Artificial Wombs?

Greetings Collegues!

I am packing up the Swiss Chalet on River Road and heading south towards NYC and eventually to JFK and a flight back to California. (My actual flight is on August 1; some family visits will occupy me until then).

I will add several articles to our blog from NYT essays we discussed in seminar, but, in the mean time, I found this essay via a feminist philosophy posting on a network to which I belong.

Let us continue to "think what we are doing."

I hope we will continue to use this blog for postings!

The wonderful video that Veena created is now in Drop Box. Anyone in the seminar who has not subscribed to the Drop Box should do so in order to access the files and projects uploaded there. I have added some papers by David Kettler, for instance.

In coming days I will add the video taken of Mark's staged reading of his play-in-progress, so watch for that soon.

Be well! Have a great teaching year!

Kathy

Kat's Collages

Katherine Katter July 2014

"Kat's Collages"

NEH Seminar: The Political Theory of Hannah Arendt

1. The table

2. Action (large)

3. Miracles

4, Dear Spirit,

5. Universal

6. Personal (notebook)

7. New York (notebook)

8. It's not the same without us...

Kat's NEH project/reflection

Reflection on our study of Hannah Arendt's Political Theory

NEH Seminar Project @ Bard College

Katherine Katter

July 24, 2014

What I Did on my Summer "Vacation", A Story "for the sake of a story"

Once upon a time, in the far hamlet of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I either saw a bumper sticker or a hoodie or something that said "Bard College." With the three brain cells I allotted to thinking about this, I wondered, "WOW, a place where people train to be bards! How cool! ... How questionable! ... How bold! -- Way to keep up the western oral tradition! Seriously, I wondered if they required people to play the lute. Oh, dear, What I don't know could fill the spaces between the molecules of this table (the one that deceptively only appears to be here)!

In the weeks and days leading up to this seminar, I was generally preoccupied, as I imagine many of us were. While I had read the NEH seminar site, as well as the Bard web site, uncertainty prevailed. When I mentioned it to others, "I'm going to study EVIL for five weeks!", people would give me a quizzical look, and then nod. Five weeks! Nobody seemed to know how to respond to the idea of studying evil. 

For me, Five Weeks sounded like unheard of freedom. I had the vague notion that I was heading off to some strange summer camp where my days would be spent reading a little (understatement) and going to class. I would have vast expanses of time to think and read and do art and wander around campus. I was pretty sure that my fellow campers would be cool. They were teachers after all. So I packed up my things, with a few thoughts of being in a dorm room. I brought my own pillows. I packed some silverware, mugs, bowls, and some napkins. And a few practical things, like a french press and a desk set. (Seriously, raise your hand if you've ever taken a desk set on vacation!) Oh, and a stack of greeting cards. I'm not sure why ... Oh well. 

The school year ended only three days before I had to head out. In those few days, I happened to take my son to an art supply shop. The clerk, Maddy, was a former student -- they're everywhere. She asked me what art project I was working on. Now, unlike my son, I have no particular skills with regards to the visual arts, but a few sheets of handmade papers caught my eye, so, when pressed, I said I might be interested in doing some collage work. Materials seemed portable and non-threatening. In no time, Maddy had me set: a range of special papers, art boards for backing/mounting, an exacto knife, a cutting board, a ruler, some acrylic medium, and a paint brush. I bought a large black art folio, and I was in business. Still, I wondered if I would ever do anything with them. 

Then, I headed East. 

Bard College. North Keene. There on the door of room 112, I saw my name on bold yellow card stock. I knew I would have to add something to that door. And so it began. I had seen something about "How do you know if you're an artist?" It was a flow chart. I took its light-hearted message and ran with it. It encouraged me to make art -- terrible or not -- and that became the first thing I posted. A deep saying here, a cartoon there, and pretty soon, it became a thing. I joked early on that it was my project. In truth, I was finding more and more things to post that were pertinent to the class. Then I read that Hannah Arendt elevated Art to be among the "durable" objects; "works of art are the most intensely worldly of all tangible things" (The Human Condition, p.167). Among the greatest acheivements of man, she says, are the arts -- poetry, storytelling, performance. Art provokes thought in the public and private spheres. It transforms feelings and has the potential to transcend. Both art and the artist serve as potential threats to totalitarianism. Perhaps that's why, as Professor Kettler said, those leftist artist-types were among the first to be killed in the camps. Artists seem to be the heroes, if Arendt can be said to have any heroes -- so long as they are not Expressionist Artists, for whom she had nothing but distain (The Human Condition, footnoote on p. 207). By the way, Milwaukee's Art Museum is home to one of the largest collections of German Expressionist art, should you ever visit, and I hope you will.

