Psybertron Asks

Questia $100 per year plus for a subscription, but this looks like a really well designed research tool. Cannot tell how good the library itself is (except its size) – no preview of its index. Tempting – maybe a trial anyway. (See the flash demo.)

Where is Jorn Barger ? I queried this a couple of weeks ago on the WebSeitz Wiki, and it seems the grandaddy of blogging is truly AWOL. Eric Wagoner has created a Jorn search page too. Keep ’em peeled.

Last time he went AWOL in July, it created a lot of chatter about his personal traits and politics. Personally, as someone who finds him a pain communication-wise , having been on the wrong side of his kill-file from the outset, I find that although his views are extreme, idiosynchratic, arrogant and obsessive by any standards, I think he’s close to genius – it’s a fine line anyway. Less of a fine line is the distinction between anti-Israeli-politics and ant-semitism, but some people just cannot see past this taboo subject.

The web is a poorer place without this pain in the a*se.

McLuhan’s Next – Noticed earlier that Paul Kelly had many references to McLuhan, and others who refer to him, Levinson and Postman for example. Recently I’ve been intrigued by the level to which McLuhan’s aphorisms turn up in day-to-day day-job contexts, not least in a recent white-paper by a Canadian day-job colleague. What is it with Canada and knowledge management / blogging generally, a hotbed I think I remarked previously ?

Anyway, well into Rorty now, so preparing for my next foray, into McLuhan I expect.
This McLuhan web-site has a good timeline, biography and bibliography, so it looks like a good place to start. Must also ask Paul where he would advise diving in to McLuhan.
[See also Manitoba Author Index][And also Toronto University]

And also a Toronto University Blogger-based blog with exactly the same template as my original KM Blog Spooky ! or was this a blogger template ? A lot of overlapping links in the blogosphere too. Presumably “Mark” is Mark Federman, McLuhan Toronto course tutor and co-author of “McLuhan for Managers”]

I was ignorant of the Cambridge connection (Trinity 1936/39) until I read the above – must have crossed with C S Lewis judging by the timing ? What was it he said about the Global Village ? You’ll be telling me his regular was the Pickerell next ?

Another common theme in this space is late conversion to religion, Catholicism and a pontifical appointment in McLuhan’s case.

[Spooky coincidence no 347 in a series of thousands … the Genesis / Peter Gabriel song I quote in the footnote, includes a memorable McLuhan line too.]

Reminded by Dave Pollard’s reaction in the previous post, to an ongoing difference of opinion with a colleague, which I guess is a variation of the cup-half-full / cup-half-empty syndrome.

Life’s a bitch, …. and then you die ? or
Life’s a bitch, …. unless you change it.
Which are you ?

Dave’s “How to save the world” blog wears its colours on its sleeve.

Fourth Turning – Pre-9/11 (1997 in fact) study on cultural / political global cycles – no obvious mention of underlying technological / economic cycles, but worth looking for parallels I suspect. Doomsday / holocaust prediction of 9/11-esque triggered events – it was ever thus etc. Salutory. [via Dave Pollard] Dave throws his hands up in horror at the fatalistic conclusions of the paper – I suspect I’ll feel the same if we can’t learn something more pro-actively useful from this.

Emperor’s Suit of Clothes – News just in – apparently it’s an age old problem – no really ? Is incompetence the last taboo ? asks Seb. Now we’re getting somewhere. Incompetence wins where it is rationally justifiable.

Personal Knowledge Emergence – Great summary from Luigi / Sharewood Tidings (Robin Good) on effectiveness of knowledge emergence thorugh blogs and other de-centralised / peer-to-peer / interactive systems. Links to many other KM’ers in blogland. [Also via Seb]. You can spot the angle from the opening paragraph referring to Autonomy and Siebel as “useless shelfware systems”.

Oliver Wrede also picked-up this thread, and highlights this summary quote “In other words, content providers should not be trying to guess how I want to interact with their information. They should just be providing the information. I will customize my experience as I see fit.” Interesting in a day-job context where we are working on de-coupling “acquisition” from “characterisation”, and saying to source applications – give me your raw data – tell me what you know in your own words – ie don’t second guess how you think I want to see or use it.

John Patrick on Blogs – Ex senior IBM’er has his own blog and is interviewed here on Jay Cross’ Internet Time about the significance of blogs in knowledge management. Nothing new under the sun but …. etc …. [via Seb] CIO’s wake up and smell the coffee.

(Broad-band internet link from Aotou, China enables this post !) Finished Barfield’s History in English Words and started Rorty’s Contingency, Irony and Solidarity on the flight.

Barfield uses etymology of English words to paint a picture of the history of thought through language, not just through the stems and origins of the individual words, but most importatly through their evolving useage and semantics. (See the Aryans post below) He comes down very heavily on the side of the poets who’ve contributed the most – Shakespeare, Coleridge and Wordsworth in particular, and the Oxford English Dictionary as the best source there is (1953). How does one get access to the full OED, rather than all the various “concise” forms ?

