The Wayfinders

Moving from the grim but real facts on global warming and planetary climate change, today I offer a hint towards one possible solution to our current ecological crisis: respecting and learning from the wisdom of some of the worlds most ingenious, but endangered, non-industrial cultural traditions. Let me be clear, I’m not naively recommending a return to the lifeways of distant ancestors, or even a full-scale adopting of the cultural practices of contemporary non-industrial societies, but rather for a practical exploration of multiple hybrid syntheses of traditional, modern, postmodern and non-industrial forms of life.

If we want to truly innovate our lifestyles and consciously choose to become more adaptive and healthy then we are going to need to look closer at the knowledge and wisdom embedded within all cultures and ways of being in the world.

Understanding and learning the skills and insights of the world’s indigenous and non-industrial peoples will allow us to begin to integrate our individual and collective intelligences with science and ethics - and equip our species with the capacity to boldly engage a very uncertain future. By embracing the natural capacities found throughout the world, often in the most unsuspecting settings, we can begin to evolve more enriching and meaningful forms of life.

It is with this goal of synthesis, evolution and praxis in mind that I present to you the 2009 Massey Lectures.

The Massey Lectures are one of the most prestigious events in Canada, in which a noted Canadian or international scholar gives a week-long series of lectures on a political, cultural or philosophical topic. The Massey Lectures were created in 1961 to honour Vincent Massey, Governor General of Canada. The purpose of these lectures is to enable distinguished authorities to communicate the results of their original study on important subjects of contemporary interest. Some of the most famous Massey Lecturers have included Claude-Levi Strauss, Noam Chomsky, Jane Jacobs, John Ralston Saul and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The 2009 Massey Lectures, entitled "The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World", were delivered by anthropologist Wade Davis. A native of British Columbia, Canada, Davis is an award-winning anthropologist, ethnobotanist, filmmaker and the bestselling author of several books, including The Serpent and the Rainbow, One River, and Light at the Edge of the World. Davis has published 150 scientific and popular articles on subjects ranging from Haitian vodoun and Amazonian myth and religion to the global biodiversity crisis, the traditional use of psychotropic drugs, and the ethnobotany of South American Indians. Davis has also worked as a licensed river guide, park ranger and conducted ethnographic fieldwork among several indigenous societies of northern Canada.

Davis currently holds the post of National Geographic Explorer in Residence, and divides his time between Washington, D.C. and northern British Columbia.

Here is an excerpt from the official description of the lectures:

The Wayfinders is a profound celebration of the wonder of human genius and spirit as brought into being by culture. Of the 7,000 languages spoken today, fully half may disappear in our lifetimes. This does not have to happen. The other cultures of the world are not failed attempts to be modern, failed attempts to be us. Every culture deserves a place at the council of the human experience.

In The Wayfinders anthropologist Wade Davis reveals the significance of what may be lost through a wild and thrilling exploration of what remains with us and very much alive. Travel to Polynesia and celebrate the art of navigation that allowed the Wayfinders to infuse the entire Pacific Ocean with their imagination and genius. In the Amazon await the descendants of a true Lost Civilization, the People of the Anaconda, a complex of cultures inspired by mythological ancestors who even today dictate how humans must live in the forest. In the Andean Cordillera and the mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta of Colombia discover that the Earth really is alive, pulsing, responsive in a thousand ways to the spiritual readiness of humankind. Dreamtime and the Songlines will lead to the melaleuca forests of Arnhem Land, and an understanding the subtle philosophy of the first humans to walk out of Africa, the Aboriginal peoples of Australia. In Nepal a stone path leads to a door opening to reveal the radiant face of a wisdom hero, a Bodhisattva, Tsetsam Ani, a Buddhist nun who forty-five years ago entered lifelong retreat. The flight of a hornbill, like a cursive script of nature, will let us know that we have arrived at last amongst the nomadic Penan in the upland forests of Borneo.