The time to decide what I would do for my project neared. I had (and still have) a long and growing list of things I want to write about -- lesson plans that relate to Arendt's writings. I still have to put my thoughts on standardized testing on paper. I want to work Arendt into my unit on 1984. I have pertinent stories to write, and I intend to review my notes and offer a semi-public talk about what we have discussed. Maybe I can work this into some professional development. I am sure some of these ideas will take shape. Some over the next few weeks and months. Some may extend beyond. I know I have a lengthy, but focused list of books, articles, and films that I have yet to enjoy, and I imagine that list may grow in the future, to the extent that we stay in touch. (Reunion in Beijing 2015?!) I want to thank you in advance for the various postings you are sharing, with lessons that I can adapt to the courses I teach. I have a sense that you have done some of the work I might have struggled to do, and I will be happy to rip off your ideas.

But back to my project. I took Kathy at her word that we were also here to renew ourselves. By last week, I was pretty sure that I would do collage work, I just had to get started to see if it worked.  One YouTube video, and a couple of collage "how-to" web sites, and I found information I could adapt, using the materials at hand: magazines, National Park brochures, promotional materials, even our text book, became source material. A special shout out to the New Yorker for its cartoons.

What you can see here today is a series of small collages, a larger collage, and a couple of notebooks. They are, for me, something new, so you see a beginner's efforts. A driven and devoted beginner, to be sure. I had to deal with humidity, the enemy of the drying process.  As you view them you may want to pair up and view them together -- make a conversation of the experience. After about five or six minutes, I will ask you to sit down and reflect in writing, I will ask you to respond generally and/or specifically, if something stands out for you, and I will ask you to write down any questions that come to mind. 

There is one collage that especially reflects our group. If you would please sign its back side, I would appreciate it. I mean it to symbolize how we are all creators of this seminar, this table-gathering. (This collage is now in Kathy's hands.)

One last note. I have had students create collages for me in the past. I have a whole new appreciation for the potential of collage work as a way to reinforce and reflect learning. The time spent perusing magazines was like seeking pieces to a puzzle. I was often in a reverie, sometimes a frenzy -- ecstatic to find the right word or phrase. 

I hope the collages speak to you. They reflect my experience here at Bard. I will find places for them in my home and at school, where they will remind me of this public/private space we created together, and of the affection we have shared. Merci mille fois. My thanks to all of you. Colleagues, collaborators, and friends. 

Three poems for you

NEH Seminar

Poems of Some Connectiom to Arendt

K. Katter

July 24, 2014

Three poems for you

Arendt elevates poetry as one of the highest art forms. It engenders contemplation and dialog. The meaning-making of any careful reading of poetry has a certain quality of natality. The italicized comments are mine.  

An appreciation of LABOR. Anti-utilitarian to its core. A reference to Greece. 

The everyday work.  I think of teachers as being like this: we "strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward" and "do what has to be done, again and again." And we aren't "parlor generals."

Poem: "To be of use" by Marge Piercy from Circles on the Water. © Alfred A. Knopf. 

To be of use 

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge 

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest 

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

A different take on the ideas of the mob and the mass.

I Am the People, the Mob

By Carl Sandburg

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget.

Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.

When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.

A new definition of "famous,"  this poem came to mind one day during class. It speaks, again, to value and purpose, authentic interactions.

Famous

By Naomi Shihab Nye

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,   

which knew it would inherit the earth   

before anybody said so.   

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds   

watching him from the birdhouse.   

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.   

The idea you carry close to your bosom   

is famous to your bosom.   

The boot is famous to the earth,   

more famous than the dress shoe,   

which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it   

and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.   

