What, Why & How do we Know ?
George Floyd Meets Wittgenstein Otherness is neither absolute nor meaningless, so it’s important we understand what it is if we are to be more constructive than simply engaging in binary battles between ideological extremes. ===== I need to write two posts, but they’re closely related, and this probably isn’t either of them. It’s my usual … Continue reading “George Floyd Meets Wittgenstein”
Queer Theory – A new one on me, something I know literally nothing about, but I’ve been following an interesting series of social media threads from @Glinner (Graham Linehan) doing battle with the more PC extremes of gender and sexuality “terminology” – particularly the “self-identifying trans” debate – and getting inundated in trolling and flak … Continue reading “Ain’t That Queer?”
Whether it’s racist fans in football, visiting fans at White Hart Lane, fans against officials in football generally or misogyny, LGBTI-bigotry, anti-semitism or plain disagreement there is a very basic problem at work: Sadly there are too many tweeters who believe that someone with a different point of view is a horrible person and deserves … Continue reading “Insulting the Other”
I use memes / memetics as everyday language that fits with everyday social-mediated comms these days. How much #Brexit debate for example is about snappy branding of alternative solutions to the mess we’re in whether they are Unicorns or Norway models? How much smear or rhetorical marketing is involved in alt-naming of just about anything, … Continue reading “Memetics – The Objectification Objection”
A short follow-up to my more detailed post on discussions with Dr Mike Sutton, presenting on his “Nullius in Verba: Darwin’s Greatest Secret“.[Edit note: emphases added.] Firstly I’m NOT interested in arguing whether Darwin (and his bubble) told any untruths. (Quite possibly, they may have, but it’s irrelevant. Sutton is making no claims against Darwinian … Continue reading “Darwin’s Untruths”
Helen Lewis conducted a long interview with Jordan Peterson for GQ Magazine and a 100 minute version is up on YouTube. The set-up is journalist “versus” controversial public person – “interrogates” them in a “dissection of masculinity” – was exploited by GQ, whatever Lewis’ own feminist agenda. Explicitly adversarial. (Lots of people commenting on the … Continue reading “Progress in Dialogue Again – Helen Lewis and Jordan Peterson”
One day, the point of this “Meta” topic will stick with my readers, but for now this is just a holding post to collect previous attempts and add a few new inputs that might help me clarify it. Back in 2011 I had Meta and Meta#2 attempts (*). Meta itself as a concept runs through … Continue reading “Meta#3”
So far I’ve only seen the Simon Sharma first excellent episode of BBC2’s Civilisations, but plan on catching up. This morning I read Kenan Malik’s review piece from the Observer, and right now I’m listening to all three presenters with Andrew Marr on BBC R4 Start the Week. Malik’s excellent piece sees a lot of … Continue reading “Civilisations”
The idea of an intellectual dark web sounds subversively negative, but it is a term coined by economist Eric Weinstein I originally picked-up from Jacob Kishere in his Medium post “What is driving the rise of the ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ ?“. A version of that same piece has also been published by Conatus News. I’ve linked … Continue reading “The Intellectual Dark Web – a Sign of the Times?”
Great edition of Start the Week with Tom Sutcliffe talking to Peter Carey, Afua Hirsch and Geert Mak. Listening in the background, but clear message that difference – (historical, geographical, biological) – matters, it’s valuable. Words for “other” have evolved in context. Denying it is ignorant, simply insulting. [Previously on Psybertron: Identity Beyond Politics and Good … Continue reading “Identity and Misguided Political Correctness”