Monthly Archives: August 2010

by | August 31, 2010 · 5:26 pm

May your gold perish with you

Glenn Beck has something major to do with another ambitious and tilted web portal, The Blaze*. Here’s a capture of today’s page. The ridiculous headline tops a truly funny/nutty video about some members, evidently, of the ‘professoriat.’

I’m okay with those who wish to protect the non-political nature of The Restoring Honor (umm, to America) protest ritual on Saturday. Why? Because even though politics was obviously and self-evidently implicit in, and concretely an aspect of, the event’s sub-text, by setting this to the side I can regard more fully that the event was about purportedly framed by a call to vivify both religion and patriotism.

Or, vivify some version of Christianity. You know: the new-fangled Beckian Christianity, an offshoot stripped of its social gospel and re-sanctified–I presume–to be a harsh Libertarian foundationalism; and one centered on personal responsibility and other stuff found nowhere at the center of a decent, magnanimous, moral old school Christianity.

Social justice is a very bad thing? …as the bumper sticker has it: Who would Jesus Bomb today?

newleftmedia @youtube

Two videos from the event, here for your viewing pleasure, should cause you to wonder about selective editing and the ease with which ignorance can be evoked. It is the case that at any gathering numbering ten or more people, it is likely child’s play to get someone to unwittingly embarrass their self, if he or she is asked about politics or religion.

However, I still would be open to a coherent presentation of the Tea Party case. I have spent more than a few hours looking for as much, and, probably because I’m modestly overly aware of stuff like philosophy and history, I have yet to find any cogent explication. Really, my bar isn’t set very high. And, this documentation doesn’t have to be convincing, it just has to be reasonable and reasonably intelligent. I’ll keep searching.


Slate V. Video

I certainly agree with the slathering Tea Party about one bare fact: the financial industry should have been held accountable for their grotesque, morally reprehensible, gambling. But, amazingly, now it seems the Tea Party is on the cusp of being co-opted by, in effect, the Club For Growth, Koch Brothers, and their ilk!

This is apparently where the Tea Party is headed: into the arms of the collectivist moneychangers, the very ones who happily took the tax dollar and rewarded themselves handsomely for allowing themselves to be bailed out. Why the Tea Party doesn’t get, as far as I know, that this synergy weds them with the other co-dependent side of the problem they’re so angered about, is a question which remains to be answered.

Of course, many have pointed out the Tea Party isn’t really a new wave at all. This may turn out to be true. Certainly their Constitutional and economic complaints have, over the last month or so, become terribly infected by the usual suspects, and to a degree by: racial, ethnic, and religious bigotry, Birtherism, and conspiracy-theory driven paranoia.

Their eliminativist leanings are ludicrous. Still, when 40% of Republicans think it possible that Obama has come to bring Shariah to the Republic, we’re witnessing something which has grown beyond the old Conservative/Liberal fault lines. For one thing, it seems this movement is very labile and able to shape shift between advocating against a Marxist Manchurian candidate, and, advocating against a Jihadi counter-crusader. All in all, the enemy posed is of an exceptionally large scale: Islam! Communism! All those other kinds of Christians! Brown and darker skin!

I’ll wait patiently for the video featuring the Tea Party smart set. Let me know if you find anything. As for Beck embracing the legacy of Martin Luther King, to me, Beck’s thrust seems much more in the direction of Martin Luther.

He said to them, “Beware! Keep yourselves from covetousness, for a man’s life doesn’t consist of the abundance of the things which he possesses.” (Luke 12:15)

But those who are determined to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful lusts, such as drown men in ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows. (I Timothy 6:9-10)

He found in the temple those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, and the changers of money sitting. He made a whip of cords, and threw all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen; and he poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew their tables. To those who sold the doves, he said, “Take these things out of here! Don’t make my Father’s house a marketplace!” (John 2:14-16)

Glenn Beck vs. Christ the Liberator – Reverend James Martin, S.J.

*The site will be run by Scott Baker, who helped launch the conservative Breitbart TV website. Politico reports that the site already has what appear to be paid sponsors – gold-based investment service Goldline. It’s also carrying an ad for a book by former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey. They have also hired Jon Seidl from the American Spectator and Meredith Jessup from Town Hall as reporters for “The Blaze.”