I want to be famous to shuffling men   

who smile while crossing streets,   

sticky children in grocery lines,   

famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,   

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,   

but because it never forgot what it could do.   

“Famous” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, Oregon: Far Corner Books, 1995). Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. 

Seeing Hannah all over the newspaper!

This is an article about tracking every cell in an embryo. I don't know that Hannah would approve, even if Aristotle was invoked at the beginning and end of the piece:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/science/tracking-life-from-its-smallest-form.html?referrer=

And this is an interesting article about collective mourning, written by a Dutch writer about how the Dutch are grieving "their" losses after the Malaysian flight crash:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/22/opinion/The-Dutch-Mourn-Flight-17s-Victims-in-Their-Own-Sober-Way.html

A propos our previous discussion on forced sterilization....I found this article via some networks I belong to.

http://mic.com/articles/92739/the-horrifying-women-s-rights-injustice-that-modern-feminism-forgot

Social media propaganda in Gaza

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/world/middleeast/in-a-clash-between-israel-and-gaza-both-sides-use-social-media-to-fire-epithets-and-hide-behind-euphemisms.html?emc=edit_th_20140721&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=66399329&_r=0&referrer=

This article about the propaganda wars on social media re: Gaza takes propaganda to a whole new level. "Benumbing" or dehumanization?

Between Past and Future

Written as a kind of private/public marginalia, below is a copy of my notes on the reading of Arendt's, Between Past and Future.  I was fortunate to have the time to read it this weekend and have already posted this on my Shelfari page if that is an easier format to read: 

http://www.shelfari.com/books/411018/Between-Past-and-Future/readers-reviews

(If it means anything, it's about 1,000 words.  I counted.)

Today's email brought an interesting article that a poet friend of mine sent about intersexed people and issues of surgery performed on them, to make their bodies conform more perfectly to an assigened "gender".

As my friend notes in her posting, "The article in The Atlantic asks 'Should we fix intersex children?' and sets out the problems posed for the medical profession as well as the social issues faced by the children and their parents."

Here is the article itself, which provides an introduction of sorts to the research of psychologist John Money on sex and gender, which was so influential in the proliferation of sex-reassignment surgeries.

My friend's name is Kathleen Jones. We are not related (though folks often contact one of us, thinking it is the ohter one!), but have been in touch in recent years through our mutual interest in writing. She has published a novel (The Centauress) on the subject of intersexed  persons, which some of you may be interested in discovering. 

We finished today's seminar by talking about Arendt's reference to the Unknown Soldier tomb:



"Action without a name, a 'who' attached to it, is meaningless...The monuments to the 'Unknown Soldier' after World War I bear testimony to the then still existing need for glorification, for finding a 'who,' an identifiable somebody whom four years of mass slaughter should have revealed.  The frustration of this wish and the unwillingness to resign oneself to the brutal fact that the agent of the war was actually nobody inspired the erection of the monuments to the 'unknown,' to all those whom the war failed to make known and robbed thereby, not of their achievement, but of their human dignity" (HC, pp. 180-1).

Such a monument to me evokes two thoughts: a) whoever lies within the tomb has been defaced, destroyed and decayed beyond recognition after the effects of warfare; but b) whoever individual a) might be, that one represents so many others who shared a similar fate and thus, to make a monument for each would require a field as large as the original battlefield.  In other words, there have been too many other soldiers whose bodies have been desecrated by warfare that picking simply one and calling it good will honor all of the embarrassingly high number of extremely-and-forever unknown troops.  In this respect, its ostensible honor detail merely covers the shame of warfare that reduces individual soldiers to an ignoble end.

Instead, I wish the words of the poet could be inscribed on a marker and placed near the tomb in order to smear out for good the lie maintain by the Honor Guard: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/dulce-et-decorum-est

Arendt, Plato, and Natality

One of the most intriguing parts of Arendt's chapter on action in The Human Condition is her critique of Plato and Aristotle's conception of politics as the craft of ruling. The belief that "every political community consists of those who rule and those who are ruled," Arendt argues, "rests on a suspicion of action rather than on a contempt for men, and arose from the earnest desire to find a substitute for action rather than from any irresponsible or tyrannical power" (p. 222). Action is associated with the human condition of plurality, and acknowledging this plurality also means acknowledging that action in politics will be unpredictable (p. 220). To the man who wants to construct a stable constitution - especially one that is grounded not in plurality but rather in the philosopher's conception of the eternal, unchanging good - the unpredictability of action threatens the "stability, security, and productivity" of the city (p. 222).

