(Successor site to CoPhilosophy, 2011-2020)
A collaborative search for wisdom, at Middle Tennessee State University and beyond... "The pluralistic form takes for me a stronger hold on reality than any other philosophy I know of, being essentially a social philosophy, a philosophy of 'co'"-William James
LISTEN. Is it safe to look away from politics yet, for at least a day?
In CoPhi today our Fantasyland focus is first on the "nonjudgmental Squishie" academics of the '80s and '90s--presumably the period of Peak Squishie, coincident btw with my time in grad school-- who taught that reason was not for everyone, or that "someone's capacity to experience the supernatural" depends on their "willingness to see more than is materially present."
Yesterday was Carl Sagan's birthday (as his daughter Sasha, an accomplished author herself, noted), making it the perfect time to consider his Baloney Detection Kit and its particular application to UFO "abductees" and their sympathizers. He also thought it would be very cool to have a close encounter with E.T., but it's really more than okay not to think with your gut (as Sagan said to his cabbie).
“I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.
The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.”
What would Carl have said about the "Q conspiracy" nonsense? "Baloney!" And that's putting it mildly and euphemistically.
And would Thomas Jefferson say such nonsense "neither picks our pockets nor breaks our legs," figuratively speaking? There are worse forms of injury and harm, in a would-be democracy, than overt assault and theological dissent. The body politic takes a devastating blow when citizens can no longer think for themselves or distinguish truth from lies and fantasies.
In Why Grow Up? Susan Neiman thinks we ought to unplug from the internet periodically, and for longer intervals. The National Day of Unplugging comes up again in March. But that's just once a year. How about one day a week? Okay, you first.
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” —Anne Lamott
Technology has some wonderful benefits. I use it almost every day. And I would never, ever argue against the responsible use of it.
However, that being said, it is becoming increasingly obvious that our world is developing an unhealthy attachment to it. Addiction to our technology and overall cell phone addiction is becoming too common:
84% of cell phone users claim they could not go a single day without their device. (source)
67% of cell phone owners check their phone for messages, alerts, or calls — even when they don’t notice their phone ringing or vibrating. (source)
Studies indicate some mobile device owners check their devices every 6.5 minutes. (source)
88% of U.S. consumers use mobile devices as a second screen even while watching television. (source)
Almost half of cell owners have slept with their phone next to their bed because they wanted to make sure they didn’t miss any calls. (source)
Traditional TV viewing eats up over six days (144 hours, 54 minutes) worth of time per month. (source)
Some researchers have begun labeling “cell phone checking” as the new yawn because of its contagious nature. (source)
But we don’t need statistics to tell us we are addicted to our technology. We already know this to be true—which is probably why this powerful video has received over 13,000,000 views in less than six days (and over 51.7 million as of September 2019).
But we need to be reminded again and again: Technology addiction is powerful but it does have a power-off button. And the wisest of us know when to use it and when to take a more minimalist approach to our technology.
Consider again, just some of these important reasons to unplug... (continues)
National Day of Unplugging is an awareness campaign that promotes a 24-hour respite from technology annually observed the first weekend in March. For more than a decade, schools, religious institutions and businesses have used our resources to inspire healthy life/tech balance. Participation is open to anyone who wishes to elevate human connection over digital engagement.
== Unplug: 52 Days a Year Without the Internet
I love the internet. I wouldn’t have this blog without the internet. We wouldn’t be connecting on Facebook, Instagram or through email without the internet. I do work I love thanks to the internet. I’ve met some of my closest friends because of the internet.
And … I need the internet to go away sometimes. The internet may be open 24/7 but I’m not. I can’t be. You can’t be either. It’s too much. I need to intentionally shift my time and attention away from my phone and computer to show up for my life. I try to take regular digital breaks, but I haven’t been as consistent as I’d like lately.
Recently, I realized that if I only break for one day a week, I’ll have 52 full days a year without the internet. That made me smile... (continues)
I Spoke to a Scholar of Conspiracy Theories and I’m Scared for Us The big lesson of 2020 is that everything keeps getting more dishonest.
by Farhad Manjoo
...I spent a couple of hours recently chatting with Joan Donovan, the research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School. Donovan is a pioneering scholar of misinformation and media manipulation — the way that activists, extremists and propagandists surf currents in our fragmented, poorly moderated media ecosystem to gain attention and influence society.
