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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01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: The Nederlandse politieke cultuur is een ideologiestudie van de Fortuyn-revolte as discussed by the authors, e.g., it is eerder versterkt door de nieuwe macht van de media and het persoonlijke charisma van de populistische leider.
Abstract: De observatie dat rond de eeuwwisseling sprake is van een breekpunt in de Nederlandse politieke cultuur wordt inmiddels tot de dooddoeners van het publieke debat gerekend. De bliksemsnelle opkomst en dramatische moord van Pim Fortuyn resulteerde in een verbluffende verkiezingsoverwinning van zijn partij, de Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF), in wat algemeen bekend is komen te staan als de Fortuyn-revolte. Sindsdien zijn identiteit, immigratie en law and order de dominante thema’s van het publieke debat. Het was het begin van de Nederlandse culture wars, een strijdterrein waar conservatieve voorstanders van een strenger immigratie- en integratiebeleid de degens kruisten met prudente progressieven. Dit proefschrift is een ideologiestudie van de Fortuyn-revolte. De vraag die centraal staat is hoe deze cultuuromslag begrepen kan worden in ideologische zin. Tot dusver hebben onderzoekers bovenal het populisme gebruikt als lens om de politieke transformatie in Nederland te duiden. Het is een focus die de nadruk legt op stijl, techniek en retoriek, maar weinig oog heeft voor ideeen. Niet de bovenkamer maar de onderbuik, niet ideeen maar de empirische werkelijkheid van de ‘man op straat’ werd gezien als doorslaggevende factor, verder versterkt door de nieuwe macht van de media en het persoonlijke charisma van de populistische leider. Dit proefschrift gaat tegen de stroom in en richt zich op intellectuele bronnen van de Fortuyn-revolte. Daarbij wordt een ruimer conceptueel vangnet gehanteerd dan wat gebruikelijk is in bestaande studies. Politieke leiders zoals Frits Bolkestein, Pim Fortuyn, Ayaan Hirsi Ali en Geert Wilders, zo luidt de stelling, zijn enkel de meest zichtbare exponenten van een breder conservatieve stroming, aangeduid als Nieuw Rechts. De term ‘Nieuw Rechts’ kwam in omloop in de VS en het VK om de conservatieve bewegingen aan te duiden die tegelijkertijd opkwamen met Nieuw Links in de jaren zestig en zeventig. De politiek van Thatcher en Reagan wordt wel gezien als het hoogtepunt van Nieuw Rechts. De centrale these van deze studie is dat de draai naar rechts in de Nederlandse politiek langs soortgelijke lijnen te begrijpen is, als een verlate pendant van de conservatieve backlash die zich in de Anglo-Amerikaanse context al eerder ontspon.
79 citations
Dissertation•
16 Nov 2015
TL;DR: In this article, the authors trace the formation of citizens of the information age by comparing visions and practices to make children and the general public computer literate or cultured in the United States, France, and the Soviet Union.
Abstract: In this dissertation I trace the formation of citizens of the information age by comparing visions and practices to make children and the general public computer literate or cultured in the United States, France, and the Soviet Union. Computer literacy and computer culture programs in these three countries began in the early 1970s as efforts to adapt people to life in the information society as it was envisioned by scholars, thinkers, and practitioners in each cultural and sociopolitical context. The dissertation focuses on the ideas and influence of three individuals who played formative roles in propelling computer education initiatives in each country: Seymour Papert in the United States, Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber in France, and Andrei Ershov in the Soviet Union. According to these pioneers, to become computer literate or computer cultured meant more than developing computer skills or learning how to passively use the personal computer. Each envisioned a distinctive way of incorporating the machine into the individual human’s ways of thinking and being—as a cognitive enhancement in the United States, as a culture in France, and as a partner in the Soviet Union. The resulting human-computer hybrids all demanded what I call a playful relationship to the personal computer, that is, a domain of free and unstructured, exploratory creativity. I trace the realization of these human-computer hybrids from their origins in the visions of a few pioneers to their embedding in particular hardware, software, and educational curricula, through to their development in localized experiments with children and communities, and finally to their implementation at the scale of the nation. In that process of extension, pioneering visions bumped up against powerful sociotechnical imaginaries of the nation state in each country, and I show how, as a result of that clash, in each national case the visions of the pioneers failed to be fully realized. In conclusion, I suggest ways in which the twentieth-century imaginaries of the computer literate citizen extend beyond their points of origin and connect to aspects of the contemporary constitutions of humans in the computerized world.
78 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors combine theories of the selfie as an aesthetic and technological practice of digital self-representation with a theatrical conception of spectatorship, inspired by Adam Smit.
Abstract: In this article, I combine theorizations of the selfie as an aesthetic and technological practice of digital self-representation with a theatrical conception of spectatorship, inspired by Adam Smit...
77 citations
Book•
04 May 2018
77 citations
Dissertation•
10 Jun 2020
Abstract: ........................................................................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................................... iii Preface ........................................................................................................................................................ viii Chapter
76 citations
References
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Book•
[...]
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