As for Wordsworth he quotes the lines from Tables Turned …. Our meddling intellect, rhyming with, We murder to dissect. Apart from re-inforcing the death of / through logic angle – I couln’t help hearing “analysis paralysis” in murder to dissect.

“Sweet is the lore which nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mishapes the beauteous forms of things;
�”We murder to dissect.”

(Wordsworth, “The Tables Turned”, 1800)

Rorty – this is the first I’ve read since struggling with his Mirror of Nature, apart from his autobiographical essay Wild Orchids and Trotsky – Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. Apart from the preface and intro, I’ve read only the “Contingency of Language” chapter so far. Absolutely brilliant – natural follow on from Barfield. He very much supports the line that if its human nature you’re interested in it’s a work of fiction you should be reading, prose or poetry. Apart from the usual Marx, Nietzsche, Hegel, Kirkegaard, Heidegger, Dewey, James, etc, he relies strongly on Donald Davidson here. [Quote] Davidson breaks with the notion of language as a medium , and not for either representation or expression.[Unquote] Very much the same as Lakoff’s conduit metaphor rant, and evocative of McLuhan [and Wittgenstein of course, little did I know then.]

Also, of more than passing day-job interest [Quote] … the term intrinsic is one which it would pay us not to use, one which has caused more trouble than it has been worth.[Unquote] Tell me about it.

I’ve tried to keep Psybertron away from global politics subjects, despite noting the subconscious kick in the pants 9/11 gave to its motivation (see footnote on every page), mainly I guess not to overstate any impression of self-importance and to keep in perspective of what I might aim to achieve in my world of business, rather than the world.

If the professional philosophers out there will overlook my mis-use of the word paradox yet again, and permit me to draw attention to another awful irony in the War Against Terrorism – We really must recognise and address the Catch-22 in which we find ourselves (see the manifesto in my header on every page, and remove the word business if it helps).

Many commentators yesterday and today (including good old BBC Radio 4 Today) reporting with outrage the 100,000 protesting in London against the Bush / Blair policies (and actions ?) the same day as 27 die in a terrorist attack against Brirish targets in Istanbul.

“They’re protesting against the wrong thing, etc ….” Well, perhaps not so,
They are warring wrongly against this thing.
With me so far ? No I thought not.

Remember any one of my many dozen re-statements of the Catch-22 (Northrop this time) [Quote] The basic paradox of our time [is that]

“sound” theory tends to destroy the state of affairs it aims to achieve

[Unquote] (His 1944 scare quotes, not mine). When will the world wake-up ? 1944 ? Well I could find you quotes from 3500 years ago if you’d prefer, this “problem” is as old as the hills metaphorically if not literally – as old as historical time. Catch-22 is the paradox of all time. Older than the post-Socratic blind-turn. It was ever thus.

We could look at the choice of Istanbul – ancient Constantinople – the historical cross-roads of East-West civilisation (and conflict). We could speculate at the irony – the coincidence or synchronicity, or perhaps the pre-meditated point in the heads of the terrorist. Whichever of these extreme cock-up or conspiracy views you prefer, it’s hard to ignore the significance.

Anyway back to the immediate – the palace security breaches – whilst London is at a state of maximum security for the visit of Dubya ? The (do-gooder, woolly, week-minded, liberal, but inescapable) point is that the way to fight against terrorism is not with security, backed by super-power might alone. It’s a battle for hearts and minds too. The causes of terrorism. It always was and it always will be.

Is it the direct – actions speak louder than words,
or is it the ironic – sticks and stones … ?

And I say this not with some high-minded aims, but with simple personal motivation – everyone today is speculating about the next British / London target – I’m flying BA through Heathrow tomorrow, thank you.

You’ve got my point now, right, anyone, anyone who matters, Bush, Blair, anyone ?

To finish, a couple of personal ironies (I could do hundreds, but I wouldn’t want you to think I was some kind of mystic)

Also on Today this morning, Peter Gabriel being grilled over his efforts to create a live 7-piece band performance as a contribution to the BBC’s Children-in-Need charity night, and the suggestion he’s just a cynical old rocker looking to get his face back on the telly. To his credit, whilst being affronted at the suggestion, he actually said “well of course there may be some of that, but …”. Anyway my irony is (see that footnote again, that’s at the bottom of the page peeps) that it was Peter Gabriel’s words that came to mind when I saw those images of 9/11 and cried.

Also, on the doormat this morning, an invitation from my alma mater business school, to a celebration of entrepreneurship, featuring the upcoming success of a winning brand of Vodka called ….. Kalashnikov.

Don’t ask me to spell that one out please.