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , ,

by | August 29, 2010 · 11:18 am

Fossils of Fuel

Ghosts in the Hollow from Jim Lo Scalzo on Vimeo.

Now my friends, I am opposed to the system of society in which we live today, not because I lack the natural equipment to do for myself but because I am not satisfied to make myself comfortable knowing that there are thousands of my fellow men who suffer for the barest necessities of life. We were taught under the old ethic that man’s business on this earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle; the ethic of the wild beast. Take care of yourself, no matter what may become of your fellow man. Thousands of years ago the question was asked; “Am I my brother’s keeper?” That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society.

Yes, I am my brother’s keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality but by the higher duty I owe myself. What would you think me if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow beings starving to death.

Eugene V. Debs | src

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , ,

by | August 26, 2010 · 5:55 pm

Ouch, On a Cosmic Scale


CLOSENESS click for lightbox enlargement
S. Calhoun, 2010
ARK, (chosen, appropriated frames: using Dreamlines; hat tip to Leonardo Solaas)

How the Universe Works – Discovery Channel (many episodes available for the time being from the youtube channel documentarystreams)

I was 13 years old when, while laying on my back gazing at a crisp night sky, the awesomeness of the scale of things came to me as a thunder strike. On this evening I became amazed that I was gazing back into time, while situated as a hunk of sentient flesh prostrate on a thin layer of dirt and rock stuck to the surface of a planetary sphere. And, even then, it wasn’t at all adolescent solipsism, but, rather, that anyone could look so far away and so far back. This insight has informed my perspective ever since.

Then, a few years later, I investigated the cosmic scale of creation and destruction, and came away impressed again that entire galaxies may crash into one another. This puts a whole new spin on the mere, and in this light, inconsequential problem of mortality.

A near galactic-collision between NGC 2207 (left) and IC 2163 captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Scientists predict the Milky Way will merge with its neighbor Andromeda in about 5 billion years. (USAToday)

Leave a Comment

Filed under science

Tagged as ,

by | August 24, 2010 · 8:54 am

Accounting for Antipathy

“I think that is the ultimate insensitivity, anyone looking at that with any common sense would say, ‘What in the world would we be doing, you know, fostering some type of system that allows this to happen.’ Everybody knows America’s built on the rights of free expression, the rights to practice your faith, but come on.”

Eric Cantor, R-Va, said this recently. This is my favorite bald, asshat quote of the year–so far. It’s palinesque in its appeal to (some version of) commonsense, and it’s not at all over-the-top, given the waves of grotesque rhetoric the Cordoba House project has evoked. Cantor’s opinion here doesn’t amuse me because it is of the tinfoil type. (There’s plenty of that of course, much of it subsisting on the belief President Obama is a Manchurian candidate and, maybe, the world’s most un-Muslim-like Muslim.) No, what I enjoy about this quote is how it encapsulates the falling away of a whole string of conservative pieties: First Amendment, for suckers; Local governance-fuhgetaboutit; God-centeredness-who needs it?While, out of nowhere, Cantor here seems to embrace political correctness–got to have it, and got to have it rotate around being sensitive.

This last play in favor of sensitivity captures, evidently, a new Republican move to embrace sensitivity! Who would have thunk it? But, sure, “being sensitive” should probably trump the Constitution if one is willing to flip flop on what used to be a longstanding, thorough-going principle of personal responsibility. (I chose this one, from among several delicious choices.) Isn’t the ideologically driven advice from Republicans almost always along the lines of: ‘suck it up!’ ‘take care of yourself’ ‘obey the Constitution and our Christian foundations’ etc.? Until now.

Another impressive feature of the Republican embrace of, this time, religious bigotry, is how sanctimonious Cantor, Gingrich, Palin, are about the composition of necessary exceptions to the First Amendment. So: ‘We’re tolerant, we’re pro-Constitution, but, let’s face it.’ I had thought the Constitution was more hallowed than the site of the 9-11 attack.

I’m sure I’ll know it when it happens: when any of these self-identified bright lights attach an argument favorable to the First Amendment to their politically-correct call for sensitivity about the sensitivities of religious bigots and their reactions to a project that has zero to do with Jihadi aspirations.

