It is all go! I am planning a speedy return to pick up our new pup at the airport. She is a mix of poodle, lab and spaniel, a labraspoodle.
Later: She’s here, what a lovely little girl. We are very impressed by the place we got her from:
Emperor Obama
I have found myself increasingly angry, when I hear people still support him now after his blatant illegal bombings, his murders, because that is what illegal wars are, even when executed by drones.
I am angry, but sad because we have the same quest for world domination (he calls it leadership), disguised by the same rhetoric about “war on terror”. The really sad thing is how the bombing in Pakistan (terrorism in its own right) is fueling the anti-American sentiment. This is a war that America can’t win. But there will be many more deaths.
Weirdly it looks as if the European nations will be forced to make at least token support for American expansion. Will this stir up an anti-war movement in Europe?
Stopping American aggression, terror, murder NOW is so important. What is the state of the international anti-imperialism movement. Sadly Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hamas are in the forefront. Do they need our support? I can’t find that in me, though I am able to see how their plight calls for a fight.
Is there effective opposition to American imperialism anywhere? Will it come from within the USA? In Europe? In New Zealand who has troops in Afghanistan, and a new right wing government?
There is plenty of good information & opposition, from familiar sources, can an anti-imperialism movement come out of this?
Tom Hayden on Obama’s Wars
Warning of a quagmire, with a good grasp of the gloomy facts.
The ISO, on the case for getting out of Afganistan
Pulse media has an intelligent post on Obama’s murders and illegal orders. There is an exchange in the comments worth reading as well. This is where I got the Emperor Obama title for this post.
This is the empire we’re dealing with. On Obama’s brief watch it has already murdered Pakistani civilians. In this context, I think we should talk about the idiocy rather than the audacity of hope.
Blog Maintenance
Updated and tweaked:
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Writing Page
I had an old one from the website – now here as a page – see it in the Pages section in the Sidebar.
About this Blog
Updated it – better focus for this blog.
Sidebar
Organised & added links, added Tag Cloud
Plato’s Metaxy
I have several earlier posts about this but the link where I quote this particular essay has gone dead. Searching on a snippet I found the whole (?) item on a Japanese website. I don’t know the author or original source. The old dead link might be a clue:
http://info.bethany.wvnet.edu/wsimmons/Metaxy.html
I now have a Metaxy tag, which should bring up all relevant posts, though search works too.
The whole item follows:
Phronesis
Phronesis (Greek: φρόνησις) in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is the virtue of moral thought, usually translated “practical wisdom”, sometimes as “prudence”.
I imagine the word Praxis is in there somewhere, action and reflection. But it is not because of that idea I am blogging this. It is because of two references in the Wikipedia article to books that refute the use of physical sciences in the social world.
Phronesis is the capability to consider the mode of action in order to deliver change, especially to enhance the quality of life. …
Gaining phronesis requires maturation, in Aristotle’s thought:
“ Whereas young people become accomplished in geometry and mathematics, and wise within these limits, prudent young people do not seem to be found. The reason is that prudence is concerned with particulars as well as universals, and particulars become known from experience, but a young person lacks experience, since some length of time is needed to produce it (Nichomachean Ethics 1142 a). ”
Learning from experience is in there, but that is different from learning empirically, there is something else going on. The type of knowing that one gets from internal (moral?) investigation is qualitatevley different from observation of the world.
Here are the two books. I’ll add the Amazon links.
Bent Flyvbjerg, in his book Making Social Science Matter, has argued that instead of trying to emulate the natural sciences, the social sciences should be practiced as phronesis. Phronetic social science [1] focuses on four value-rational questions: (1) Where are we going? (2) Who gains and who loses, by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What should we do about it?
In After Virtue Alasdair MacIntyre makes a similar call for a phronetic social science, combined with weighty criticism of attempts by social scientists to emulate natural science. He points out that for every prediction made by a social scientific theory there are usually counter-examples. These derive from the unpredictability of human beings, and the fact that one unpredictable human being can have a world-changing impact.
Amazon Making Social Science Matter
Amazon After Virtue
Revolutionary Road
Great movie. (Spoilers coming up) Deeply disturbing. One reason is that it echoed my parents relationship. Really disturbing when John, the sane but mad truth sayer says: “I am glad I am not that child” pointing to April’s pregnant tummy.
I saw 1950’s lives described through the current consciousness. These people did not know about the 60’s countercultureal response to “empty lives”, 70’s wave of feminism, let alone the “me” generation of personal groth & self actualisation. They actually did well if you think about what was available to them. (My parents did too) They attacked each other and themselves, and oscillated between moments of false peace & dubious truth.