What ultimately we will discover on this journey will be our mission for the next century. There is a fire burning over the Earth, taking with it plants and animals, ancient skills and visionary wisdom. At risk is a vast archive of knowledge and expertise, a catalogue of the imagination, an oral and written language composed of the memories of countless elders and healers, warriors, farmers, fishermen, midwives, poets, and saints. In short, the artistic, intellectual, and spiritual expression of the full complexity and diversity of the human experience. Quelling this flame, and rediscovering a new appreciation for the diversity of the human spirit as expressed by culture, is among the central challenges of our times.

You can listen to all five lectures here:

Adobe Flash Player is required to listen to audio files. You can download it for free.

Listen to Lecture 1 - Season of the Brown Hyena
Listen to Lecture 2 - The Wayfinders
Listen to Lecture 3 - Peoples of the Anaconda
Listen to Lecture 4 - Sacred Geography
Listen to Lecture 5 - Century of the Wind

My hope is that after you listen to these insightful and moving lectures you will start to think about your role in the human adventure as one of a wayfinder - a sentient being generated from this planet and embodied with the opportunity to find their way in a world filled with possibility, danger and meaning. We can choose to listen to the wisdom our our past and collective present, taking up unknown or forgotten practices and honing our ability to thrive, or we can go on about our current ways and annihilate ourselves by consuming our way to ecological degradation and political inhumanity. Such a choice is never quite that simply - with creative compromises and possibilities at every turn - but it is nonetheless essential. What we choose to become in this generation will set the very limits and potentials of every generation that follows. Let us then choose wisely.

The Enigma of Capital

Below is footage of a recent lecture by the eminent geographer, critic and Marxist scholar David Harvey which too place April 26, 2010 in the Department of Geography at the London School of Economics. Here Harvey patiently outlines the inherent contradictions, flows and monstrosities of capital and profit based economics, global finance systems and the culture of plunder in which we are complicit - and from which our global elites derive their enormous power.

It is well worth the time watching one of the most cogent and relevant thinkers of our time talk about the deep roots of the current economic crisis:

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 |  
Video by fourmanfilms.

Harvey’s latest book, The Enigma of Capital: And the Crises of Capitalism was published last just last week. You can buy it at Amazon.com: here

Here’s the blurb (remixed by me) from the publisher:

For three centuries the capitalist system has shaped western society, informed its rulers, and conditioned the lives of its people. Using his unrivalled knowledge of the subject, David Harvey lays bare the follies of the international financial system, looking closely at the nature of capitalism, how it works and why sometimes it doesn’t.

Taking a long view of the current economic crisis, Harvey explains how capitalism came to dominate the world and why it resulted in the current financial crisis. He examines the vast flows of money that surge round the world in daily volumes well in excess of the sum of all its economies. He looks at the cycles of boom and bust in the world’s housing and stock markets and shows that periodic episodes of meltdown are not only inevitable in the capitalist system but essential to its survival. The essence of capitalism is its amorality and lawlessness and to talk of a regulated, ethical capitalism is to make a fundamental error.

The Enigma of Capitalism considers how crises of the current sort can best be contained within the constraints of capitalism, and makes the case for a social order that would allow us to live within a system that really could be responsible, just, and humane.

Post-Marxist thought must be considered a crucial tool for developing relevant horizons of thought – as the fundamental crisis at the heart of exploitative economics continues to destabilize existent ecologies and social orders during the next decade or so. The spectre of Marx indeed looms large.

.

The So-Called Climate Change Debate

In previous posts we looked at the science, effects and politics of climate change. Now, we continue with 3 videos dealing directly with the public debates and arguments circulating around the facts of global warming:

This next video looks at urban myths spawned by two iconic films -- An Inconvenient Truth and The Great Global Warming Swindle. Whatever you "believe" about climate change, there is no excuse for the kind of exaggerations, fallacies and fabrications we see in public debates. The purpose of this video series is to cut through the “junk science” designed to evangelize this issue, and show what the actual scientific research shows.

And last but not least, a video discussing the fabrications and faulty logic behind those who cite the so-called “Climate Gate” scandal as a reason to doubt the science of climate change. I really hope the hackers are happy with themselves with just how much nonsense and misinformation they unleashed upon the world. The so-called scandal only had the effect of feeding the manic delusions of a whole host of climate change denialists. But, as this 10 minute video clearly demonstrates, the scientific evidence for global warming is still very much complete.

