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Journal Article•DOI•

The Human Condition.

Andrew J. McLean
29 Jun 2017-Academic Psychiatry (Springer International Publishing)-Vol. 41, Iss: 6, pp 771-771
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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Citations
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Journal Article•DOI•
Communicative Antecedents of Political Persuasion: Political Discussion, Citizen News Creation, and the Moderating Role of Strength of Partisanship

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Alberto Ardèvol-Abreu1, Matthew Barnidge1, Homero Gil de Zúñiga2•
University of Vienna1, Diego Portales University2
04 Mar 2017-Mass Communication and Society
TL;DR: The authors found that political discussion and citizen news creation mediate the relationships between online and traditional news use, on one hand, and attempted persuasion, on the other hand, strength of partisanship moderates the relationship between content creation and attempted political persuasion.
Abstract: Although much attention has been paid to how media use and interpersonal discussion motivate people to engage in political persuasion, and despite recent efforts to study the role of digital media technologies, less is known about the creation of news and public affairs content online. This study sheds light on how online content creation works alongside other communicative behaviors, such as news use and political discussion, to affect attempted political persuasion. Using two-wave panel survey data, we find that political discussion and citizen news creation mediate the relationships between online and traditional news use, on one hand, and attempted persuasion, on the other. Furthermore, strength of partisanship moderates the relationship between content creation and attempted persuasion. Findings are discussed in light of their implications for the political communication and public sphere processes.

18 citations

Cites background from "The Human Condition."

  • ...Political discussion has been long considered an essential feature of democracy on the grounds of its obvious linkages with deliberation, negotiation, and group decision (Arendt, 1958)....

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DOI•
Navigationen: Medien der Kooperation

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Erhard Schüttpelz, Sebastian Gießmann, Susan Leigh Star, Heinrich Bosse, Kjeld Schmidt, Mark Dang-Anh, Ilham Huynh, Matthias Meiler 
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: Gießmann et al. as mentioned in this paper argue that the Entwicklung Verteilter Künstlicher Intelligenz eher auf einer sozialen Metapher gegründet werden sollte als auf a psychologischen.
Abstract: Dieser Beitrag argumentiert, dass die Entwicklung Verteilter Künstlicher Intelligenz eher auf einer sozialen Metapher gegründet werden sollte als auf einer psychologischen. Der Turing-Test sollte durch einen »Durkheim-Test« ersetzt werden, das heißt: Systeme sollten auf ihre Fähigkeit hin getestet werden, auf gemeinschaftliche Ziele einzugehen. Gemeinschaftliche Ziele (community2 goals) zu verstehen bedeutet, die Probleme eines angemessenen Prozesses (due process) in offenen Systemen zu analysieren. Ein angemessener Prozess liegt dann vor, wenn voneinander abweichende Standpunkte bei der Entscheidungsfindung auf eine faire und flexible Weise einbezogen werden. Diese Aufgabe entspricht dem Rahmungsproblem (frame problem) im Bereich der Künstlichen Intelligenz. Der Text entwickelt das Konzept der ›Grenzobjekte‹ aus Analysen organisierter Problemlösung in wissenschaftlichen Gemeinschaften und schlägt vor, dass dieses Konzept eine adäquate Datenstruktur für Verteilte 3 Künstliche Intelligenz bietet. Grenzobjekte sind all diejenigen Objekte, die plastisch genug sind, um an verschiedenste Standpunkte anpassbar zu sein, die aber zugleich ihre Identität durchgehend wahren. Es gibt vier Typen von Grenzobjekten: Repositorien, Idealtypen, Terrains mit übereinstimmenden Grenzen und Formulare. 1 A.d.Ü. Cornelius Schubert hat mich darauf hingewiesen, dass es sich beim Titel »The Structure of ill-structured Solutions« um eine ironisch erwidernde Anspielung auf Herbert Simons »The Structure of ill structured problems«, in Artificial Intelligence 4 (1973), S. 181-201 handelt. Bei der Übersetzung des vorliegenden Textes waren in fachlich beratender Funktion Sebastian Gießmann und Nadine Taha beteiligt. Ich bedanke mich für ihre sehr hilfreichen Hinweise. 2 A.d.Ü.: Der Begriff community ist nicht bedeutungsgleich mit dem deutschen »Gemeischaft« etwa wie im Sinne von Ferdinand Tönnies Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887). Es ist in der amerikanischen Soziologie und darüber hinaus spätestens seit den 1920er Jahren ein zentraler Begriff der sogar soziologisch bzw. sozialanthropologisch eineigenes Forschungsfeld bezeichnet: community studies. 3 A.d.Ü.: distributed wird z. T. auch als dezentralisiert übersetzt, siehe: Shapiro, Alan: Die Software der Zukunft, oder: Das Modell geht der Realität voraus, Köln 2014 (Übersetzung Marcel René Marburger), S. 54: »dezentralisiertes Rechnen (distributed computing)«.