As we have also seen, Arendt's idea of plurality is deeply tied to her conception of natality: by being "born" into the world, newcomers have the ability to "[begin] something anew" (p. 9). Natality, however, pertains not simply to newcomers, but to all men who act in the public realm, since "action [...] is the actualization of the human condition of natality" (p. 178).

We can discuss further in seminar what we make of Arendt's critique of Plato and Aristotle's emphasis on rule and its relation to the public realm, but I think it is worth noting that, even in his Republic, Plato seems to recognize the significance that natality holds for the project of creating the perfectly just city in speech. Natality, he realizes, precisely because it introduces unpredictable newcomers into the world, will ruin the chances of preserving the perfect constitution of the city ruled by the philosopher-kings.

Consider the following excerpt from Book VIII of the Republic, in which Socrates discusses the corruption of the city into timocracy (rule by the spirited), oligarchy (rule by the few), democracy (rule by the many), and finally tyranny (rule by a single unjust man). Observe how Socrates describes to Glaucon, his interlocutor, the initial undoings of the city [emphasis added]:

[Socrates]: First, then [...] let us enquire how timocracy (the government of honor) arises out of aristocracy (the government of the best). Clearly, all political changes originate in divisions of the actual governing power; a government which is united, however small, cannot be moved.

[Glaucon]: Very true.

[Socrates]: In what way, then, will our city be moved, and in what manner the two classes of auxiliaries and rulers disagree among themselves or with one another? Shall we, after the manner of Homer, pray the Muses to tell us 'how discord first arose'? Shall we imagine them in solemn mockery, to play and jest with us as if we were children, and to address us in a lofty tragic vein, making believe to be in earnest?

[Glaucon]: How would they address us?

[Socrates]: After this manner: -- A city which is thus constituted can hardly be shaken; but, seeing that everything which has a beginning has also an end, even a constitution such as yours will not last for ever, but will in time be dissolved. And this is the dissolution: -- In plants that grow in the earth, as well as in animals that move on the earth's surface, fertility and sterility of soul and body occur when the circumferences of the circles of each are completed, which in short-lived existences pass over a short space, and in long-lived ones over a long space. But to the knowledge of human fecundity and sterility all the wisdom and education of your rulers will not attain; the laws which regulate them will not be discovered by an intelligence which is alloyed with sense, but will escape them, and they will bring children into the world when they ought not. [...] For when your guardians are ignorant of the law of births, and unite bride and bridegroom out of season, the children will not be goodly or fortunate. And though only the best of them will be appointed by their predecessors, still they will be unworthy to hold their fathers' places, and when they come into power as guardians, they will soon be found to fall in taking care of us, the Muses, first by under-valuing music; which neglect will soon extend to gymnastic; and hence the young men of your State will be less cultivated. In the succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost the guardian power of testing the [...] different races, which, like Hesiod's, are of gold and silver and brass and iron. And so iron [races] will be mingled with silver [races], and brass [races] with gold [races], and hence there will arise dissimilarity and inequality and irregularity, which always and in all places are causes of hatred and war. This the Muses affirm to be the stock from which discord has sprung, wherever arising; and this is their answer to us.

Now, Arendt and Plato don't seem to be talking in exactly the same terms, but it does seem that in Socrates' thought experiment, the corruption of the polity arises from the inability of the philosophers to predict how good or excellent the offspring will be.


Could we interpret this as an implicit (yet underdeveloped) recognition of natality as part of the human condition - something which even the philosophers acknowledge?

http://nyti.ms/1tNbVT4

Open the link to see a two-minute science video from The New York Times on space exploration and match it to this quote from The Human Condition:

"If it should be true that a whole universe, or rather any number of utterly different universes will spring into existence and 'prove' whatever over-all pattern the human mind has constructed, then man may indeed, for a moment, rejoice in a reassertion of the 'pre-established harmony between pure mathematics and physics,' between mind and matter, between man and the universe" (pp. 285-6).