Meanwhile, Jeff Merkley, D-OR, framed the ‘cognitive’ issue, and other facts, succinctly:

“I appreciate the depth of emotions at play, but respectfully suggest that the presence of a mosque is only inappropriate near ground zero if we unfairly associate Muslim Americans with the atrocities of the foreign al-Qaida terrorists who attacked our nation. Such an association is a profound error. Muslim Americans are our fellow citizens, not our enemies. Muslim Americans were among the victims who died at the World Trade Center in the 9/11 attacks. Muslim American first responders risked their lives to save their fellow citizens that day. Many of our Muslim neighbors, including thousands of Oregon citizens, serve our country in war zones abroad and our communities at home with dedication and distinction.”

These facts of the matter go in one hand and the clear imperative of the 1st Amendment go in the other hand. Yet, this doesn’t settle the matter in a lot of people’s minds. Why this is so is of great interest to me. Opposition to the Cordoba project’s site location is not singular at all. It’s not simply only due to ignorance, or only due to practiced agendas, or only due to some politicized version of common sense.

Opponents’ antipathy surely can be understood in terms of psychology, yet, at the same time, understanding the nature of internalized distrust, false attribution, and, confirmation bias–to pick one constellation of behavioral features–doesn’t completely resolve that which constitutes behavioral explanations for upwelling of fear, anger, and, strong dislike, (ie.antipathy.)

The opposition is wide spread and encompasses a wide variety of people, and this surely includes persons who are highly educated, well-traveled, and, intelligent. The group of opponents also would have to include the opposite of this characterization, and, as well, include persons who believe all religions except for their own are members of a satanic opposition.

No simple explanation covers the entire group. But, Cantor’s prescriptive “come on” is simple. And, from this, it is apparent that a system of laws stands against very intense socially affective constructions. From my perspective, none of this yields to just supposing strong feelings based in counterfactual, socially-reinforced interpretations explains the, for example, commonsensical appeal to sensitivity, and fright about the strict ramifications of the 1st Amendment. Although, antipathy certainly isn’t, nor could it be, linked to opponents working through the salient facts. Those facts are also: simple.

But, the intense upwelling of affect, posed as it is by Cantor to literally trump the 1st Amendment, stands with all sorts of other propositions; propositions held by large groups of people with enthusiasm. Such enthusiasms do earn an account at least for reasons having to do with collective aspirations, which if realized, would subvert, if not overturn, all sorts of protective, often lawful, norms.

What and why and how people come to believe stuff has been one of the handful of my central interests for almost forty years. There is nothing surprising about the range of beliefs found at the extreme end of the continuum of antipathy about Muslims, and, similarly, about gays, Darwin, Democrats, elites, capitalists, banks and bankers, Dick Cheney, on and on.

In noting this, generally, it is optimal for people to internalize and be able to cope with factual, thus realistic, fears, sorrows and anger. Nevertheless, (I suggest,) a lot of energy and instinctual (or primary,) process potential attends to the status of our closely held beliefs–in the context of our each apprehending our various realistic and unrealistic interpretations of that which threatens those same beliefs. Antipathy may generally express primal fears oriented to not only having an Islamic cultural center set two blocks from where 9-11 unfolded, but also oriented to the very ideas that other believers, be they Muslims, metrosexuals, Harvard grads, Mexican laborers, progressive Democrats, (etc.,) have set themselves a bit too close to the home of belief–the self; and too close to: me and my own.

For me this antipathy spirals around the ‘low ordering’ of belief; about which I will riff in an ensuing post.

Leave a Comment

Filed under social psychology, organizational development

Tagged as , , , , , ,

by | August 20, 2010 · 5:52 am

Rolling In

The Free Play Softball League gang. I took this picture right after our game last Sunday. It turned out to be a beautiful day, a well-played and close game. We obtained the modest goals of our 24 year-old tradition.

If you’re over 11 years of age and have a responsible adult along with you, you can play. If you’re a bit older, you can play. You can play if it’s the first time you ever held a bat in your hand. In this photo the range of ages describes a continuum of around 55 years. Hey, but several of our most grizzled players didn’t show up!

