The Human Condition.
TL;DR: In some religious traditions, the myth of the ‘Fall from the Garden of Eden’ symbolizes the loss of the primordial state through the veiling of higher consciousness.
Abstract: Human beings are described by many spiritual traditions as ‘blind’ or ‘asleep’ or ‘in a dream.’ These terms refers to the limited attenuated state of consciousness of most human beings caught up in patterns of conditioned thought, feeling and perception, which prevent the development of our latent, higher spiritual possibilities. In the words of Idries Shah: “Man, like a sleepwalker who suddenly ‘comes to’ on some lonely road has in general no correct idea as to his origins or his destiny.” In some religious traditions, such as Christianity and Islam, the myth of the ‘Fall from the Garden of Eden’ symbolizes the loss of the primordial state through the veiling of higher consciousness. Other traditions use similar metaphors to describe the spiritual condition of humanity:
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13 Jul 2018
TL;DR: Design guidelines for playgrounds are identified: physical and virtual spaces where citizens can exchange information about their neighbourhood and inform designers how to create urban playgrounds for citizens to meet, interact, and collaborate to create engaged communities.
Abstract: Citizens’ engagement in their neighbourhood community is pivotal for cities to effectively deal with future transitions. Knowing what is going on and having access to the neighbourhood network are important conditions for this. Although prior research has studied ways to foster information sharing between citizens, the underlying assumptions and design choices are often not made explicit. This research identifies design guidelines for playgrounds: physical and virtual spaces where citizens can exchange information about their neighbourhood. A focus group, a workshop and a case study of an existing playground design were performed in The Hague, NL, the context of this research. A set of eight guidelines was identified, covering how to select playground locations, which information to include, and how to design the interaction between citizens. These guidelines inform designers how to create urban playgrounds for citizens to meet, interact, and collaborate to create engaged communities.
12 citations
TL;DR: The authors cast light on a specific political proposal that can arise from a discussion of the topic of the "refusal of work" and its implications for a social radical change. Autonomist, a...
Abstract: My comments aim to cast light on a specific political proposal that can arise from a discussion of the topic of the ‘refusal of work’ and its implications for a social radical change. Autonomist, a...
12 citations
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that neutrality is not an administrative but a political justification for the exercise of discretionary judgment as an alternative to the traditional rule-by-nobility.
Abstract: Neutrality, long established in Weber’s ideal type of bureaucracy, is less a technical need than an ideological requirement in the bureaucratic search for legitimacy. Neutrality is anonymity made into moral law—hence the relevance of Hannah Arendt’s view of bureaucracy as “rule by nobody.” Despite this disapproving assessment, her work offers not an administrative but a political justification for the exercise of discretionary judgment as an alternative. If neutrality counts as secular theodicy, a case can be made that judgment, acknowledged and justified, may count in public administration when the chips are down.
12 citations
Cites background from "The Human Condition."
...If tyranny can be defined as unaccountable government, then “rule by Nobody is clearly the most tyrannical of all, since there is no one left who could even be asked to answer for what is being done” (Arendt, 1958, p. 137)....
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...…world only comes into being as a result of the interchange among unique human beings, each of whom sees the world from a different perspective—“and for which no common measurement or denominator can be devised” (Arendt, 1958, p. 57), then the threat posed by bureaucratic neutral anonymity is clear....
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...As a result, our capacity for action and speech has been banished to the private realms of household and family, or to bureaucratic anonymity, and the potential for a public world (or worlds, since she realized that public space was evanescent) has been lost (Arendt, 1958, pp. 38–49)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on five flaws of Fuchs' approach of Web 2.0 economy, focusing on immaterial production, productivity of labor, commodification of users' data, underestimation of financial aspects of digital economy, and the violation of Marx's laws of value production, rate of exploitation, fall tendency of profit rate, and overproduction crisis.
Abstract: This article focuses on five flaws of Christian Fuchs’ approach of Web 2.0 economy. Here, Fuchs’ views on immaterial production, productivity of labor, commodification of users’ data, underestimation of financial aspects of digital economy, and the violation of Marx’s laws of value production, rate of exploitation, fall tendency of profit rate, and overproduction crisis are put into question. This article defends the thesis Fuchs fails to apply Marxian political economy to the contemporary phenomena of Web 2.0 economy. It is possible to avoid Fuchs’ errors, and another approach is possible to remake Marxism relevant for an analysis of the new media economy.
12 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines Chun Tae-il's self-immolation as an exemplar that showcases how a life deprived of public appearance can enter the public sphere through the willful destruction of one's body.