"The modern astrophysical world view, which began with Galileo, and its challenge to the adequacy of the senses to reveal reality, have left us with a universe of whose qualities we know no more than the way they affect our measuring instruments." Arendt, The Human Condition, p. 261.

We won't get to the Archimedean point section in HC until later in the week, perhaps not until next week. But today's New York Times had an interesting piece about new discoveries in astronomy relevant for those discussions.

Keep it in mind as you get to the last sections on "The Vita Activa and the Modern Age."

In light of our discussions about inspiring change and providing models for students....here is a resource you might want to check out. The links didn't transfer to this blog, but you can look up Paul Loeb and find his work.

SUBJECT: Antidotes to despair: The Impossible Will Take a Little While and Soul of a Citizen

“Might possibly be the most important collection of stories and essays you will ever read." —American Book Association & History Channel

"A much needed salvo against despair." —Psychology Today

"Hopeful, inspiring and motivating...May well be required reading for us all." —Sierra Club Magazine

"The most powerful book in my 45-year career teaching about social change"—Dan Garvey, president emeritus, Prescott College



How do you break through America’s pervasive political cynicism and despair? How have the leaders and unsung heroes of world-changing movements persevered in the face of doubt, fear, and seemingly overwhelming odds?  In The Impossible Will Take a Little While, they tell us in their own words. After 22 printings, editor Paul Rogat Loeb has comprehensively updated this classic collection of voices on what it’s like to go up against Goliath, adding visionary new pieces, updating existing ones, and writing new introductory reflections. These stories don't sugarcoat the obstacles. But they inspire hope by showing what keeps us keeping on.

The Impossible creates a conversation among some of the most visionary and eloquent voices of our times--or any time: Contributors include Maya Angelou, Diane Ackerman, Marian Wright Edelman, Wael Ghonim, Václav Havel, Paul Hawken, Seamus Heaney, Jonathan Kozol, Tony Kushner, Audre Lorde, Nelson Mandela, Bill McKibben, Bill Moyers, Pablo Neruda, Mary Pipher, Arundhati Roy, Dan Savage, Desmond Tutu, Alice Walker, Cornel West, Terry Tempest Williams, and Howard Zinn.  See www.theimpossible.org

The Impossible brings together the voices of these eloquent writers and activists to talk about how we replenish the wells of commitment, exploring what keeps us going as we work for a more humane world. Loeb explores the historical, political, ecological, and spiritual frameworks that help us to persist—with concrete examples of how people have faced despair and overcome it. Some address our current political time, from memoirs of the Arab Spring to dispatches from the frontlines of the battle to stop global warming. Others examine how people persisted in past struggles that could easily have been deemed unwinnable: what it was like to confront South African apartheid, Eastern European dictatorships, Mississippi’s entrenched segregation, the bigotry that kept gays silent and closeted, or the economic greed that America’s populists and progressives challenged a hundred years ago and showed us how to challenge today.

Buy the book as a gift of hope for yourself or for friends (19.99 paperback) in bulk for reading groups and organizations (both The Impossible and Soul of a Citizen are great for motivating staff and volunteers to keep on with their critical work), and forward this email wherever possible. Visit Paul’s website to find excerpts, reviews, reading group questions, information on classroom use, and multiple ways to pass the word. The late Susan Sontag called Loeb “A national treasure.” And Kurt Vonnegut wrote “A lot of smart people who have some influence on the course of history will read and admire you—and learn from you.”


You might also be interested in Soul of a Citizen, Paul’s classic handbook for budding activists, veteran organizers, and anyone who wants to make their voices heard and actions count. Also recently updated with 150,000 copies in print, Soul explores how ordinary citizens can act and keep on acting even when we wonder whether our actions really matter. It explores what it means to leave a life of commitment: how we can get involved and get others involved in critical causes; how to get past the obstacles and help others overcome them; what we can learn from citizen movements of the past; and how to maintain our engagement for the long haul and avoid burning out in exhaustion or frustration. It’s inspired thousands of citizens as a guide to involvement and an antidote to powerlessness and despair.


