As we have seen, modern technological production brings about an anonymity in the area of social relations. What we have called componentiality, which is intrinsically related to the manner in which modern technology deals with material objects, is transferred to individual relations with others, and ultimately with the self. This anonymity carries with it a constant threat of anomie. The individual is threatened not only by meaninglessness in the world of his work, but also by the loss of meaning in wide sectors of his relations with other people.
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shared by Bill Genereux on 14 Sep 10
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VS Ramachandran: The neurons that shaped civilization | Video on TED.com - 0 views
www.ted.com/..._that_shaped_civilization.html
empathy brain self neuralnetworks consciousness evolution culture
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shared by Mike Wesch on 05 Jan 09
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Gives Life Meaning: Homeless Mind - Modernity's Discontents - 1 - 0 views
taylorandmore.blogspot.com/...nd-modernitys-discontents.html
anonymity modernity discontents berger identity self theory
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Furthermore, he is constantly in the situation of having too many balls in the air simultaneously. In the words of the classical American joke: He has "too many choices" all the time. The complexity of the multi-relational modern world puts a strain on all standard operating procedures, not only in the individual's activity but in this consciousness as well.
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Once more the result is tension, frustration and, in the extreme case, a feeling of being alienated from others.
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As we have seen, modern technological production brings about an anonymity in the area of social relations. What we have called componentiality, which is intrinsically related to the manner in which modern technology deals with material objects, is transferred to individual relations with others, and ultimately with the self. This anonymity carries with it a constant threat of anomie. The individual is threatened not only by meaninglessness in the world of his work, but also by the loss of meaning in wide sectors of his relations with other people.
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The WELL: Bruce Sterling: State of the World, 2009 - 0 views
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I have to love a guy who talks about a "collapse gap." He's got a blog called "ClubOrlov" at http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/, and in his intro to a guest post on December 23, he says " I called it as I saw it, and, unfortunately, I seem to have called it correctly. The US is collapsing before our eyes. Stage 1 collapse is very advanced now; stages 2 and 3 are picking up momentum."
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I notice that John Robb, one of my favorite prophets of doom, has formed some tacit New Urbanist alliance with James Howard Kunstler, also one of my favorite prophets of doom.
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In my futurist book TOMORROW NOW I was speculating that there might be a post-national global new order arising in cities. Cities as laboratories of the post-Westphalian order.
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I was on a call recently with a business that produces "resilient cities" planning, database-intensive digital planning.
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if we allow ourselves to buy into the fragmentation of postmodernity, where positionality, diversity and ennui rule the day, we lose sight that there are big, tangible players who have the power to behave in ways with their political clout, capital, manufacturing and commerce that are either earth-friendly or not earth-friendly.
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Instead, I hope we will approach a critical mass in the populace where we persistently insist––politically, economically, spiritually––that our business and government leaders adopt behaviors that embrace a new global consciousness
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The same goes for Americans trying to rebel against Wall Street. There's no visible other space. There's no liberated territory. It's like rebelling against a funhouse mirror because it makes you look so fat and stupid.
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his is not just a bad vibe happening. Merrill Lynch is gone. Enron is long gone. Madoff is a crook. The big boys are hurting. Cities are broke, states are broke, the feds are a laughingstock. The Congress and the former Administration have fully earned the public's contempt. You can't "blame the media" for that. Even the media's broke -- ESPECIALLY the media.
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I agree that there's an irrational panic now. There are also a large crowd of severe, real-world, fully rational, deeply structural problems that have gone unconfronted for years.
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When you can't imagine how things are going to change, that doesn't mean that nothing will change. It means that things will change in ways that are unimaginable.
The Evolution of Cyborg Consciousness (pdf) - 0 views
www3.interscience.wiley.com.er.lib.k-state.edu/...fulltext
evolution technology cyborg digital ethnography transhumanism
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experience.pdf (application/pdf Object) - 0 views
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Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed - 0 views
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When a word is deprived of its dimension of action, reflection automatically suffers as well; and the word is changed into idle chatter, into verbalism, into an alienated and alienating “blah.”