Abstract: This essay examines Chun Tae-il's self-immolation as an exemplar that showcases how a life deprived of public appearance can enter the public sphere through the willful destruction of one's body. Far from being a strange and curious deviation, self-immolation, I argue, is a necropolitical form of public embodiment for those who have been marginalized and excluded from the space of appearance. Chun Tae-il's self-immolation illustrates that there is an alternative form of self-suspension practiced by subaltern subjects: the art of self-concretization. While all subjects of publicity are required to bracket their self-interests when entering the public realm, Chun Tae-il's self-immolation indicates that the entrance fee for minoritized subjects can be life itself, thus epitomizing the limit condition of self-purgation in the public realm.
12 citations
References
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Book•
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27 Mar 2015
TL;DR: In this article, a series of meditations on life, ground, weather, walking, imagination and what it means to be human are presented, with a focus on the life of lines.
Abstract: To live, every being must put out a line, and in life these lines tangle with one another. This book is a study of the life of lines. Following on from Tim Ingold's groundbreaking work Lines: A Brief History, it offers a wholly original series of meditations on life, ground, weather, walking, imagination and what it means to be human.
In the first part, Ingold argues that a world of life is woven from knots, and not built from blocks as commonly thought. He shows how the principle of knotting underwrites both the way things join with one another, in walls, buildings and bodies, and the composition of the ground and the knowledge we find there.
In the second part, Ingold argues that to study living lines, we must also study the weather. To complement a linealogy that asks what is common to walking, weaving, observing, singing, storytelling and writing, he develops a meteorology that seeks the common denominator of breath, time, mood, sound, memory, colour and the sky. This denominator is the atmosphere.
In the third part, Ingold carries the line into the domain of human life. He shows that for life to continue, the things we do must be framed within the lives we undergo. In continually answering to one another, these lives enact a principle of correspondence that is fundamentally social.
This compelling volume brings our thinking about the material world refreshingly back to life. While anchored in anthropology, the book ranges widely over an interdisciplinary terrain that includes philosophy, geography, sociology, art and architecture.
410 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the fact that gender equality and women empowerment have been eviscerated of conceptual and political bite compromises their use as the primary frame through which to demand rights and justice.
Abstract: The language of ‘gender equality’ and ‘women’s empowerment’ was mobilised by feminists in the 1980s and 1990s as a way of getting women’s rights onto the international development agenda. Their efforts can be declared a resounding success. The international development industry has fully embraced these terms. From international NGOs to donor governments to multilateral agencies the language of gender equality and women’s empowerment is a pervasive presence and takes pride of place among their major development priorities. And yet, this article argues, the fact that these terms have been eviscerated of conceptual and political bite compromises their use as the primary frame through which to demand rights and justice. Critically examining the trajectories of these terms in development, the article suggests that if the promise of the post-2015 agenda is to deliver on gender justice, new frames are needed, which can connect with and contribute to a broader movement for global justice.
271 citations
TL;DR: A network simulation model used to study a possible relationship between echo chambers and the viral spread of misinformation finds an “echo chamber effect”: the presence of an opinion and network polarized cluster of nodes in a network contributes to the diffusion of complex contagions.
Abstract: The viral spread of digital misinformation has become so severe that the World Economic Forum considers it among the main threats to human society This spread have been suggested to be related to the similarly problematized phenomenon of “echo chambers”, but the causal nature of this relationship has proven difficult to disentangle due to the connected nature of social media, whose causality is characterized by complexity, non-linearity and emergence This paper uses a network simulation model to study a possible relationship between echo chambers and the viral spread of misinformation It finds an “echo chamber effect”: the presence of an opinion and network polarized cluster of nodes in a network contributes to the diffusion of complex contagions, and there is a synergetic effect between opinion and network polarization on the virality of misinformation The echo chambers effect likely comes from that they form the initial bandwagon for diffusion These findings have implication for the study of the media logic of new social media
223 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a mediation model to explain the relationship between CEO humility and firm performance and found that when a more humble CEO leads a firm, its top management team is more likely to collaborate, share information, jointly make decisions, and possess a shared vision.
215 citations
TL;DR: The turn to the study of antibiotic resistance in microbiology and medicine is examined, focusing on the realization that individual therapies targeted at single pathogens in individual bodies are environmental events affecting bacterial evolution far beyond bodies.
Abstract: Beginning in the 1940s, mass production of antibiotics involved the industrialscale growth of microorganisms to harvest their metabolic products. Unfortunately, the use of antibiotics selects for resistance at answering scale. The turn to the study of antibiotic resistance in microbiology and medicine is examined, focusing on the realization that individual therapies targeted at single pathogens in individual bodies are environmental events affecting bacterial evolution far beyond bodies. In turning to biological manifestations of antibiotic use, sciences fathom material outcomes of their own previous concepts. Archival work with stored soil and clinical samples produces a record described here as ‘the biology of history’: the physical registration of human history in bacterial life. This account thus foregrounds the importance of understanding both the materiality of history and the historicity of matter in theories and concepts of life today.
204 citations