“When my daughter asked from college how to be an effective grassroots citizen, I gave her Paul's books.”—Josette Sheeran, former Executive Director, United Nations World Food Program

"The voices Loeb finds demonstrate that courage can be another name for love."—Alice Walker

  “Should be mandatory reading for anyone over the age of 12—especially every woman or man who has traded ‘I give a damn’ for  ‘I give up.’”—San Francisco Chronicle

“A passionate but reasoned call for Americans to become involved in issues that matter.”—Chicago Sun-Times

“Soul is an essential book for anyone who wants to work for change. It will inspire people new to activism, and deals with cynicism and burn­out in a good way for movement veterans. Altogether, a wonderful job, rich with specific experience.”—Howard Zinn

"An anthology of some of the most powerful voices of our time."—Boston Globe, on The Impossible

“Paul Loeb brings hope for a better world in a time when we so urgently need it.”—Millard Fuller, founder, Habitat for Humanity

Hello all,

I again was reminded of some video resources related to our discussions that I used with my classes.

The first is a rather unsettling fan video made for UNKLE's "Eye for an Eye." I think the message is pretty clear, but I would love to hear whay you think. I have spent hours unpacking the particulars with my students. (Clearer Vimeo version to be found here.)

Like many UNKLE tracks, the lyrics are sampled, but evocative. Here is a selection:

Even now in heaven there were angels carrying savage weapons 

An eye for an eye
A tooth for a tooth 

Run, run, run
But you sure can't hide 

Does our ruin benefit the earth?
Does it help the grass to grow?
The sun to shine?
Is this darkness in you too?
Have you'd passed through this night?

Where you're going you're not coming back from... 

This great evil
Where's it come from?
Had still to end the world?
Who's doing this?
Who's killing us? 

Mocking us with the sight of what we might have known. 

Are you righteous?
Kind?
Does your confidence lie in this?
Are you loved by all?
Do you imagine your suffering will be any less
because you loved goodness and truth?

__________________________________________

And if you don't already use it, here is The Story of Stuff from Annie Leonard's storyofstuffproject. Brilliant videos for discussing obsolescence, economy and implication with your kids. 

Hollie, thanks for bringing up in today's seminar Jimmy Carter's speech about over-consumption. I looked it up just now and am including the link to a recent-ish NPR article about the speech, and the link (PBS) to the speech itself. Interesting stuff, particularly given our conversation today.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106508243

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/carter-crisis/

-- Suzie

Last night, I spent many hours watching the BBC documentary series on Auschwitz-Birkenau, which both felt important and was difficult.

Today, I came across this article about the experience of a Jewish journalism student at Sydney's University of Technology (technology!). The article has me swirling with the combination of the topics we are discussing -- technology, thoughtlessness, consumption.

The consumption of Auschwitz? The unthinking, casual question of "Have you 'done' Auschwitz to a visitor to Krakow? 

"Have I 'done' Auschwitz?... She knows this pitch well – it’s become second nature to her, the words don’t really mean anything, almost as though she’s asking if I’d like fries with my meal."

"There were 1.33 million visitors to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp last year. ‘‘You have to be honest about it – there are tourist dollars to be made,’’ Alba says. ‘‘We have to deal with the crassness of modern tourism, the flippancy of people’s remarks’."

http://m.smh.com.au/travel/travel-planning/travel-news/auschwitz-tourism-not-for-the-fainthearted-20140711-zt2rr.html

-- Suzie

From our friends in Korea

We are moving on to the Human Condition today, but I thought I would share this image from the liberal South Korean newspaper 한겨레 (thehankyoreh):

[Obviously] the writing in the white background reads "Israel" and the writing in the green reads "Palestine." What do you think Arendt would've made of this critique?

Kony 2012 and Sundries

Hello all, here is the Kony 2012 video that some of you did not see. As Veena mentioned, it is 30 minutes, but it is worth spending the time to appreciate what a masterpiece of propaganda it is. (Make sure to look for the "secret symbols" in the opening static.)

Below, find the "4th Estate" recruiting video that I find even creepier. (Right down to the horrible fake British accent the narrator chose to adopt--[for 'authenticity'?].) Here the eerily 1984-ish symbols are even more apparent.

And that's Invisible Children.