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since dialogue is the encounter in which the united reflection and action of the dialoguers are addressed to the world which is to be transformed and humanized, this dialogue cannot be reduced to the act of one person’s “depositing” ideas in another; nor can it become a simple exchange of ideas to be “consumed” by the discussants.
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If I do not love the world — if I do not love life — if I do not love people — I cannot enter into dialogue.
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Dialogue further requires an intense faith in humankind, faith in their power to make and remake, to create and re-create, faith in their vocation to be more fully human
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Founding itself upon love, humility, and faith, dialogue becomes a horizontal relationship of which mutual trust between the dialoguers is the logical consequence.
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Whereas faith in humankind is an a priori requirement for dialogue, trust is established by dialogue.
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Nor yet can dialogue exist without hope. Hope is rooted in men’s incompletion, from which they move out in constant search
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critical thinking — thinking which discerns an indivisible solidarity between the world and the people and admits of no dichotomy between them — thinking which perceives reality as process, as transformation, rather than as a static entity — thinking which does not separate itself from action, but constantly immerses itself in temporality without fear of the risks involved.
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We must never merely discourse on the present situation, must never provide the people with programs which have little or nothing to do with their own preoccupations, doubts, hopes, and fears — programs which at times in fact increase the fears of the oppressed consciousness. It is not our role to speak to the people about our own view of the world, nor to attempt to impose that view on them, but rather to dialogue with the people about their view and ours. We must realize that their view of the world, manifested variously in their action, reflects their situation in the world. Educational and political action which is not critically aware of this situation runs the risk either of “banking” or of preaching in the desert.
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Often, educators and politicians speak and are not understood because their language is not attuned to the concrete situation of the people they address. Accordingly their talk is just alienated and alienating rhetoric.
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t is as transforming and creative beings that humans, in their permanent relations with reality, produce not only material goods — tangible objects — but also social institutions, ideas, and concepts
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I consider the fundamental theme of our epoch to be that of domination — which implies its opposite, the theme of liberation, as the objective to be achieved.
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For example, underdevelopment, which cannot be understood apart from the relationship of dependency, represents a limit-situation characteristic of societies of the Third World.
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I must re-emphasize that the generative theme cannot be found in people, divorced from reality; nor yet in reality, divorced from people; much less in “no man’s land.” It can only be apprehended in the human-world relationship.
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For precisely this reason, the methodology proposed requires that the investigators and the people (who would normally be considered objects of that investigation) should act as co-investigators.
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Actually, themes exist in people in their relations with the world, with reference to concrete facts.
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We must realize that the aspirations, the motives, and the objectives implicit in the meaningful thematics are human aspirations, motives, and objectives.
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As a process of search, of knowledge, and thus of creation, it requires the investigators to discover the interpenetration of problems, in the linking of meaningful themes.
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Thus, the process of searching for the meaningful thematics should include a concern for the links between themes, a concern to pose these themes as problems, and a concern for their historical-cultural context.
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Just as the educator may not elaborate a program to present to the people, neither may the investigator elaborate “itineraries” for researching the thematic universe, starting from points which he has predetermined.
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That is, they must consist of communication and of the common experience of a reality perceived in the complexity of its constant “becoming.”
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Human beings are because they are in a situation. And they will be more the more they not only critically reflect upon their existence but critically act upon it.
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One of these basic themes (and one which I consider central and indispensable) is the anthropological concept of culture. Whether men and women are peasants or urban workers, learning to read or enrolled in a post-literacy program, the starting point of their search to know more (in the instrumental meaning of the term) is the debate of the concept. As they discuss the world of culture, they express their level of awareness of reality in which various themes are implicit. Their discussion touches upon other aspects of reality which comes to be perceived in an increasingly critical manner These aspects in turn involve many other themes.
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I am more and more convinced that true revolutionaries must perceive the revolution, because of its creative and liberating nature, as an act of love
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This affirmation contains an entire dialogical theory of how to construct the program content of education, which cannot he elaborated according to what the educator thinks best for the students.