As I suggested to Dave Kolb, one of the founders of the game (and concept!) after the game, in reflecting upon how there were but four players at the field ten minutes before the 10am, yet, by 10:30 a full complement had rolled in,

Well, it’s an open system and that’s why it works out.

Dave and me both know this term, Open System, is the model of Harrison Owen.

Open Space Technology requires very few advance elements. There must be a clear and compelling theme, an interested and committed group, time and a place, and a leader. Detailed advance agendas, plans, and materials are not only un-needed, they are usually counterproductive.

The group must be interested and committed. Failing that, Open Space Technology will not work. The key ingredients for deep creative learning are real freedom and real responsibility. Freedom allows for exploration and experimentation, while responsibility insures that both will be pursued with rigor. Interest and commitment are the prerequisites for the responsible use of freedom. There is no way that we know of to force people to be interested and committed. That must be a precondition.

The leadership of an Open Space event is at once absurdly simple and very tricky. The simplicity derives from the fact that the group itself will, and must, generate its own leadership. The tricky part comes in letting that happen. The demands placed upon the initial group leader are therefore limited and critical. Dealing with the limited aspects of group leadership is easiest and may therefore be done first. The functions here are to set time, place, and theme.

The function of leadership is to provide a focal point for direction, and not to mandate and control a minute-by-minute plan of action. The details must be left to the troops, which means amongst other things, the troops must be trusted. In no case can any leader possibly solve all problems or direct all actions.

There are Four Principles and One Law which serve as guides to the leader and all participants. The principles are: Whoever comes is the right people. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have. Whenever it starts is the right time. When it is over, it is over. [excerpts] Source: Brief User’s Guide to Open Space Technology

Our softball group obtains some of these features, but, then, Owens’s model is not geared to folding in competitive goals at all. So, our game approximates the value set of openness at the same time it integrates a variety of individualized values, some of which are in alignment with the closed system provided for by the implicit structure of a ‘sporting’ contest. Yet, what I will term ludic meta-values trump the seeming disjunction between the zero-sum of winning/losing, with, openness to “just showing up” and “just playing.”

One set of problems I’ve been making notes about, as a student of our game, concerns the distribution of equity. This has dovetailed with my reflections about my own role as a leader-the-game-has-evoked. As an agent of aspects of this distribution, (for example by making out the ad hoc lineups each week,) my intentionality with respect to the structure of each week’s game departs from the role specified by Owen. In noting this, I have also come to comprehend how those ludic meta-values are concretely mediated as a matter of the collaborative learning about the sense of the game.

This doesn’t mean the learning constitutes a normative principle, nor does it mean there is any particular procedure for this kind of collaboration, nor does it mean every player would identify its constructive factor. This does mean, as far as my current comprehension goes, that this sense of the game is robust, and is funded by experience of the collective implementation of the game’s generous system. In other words, what the players collaborate on is, in effect, throwing together an Open System every Sunday at or around 10am. From this is derived the multiple, not singular, sense of the game. And this happens non-explicitly, and, to large degree, as a fact of the constructive subconscious; (my term.)

The Free Play Softball League convenes its open system every Sunday at 10am, at Forest Hills Park-Cleveland Heights, on field #8. If you need to loosen up, or take a few batting practice swings, 9:45am is a good time to show up. But, it doesn’t matter, because you roll in anytime before we stop play at noon. See you there!

Leave a Comment

Filed under adult learning

Tagged as , , , ,

by | August 16, 2010 · 4:26 pm

Young and Infinite

A long, long time ago, in a distant universe…

Sometime around about 200,000 it “all” drops away. The current recorded evidence for the powers of creative artifice–that of homo sapiens sapiens–shows the story of adaptation and innovation to reflect a process of accrual. I don’t tire of reminding people who assert different using (usually magical) developmental facts, that their dodgy form of psychology, theology, or philosophy, or what-have-you, makes no account of the bare facts on the ground several hundred thousand years ago.

For example, the most ancient evidence serves as a powerful empirical rejoinder to the any theory of intelligent design. Why would a designer build the highest form of sentient life to be so primitive? Moreover, where is any account to be found in any theism or traditionalism or foundationalism able to make an actual account? No, in fact every bright idea can be seen to arise, to be evoked as-it-were, from a point of aroused curiosity or pressurized necessity. But, then, as one tracks backward, each and every bright idea literally disappears.

