allocation and profit in the name of "abundance," hiding government subsidies for monoculture and intensive production which end up as profit for Big Business in food and energy. Take for instance American corn policies: We subsidize corn while (protect Monsanto's right to sell it to farmers as genetically modified seed). Coincidentally, corn is the foodstuff staple for raising cattle in the US (funded by whom?) and an energy commodity. Wonder why such a labor-intensive commodity such as meat is so cheap? Corn is heavily fertilized — both with chemicals like nitrogen and with subsidies from Washington. Over the past decade, the Federal Government has poured more than $50 billion into the corn industry, keeping prices for the crop — at least until corn ethanol skewed the market — artificially low. That's your Big Mac @ McDonald's, a $5 meal bargain, with 1,400 calories (more than half the daily recommended requirement for adults). 8 I thank my friend Gene Ray from Scurvy Tunes, for his suggestion. I'd like to spin his idea of eco/erotics as an embodied striving for well-being that connects us with the animal and non-animal other (life). The opposite of eco/erotics is eros gone astray, a perversion of Nishkam Karma. A desire in the form of a will-to-control that aims to secure itself by mastering all around it. Ridden with anxiety, this eros reduces other to self. In fact, there are examples of such versions in modern times: Certain "peak" historic moments, when factors motivating nations and individuals, such as the desires for profit, security, and hegemony got transformed militaristic erotics. 9 It turns out that the mantra of "emancipated" Communist development in Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean throughout the 1960's-1980's consisted in mimicking the Capitalist "anthropocentric development" model: 1- constant growth, 2- domination of nature, 3- industrialization and technologization of production and society at the expense of environmental degradation, abandonment of agriculture (land reform in this case meant very little, since arbitrary and exploitative prices were set by the bureaucrats, not by the farmers), massive migration to the cities, urban unemployment and loss of crafts skills. The deterioration of nature brought by these mistaken policies, was invoked by the communist bureaucracies as a step in the right direction for the attainment of development. 10 Who would think of pursuing horticultural studies in Miami, now, when the expected move of disenfranchised farmers is from the rural areas to the city? Precisely! This overall migration has to do with the switch from farmer-produced to corporate-produced agriculture. How can one reverse it? By encouraging a more simple living. Diversifying instead of homogenizing food consumption; by making good, simple food (not gourmet food) a desired commodity, so that corporations are forced to alter their mode of production. Surely, one must be watchful of corporation's good intentions! It's all about awareness. Are people ready for it? After the subprime mortgage crisis, the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, and BP's gulf disaster, the answer is yes. 11 The new eco-Romantic is committed to ecological flourishing, but she is neither anti-technology, nor naive in her political expectations about Messianic utopias. The traditional Romantic lived in a paradox he was blind to. (H)e deprecated technology from his studio in the industrial-brought comfort of the pre-Modern city. We must see the good and bad in technology. The Industrial Revolution cannot be simply undone (the remedy would be worst than the disease). It needs to be transformed. Technology can serve us in using the ecosystem resources more efficiently. On the other hand, there is a strong historical relationship between growth in economic output and growing human demands on the earth's finite ecosystem. We've pushed since 1950's the human burden on the planet's regenerative systems, its soils, air, water, fisheries, and forestry systems beyond what the planet can sustain. Anthropocentric "development" is not the answer. Pushing for economic growth beyond the planet's sustainable limits accelerates the rate of breakdown of the whole. It also intensifies the competition between rich and poor for the earth's remaining output of life-sustaining resources. 12 See my "Miami's Urban Mess.
I'm closing this post next Wednesday at 11pm.
I'm closing this post next Wednesday at 11pm.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
Friday, October 5, 2012
human echolocation? meet ben!
check out ben, a totally blind young man who (sort of like bats and dolphins) is able to echo-locate his surroundings. what is unique here is that this is not the work of evolution, ben doesn't hve the ears of a bat (nor was he born blind, acrtually he got cancer). yet, he has been able to compensate for his loss. he produces sort of the same bat sounds. amazing! (via jorge rivera... thanks)
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
T 5:40pm student assistants
jacalyn cano
samantha reininger
daniel tomczak
is there someone else that i forgot? think so...
student assistants have the responsibility to help any student with questions, etc. if you think you can't do this type of work, ask me to be removed from the list.
samantha reininger
daniel tomczak
is there someone else that i forgot? think so...
student assistants have the responsibility to help any student with questions, etc. if you think you can't do this type of work, ask me to be removed from the list.
TR 9:50am student assistants
so far this is the list of student assistants:
lisa anderson
cristian murillo
dexter peralta
yagna viera
renette charles
carly sandoval
student assistants have the responsibility to help any student with questions, etc. if you think you can't do this type of work, ask me to be removed from the list.
lisa anderson
cristian murillo
dexter peralta
yagna viera
renette charles
carly sandoval
student assistants have the responsibility to help any student with questions, etc. if you think you can't do this type of work, ask me to be removed from the list.
MWF 11am student assistants
so far, this is the list of student assistants:
michel alonso
michael cohen
stephanie espinoza
kameron johnson
ariana cueto
student assistants have the responsibility to help any student with questions, etc. if you think you can't do this type of work, ask me to be removed from the list.
michel alonso
michael cohen
stephanie espinoza
kameron johnson
ariana cueto
student assistants have the responsibility to help any student with questions, etc. if you think you can't do this type of work, ask me to be removed from the list.
Phi 2010 MWF 9am student assistants
so far, this is the list of student assistants for the mwf 9am, class:
marianny de leon
daniella diaz
mohammed jarra
marlon morraz
erika davis
krizia santana
student assistants have the responsibility to help any student with questions, assignments, final paper, etc. if you think you can't do this type of work, ask me to be removed from the list.