Donovan’s research team studies online lies the way crash-scene investigators study aviation disasters. They meticulously take apart specific hoaxes, conspiracy theories, viral political memes, harassment campaigns and other toxic online campaigns in search of the tactics that made each one explode into the public conversation...
Donovan worries about two factors in particular. One is the social isolation caused by the pandemic. Lots of Americans are stuck at home, many economically bereft and cut off from friends and relatives who might temper their passions — a perfect audience for peddlers of conspiracy theories.
Her other major worry is the conspiracy lollapalooza known as QAnon. It’s often short-handed the way Savannah Guthrie did at her town hall takedown of Donald Drumpf last week — as a nutty conspiracy theory in which a heroic Drumpf is prosecuting a secret war against a satanic pedophile ring of lefty elites.
But that undersells QAnon’s danger. To people who have been “Q-pilled,” QAnon plays a much deeper role in their lives; it has elements of a support group, a political party, a lifestyle brand, a collective delusion, a religion, a cult, a huge multiplayer game and an extremist network.
Donovan thinks QAnon represents a new, flexible infrastructure for conspiracy. QAnon has origins in a tinfoil-hat story about a D.C.-area pizza shop, but over the years it has adapted to include theories about the “deep state” and the Mueller probe, Jeffrey Epstein, and a wild variety of misinformation about face masks, miracle cures, and other hoaxes regarding the coronavirus. QAnon has been linked to many instances of violence, and law enforcement and terrorism researchers discuss it as a growing security threat.
“We now have a densely networked conspiracy theory that is extendible, adaptable, flexible and resilient to takedown,” Donovan said of QAnon. It’s a very internet story, analogous to the way Amazon expanded from an online bookstore into a general-purpose system for selling anything to anyone.
Facebook and YouTube this month launched new efforts to take down QAnon content, but Q adherents have often managed to evade deplatforming by softening and readjusting their messages. Recently, for instance, QAnon has adopted slogans like “Save the Children” and “Child Lives Matter,” and it seems to be appealing to anti-vaxxers and wellness moms.
QAnon is also participatory, and, in an uncertain time, it may seem like a salvation. People “are seeking answers and they’re finding a very receptive community in QAnon,” Donovan said.
This is a common theme in disinformation research: What makes digital lies so difficult to combat is not just the technology used to spread them, but also the nature of the societies they’re targeting, including their political cultures. Donovan compares QAnon to the Rev. Charles Coughlin, the priest whose radio show spread anti-Semitism in the Depression-era United States. Stopping Coughlin’s hate took a concerted effort, involving new regulations for radio broadcasters and condemnation of Coughlin by the Catholic Church.
Stopping QAnon will be harder; Coughlin was one hatemonger with a big microphone, while QAnon is a complex, decentralized, deceptive network of hate. But the principle remains: Combating the deception that has overrun public discourse should be a primary goal of our society. Otherwise, America ends in lies.
How to Talk to Friends Who Share Conspiracy Theories
Increasingly, friends, colleagues and readers share the same story with me: Online, somebody they know and love has stumbled into the treacherous world of online conspiracy theories and, in some cases, might not even know it. I’m often asked: How do you talk to people you care about who might be on the precipice of or headed down the conspiratorial rabbit hole?
It’s a question without an easy answer, but one we need to ask with increasing urgency. I decided to ask some scholars and researchers about best practices. Their answers are helpful — but more than that, they illustrate the depth of the problem. Conspiracy theories (like Pizzagate and now QAnon, anti-vaccine claims, disinformation around the coronavirus suggesting the virus was engineered in a laboratory) are a chronic condition that will long outlive the 2020 election. Given our reliance on social platforms to connect and process news, we need a way to manage their inevitable presence in our lives, rather than naïvely hold out hope for a magical cure.
Reminder: This advice pertains to friends or relatives with whom you are already close and who are not demonstrating unstable or violent behavior. It’s important to exercise restraint and good judgment in all cases.
Ask where the information is coming from.
Whitney Phillips, a communications scholar at Syracuse University who studies misinformation, rhetoric and information systems, suggested talking about the way the internet works.... (continues)
"During an Oval Office meeting,Trump" asked if "he should go after Harris," as per Stephen Miller et al, "that she was not born in the U.S. Nearly everyone remained silent." Later to reporters "Trump said, 'I heard that she doesn't meet the requirements.'" https://t.co/ropw9Rz4Qk (https://twitter.com/KBAndersen/status/1325820976295272450?s=02)
Say its name: Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems https://t.co/kyVGKuHHoG - an eye-opening read, from @GeorgeMonbiot
...Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that "the market" delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.
Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve..
Today would be my dad's 86th birthday. I miss his endless curiosity, enthusiasm, insightful wisdom, joyful wonder, and so much else. I know many of you do, too. I'm very grateful to have so many people to miss him with even many years on. Thank you all and happy #CarlSaganDay. (https://twitter.com/SashaSagan/status/1325797476750790657?s=02)
LISTEN. Margaret Renkl, as usual, offers an artfully crafted and sobering reality-check.
Yes, Joe Biden won, but the 71 million people who voted for Donald Drumpf aren’t going anywhere.
...People have had four years now to find out just how truly terrible Mr. Drumpf is. How indifferent he is to the norms of civil discourse and to the responsibilities of democracy itself. How transparently racist he is, how divisive, how selfish. We know he’s a chronic liar who, when caught out, simply doubles down on the lie. We know that he is using the levers of government to enrich himself. We know he delights in and urges on the most violent impulses of his most dangerous followers. We know he has let 237,000 Americans die on his watch and still has no plan for saving the rest of us.
She's as grief-stricken by this appalling number as she is joy-struck by the fact that millions more voted for truth, integrity, and normalcy. I'm feeling less grief than consternation, myself.
And I'm feeling like I'll have to really push myself to do my part, as Robert Talisse advises in Overdoing Democracy(which we'll read next semester in our MALA course "Democracy in America"), to restore democratic health by seeking and finding common ground with at least a few of those lesser millions in arenas that have nothing to do with politics.
A thriving democracy needs citizens to reserve space in their social lives for collective activities that are not structured by political allegiances. To ensure the health and the future of democracy, we need to forge civic friendships by working together in social contexts in which political affiliations and party loyalties are not merely suppressed, but utterly beside the point. g'r
I caught the end of Krista Tippett's On Being yesterday on the radio, just in time to hear a seconding of this motion. Karen Murphy, advocate of peaceful coexistence and reconciliation, says we should"get to know each other... across all these divisions and categories that don’t utterly define us," finding common ground via (for instance) music. Van Morrison, maybe?
I used to listen to a lot of Van. I'll dust off the old CDs. Can't hurt. At the very least it will provide a needed distraction from the pervasive poison of polarized politics... if not from excessive alliteration.
Postscript. Maybe not. "Sir Van Morrison has accused the government of "taking our freedom" in three new songs that protest against the coronavirus lockdown..." bbc
Yes, Joe Biden won, but the 71 million people who voted for Donald Trump aren’t going anywhere.
...People have had four years now to find out just how truly terrible Mr. Trump is. How indifferent he is to the norms of civil discourse and to the responsibilities of democracy itself. How transparently racist he is, how divisive, how selfish. We know he’s a chronic liar who, when caught out, simply doubles down on the lie. We know that he is using the levers of government to enrich himself. We know he delights in and urges on the most violent impulses of his most dangerous followers. We know he has let 237,000 Americans die on his watch and still has no plan for saving the rest of us.
Watch This Snowball Fight From 1897 for a Jolt of Pure Joy A viral clip of old-timey French people pelting one another with snowballs perfectly distills our current mayhem. It’s my favorite film of 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/magazine/snowball-video-fight.html?smid=em-share
at 11:33 AM on Sat, Nov 07, 2020: I grew up in Bulgaria under a communist dictatorship, was raised on the ideal of America as the land of democracy and possibility, came here alone six days after my 19th birthday, landing in Pennsylvania. Thank you, Pennsylvania, for redeeming a child's dream and a world's ideal. (https://twitter.com/brainpicker/status/1325129247111966721?s=02)
Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” is “still the best book ever written about this country.”
What books would you recommend for today’s political moment in America?
Ezra Klein’s “Why We’re Polarized,” which gets at the state of our politics. Colin Woodard’s “American Nations,” which gets at the cultural divides. Samuel Huntington’s “American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony,” because it places the current moment in historical context. And Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” because it is still the best book ever written about this country.
Read the relevant texts before commenting, please.