[qt:http://www.squareone-learning.com/video/Multiverse-Theory.mov 720 480]
(video:quicktime:takes 5 minutes to load)

Video: Stephen Calhoun, using photographs taken from the Hubble orbital observtaory.
Music: Kamelmauz

Lucy’s Species May Have Used Stone Tools 3.4 Million Years Ago

Evidence for the survival of the oldest terrestrial mantle reservoir

Study: 650-Million-Year-Old Sponges May Be World’s Oldest Animals

50,000 Years of Dreamtime

The settlement of Australia is a breakthrough in the “human story.” Very soon after anatomically modern humans began to replace (and to some extent assimilate) other lineages of our genus in Eurasia we pushed beyond the previous outer limits of the domains of humankind. The ancestors of Australian Aboriginals swept past the Wallace Line, and quickly settled the Ice Age continent of Sahul, consisting of Australia and Papua New Guinea. The biogeography of Australia is well known. Aside from bats and some endemic rodents the continent was free of placental mammals before modern humans arrived.

As for when these humans made landfall, there is some debate as to that particular issue. The oldest remains from Australia, Mungo Man, has been dated to anywhere between 70,000, and 30,000, years before the present. If we took the older date then Australia would have been settled almost immediately after the expansion of non-African modern humanity. If we accepted the younger date, then the settlement of Australia would have been concurrent with the final replacement of Neandertals by modern humans in Europe. The current consensus seems to be that Mungo Man dates to approximately 46,000 years before the present. As the first dating of a particular individual from a species in a region is liable to miss earlier individuals who were not fossilized it seems likely that Australia was settled by anatomically modern humans on the order of 46,000 years before the present, but somewhat earlier than that date. That would imply that Australia was populated by anatomically modern humans at least 10,000 years before Europe. One should probably not be too surprised by this. Out-of-Africa humans were probably initially tropically adapted so lateral migration would have been easier, but also, there were no hominin competitors in Australia.

Leave a Comment

Filed under creative captures, history, science, self-knowledge

Tagged as , ,

by | August 14, 2010 · 11:51 pm

Teaching Photo

As a longtime collector of teaching stories, especially in the form of teaching cartoons, I always have an ear and eye for materials which deliver the teachable moment in super condensed form.

I have a few pictures in the collection, but today I deliver a photograph that fits the bill, found via google search.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as ,

by | August 10, 2010 · 7:16 am

Palinyuga

The following clip contains a lot of material, if you are fascinated by the conjunction of personality and communication.

Here’s the transcript.

Palin: like how? What’s up?

Kathleen: You swore on your precious Bible that you would uphold the interests of this state, and then when cash was waved in front of your face, you quit.

Palin: OH, you WANTED me to be your governor! I’m honored! Thank you!

Kathleen: I wanted you to honor your responsibilities. That is what I wanted. I wanted you to be part of the political process instead of becoming a celebrity so that you could (inaudible). And if that’s the best you could do, then good for you. If that’s the best you could do.

Palin: Here’s the deal. Here’s the deal. (inaudible) That’s what I’m out there fightin’ for Americans to be able to have a Constitution protected so that we can have free speech…And ALSO there…

Kathleen: In what way are you fighting for that?

Palin: Oh my goodness!

Kathleen: In what way?

Palin: To elect candidates who understand the Constitution, to protect our military interests so that we can keep on fightin’ for our constitution that will protect some of the freedoms that evidently are important to you too.

Kathleen: By using your celebrity status, certainly not by political status.

Palin Daughter: How is she a celebrity? That’s my question.

Palin: I’m honored! No, she thinks I’m a celebrity!

Palin Daughter: That’s funny that you think she is.

Kathleen: Well, you’re certainly not representing the state of Alaska any longer…even though…

Palin Daughter: She’s representing United States?

Kathleen: Yes, I know. You belong to America now, and that suits me just fine. Yeah.

Palin: What do you do here?

Kathleen: I’m a teacher

Palin: Oh. (Eye roll and protracted grimace)

Palin Daughter: Oh.