All of the videos produced in this series were created by a retired science journalist and geologist - with over 14 years experience in research and covering major scientific debates . Learn more about his work: here.

The Politics of Climate Change

In 2007 the PBS news program Frontline and the Center for Investigative Reporting teamed up to investigate the politics and debates dealing with the issue of global warming. The result of their investigations lead to the production of a documentary film called Hot Politics. The film chronicles how U.S bi-partisan political forces and America’s largest corporations prevented the U.S. government from confronting what is one of the most serious problems facing humanity today.

The documentary examines some of the key moments that have shaped the politics of global warming, and how local and state governments and the private sector are now taking bold steps in the absence of federal leadership.

Watch the short Trailer below:

WATCH the Entire Program: Here

READ several original documents: Here

"The myth is the public dream and the dream is the private myth. If your private myth, your dream, happens to coincide with that of the society, you are in good accord with your group. If it isn't, you've got an adventure in the dark forest ahead of you."

- Joseph Campbell

.

Understanding the Science of Climate Change

It seems like everyone has an opinion on climate change these days. Bitter debates and heated disagreements can be witnessed taking place everywhere from town halls, school lunchrooms and doctor’s offices to supermarkets, neighborhood parks and public transits. But opinion is simply that: mere opinion.

The following videos are easy-to-follow explanations of how and why most expert climate scientists have come to the conclusion that human-generated (anthropogenic) carbon gases are tipping the ecological balance and changing the climate. To be fair, the producers of these short videos also include discussion of the views of climate scientists who are skeptics. Both videos are accessible and clearly presented.

The evidence for the human influence on climate change continues to accumulate. And, regardless of how much the oil companies and corporations spend funding lobby groups and campaigns of confusion (see below), the data continually gathered by 1000s of researchers from 100s of organizations all over the world speaks for itself. The planet is rapidly warming and human carbon outputs are driving this process. And no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion since 2007. [source]

This first video is a 10-minute summary of the prevailing scientific arguments and counter-arguments of contemporary climate science. It is not intended to be an exhaustive treatment of the topic, but rather as an overview of the relevant arguments made both for and against the impact of humanity on current climate changes.

This second video looks at possible alternative hypotheses explaining global warming. The filmmakers include only hypotheses put forward by actual, professional climate researchers and the findings of those actual, professional climate researchers who disagree with them.

Scientific opinion on climate change is given by synthesis reports, scientific bodies of national or international standing, and surveys of opinion among climate scientists. If you disagree with what real, professional climate scientists say, please take it up with them and don’t expect me to defend their point of view in detail. I am not a climate scientist. Also, if you have a stunning piece of scientific evidence that claims to disprove one view or another, don’t waste your time on this blog, write a paper, and get it peer-reviewed and published in a reputable scientific journal.

Climate Change, Migration and Environmental Refugees

As the science of climate change becomes increasingly well understood, the ramifications of projected increases in temperature, changes to rainfall patterns, rises in sea-level and increase in extreme weather events require attention from policy-makers worldwide. This is particularly apparent in relation to migration, refugees and international security, with climate change acting as a threat multiplier to exacerbate existing tensions and instability.

In 2009, the Institute of Environmental Studies, in conjunction with the Climate Change Research Centre, the Faculty of Law and the Refugee Council of Australia held a public forum at UNSW on these very issues featuring Professor Andy Pitman, Dr Jane McAdam and Anna Samson.

Watch these lectures below:

Visit  http://www.ies.unsw.edu.au/  for more details.

Updates From Bolivia and Beyond

at least Climate Change is on someone's agenda
  
From Democracy Now:

Exposing the Climate Cover-up

Below James Hoggan talks up his book, Climate Cover-up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming, detailing the big bucks public relations campaign intentionally promoting public confusion in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that we're in the early stages of a serious global warming crisis. This event took place November 30, 2009 at McNally Jackson Books in Manhattan.