W 11/Th 12. FL 37-38, WGU -p.192
If/when you become a parent, will you be "anxious, frightened, overprotective" and constantly worried about the threat of child-napping? 326
What do you think of "the message of The Courage to Heal"? 328
What accounts for the "rising chorus of panicky Christian crazy talk"? 330
Do you know any real "Devil worshippers"? Do you believe devils exist? Why? 334
What do you think of Bakersfield's "big outbreak" and LA County's "Satanic Panic"? 337
"Younger people know nothing about [our Satanic Panic of just a generation ago], and almost nobody is aware of its scale and duration and damage." True? 340
What's the harm of obsessing about flying saucers etc.? 345
Do you know anyone who believes that "everybody has been in on" a one-world government conspiracy orchestrated by space aliens? 347-8
Were the Branch Davidians fundamentally different from mainstream Protestantism? 350
What do you think of The X-Files? 354
WGU
Was Locke's "sweet" labor theory of value invalidated by the invention of money? 166
Do we have a duty to our own humanity to work? 167
Was Arendt correct about the distinction between labor and work, and about their rootedness in natality? 168-9
Was Rousseau right about the value of learning to work with your hands, particularly carpentry? 172
Do you worry, as Paul Goodman did, that there may be "no decent work to grow up for"? 173
Is it a "travesty" to call people who work in advertising "creatives"? 175
Is consumer capitalism infantilizing?
Do you regularly discard "unfashionable" clothes or other goods before they wear out or break down? Should you? 179
Do you want to produce something of value? Why? 181
Do you expect to find meaning in your work? If not, where will you find it? 185
M 9/T 10. FL 35-36, WGU -165
Have you had any "nonjudgmental Squishie" teachers who taught that reason was not for everyone, or that "someone's capacity to experience the supernatural" depends on their "willingness to see more than is materially present"? 308
What do you think of Jodi Dean's defense of UFO "abductees"? 311
Have you had any textbooks similar to Responsive Ed's science texts? 315
Are Survivalists and Preppers "wacky and sad"? 319
Do you agree with Jefferson's statement about freedom of and from religion? 320
Do you agree "that so many of our neighbors are saying so many loony things [and Kurt Andersen wrote that before the Q-Anon conspiracy loonies surfaced] is doing us real injury"? 322
WGU
What are some other signs of being grown-up, besides the ability to think for yourself? 123
Should corporations like Coca-Cola be allowed to have "pouring rights" in public schools? 132
"You must take your education into your own hands as soon as possible." Did you? How? 140
Should the age of legal maturity be raised to match the age of brain maturity? 140
Are you willing to go a month without internet? 148
Were Augustine and Rousseau right about travel? 150-51
Do you hope to live and work one day in another culture for at least a year? Do you think it will contribute to your maturity? 162-3
W 11/Th 12. FL 37-38, WGU -p.192
If/when you become a parent, will you be "anxious, frightened, overprotective" and constantly worried about the threat of child-napping? 326
What do you think of "the message of The Courage to Heal"? 328
What accounts for the "rising chorus of panicky Christian crazy talk"? 330
Do you know any real "Devil worshippers"? Do you believe devils exist? Why? 334
What do you think of Bakersfield's "big outbreak" and LA County's "Satanic Panic"? 337
"Younger people know nothing about [our Satanic Panic of just a generation ago], and almost nobody is aware of its scale and duration and damage." True? 340
What's the harm of obsessing about flying saucers etc.? 345
Do you know anyone who believes that "everybody has been in on" a one-world government conspiracy orchestrated by space aliens? 347-8
Were the Branch Davidians fundamentally different from mainstream Protestantism? 350
What do you think of The X-Files? 354
WGU
Was Locke's "sweet" labor theory of value invalidated by the invention of money? 166
Do we have a duty to our own humanity to work? 167
Was Arendt correct about the distinction between labor and work, and about their rootedness in natality? 168-9
Was Rousseau right about the value of learning to work with your hands, particularly carpentry? 172
Do you worry, as Paul Goodman did, that there may be "no decent work to grow up for"? 173
Is it a "travesty" to call people who work in advertising "creatives"? 175
Is consumer capitalism infantilizing?
Do you regularly discard "unfashionable" clothes or other goods before they wear out or break down? Should you? 179
Do you want to produce something of value? Why? 181
Do you expect to find meaning in your work? If not, where will you find it? 185
You highlight in the book how many of Wittgenstein's own disciples struggled to understand the Tractatus? Do we have to accept that some philosophy is impenetrable? "Are there bits of philosophy that are very difficult to explain? I think there must be, just as there are parts of mathematics and physics that are just beyond most people. I don't put Wittgenstein in that category. Maybe I fool myself but I feel like I understand him and I don't think he is beyond explanation.