Kathleen: I also have a few other jobs. I’m married to a commercial fisherman. And so I fish.

Palin: Oh that’s cool. So am I! I married to-we probably have a lot in common!

Kathleen: Yeah. You know, I think that we do.

Palin: Hi! (waves to camera) Are we on video?

Kathleen: Too bad. I’m more of a still camera girl myself. (inaudible) I am, I am…I will tell you I’m very pleased to meet you.

Palin: I’m honored to meet you, I really am. And, no we both agree on the freedom of speech and the-

Kathleen: Yes we do.

Palin: you know – the protection of that. So, um, no I and, you know… best of everything to you too and Yeah.

Kathleen: Thank you for coming over.

Palin: Well, okay. It’s nice to meet you anyway.

There’s much of interest here. Palin seems confident her affability will allow her to transmit a jumble of ideas to her audience, a school teacher from Alaska.

I highlighted one chunk of her phraseology because it evoked for me thoughts about what it must be like to, in effect, be Mrs. Palin having her onrush of thoughts and then instantly delivering them. There’s something roundly unmediated–in the psychological sense–going on in her.

People have said to me Palin is a cynical character. I would suggest she’s not the least bit cynical. It seems she believes her own bullshit and she also truly believes there is a common sense she is called to “front.” This common sense is wholly foundational for her–which is to suggest it trumps everything. She may feel very sorry for all those who have lost their common sense.

Yet, at the same time, Palin lives in her own world and, crucially, doesn’t experience it as anything besides its simply being the real world. From this position, she’s running her strategy on this women: befriend her and deliver the transmission, and, her job is done.

What kind of world is the transmission coming from? Borrowing from Heiddegger, this clip shows Palin coming from a pre-ontological position. In other words, her jumble of common sense is not the result of any second order choosing at all. I don’t understand Palin to give a whit about making choices and structuring her thoughts. The thoughts arise, and fall out! Her ‘cipheric’ transmission doesn’t, from the pre-ontological position, require any kind of advanced articulation, completeness, or complexity. In other words, her sense of what exists is just so, and not the result of actually trying to figure it, what’s real, out.

(If you asked Palin, “How do you mediate your thoughts?” I bet she’d ask you “what the heck you are you trying to ask me?”)

Another way to frame this is to sense she’s just being her instinctual (ID-driven,) self, just being who she is, and this unfolds with enthusiasm, even with some generosity. But, in observing this unfolding, it’s readily apparent she’s not deeply mediating herself, at all. She doesn’t think, ‘what did I just say?’

So, although it seems mildly crazed and naive (as a communication strategy,) my guess Palin simply feels she’s responding from the genuine moment, having fun, and, unlike the usual anxious idealogue striving to convince, her psychic investment doesn’t seem here to possess much anxiety.

She reminds me of a self-possessed 14 year old. When you meet a self-possessed 14 year old, usually this sort of unmediated and confident presentation is impressive. It’s out-sized too. However, thirty years later the same person issues the same kind of presentation and one thinks, ‘there’s a disconnect here.’

Much of Palin’s disconnect is concrete. She’s not of main street, is in no way a typical housewife, and, at the same time, her self-definition would have it be so. Her flux of identity and common sense is (to me) delightful and unremarkably odd.

I don’t think Palin is very attached to having to pull each and every person into her odd world. After all, as a screen for projection, she receives a ton of reinforcement. It’s not make-or-break for her. Still, a Katie Kouric or school teacher from Alaska seem to be, to Palin, somewhat alien creatures. Worth an attempt, but not worth much more! Palin doesn’t feel estranged from such creatures. She’s acting out being an emissary between tribes, as if this encounter is on a playground. As she mentioned after the encounter with Katie Couric, she had hoped they would have grounded the interview in their both being working mothers.

This was a telling reflection. Palin knows she gets it, and, seems to find it mildly weird others live in some other world where what she gets, isn’t obvious.

My sense is her internal response is along the lines of ‘Oh, well,’ ‘whatever.’ It’s not her problem people in this other world are strange, and I rather think she isn’t aggravated to any great degree that these same other people find her strange. Probably it’s much more aggravating to her that other people are wrong about the nature of the world.