Visit Hoggan's excellent blog: DeSmogblog.com

Sky Locked Land - Earth Day 2010

So here we are: April 22, 2010, another Earth Day.The 40th such day in fact.  Earth Day is the only institutionally recognized day I actively celebrate. Our species emerged from the thin organic layering of flora and fauna covering this big bad space rock. Scientists call this intricate web of life enveloping the Earth a biosphere. We simply call it home. To be honest, it feels great each year to join millions of people around the world in celebration of this wondrous and lonely planet.

 

Below is the first picture ever taken of earth from outside its atmosphere(refered to as "earthrise"). It was taken during the Apollo 8 mission to the moon in 1968. It changed the way so many people view themselves and the environment. Within months of this photo being released to the public the modern environmental movement was born.

Here are some interesting facts you may or may not know about our home:

• First, the name "Earth" derives from the Anglo-Saxon word erda, which means ground or soil. It became eorthe later, and then erthe in Middle English - yet humans did not perceive the Earth as a planet until the 16th century. 
• Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System.
• Earth is also the largest, most massive, and densest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets.
• Earth formed roughly 4.54 billion years ago, with Life first appeared on its surface within just a billion years.
• Earth's outer surface is divided into several rigid segments, or tectonic plates, that gradually migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years.
• About 71% of the surface is covered with salt-water oceans, the remainder consisting of continents, islands and small pools of fresh water we call lakes.
• The planet has a circumference of 40,041.47 km (mean), but a surface area of 510,072,000 km2!
• The Earth's interior is constantly active, with a thick layer of relatively solid mantle, a liquid outer core that generates a magnetic field, and a solid iron inner core.
• At present, Earth orbits the Sun once for every roughly 366.26 times it rotates about its axis. This is a sidereal year, which is equal to 365.26 solar days.

This planet is expected to continue supporting life for another 1.5 billion years, after which the rising luminosity and expansion of the Sun will gradually eliminate the plant's biosphere. Rising luminosity? Yes.

 

On April 22 I usually set aside my online explorations to spend the day outside – engaged in activities i believe actually contribute to cultivating a more humane and creative world. But this year, in addition to my offline strategies, I wanted to spend some time with you, the readers, and bang the virtual drum for Mother Earth so that we can celebrate together, in some small way.

To this end, beginning today, and lasting until the end of April, I will be blogging furiously on topics decidedly terrestrial - with the intent of not only bringing into to focus relevant issues, but also to point out some possible directions we might engage when finding practical solutions to existing eco-calamities.

 

Surely there will be some disagreement on what is truly relevant to our understanding of life on this planet, but all such dysjunctures are simply points of rhetoric, important only ever by standing outside the shadow cast but an overwhelming need for practical responsiveness and responsibility.

 

We only have one planet. And we need to do what is right, not what is comfortable.

 

And to kick things off, I wanted to point out that The World People's Conference on Climate Change started on April 19 in Cochabamba, Bolivia. People from all over the planet have come together in support of transitioning from a consumption driven, glutinous, corporatist society to a more healthy and sustainable global community. From Wikipedia:

The World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, better known by its Spanish acroynm CMPCC, is a conference organized by the Bolivian government to be held in Cochabamba, Bolivia April 19-22, 2010. The event will also be webcast online by OneClimate and the Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA) in Copenhagen during the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP 15) climate meetings in December 2009.
One of the Cochabamba conference's stated objectives is to provide an alternative platform for civil society and governments to discuss climate change issues, and specifically to produce proposals for new commitments to the Kyoto Protocol and projects in the lead-up to the next UN climate negotiations scheduled during the COP 16 meeting in Mexico in December 2010.
Other objectives of the conference in Cochabamba include the drafting of a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth, the organization of a People's World Referendum on Climate Change, and planning the establishment of a Climate Justice Tribunal.

Check out the proceedings via webcast: here

 

With the utter failure of the Copenhagen Summit debacle behind us, people everywhere are starting to create local environmental initiatives, and are taking action through community politics and municipal governments. What the boys in suits in the capital won't do, we'll do for ourselves.