That "really vital question" about the future, that many of you answered resignedly (if not despairingly), is really about how we can act responsibly in our present... and thus become good ancestors.
Wales is a small but progressive country, the only country in the world to have legislated to protect the interests of future generations, the only country to have appointed someone independent to oversee this. Across the world, our systems of government, of politics, of economics have tended to act in the short term. And often, the decisions that are taken discount the interests of future generations and the planet. But in Wales, we're trying to change that by passing a law which requires not just our government but all of our main public institutions to demonstrate how they're acting for the long-term and how the decisions they take don't harm the interests of those yet to be born. And so as a mum of five and the world's only future generations commissioner, I want to share with you today some of the lessons we've learned about how we're trying to leave the world better than we found it... (transcript)
Sophie Howe is the world's only future generations commissioner, a new kind of government official tasked with advocating for the interests of generations to come and holding public institutions accountable for delivering long-term change. She describes some of the people-focused policies she's helped implement in Wales, aimed at cutting carbon emissions, increasing sustainability and promoting well-being as a national goal. TED
Puzzled Brit (and Wittgenstein biographer) Ray Monk asks :
America, how can it be this close? You're choosing between a narcissistic fascist hell bent on destroying US democracy and the planet and an uninspiring but basically decent guy who wants to do the right thing. (https://twitter.com/Raymodraco/status/1323929976677302272?s=02)
Apart from electoral consequences, I can't stop thinking about the huge difference in What It Means About America a rather small difference in the vote makes. If only 4% of us had voted differently, making the popular vote 54%-44% instead of the actual 50%-48%, imagine your mood. (https://twitter.com/KBAndersen/status/1324042963278876680?s=02)
We've become a nation of poor conversationalists. We need to do better. Maybe this will help. (And maybe some of this, even though the TED speaker says some of it is "crap"): Become a Better Listener. Your Family Will Thank You. Effective communication skills are more important than ever in our close-quarters existence. nyt 10.19.20
1. Don't multitask. (4:27)2. Don't pontificate. (4:50)3. Use open ended questions. (6:02)4. Go with the flow. (6:39)5. If you don't know, say that you don't know. (7:26)6. Don't equate your experience with theirs. (7:46)7. Try not to repeat yourself. (8:26)8. Stay out of the weeds. (8:46)9. Listen. (9:08)10. Be brief. (10:29)
Hypothetical Question: if you had the option of doing a 10-minute presentation during class prior to Thanksgiving for your final report, instead of a final blog post due in December, would you?
If so, reply affirmatively in the comments space below.
Five Books (@five_books) tweeted at 2:30 AM on Tue, Nov 03, 2020: "We have knowledge only of 'phenomena'—Kant's word for appearances; we don't have knowledge of 'noumena'—how things are in themselves".
FL 33-34, WGU -p.122. Reminder: before responding to the questions, read the relevant text as indicated by the accompanying page reference.
FL
What do you think of Marianne Williamson's "basic idea"? 295 Would she have made a good president?
Does Oprah live in Fantasyland? 296
Is Dr. Oz reliable? 301
Is "alternative medicine" respectable? 302
Is "the placebo effect" an example of the "law of attraction" in action? 304
WGU
Is Hannah Arendt's emphasis on natality as important as mortality, in defining the human condition? Would it still be, if we ever achieved natural immortality? 80-81
Is the US still a proud nation of immigrants, or more like those European nations "struggling with what they regard as the problem of immigration? 81
Are there ways other than travel to "experience the world as babies do" etc.? 83
Did your upbringing make it easier or harder for you to trust? 86
"Once you start asking why, there's no natural place to stop." 88 So why do so many people stop, or else never start?
How long would we have to live, to see this as Leibniz's "best possible world" 89
Was Hume right about the reason being slave to the passions? 93
Was Thrasymachus rignt about justice? 94
Do you agree with the cliche about socialism? 100
Is Hume's strategy for dispelling melancholy good? 104
Has the gap between ought and is narrowed in the world, historically?107
Was Nietzsche right about stoicism? 113
Is it childish to expect the world to make sense? 114
How can philosophy help us grow up? 119
Do we have a right to happiness? 122
And one more:
Did you vote, on election day or before? Was it your first presidential election? How do you feel about it?