Sarah Palin is, from the sweep of my speculations and biases, a very American type of psychological figure, the kind of type that understands their own self to be in a real world, where some others are in their own unreal world.

As a type, this type isn’t able to step back and see the real world as encompassing anything else besides a particular–to draw down to Palin’s point of focus and enthusiasm–common sense.

This is a mistake of consciousness, yet I find it to be a delicious aspect of our cultural moment.


A Grand Unified Theory of Palinisms, Jakob Weisberg, Slate

Leave a Comment

Filed under current events

Tagged as ,

by | August 8, 2010 · 4:20 pm

Animus and Anima



click for large version

Anima and Animus (S.Calhoun, 2010)

More ARK, albeit two frames here are layered and treated via software. (chosen, appropriated frames: using Dreamlines; hat tip to Leonardo Solaas)

This ARK art came together while I was revisiting original sources for understanding the concept of the Collective Unconscious in the Analytic Psychology. In other words: I went to confirm my sense was correct, and it was. It was as simple as I thought it was. (I was moved to do so by observing unnecessary elaboration and subsequent projection of this elaboration.) I did a little more scouring around the secondary literature, all the time keeping in mind the basic rock-bottom conception, the Collective Unconscious is that which is neither conscious, or, is “of” the personal unconscious.

Jung’s development of his psychology makes its sea change upon this concept. The Collective Unconscious is the source for the primordial patterns, the archetypes–and, well, so it went and goes. At the same time, the concept–taken as a proposition–is marvelously and completely circular. Most of Jung’s extrapolations made from his fundamental concept have been stripped away, yet, at the end of Jung’s day, this is the basis for his being a holist, a subjectivist, and, a meta-relativist. …sort of a Swiss William James; and given by this it can said Jung was a kind of proto-post-modernist too.

This is easily rendered: there is no knowledge not darkened and come to be provisional by virtue of its ground in the (evolutionary!) Collective Unconscious. One notes the implicit circularity implicit here.

(Among my gleanings was a fine paper by George Hogenson, The Baldwin effect: a neglected influence on C.G. Jung’s evolutionary thinking. Journal of Analytical Psychology; 48:2001)

For a certain type of intellectual mediocrity characterized by enlightened rationalism, a scientific theory that simplifies matters is a very good means of defence because of the tremendous faith modern man has in anything which bears the label “scientific.” Such a label sets your mind at rest immediately, almost as well as Roma locuta causa finita: “Rome has spoken, the matter is settled.” In itself any scientific theory, no matter how subtle, has, I think, less value from the standpoint of psychological truth than religious dogma, for the simple reason that a theory is necessarily highly abstract and exclusively rational, whereas dogma expresses an irrational whole by means of imagery. This guarantees a far better rendering of an irrational fact like the psyche. Moreover, dogma owes its continued existence and its form on the one hand to so-called “revealed” or immediate experiences of the “Gnosis” for instance, the God-man, the Cross, the Virgin Birth, the Immaculate Conception, the Trinity, and so on, and on the other hand to the ceaseless collaboration of many minds over many centuries. It may not be quite clear why I call certain dogmas “immediate experiences’ since in itself a dogma is the very thing that precludes immediate experience. Yet the Christian images I have mentioned are not peculiar to Christianity alone (although in Christianity they have undergone a development and intensification of meaning not to be found in any other religion). They occur just as often in pagan religions, and besides that they can reappear spontaneously in all sorts of variations as psychic phenomena, just as in the remote past they originated in visions, dreams, or trances. Ideas like these are never invented. They came into being before man had learned to use his mind purposively. Before man learned to produce thoughts, thoughts came to him. He did not think he perceived his mind functioning. Dogma is like a dream, reflecting the spontaneous and autonomous activity of the objective psyche, the unconscious. Such an expression of the unconscious is a much more efficient means of defence against further immediate experiences than any scientific theory.The theory has to disregard the emotional values of the experience. The dogma, on the other hand, is extremely eloquent injust this respect. One scientific theory is soon superseded by another. Dogma lasts for untold centuries. The suffering God-Man may be at least five thousand years old and the Trinity is probably even older. (C.G. Jung; Psychology of Religion East and West; pp45-46)

Leave a Comment

Filed under analytic(al) psychology

Tagged as , ,