In other news, here is the link to my totalitarianism unit website (here is the direct link to the Orwell/Huxley cartoon).  I would LOVE ideas and suggestions. I will be migrating all of the information to a new platform once I decide what platform will be safest in China (and I will let you know when I do).

In reference to our Structured Academic Controversy from the other day, here are two of my favorite resources: Deliberating in a Democracy and Choices. On the DID page, just look for the sections on teacher resources and lessons; Choices offers outstanding curriculum units on a number of the topics we regularly cover in our classes. They also have summer Teaching Fellows program that is well worth attending.

Looking forward to exploring the Human Condition with all you good people.

RE: Crisis in Education & Spector's article Friday/July 11th

While talking in today's seminar about Arendt and Education, Liz asked Hannah (Spector, not Arendt) for what she thought a solution might be for what ails American Education and she replied...what we are doing...dialogue, discourse, debate, and discussion as a means for raising the issues and giving them momentum.

In yesterday's Washington Post, an article appeared that gives a 'ramped up' example of just this solution in action; four public school teachers were invited to the White House to have a discussion of concerns with the President.  Below is a report of that discussion.  The four suggestions to the President are worth tracking. Here's the link:

http://wapo.st/1qZy9zl

Mark

P. S.   I shared the link on my FaceBook and Twitter accounts just to give the article even more exposure. You, too?

TED & also Communitarianism

Dear all,

I have mentioned a few resources this week. Allow me to share.

One that I mentioned is a TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson, "How Schools Kill Creativity."

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity

Now, what I've been doing I my spare time, when I'm not reading On Totalitarianism:

Read on if you'd like a summary of Communitarianism. (I see much common ground with what we have been discussing.)

The term is sometimes avoided because people tend to think it implies Socialism or collectivism, when that isn't really the case. Modern Communitarianism perceives moral breakdown due to excessive individualism. One of its key ideas is that community defines and shapes individuals. 

It seeks to balance the common good with autonomous rights.

There are no card-carrying Communitarians, but you've seen the philosophy reflected in everything from Bush's "compassionate conservative" to Hillary's "it takes a village" and Obama's "age of responsibility." I see common ground with Hannah Arendt especially on two points: there is an emphasis on valuing pluralism, and there is a call to balance individual rights with social responsibility.

Some call communitarianism a radical centrist ideology. One of its key ideas is that community defines and shapes individuals. Communities, it says, are an affection-laden web of relationships with shared norms, values, and meanings -- perhaps a shared history or identity. Each of us is embedded in [multiple] societies/contexts not of our making. And individual identity is constructed in these contexts. (It's a bit of the chicken/egg question, and they say that societies come first.) A well-integrated individual is better able to ACT and REASON. 

(I think we see this in our students. Those who are strongly embedded in family and community structures are better off.)

The name Communitarianism may be unfamiliar, but many of its theories have been influential. Notions of "social capital," the idea of public-private partnerships, support for environmental protection, concern about the decline in civil organizations (from bowling leagues to churches) are all associated with Communitarian ideals. 

Its proponents voice concern for atomization of society; they hold that negative rights (such as the the right not to be taxed,or not to be regulated) are secondary to positive rights (e.g. education, housing, clean environment, health care, work). They note that individuals would have no rights if it weren't for society, and therefore the individual has personal responsibility to the community. They see positive rights as a way to strengthen communities.

Communitarianism criticizes leftist ideologies for failing to value local culture and identities; there is a dislike for centralization for its bureaucracy.  They see the welfare state as eroding family bonds. They do support character education.

Interestingly, the earliest Communitarians were British "Chartists" --a workers movement  (1838 -1850). They sought:

-Franchise for men age 21 and older

-The secret ballot

-No property qualifications to run for elective office

-Payment of members of parliament (so people who weren't independently wealthy could hold office)

-One person, one vote

-Annual parliamentary elections with one-year terms (an effort to stem corruption)

Obviously, many of these were eventually adopted, and we take them for granted. 

American philosophers re-discovered (Columbussed?) it in the 1980s. 

And here it is, 2014, and there is much to be considered. Two recent polls found that about 20% of Americans hold Communitarian views, even if they don't call it that. 

