Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

Keywords: a Vocabulary of Culture and Society

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion Jonathan Haidt Pantheon Books, 2012One has likely heard that, for the sake of decorum, religion and politics should never be topics of conversation with strangers. Even amongst friends or even when it is known that others hold opposing political or religious views, why is it that discussion of religion and politics leads to visceral-level acrimony and that one's views are right and the other's views are wrong? Professor Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia examines the psychological basis of our "righteous minds" without resorting to any of the pejorative labeling that is usually found in a book on politics and religion and eschews a purely comparative approach. Haidt proposes the intriguing hypothesis that our visceral reaction to competing ideologies is a subconscious, rather than leaned, reaction that evolved over human evolution to innate senses of suffering, fairness, cheating and disease, and that moral foundations facilitated intra-group cooperation which in turn conferred survival advantages over other groups. These psychological mechanisms are genetic in origin and not necessarily amenable to rational and voluntary control - this is in part the reason debating one's ideological opposite more often leads to frustration rather than understanding. Haidt also suggests that morality is based on six "psychological systems" or foundations (Moral Foundations Theory), similar to the hypothesized adaptive mental modules which evolved to solve specific problems of survival in the human ancestral environment.While decorum pleads for more civility, it would be better, as Haidt suggests, dragging the issue of partisan politics out into the open in order to understand it and work around our righteous minds. Haidt suggests a few methods by which the level of rhetoric in American politics can be reduced, such that the political parties can at least be cordial as they have been in the past and work together to solve truly pressing social problems.There are a number of fascinating points raised in the current book, but most intriguing is the one that morality, ideology and religion are products of group selection, as adaptations that increased individual cooperation and suppressed selfishness, thereby increasing individual loyalty to the group. That morality, political ideology and religion buttress group survival is probably highly intuitive. However, given the contemporary focus on the individual as the source of adaptations, to the exclusion of all else, to suggest that adaptations such as religion and political ideology arose to enhance survival of groups is heresy or, as Haidt recounts, "foolishness". While previous rejection of group selection itself was due in part to conceptual issues, one could also point out the prevailing individualist social sentiment, "selfish gene" mentality and unrelenting hostility against those who supported the view that group selection did indeed apply to humans and not just to insects. Haidt gives a lengthy and convincing defense of group selection, his main point being that humans can pursue self- interest at the same time they promote self-interest within a group setting - humans are "90 percent chimp, 10 percent bees". One can readily observe in the news and entertainment mediate that religion is a frequent target of derision, even within the scientific community - Haidt points to the strident contempt that the "New Atheists" hold for religion. They claim that religion is purely a by-product of an adaptive psychological trait and as a mere by-product religion serves no useful purpose. However, the religious "sense" has somehow managed to persist in the human psyche. One explanation by the New Atheists of how religion propagated itself is that it is a "parasite" or "virus" which latches onto a susceptible host and induces the host to "infect" others. As a "virus" or "parasite" that is merely interested in its own survival, religion causes people to perform behaviors that do not increase their own reproductive fitness and may even be detrimental to survival, but religion spreads nonetheless. …

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

(1963). Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Technometrics: Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 128-130.

Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine

Although the chapters that appear in this book have been previously published separately in different places at different
times, they have been revised by the author for their publication as a book and are all related to the problem of
historical representation. By putting together essays on Droysen, Foucault, Jameson and Ricoeur, Hayden White hasmanaged to give an encompassing account of a problematic issue that has been one of the major concerns of
historical studies as well as of many other areas of the human sciences: that of the importance of narrative representation in the description or explanation of the “object” of study of
the human sciences. Although the authors mentioned deal with this subject in different ways, White finds in them
common characteristics which confirm the point made by him that historical narratives are, from a semiological
perspective, concerned with the production of meanings.