 

So, today, please take some time to be grateful for the natural wonders of this planet. Talk to someone about what you are doing to contribute to a more ecological and sustainable society; ask them what they are doing to help; have a conversation about global warming; suggest a book or film about environmental issues; and above else, smile - you are alive.

 

see also: Earth Day 2009

Sapolsky on the Uniqueness of Human Beings

Neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky is one of the world’s leading educators and an expert in the biology of human behavior, stress and coping. Sapolsky’s research crosses over into primatology, human ethology and neuroscience, and investigates the deep origins and function of individuality. Sapolsky’s previous work on stress and its effects on individual well-being are widely acclaimed. He is the author of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers and many other popular books on biology and the human predicament.

Below is a video of Sapolsky giving a presentation to a graduating class at Stanford University on “the uniqueness of humans”:

See also: Bonobos, Culture and Human Uniqueness

Immortal Technique - Point of No Return

Felipe Coronel, better known as Immortal Technique, is a Hip Hop MC and political activist. He is of Afro-Peruvian descent and was raised in Harlem, New York. Most of his lyrics focus on political and social issues, and are largely a mixture of social commentary on poverty, racism, geopolitics, religion and the harsh resulting realities of crime in the housing projects of New York City's slums.

Learn More: Here

Adrian Ivakhiv on Relations and Pagan Religion

Lately I’ve been reading an excellent blog called Immanence. The author - philosopher, artist, scholar and professor of environmental studies Adrian Ivakhiv - regularly waxes insightful on everything from cinema and pagan religion to ontology and the flux and flurry of the strange universe we come from.

The following excerpt is from a recent debate between Adrian, Graham Harman and Levi Bryant on the many ways we can think about the nature of the kosmos (sheer brilliance in my opinion):

“What exactly is gained by calling these things "objects" that isn't already there when we call them by their (everyday, human-given) names and recognize their temporary, processual, and at the same time very specific nature? The latter is what Latour tries to do when he makes sense of the (planned but never built) Aramis transportation system in Paris or the pasteurization of France; it's what Haraway does with cyborgs and primatologists, what Cronon does with Chicago and White with the Columbia River, Tsing with Indonesian rainforests and Whatmore with global wildlife networks, Helmreich with microbial oceans, Protevi with the Columbine massacre and Hurricane Katrina, and DeLanda with the last thousand years of germs, languages, and cities. …[U]nless one puts an object in its context, one doesn't know the object; and when one does, that object becomes a meeting-point of so many other processes and flows.”

His book, Claiming Sacred Ground: Pilgrims and Politics at Glastonbury and Sedona (2001) is an enthusiastic discussion of human encounters and experiences of landscapes and places, where people inscribe their environment with meaning, and where people become canvases for the processes of nature. From the publisher:

Ivakhiv sees these contested and "heterotopic" landscapes as the nexus of a complex web of interestes and longings: from millennial anxieties and nostalgic re-imaginings of history and prehistory; to real-estate power grabs; contending religious visions; and the free play of ideas from science, pseudo-science, and popular culture. Looming over all this is the nonhuman life of these landscapes, an"otherness" that alternately reveals and conceals itself behind a pagenant of beliefs, images, and place-myths.

In 2006 Adrian sat down with Krista Tippett, the host of a popular public radio program called Speaking With Faith. In it Adrian talks about his work on religion and sacred geography, and provides listeners with a sobering and imaginative perspective of the human love of the natural world.

Here is a transcript of Tippett’s introduction to the program, taken from the Speaking With Faith website:

The word "Pagan" is derived from a Latin word for country dweller or peasant. As early Christianity spread rapidly in the urban areas of the Roman Empire, Pagan became a negative term for those considered too backward to embrace monotheistic faith. In our day, Paganism and Neopaganism are umbrella terms for an array of new religious movements that revive ancient polytheistic ideas of Europe and the Middle East. Religious scholars and sociologists believe that Paganism and Neopaganism are on the rise globally, numbering perhaps from 1 to 3 million adherents. But many people who identify as Pagans privately are reluctant to do so in public. Others embrace Pagan ideas and rituals on a selective basis. And there is some overlap between Pagan faith and New Age spirituality, which touches as much as 20 percent of the U.S. population.

