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
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze the limits and potentials of young people's agency as a duty in regard to work precariousness with the help of research conducted in Italy from 2013 to 2017.
Abstract: Agency and vulnerability are not alternative terms; rather, their encounter designates a distinctive characteristic of agency: that of the "weaker" struggling between constraints and the discovery of new opportunities. After theoretical discussion of the relation between agency and vulnerability, and of the transformations of subjectivation processes, this article focuses on the specific situation of vulnerability in the job market experienced by the current generation of young people. It analyses the limits and potentials of young people's agency as a duty in regard to work precariousness with the help of research conducted in Italy from 2013 to 2017. The aim is to highlight how agency and vulnerability —more than being intrinsic characteristic of the individual— are related to temporary positions, as an intersection of categorizations and resources, in relational and situated conditions.
16 citations
01 May 2019
16 citations
Dissertation•
13 Feb 2020
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore which practices might support "wonder" in everyday and organisational life, including daily morning walks, writing "moment-stories" from within the experience of wonder and creating temporary constellations of inquiry with others.
Abstract: This doctoral research explores which practices might support ‘wonder’ in everyday and organisational life. How do I live my life with a sense of wonder? How do I create spaces of wonder with and for others? How do I create a wonder-full research practice? As an action researcher (Reason & Bradbury, 2008) with a background in Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987), I have endeavoured to ‘live’ these questions myself through developing an approach for wholeheartedly loving and living questions. Specific methods I created to do so are daily morning walks, writing ‘moment-stories’ from within the experience of wonder and creating ‘temporary constellations of inquiry’ with others.
Whereas some believe wonder is impossible because the world is disenchanted, I followed Bennett’s (2001) approach of enchantment by emergence by challenging the discourse of disenchantment individually. Building on Carson (1956/1998), I think of wonder as ‘seeing the extraordinary within the ordinary’ and found this seeing requires a continuous effort and benefits from routines and rituals as a daily reminder and opportunity to wonder. I distinguish between wonder as a way of seeing you can cultivate and ‘moments of magic’ that strike unexpectedly. ‘Windows’ in time when I feel fully alive in a world bursting with life. I learned these potentially transformative moments cannot be forced, predicted or replicated and therefore argue to approach them ‘obliquely’ – by holding the intention and possibility of magic in the corner of your eye. And instead focus on the practices that help you to wonder on a day-to-day basis.
I learned the most important thing I can do as a practitioner to invite others to wonder is to continue to actively and wholeheartedly live my own questions. This allowed me to create the conditions for wonder and magic through showing up differently myself and ‘embodying the container’. I also learned that giving words to wonder through writing and sharing moment-stories can increase the importance and possibility of wonder for myself and others.
16 citations
TL;DR: The resurrection of Keynes and Keynesianism in the wake of the recent financial crisis is widely assumed to index the similarities between the present conjuncture and the Great Depression as mentioned in this paper. But Keyn...
Abstract: The resurrection of Keynes and Keynesianism in the wake of the recent financial crisis is widely assumed to index the similarities between the present conjuncture and the Great Depression. But Keyn...
16 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the concept of the envelope is introduced as a way to foster a more dynamic, agonistic and mobility-focused conception of enclosure, and they illustrate the benefits of this move by reflecting on the recent questions of hostile environment and the criminalization of migrant solidarity practices and movements.
Abstract: This paper seeks to expand recent interest in the material practices, policy techniques and technopolitics of borders, migration and solidarity initiatives in Europe by connecting this debate to Sloterdijk’s spherological philosophy. With his thematization of enclosures, atmospheres, foams and life support Sloterdijk helps us to give a more morphological account of borders. We illustrate the benefits of this move by reflecting on the recent questions of hostile environment and the criminalization of migrant solidarity practices and movements. The paper also highlights certain limitations in Sloterdijk’s thoughts, which appear when it is brought into migration research. Arguing that Sloterdijk remains somewhat sedantarist in his approach to atmosphere we introduce a concept of the envelope as a way to foster a more dynamic, agonistic and mobilityfocused conception of enclosure.
16 citations