more like: The Men Who “Built” America
Filed in: the men who built america american history history channel slavery imperialism meme humor lol
more like: The Men Who “Built” America
Filed in: the men who built america american history history channel slavery imperialism meme humor lol
Filed in: acting performing philosophy existentialism performativity critical theory psychology self sociology
Being an individual or participant of any given society implies the necessary performance of a particular role or roles. In other words, every mode of occupation or even being (the expression of self, existentially speaking), is a role being performed like an actor would on stage. To be is to act; to act is to perform; to be is to perform, and so on. In that sense, the relative success of your performative mode of beings, whether it be a doctor, a mother, businesswoman, a soldier, an artist, etc., is fundamentally dependent upon how good one is at “acting the part”.
Filed in: james joyce literature modernism oneness relativity universality philosophy
"In the particular is contained the universal."
∴ James Joyce
Filed in: environment ecology google climate change climate shift geology natural sciences education urban growth google maps satellite maps geography NASA Earth Egnine
source: edwardspoonhands
Google Earth Engine is a joint project between Google and NASA that allows anyone access to a 30 year time-lapse of the surface of the earth. I made a video about how amazing, terrifying, and important it is.
Wow.
DAMN.
Banned TED Talk: Nick Hanauer “Rich people don’t create jobs”
This TED talk isn’t posted on the TED website. Why not? Apparently they feel it’s too politically controversial. What that boils down to, essentially, is that the conservative strategy of bold lies to suck in the sheep has worked, and now if the truth doesn’t favor Republicans or isn’t neutral, it’s considered politically controversial. How can proven information be politically controversial?
Nick Hanauer talks for six minutes on why the rich aren’t the job creators — and as someone worth $1 billion USD, he knows a bit about the rich.
Read more: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/05/11/banned-ted-talk-job-creator-myth/#ixzz2T7bg3rr
I
Filed in: economy politics tax the rich capitalism socialism business middle class growing economies nick hanauer TEd talks ideas worth spreading
Filed in: television culture industry media radio theodor adorno marxism capitalism max harkheimer philosophy politics political theory critical theory dialectic of enlightenment mass media social control corporatism corporations consumerism
The term culture industry (German: Kulturindustrie) was coined by the critical theorists Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895–1973), and was presented as critical vocabulary in the chapter “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”, of the book Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), wherein they proposed that popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardized cultural goods — films, radio programmes, magazines, etc. — that are used to manipulate mass society into passivity. Consumption of the easy pleasures of popular culture, made available by the mass communications media, renders people docile and content, no matter how difficult their economic circumstances.[citation needed] The inherent danger of the culture industry is the cultivation of false psychological needs that can only be met and satisfied by the products of capitalism; thus Adorno and Horkheimer especially perceived mass-produced culture as dangerous to the more technically and intellectually difficult high arts. In contrast, true psychological needs are freedom, creativity, and genuine happiness, which refer to an earlier demarcation of human needs, established by Herbert Marcuse. (See Eros and Civilization, 1955).The term culture industry (German: Kulturindustrie) was coined by the critical theorists Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895–1973), and was presented as critical vocabulary in the chapter “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”, of the book Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), wherein they proposed that popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardized cultural goods — films, radio programmes, magazines, etc. — that are used to manipulate mass society into passivity. Consumption of the easy pleasures of popular culture, made available by the mass communications media, renders people docile and content, no matter how difficult their economic circumstances.[citation needed] The inherent danger of the culture industry is the cultivation of false psychological needs that can only be met and satisfied by the products of capitalism; thus Adorno and Horkheimer especially perceived mass-produced culture as dangerous to the more technically and intellectually difficult high arts. In contrast, true psychological needs are freedom, creativity, and genuine happiness, which refer to an earlier demarcation of human needs, established by Herbert Marcuse. (See Eros and Civilization, 1955).
Filed in: Theodor W. Adorno adorno philosophy freedom politics political theory literary theory art theory liberty human rights existentialism capitalism democracy ontology
"freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices."
∴ Theodor W. Adorno
What If Gender Roles in Advertising Were Reversed
Filed in: gender roles advertising commericialism consumerism capitalism propaganda feminism sexual orientation sexual bias gender politics submission domination politics
Filed in: jacques ranciere critical theory aesthetic theory political theory art philosophy democracy aesthetics french louis althusser fuck the police education marxism socialism economy communism capitalism bourgeois proletariat

Who is Jacques Ranciere?
A French critical theorist and philosophical troll in a world of ivory tower intellectualism, bourgeois academics, and Jean Baudrillard, Ranciere stands out as a kind of anti-philosopher. A University of Paris professor and former student of Louis Althusser, Ranciere has committed his intellectual project to destroying its foundations.
While that may sound a lot like Baudrillard, who wants to remind everyone that everything is simulation and nothing matters, or Nietzsche who attacks the foundations of Western metaphysics, Ranciere takes a different approach. Namely, by accusing every other philosopher of being a shitty Platonist and hating democracy.
While other philosophers deconstruct the metaphysical tradition and replace it with their own project, Ranciere’s philosophy can be summed up by “meh, people will figure it out.” And thus we present: the thought of Jacques Ranciere.
#1 “Fuck the Police” is Pretty Much his Definition of Politics
Dissensus is the process by which actors disrupt the politics of the police.
You see, the police are all about telling you what to do and where to do it. Remember that time that cop got all up in your grill for skateboarding in front of 7-11? Or, if you’re a person of color, remember that time a cop arrested you and planted drugs on you for skateboarding in front of 7-11? That’s the police order; the partitions that the police put in place for what can be seen, said and done, and where they can be done. When that cop drove away and you kept skateboarding, you totally disrupted the police partitioning of that space (sort of)…
…That’s what the police order does, it tells you to take part in the fake politics – casting a ballot, going to a town hall – and tries to divest energy from what Ranciere calls real politics. After all, the Egyptian revolution didn’t start because people started sending nicely worded petitions to the government. It started when people manifested themselves in the public spaces that were once apolitical.