18 citations

Book•
Rethinking Surveillance and Control: Beyond the 'Security versus Privacy' Debate

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Elisa Orrù, Maria Grazia Porcedda, Sebastian Weydner-Volkmann
16 Aug 2017

18 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Being earthbound: Arendt, process and alienation in the Anthropocene

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Oliver Belcher1, Jeremy J. Schmidt1•
Durham University1
01 Feb 2021-Environment and Planning D-society & Space
TL;DR: Hannah Arendt developed a twofold account of ‘being earthbound’ directly relevant to Anthropocene debates regarding the political, referenced specifically to a scientific praxis coincident with advances in science and technology that alienates common sense experiences in politics.
Abstract: Hannah Arendt developed a twofold account of ‘being earthbound’ directly relevant to Anthropocene debates regarding the political. For Arendt, both senses of ‘being earthbound’ arose as humans bega...

18 citations

Cites background from "The Human Condition."

  • ...According to Arendt (1958a), a novel feature of the ‘modern world’ is the human capacity to not merely of act upon nature, but act into it....

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  • ...…well-known diagnoses; e.g. how totalitarian violence produced statelessness in ways that revealed ‘the right to have rights’, or how modern notions of political revolutions were distinct by virtue of instantiating new social orders rather than restoring old ones (Arendt, 1958b, 1963b, 1972, 1994)....

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  • ...By rethinking the function of things, Honig (2017: 34) makes the case that Arendt is a kind of ‘object-relations theorist’ who recognized the capacity of ‘things’ to stabilize the world. The troubling corollary, however, is that the novel capacity of atomic weapons meant some ‘things’ could destabilize – that is, end – the conditions by which any world is made permanent. Honig’s argument for the centrality of ‘things’ contrasts with Last’s (2017: 74) view that Arendt tolerates things, but generally ‘has a very negative attitude towards the encroachment of matter on human affairs’. There are reasons to follow Honig in this instance. First, as Hyv€ onen (2016: 545, original emphasis) shows, Arendt’s concern was with how the ‘thingly character of the world’ was under threat by accelerating material forces of science, technology and capital. Second, as Schmidt (2017) shows, Arendt’s attention to things offers a way to arrest the ‘naturalization of process’ in which non-human agency, such as that of water, has been manipulated to link geology and liberal governmentality in the Anthropocene. As discussed below, Arendt placed particular emphasis on how the materiality of the world is transformed by capitalist processes and, with it, the terms of political governance. Honig’s call to recognize the constitutive role of ‘things’ contrasts with political theorists who dismiss Arendt as irrelevant to understanding the political entanglements between human and non-human action. Bennett (2010: 34) criticizes Arendt for positioning humans as the ‘bearer of an exceptional kind of power’ that excludes non-human actions and their political implications. Connolly (2017) groups Arendt with other ‘sociocentric’ thinkers who disregard the intrusions of non-human processes and forces within and beyond human worlds....