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The content of the Form: narrative discourse and historical representation

/pdf/the-literary-construction-of-the-universe-narratives-of-4p2h35039d.pdf

The Literary Construction of the Universe : Narratives of Truth, Transcendence, and Triumph in Contemporary Anglo-American Popularizations of Physics and Astronomy

This paper analyses the use of wonder in the TV-series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1980). Popular science has been studied extensively (e.g. Broks 2006; Leane 2007; Perrault 2013), and wonder has been studied moderately (e.g. Daston & Park 1998; Fuller 2006; Vasalou 2015). However, there are very few studies of wonder in popular science. This paper explores how and why wonder is used in Cosmos, with the wider aim of understanding uses of wonder in popular science. The studies that discuss wonder in popular science (Fahnestock 1986; Perrault 2013) argue that wonder is used to enthuse the audience about science, but they do not discuss why wonder has this ability, nor whether wonder has other functions. This paper argues that Fuller's (2006) psychological and evolutionary account of wonder can elucidate why wonder has the ability to enthuse; it discerns three senses of ‘wonder’ (related to objects, emotions and attitudes); and it discusses other functions of wonder (existential, aesthetic and ethical). Due to the centrality of astrobiological questions in Cosmos, this paper also highlights the relation of these questions to the senses and functions of wonder in Cosmos.

Uses of wonder in popular science : Cosmos: A Personal Voyage and the origin of life

/pdf/we-don-t-need-no-education-a-case-study-for-situating-the-17b0umziy9.pdf

We Don't Need No Education: A Case Study for Situating the Environmental Humanities

“In the middle of eternity”. Representation of the Cosmos of Modern Science in Peter Nilson’s Stjarnvagar. In this article, I analyse Peter Nilson’s essay book Stjarnvagar. The book is about the world view of modern science, and my point of departure is the question of how perspectives and theories from modern science are represented. In Stjarnvagar, Nilson repeatedly refers to the book itself as a “cosmic book”. My analysis focuses on what a “cosmic book” is, and in this analysis Nilson’s reference to Dante’s Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy) is central. I show that there is an overarching narrative structure in Stjarnvagar, which is connected to one of the main themes of the book: the creative aspects of cosmic time and evolutionary processes. The overarching narrative is shown to consist of a kind of self-thematisation: Peter Nilson’s writing of the cosmic book. This finds a parallel in Dante, who also thematises the writing of his book. Another parallel is both authors’ attempts to represent the medieval and the modern cosmos, respectively. The different literary forms of Divine Comedy and Stjarnvagar are also shown to mirror differences in the world views of medieval philosophy and modern science. I conclude by discussing further research on other books by Nilson, as well as on books by other authors in genres close to Stjarnvagar: essay books and popular science books attempting to discuss and convey the theories and world views of modern science. (Less)

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"Mitt i evigheten" : Gestaltningen av den moderna naturvetenskapens kosmos i Peter Nilsons Stjärnvägar

The planetary changes associated with the Anthropocene, including climate change and extinction of species, pose severe threats to civilization, humanity, and the natural world as we know it. They also pose special challenges to the human imagination. To meet these challenges, climate change communicators use narratives. Non-fiction books intended for a general audience employ two radically different narratives: the “We can solve it” (WCSI) narrative, and the “We won’t solve it” (WWSI) narrative. The WCSI narrative currently dominates mainstream media and books, but there is a strong possibility that the WWSI narrative is closer to the truth. Differences between the two narratives center on the meaning and usefulness of hope. In Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction (2014)—a WWSI narrative—wonder, lament, and understanding replace hope. Strategies of non-attachment also fulfill psychological functions. A WWSI perspective provides a much-needed complement to the triumphant narrative inherent in most mainstream popular science. Keywords : climate change; the Anthropocene; hope; optimism; non-attachment; grief; narrative; non-fiction; Elizabeth Kolbert; The Sixth Extinction

Daniel Helsing

Papers

The Literary Construction of the Universe : Narratives of Truth, Transcendence, and Triumph in Contemporary Anglo-American Popularizations of Physics and Astronomy

Uses of wonder in popular science : Cosmos: A Personal Voyage and the origin of life

We Don't Need No Education: A Case Study for Situating the Environmental Humanities

"Mitt i evigheten" : Gestaltningen av den moderna naturvetenskapens kosmos i Peter Nilsons Stjärnvägar

Blues for a Blue Planet: Narratives of Climate Change and the Anthropocene in Non-Fiction Books