Category: ideas

Messing around with the notion of truth is a luxury that comes with affluence. We have spent the past 50 years undermining the basic institutions of society — not just our sense of common purpose and identity, but also normative values like truth and duty and expertise. The politics of consumerism — and grievance — have overwhelmed the politics of unity and responsibility. – The New York Times

Our disinformation metaphors help us see new possibilities (how might we “clean up” disinformation, or treat “information disorder”?), but obscure others (if disinformation is a pollutant, why is it such a useful political tool? If disinformation is an attack, why does it seem so sociological?). Metaphors shape our discourses, ideologies and histories. – Hyperallergic

“Without a written constitution in place, statutes are the U.K.’s highest form of law, and its unwritten constitution is a combination of legislation, conventions, parliamentary procedure, and common law. To some this setup may be odd or confusing, but my book’s conclusion is that unwritten constitutions can perform just as well as written ones, and that Britain’s unwritten constitution may be just as good as America’s esteemed document.” – The Atlantic

“The contemporary attack on liberalism goes much deeper than the ambitions of a handful of populist politicians. They would not be as successful as they have been were they not riding a wave of discontent with some of the underlying characteristics of liberal societies. To understand this, we need to look at the historical origins of liberalism, its evolution over the decades, and its limitations as a governing doctrine.” – American Purpose

“Definitions of creativity were offered; tests were devised; testing practices were institutionalised in the processes of educating, recruiting, selecting, promoting and rewarding. Creativity increasingly became the specific psychological capacity that creativity tests tested. There was never overwhelming consensus about whether particular definitions were the right ones or about whether particular tests reliably identified the desired capacity, but sentiment settled around a substantive link between creativity and the notion of divergent thinking.” – Aeon

A narrative took hold among critics of HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, The controversy, at root, wasn’t just about the journal or its editor, but also the ways in which contemporary anthropology is a morally corrupt, harmful institution in which the powerful prey upon the weak. – Chronicle of Higher Education

“You don’t have to be a big believer in the power of survey data to see that behind the monster stands meaning. Belief in the existence of monsters rarely starts with a chance observation in the woods. It requires psychological preparation. Often, a sinuous neck, a flipper, is just the tip of something that sits much deeper in the waters of culture and history.” – Los Angeles Review of Books

“History is studded with oddly salubrious side-effects to truly awful happenings. For instance, The Renaissance (worthy of a cap on the article surely), seems to have entirely ironic parentage. The fall of Constantinople in 1453? Terrible. But… to escape the Ottomans, classical scholars scurried off to Italy carrying armloads of ancient Greek and Latin texts. And suddenly Italy is rereading its past. . . and producing the present. Our present.” – 3 Quarks Daily

“Science has produced some extraordinary elements of modern life that we take for granted: imaging devices that can peer inside the body without so much as a cut; planes that hurtle through the air at hundreds of miles an hour. But human civilization has existed for millenniums, and modern science — as distinct from ancient and medieval science, or so-called natural philosophy — has only been around for a few hundred years. What took so long?” – The New York Times

It boils down to two concepts that sound simple but have profound implications: First, shorter distances are healthier than longer distances for commerce and human interaction; second, diversification — one farmer growing a dozen crops, for example — is healthier than monoculture, which is what globalization tends to create, whether it’s bananas or mobile phones. – The New York Times