My guest today, Adrian Ivakhiv, is a professor of environmental thought and culture at the University of Vermont and the author of a scholarly study, Claiming Sacred Ground: Pilgrims and Politics at Glastonbury and Sedona. I spoke to him in 2006 As a young man, he was drawn to a defining impulse of Pagan traditions, their strong emphasis on ecology, the natural world, and a sense of place. This ecological emphasis runs across the vast spectrum of Pagan beliefs, which often revive practices from agrarian times and places, notably witchcraft or Wicca, the Celtic priestly order of Druids, and the Norse tradition of Asatru.

And Adrian Ivakhiv has also traced the pre-Christian roots and modern revival of Pagan ideas in post-Soviet Eastern Europe. His parents were World War II Ukrainian refugees to Canada. They raised him in churches and schools of their Eastern Rite Catholic tradition, a hybrid of Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Adrian Ivakhiv's cultural identity, as he tells it, was also a hybrid dislocating experience.

LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE RADIO PROGRAM (53mins): HERE

Also check out an interview with Adrian about Martin Heidegger and Environmental Philosophy: Here

Banked Into Submission

.
Bunny tells Mimi about the World Bank and IMF and how wonderful they are.

It's always good to try and think from the perspective of a cat with a liberal education.

.

Manuel DeLanda – Nature, Space, Society

The talk below is part of a discussion series consisting of three sessions on the relationships between society, space and nature, and how they are currently being transformed both theoretically and by technological and environmental changes in the world. I had already posted part three [here], featuring Bruno Latour.

Manuel DeLanda was the opening speaker in the series. Delanda is a New York based philosopher and science writer with an exceptionally cross-disciplinary body of work. Often drawing on the work of Gilles Deleuze, he has written on nonlinear dynamics, theories of self-organization, artificial life and intelligence, chaos theory as well as architecture, and the history of science.

Manuel DeLanda is currently a professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, Columbia University. His publications include War in the Age of Intelligent Machines, One Thousand Years of Non-Linear History and Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy.

learn more about Manuel DeLanda: Here

Thai Protesters and Army Clash

Bangkok was erupting with violence last night. Street fights and armed conflict between anti-government "Red Shirt" protesters and the Thai Army left 15 dead, including a Japanese journalist observing the protests, and more than 500 wounded in the Thai capital according to hospital officials. [source] Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva went on national television shortly before midnight to pay condolences to families of the victims and indirectly assert that he would not bow to protesters' demands. [source]

The army had vowed to clear the "Red Shirt" protesters out of one of their two bases in Bangkok by nightfall, but the push instead set off a wave of deadly confrontations and street fighting. The Associated Press reports that there was a continuous sound of gunfire and explosions, mostly from Molotov cocktails, throughout the conflict. [source] Soldiers made repeated charges to clear the Red Shirts, while some tourists stood by watching. Two protesters and a Buddhist monk with them were badly beaten by soldiers and taken away by ambulance. Thai troops fired rubber bullets and tear gas, while protesters responded with home-made bombs and various smaller weapons. After more than two hours of fierce clashes, the soldiers pulled back. [source]


Several groups of anti-government protesters continue the call for new elections in Thailand.

As Army officials plead with the protest leaders through the media, asking them to retreat from where the currently are holding ground, senior government officials are attempting to open negotiations with the fierce anti-imperialist group.

The Red Shirt protesters are demanding that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva dissolve Parliament and call new elections. Their demonstrations are part of a long-running battle between the mostly poor and rural supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and the ruling elite they say orchestrated the 2006 military coup that removed him from power. The Red Shirts see the Oxford-educated Abhisit as a symbol of an elite impervious to the plight of Thailand's poor and claim he took office illegitimately in December 2008 after the military pressured Parliament to vote for him. [source] Last month, thousands of Red-Shirt anti-government protesters poured blood in a symbolic act at the home of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajjiva. [source]

