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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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
Cites background from "The Human Condition."
...The disappearance of media intermediation seems not to have, as was believed, fostered a space for direct meetings in a sort of online Habermasian public sphere, but rather to have implied that the “world between them has lost its power to gather them together, to relate and to separate them” [6] (p....
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...But despite early optimism about this ostensibly decentralized and democratic meetingplace, the online world seems less and less like a common “table” that “gathers us together” [6] (p....
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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
Cites background from "The Human Condition."
...Drawing on the communal power perspective (Arendt, 1958), we propose that humble CEOs do not stress power over other TMT members but, instead, have power to pursue goals for collective interest with the TMTs....
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...In this sense, humble CEOs exercise power in a way that diverts from an interpersonal power perspective (Sturm & Antonakis, 2015) and complies with a communal power perspective (Arendt, 1958)....
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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
References
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Dissertation•
01 Jan 2018
24 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jan 2016
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue for an abandonment of the sterile reason-emotion dichotomy implicitly preserved by the current debate on the cognitive status of emotions, and propose an expanded model of human rationality, which incorporates emotion into processes such as decision-making, motivation, and action.
Abstract: In this thesis, I challenge the validity of a pervasive conception of political action and decision-making that grounds both on the so-called “public use of reason”. The latter, underpinned by a notion of “pure” reason inherited from the Enlightenment and largely sustained by liberal theory, not only promotes a reductionist view of human rationality, but also implicitly leads us to disregard a critical aspect in contemporary politics: the political role of the emotions.
The opportunity to exploit the emotions in order to pervert the democratic process follows from that disregard. Reading it in light of Schmitt and Agamben’s ideas on the state of exception, I examine the pervasiveness of emotional dynamics in contemporary western politics, illuminating phenomena such as democratic propaganda, the ongoing “war on terror”, and the persistent threat of global economic collapse. I subsequently posit that the rationalistic hubris of the politics of (limited) rationality opens the door for irrational politics, ultimately enabling the creation of a permanent state of exception through the manipulation of misguided emotional inclinations.
In order to address this problem, I argue for an abandonment of the sterile reason-emotion dichotomy implicitly preserved by the current debate on the cognitive status of emotions. Instead, I propose an expanded model of human rationality, which incorporates emotion into processes such as decision-making, motivation, and action – thus arriving at the notion of emotional rationality. This enables me to consider the commonly overlooked possibility to educate emotions, and advance a conception of emotional education that relates them with the Aristotelian notion of phronesis. I conclude by arguing that a heightened political awareness of emotions and a conscious effort to educate them are necessary steps towards avoiding the undesirable political fate entailed by our present situation.
24 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a multidisciplinary method for identifying and characterizing outdoor assembly sites is described, which employs place name studies, field survey, and phenomenological approaches such as viewshed, sound-mark, and landscape character recording.
Abstract: Venues of outdoor assembly are an important type of archaeological site. Using the example of early medieval (Anglo-Saxon; 5th–11th centuries A.D.) meeting places in England we describe a new multidisciplinary method for identifying and characterizing such sites. This method employs place name studies, field survey, and phenomenological approaches such as viewshed, sound-mark, and landscape character recording. While each site may comprise a unique combination of landscape features, it is argued that by applying criteria of accessibility, distinctiveness, functionality, and location, important patterns in the characteristics of outdoor assembly places emerge. Our observations relating to Anglo-Saxon meeting places have relevance to other ephemeral sites. Archaeological fieldwork can benefit greatly by a rigorous application of evidence from place name studies and folklore/oral history to the question of outdoor assembly sites. Also, phenomenological approaches are an important in assessing the choice of assembly places by past peoples
24 citations
TL;DR: This paper argued that negative freedom and truth are necessary conditions for taking a qualified stance towards the challenges that we face, but it is important also to reflect on what negative liberties are used for, which kinds of truths are articulated in public discussions.
Abstract: The relationship between democracy and the media since the appearance of Habermas' major texts in the 1960s has been articulated through theories of the public sphere. The structure of the public sphere is significantly influenced by the communicative media, and the emergence of the internet thus calls for new reflections on the possible relationship between media, public sphere and democracy. This paper argues that we should change the questions that are raised when we try to assess the public sphere. It is argued that the traditional (Enlightenment) focus upon negative liberties and the truth-value of utterances is not adequate. Negative freedom and truth are certainly important in the public sphere, because they are necessary conditions for taking a qualified stance towards the challenges that we face. It is, however, important also to reflect on what negative liberties are used for—which kinds of truths are articulated in public discussions. To answer this question it is argued that it is important to...
24 citations
01 Jan 2016
TL;DR: In this article, the authors employ a pragmatic phenomenological perspective, which sheds light on ethico-onto-epistemologies or cosmic dispositions in relation to the observer's perspective.
Abstract: Sherpas occupy the key position in contemporary Himalayan mountaineering and related tourism industries across the Himalayan chain. Once engaged merely in carrying loads, they now guide clients and organize expeditions. The transformation has left many foreign mountaineers and commentators disoriented. This is largely due to differences in the characteristic ways in which the Sherpas experience the sport, ways different from those of Western mountaineers, Korean mountaineers, and other Nepalis. The dissertation investigates these distinctive ways of experiencing mountaineering. It is based on nine Korean mountaineering expeditions undertaken following the Sherpas and twenty-five months of ethnographic research, which moved between Kathmandu, South Korea, and Sherpa villages in Walung in northeastern Nepal. By comparing with Western and Korean mountaineers’ understanding of Himalayan mountaineering, it examines how Sherpas take participation in the tourism industry as their vocation, encounter foreign visitors, and deal with global impacts the country is facing. It also proposes an original theoretical framework that analyzes experience without committing to “anthromanticism” or the eurocentric assumption of human nature as discrete mind, body, and community.The dissertation employs a pragmatic phenomenological perspective, which sheds light on ethico-onto-epistemologies or “cosmic dispositions” in relation to the observer’s perspective. The Sherpas’ cosmic disposition is threefold: individualist collectivism, tantric monism, and open-closed chronology. They regard participation in Himalayan mountaineering as their ethnic vocation and venue for social gathering. Though economic interest is important, the collective appreciation relies on the manner of social relationships. Unlike Western or Korean ideal approach to Himalayan mountaineering, moreover, their understanding considers concrete dimensions of the tourism industry. The Sherpas have increasingly made use of the global nexus with their characteristic ease in the face of unknown and uncertain future. Because the dispositions become distinctive only in relation to others, it also suggests Taoist idealism, Buddhist dualism, and Confucian hierarchy for Korean cosmic disposition as manifested by contemporary Korean mountaineers’ experiences. The pragmatic phenomenological perspective provides a non-eurocentric approach to the transnational, cosmopolitan, and globalizing encounters that take place in the Himalayas.
24 citations