#2 He Doesn’t Get Along with his Colleagues
But that was just the start. Ranciere’s project became more and more defined as time went on. From a criticism of Althusser and orthodox Marxism, Ranciere’s message soon became “Philosophy – it’s a big bag of dicks.” Writing Hatred of Democracy, Ranciere attacks the Platonic tradition and ties it to practically every Marxist philosopher. He argues that everyone in the Western tradition, from Plato to Marx, wants to become a philosopher king to shovel Truth into the mouths of the blind ignorant masses. Ranciere carries this line of thought to his other books such as “Disagreement” where he accuses every theorists of democracy of being a Platonic saboteur.
#3 He Thinks Your Professor is Worthless
Ranciere advocates this form of “universal education” and says the traditional teacher/student model is only meant to perpetuate societal inequality and keep students in a state of stultification. Stultification – that’s a fancy word for stupid. The implications of this philosophy are A) You don’t need a teacher like Ranciere to teach you anything and B) An illiterate parent could teach their children to read by plopping a book down and saying “figure it out.”
The crazy part? This shit works, and not just around random corners of Europe where the tradition was born.
You know how your dumb ass can barely figure out how to change the settings on your Kindle? Remember that fancy college degree you spent more than $100k on? Well fuck you, because kids in Ethiopa who don’t even know what a tablet is can not only fix your settings but remove any pesky security measures while they’re at it.
You see, someone at One Laptop Per Child had the bright idea of just dumping a bunch of Motorola Zoom tablets in an Ethiopan village full of kids. The children did not speak English, which was the language loaded on the tablet, and they had never seen a computer before. Within weeks these kids were fucking wizards with the things so much so that they actually figured out how to jailbreak them.
http://critical-theory.com/who-the-fuck-is-jacques-ranciere/
Filed in: CISPA internet privacy american politics censorship digital rights digital privacy
source: futurejournalismproject
CISPA Is Not Dead
Visit Fight For The Future and CISPA Is Back for an overview and actions you can take, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation for background on the bill since it passed the House and what happens next as it moves to the Senate.
Meantime, the White House responded to an anti-CISPA petition signed by over 100,000 people with — in part — the following:
The White House issued a veto threat for the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) on April 16, because the legislation did not fully address our core concerns (especially the protection of privacy). Even though a bill went on to pass the House of Representatives and includes some important improvements over previous versions, this legislation still doesn’t adequately address our fundamental concerns…
…There is broad consensus on the need for more threat-related information sharing — including among the leading privacy advocates we regularly engage on the issue. The essential question on which people across the spectrum disagree isn’t if we can share cybersecurity information and preserve the principles of privacy and liberty that make the United States a free and open society — but how.
Related: Here’s something to chew on, via Wired:
A secretive federal court last year approved all of the 1,856 requests to search or electronically surveil people within the United States “for foreign intelligence purposes,” the Justice Department reported this week.
The report, released Tuesday to Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader from Nevada, provides a brief glimpse into the caseload of what is known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. None of its decisions are public.
The 2012 figures represent a 5 percent bump from the prior year, when no requests were denied either.
Image: Via CISPA Is Back. Select to embiggen.
I’d like better sources, but given the government we have, I fear this is all likely legit info. I don’t have the lung power for a deep enough sigh.
this needs to be brought to full public attention, again and again.
(via wespeakfortheearth)
Preview from the shoot yesterday with the lovely miss Estlin Love.
#studio #photography #trapeze #performance (at Out Of The Blue)
Filed in: performance photography studio trapeze
Filed in: politics
Filed in: Carl Jung psychology contemporary man capitalism philosophy psychoanalysis consumerism materialism substance abuse religion mental disorders faith neuroses
"[Contemporary man] is blind to the fact that, with all his rationality and efficiency, he is possessed by “powers” that are beyond his control. His gods and demons have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names. They keep him on the run with restlessness, vague apprehensions, psychological complications, an insatiable need for pills, alcohol, tobacco, food – and, above all, a large array of neuroses."
∴ Carl Jung
A satisfactory life worth living requires more than just a quick trip from point A to B. It is not the end destination, but the ascent, the decline, the obstacles, and the tribulations that color and define our existence. Every struggle eventually reveals in time, its greater value to every step along the arduous path.
Filed in: inspiration peace freedom comfort familiarity philosophy life fate destiny
source: thinksquad
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289
This is such a simple fucking point. Just look at the graph above.
Prison privatisation really takes off in the 80s (in response to increased prison populations from racist war on drugs started in the 70s).
There are companies whose entire existence depend on locking people up, and who are legally obliged to do this as much as possible.
We’ve put private corporations in a position where they can dictate to state governments how many people they must arrest and sentence to prison in a year. There are two possibilities here: either they have some kind of Minority Report style technology where they magically know how many crimes are going to be committed in advance, or people are losing their freedom for no other reason than to improve the bottom line.
And think about the way “business ethics” functions in the capitalist U.S. right now. To be successful, it’s not enough for a company to stay afloat and it’s not even enough for them to turn a profit. All anyone cares about is growth: the highest possible profit must be made this quarter, but next quarter’s must be even higher.
There’s a reason that graph keeps going up.
Conservatives like to trot out old sayings about how no democracy can survive once the masses figure out they can vote to give themselves the keys to the treasury. Well, how’s a republic supposed to survive this?
(via reagan-was-a-horrible-president)
Filed in: prison law politics economics corporations corportocracy supply demand incarceration capitalism free market profit incentive
source: questionall