Disturbing too in that our lives now are lived with similar inadequate resources of consciousness & skill. We could see what they missed, but what are we missing? Kate Winslet as April sums up her own plight, but it fits the best of lives any time. This is existential despair that is hard to escape without deep love and acceptance of who we are now.
April Wheeler: I wanted IN. I just wanted us to live again. For years I thought we’ve shared this secret that we would be wonderful in the world. I don’t know exactly how, but just the possibility kept me hoping. How pathetic is that? So stupid. To put all your hopes in a promise that was never made. Frank knows what he wants, he found his place, he’s just fine. Married, two kids, it should be enough. It is for him. And he’s right; we were never special or destined for anything at all
Why “Revolutionary Road”? It is not hard to see this as a deeply cynical political analogy. All the way through there is comment about unrealistic plans. Mendes’ “American Beauty” another family saga, similarly invited to be seen as transcending the particular lives of particular people.
Future Primitive
I have just listened to two interview by Joanna Harcourt-Smith. I liked them both. Bill Plotkin has a braod overview of human & cosmic development and sounds like he would be a trustworthy guide to explore personal transformations.
Miriam Sagan’s story is the story of an artist & her life, particularly interesting to me on her relationship with her students. Also the interview touches on the parallel processes of the cosmic & the particular.
January 17, 2009 – GAIALOGUES: Interview with Bill Plotkin
Bill Plotkin, PhD, has been a psychotherapist, research psychologist, rock musician, river runner, professor of psychology, and mountain-bike racer. As a research psychologist, he studied dreams and nonordinary states of consciousness achieved through meditation, biofeedback, and hypnosis. The founder and president of Animas Valley Institute, he has guided thousands of people through initiatory passages in nature since 1980. Currently an ecotherapist, depth psychologist, and wilderness guide, he leads a variety of experiential, nature-based individuation programs. He is the author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche and Nature and the Human Mind.January 16, 2009 – GAIALOGUES: Interview with Miram Sagan
Miriam Sagan is the author of over twenty books, including a memoir, Searching for a Mustard Seed : A Young Widow’s Unconventional Story (Winner best Memoir from Independent Publishers, 2004). Her poetry includes Rag Trade, The Widow’s Coat), and The Art of Love.
Sagan directs the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College, and has taught at the College of Santa Fe, University of New Mexico, Taos Institute of the Arts, Aspen Writer’s Conference, around the country, and on line for writers.com and UCLA Extension. She has held residency grants at Yaddo and MacDowell, and is the recipient of a grant from The Barbara Deming Foundation/Money for Women and a Lannan Foundation Marfa Residency.
Psychotherapy Registration
I am now official. In the past my credentials were confirmed by NZAP, now by the GOVT. There are some pro & cons, but one pro is that for Online Psychotherapy clients can see my credential online.
REGISTRATION
From the 1st January 2009 you must be registered or have submitted a completed application for registration with the Psychotherapists Board of Aotearoa New Zealand and hold or be eligible to hold a current Annual Practising Certificate to practise as a psychotherapist in New Zealand.The Annual Practising Certificate (APC) year will run from the 1st October to the 30th September.
Mirroring & Cybernetics
… the ability to perceive difference is a crucial, perhaps a necessary prerequisite for spontaneity. I saw more clearly one of the purposes of the psychodramatic technique of mirroring, it allows information, potentially lost* to be maximised and responded to.
This is a quote from an article I wrote in 1987! My friend Don said he had something I wrote back then, he dug it out. Wonderful to see it. Thanks Don! I recognised it as something I had written, especially the typeface from my old Brother Golf Ball printer but that was about it, I recalled nothing of the content.
I quite like it though, and here is a link to the whole paper, now scanned and online.
Magical Negro in Chief
We saw Australia (the movie) last night, this led to the discussion of how there wqas something condescending in the way the aboriginals had magical powers. Then Amy showed us this item which clinched the idea of the archetype very fully, great article.
As usual I think the archetype is fine, we all have a wise old man in our psyche, but to literalise the idea is the problem.
But this is movie was not History. it is a fable, and so as long as we see it as that it is not so bad. But is the USA is literalising a fable, now that could be a disaster!
Magical Negro in Chief
By Bijan C. Bayne | TheRoot.comIn Obama, pop devotees of the black spiritual guide have found their ultimate savior.
Type SizeNov. 13, 2008–By now we’ve become familiar with the Negro Spirit Guide in pop culture. Think Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, Sister Act and The Long Walk Home. Laurence Fishburne in Searching for Bobby Fischer and The Matrix.