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  • ...Critically, Arendt (1958a) argues that the Earth itself – planetary nature – cannot replace the lost objects that once provided permanence to the world owing to the capacity for action to render Earth itself impermanent....

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  • ...(Arendt, 1958a: 150) To grapple with human capacities that undercut the permanency of the Earth and of the ‘world’ presumed upon in the modern age, Arendt mobilized action as a field of possibility in which the political may be reconfigured with respect to novelty and process....

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Dissertation•
Conceptions of the political: between Schmitt and Arendt

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Babrak Ibrahimy
01 Sep 2016
TL;DR: The relation between the political and politics should not amount to privileging of the former, and contra contemporary emphasis on a political ontology, Schmitt and Arendt do not envision the political in these terms, instead, their conceptions of the political serve as a desired state of politics as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: This thesis aims to answer the question ‘What is the political?’ While much has been written on individual conceptions of ‘the political’, the main aim of this thesis was to conduct a comparative research between different conceptions of the political In particular, the thesis presents the conceptions of the political by Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt, and Chantal Mouffe, and analyses in what sense and where their conceptions differ In doing so, three aims were set as a framework of comparison: 1) to clarify the relation between politics and the political; 2) to question the dissociative and associative traits of the political; and 3) to shed light on the relation between the notion of humanity and the concept of the political The main conclusions drawn as a result of this research are thus also threefold: 1) the relation between the political and politics should not amount to privileging of the former, and contra contemporary emphasis on a political ontology, Schmitt and Arendt do not envision the political in these terms – instead, their conceptions of the political serve as a desired state of politics; 2) any actual association is one that functions according to the logic of democratic exclusion, whereby the distinction between associative and dissociative traits of the political become superfluous; and 3) utilising the notion of humanity, Schmitt and Arendt aim to overcome the restrictive imposition of the political, while Mouffe embraces the democratic principle of exclusion The concluding chapter aims to bring together the findings of individual scholars and to pave way for a concept of the political that integrates the individual elements found in each scholar

18 citations

Cites background from "The Human Condition."

  • ...Arendt and the Greeks When turning to Greek city-states and Athens in particular, Arendt accentuates a particular experience (Arendt, 1998: 22-37)....

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  • ...Arendt’s concern, in other words, is less with the state and more with political action – the public sphere of action is being subsumed by private apolitical concerns (Arendt, 1998: 38-78; cf. also Oakeshott, 1991)....

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  • ...…in Arendt’s discussion over making (ποίησις) and acting (πρᾶξις): (1) “Before men began to act, a definite space had to be secured and a structure built where all subsequent actions could take place, the space being the public realm of the polis and its structure the law” (Arendt, 1998: 194-195)....

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  • ...But most concrete is the fear of a bureaucratic machinery, which, as argued in Chapter 5, quite literally results in “the rule of nobody” (Arendt, 1998: 45)....

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  • ...Labour is an activity in relation to toil; it has “an unequivocal connotation of pain and trouble” (Arendt, 1998: 80)....

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References
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Book•
The Life of Lines

[...]

Tim Ingold
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

Journal Article•DOI•
From ‘gender equality and ‘women’s empowerment’ to global justice: reclaiming a transformative agenda for gender and development

[...]

Andrea Cornwall1, Althea-Maria Rivas2•
University of Sussex1, Centre for Development Studies2
24 Mar 2015-Third World Quarterly
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

Journal Article•DOI•
Echo chambers and viral misinformation: Modeling fake news as complex contagion.

[...]

Petter Törnberg1•
University of Amsterdam1
20 Sep 2018-PLOS ONE
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

Journal Article•DOI•
Do Humble CEOs Matter? An Examination of CEO Humility and Firm Outcomes

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Amy Y. Ou1, David A. Waldman2, Suzanne J. Peterson2•
National University of Singapore1, Arizona State University2
01 Mar 2018-Journal of Management
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

Journal Article•DOI•
Antibiotic Resistance and the Biology of History

[...]

Hannah Landecker1•
University of California1
01 Dec 2016-Body & Society
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