Most of Saturday's fighting took place around Democracy Monument, which is near one of the encampments of the Red Shirt protesters. But it spread to the Khao San Road area, a favorite of foreign backpackers. Government forces have confronted the protesters before but pulled back rather than risk bloodshed. [source]

See Also: Thai Protests

The Actor-Network Theory in Plain English

I really enjoyed this short video by Lukie, a young Danish youtuber who looks to be a rising media artist and techno goddess. Latour never looked so simple… Good on ya Lukie!

see also:

Latour on Nature, Space, Knowledge and Society

Summary of Latour's Politics of Nature

Latour - Nature, Space, Society

Below is a talk by Bruno Latour on rethinking the conceptual boundaries we superimpose on the world. This talk is part of a series of presentations by leading scholars on the relationships between society, space and nature, and how they are currently being transformed both theoretically and by technological and environmental changes in the world.

Latour argues that notions that separate ‘nature’ from ‘culture’ and ‘nature’ from ‘society’ have become entirely untenable – that is to say, utterly worthless. Of particular interest is his deployment of the term "matters of concern", as opposed to "matters of fact".

Bruno Latour (b.1947) is one of the most widely read and respected social scientists in recent years. Latour is a French sociologist of science, anthropologist and an influential theorist in the field of Science and Technology Studies. He is best known for his book We Have Never Been Modern (1991). Along with Michel Callon and John Law, Latour is one of the primary developers of Actor-Network Theory (ANT), a constructionist approach influenced by the ethnomethodology of Harold Garfinkel, the generative semiotics of Greimas, and (more recently) the sociology of Durkheim's rival Gabriel Tarde.

In 2007, Latour was listed as the 10th most-cited intellectual in the humanities and social sciences by The Times Higher Education Guide.

More on Bruno Latour: Here

[ see also: SPHERES AND NETWORKS: TWO WAYS TO REINTERPRET GLOBALIZATION ]

Collateral Murder

The website WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

This is the original footage with introductory remarks:

The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.

After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement".

Urban Prep Defies Odds

Just when we might start to doubt whether change is possible, 107 young boys defy the odds prove to the world that struggle can lead to triumph. Last month the Chicago Tribune reported that 100% of the first senior class at Urban Prep – an all male, all African-American public charter school in Chicago – have been accepted to four-year colleges. These 12 boys, most of which did not read at grade level upon entering the school, have shown critics, their peers, and more importantly themselves, that young black men in the U.S can succeed.

Urban Prep, a charter school that enrolls all comers in one of Chicago's most beleaguered neighborhoods, was designed to help African-American youth use education to lift themselves out of poverty and despair, and forge ways of being in the world that transcend cultural stereotypes and the dominating institutions that enforce them. "Poverty, gangs, drugs, crime, low graduation rates, teen pregnancy — you name it, Englewood has it," said Kenneth Hutchinson, the school's director of college counseling, who was born and raised in Englewood. Every day, before attending advanced placement biology classes and lectures on changing the world, students have to pass through the neighborhood, then metal detectors.

Tim King, the school's founder and CEO, told reporters,

"There were those who told me that you can't defy the data. Black boys are killed. Black boys drop out of high school. Black boys go to jail. Black boys don't go to college. Black boys don't graduate from college. They were wrong.”

Yes they were!

Below is footage of the public ceremony:

College Bound: Urban Prep Announces 100 percent from Urban Prep on Vimeo.

.
Learn More: Here
.

Progressive Discovery

Will Durant (1885–1981) was a prolific American writer, Pulitzer Prize winner, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for The Story of Civilization, 11 volumes written in collaboration with his wife Ariel, and published between 1935 and 1975. With the publication of his first book, The Story of Philosophy, written in 1926, Durant brought the insights of philosophy to millions of non-academic readers. One observer described the book as "a groundbreaking work that helped to popularize philosophy."

One of the most gifted prose stylists of the 20th century, Durant viewed history not as a dreary succession of impersonal dates and reigns, but as taking place through human beings who loved, fought, dreamed and achieved.

"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance."

- Will Durant

More than twenty years after his death, one of Durant's most famous quotes, "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within" appeared as the opening graphic of Mel Gibson's 2006 film Apocalypto.