Regarding Austria

A few years ago, I visited Vienna and the Holocaust Museum that is near the center of the old Jewish community that was largely decimated during the Anschluss, or German occupation of Austria from 1938. A remarkable sculpture exists in the center of this quarter, near the Museum. It is comprised of a gigantic stack of books in stone, symbolic of the representation of the Jewish people as the "people of the book." Danielle Spera, whom I met on my trip, is now the director of the Viennese Holocaust Museum that has recently been expanded.

Almost the entire Jewish community was eliminated, with Austrian cooperation, during the occupation, either through forced or voluntary migration. Those who couldn't escape were sent to the killing centers, which only a few managed to avoid by going underground. Only within the last few decades have Jews of Austrian ancestry been returning to Austria.

In recent years, the question of repatriation of very famous art works, including many by Klimt, on display in Vienna's museums, have been raised by Jewish descendants of those who originally owned them.

Here is an interesting arcticle about this process of repatriation, and the larger issues about Austria's past raised in Sondra Perl's presentation and in our discussion today.

Two recent discussions in the NYT "Room for debate" provide a variety of takes on two issues we have been discussing in relation to OT: immigration, statelessness and homelessness, which Arendt discussed in the section on the End of the Rights of Man, and nation-states and national sovereignty in connection with imperialism and post-war boundary-making.

Here is the discussion on immigration.


And here is the one on boundaries and redrawing them.

These short essays might be useful for the Structured Academic Controversy process practiced yesterday.

See you all soon!

Reparations for Slavery and the Holocaust

First, I think this would be a great SAC deliberation. Last month's Atlantic Monthly had an article titled, "The Case for Reparations" by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

I went to the lecture by Sandra Perl on her latest book about teaching children of Nazis. She told us a story about going to meet a colleague's parents who were perpetrators and Nazis. The mother seemed open to dialogue with possibly the first Jew she's dialogued with but the father seemed less inclined. As I read the article in The Atlantic Monthly I came across some interesting facts (I'd give a link to the article but I subscribe and can't share):

"In 1952, when West Germany began the process of making amends for the Holocaust, it did so under conditions that should be instructive to us. Resistance was violent. Very few Germans believed that Jews were entitled to anything. Only 5 percent of West Germans surveyed reported feeling guilty about the Holocaust, and only 29 percent believed that Jews were owed restitution from the German people."

These facts shocked me.

On another note, today in the seminar we discussed at length about the fickle nature of taking on one model of instruction over another. And I wanted to say that in the end, it is students of color who suffer the most in the system based on dropout rates, quality of schools and instruction, etc.

"Long Time Ago," text of Leslie Marmon Silko's poem

Below is the link to the Leslie Marmon Silko poem I mentioned the other day.  You will find it in the center of two of her books, Storyteller and in Ceremony.  Why the center?  In Pueblo culture, the beginning is the center, out of which all flows (unlike a linear model).

http://inequalityinamerica.voices.wooster.edu/files/2012/02/Ceremony-excerpt.pdf

Mark

defining people

I read this opinion piece in Al Jazeera about the political motives of mass killers. We've mentioned several times in our discussions about who defines who is human. It's interesting that the author uses the word "banality" to describe the mass killings. I also thought it was interesting to think about who defines who as a terrorist. I think it's interesting to think about the recent mass killings as political. Although the author doesn't use the word "atomized" he is implying that these shooters are isolated  and atomized. Anyways, here's the article
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/7/the-political-undertoneofmasskillings.html

Contemporary Conscious Pariahs

Apropos of today's discussion regarding "double consciousness," and its relationship to the "Conscious Pariah" as well as connections of contemporary relevance, I offer the link to the "I, Too, Am Harvard" movement -- defining/preserving individual identities, while engaging society: http://itooamharvard.tumblr.com/ (video and individual "self-portraits")

I have also included links to two interesting articles, one by David Brooks and the other by Amartya Sen, both of which revisit Samuel Huntington' s essay "The Clash of Civilizations" and offer different perspectives with respect to the impetus for human unity and division, within the context of "civilization(s)" in today's world.

Amartya Sen:
http://changingturkey.com/2012/12/11/a-critique-of-samuel-huntingtons-clash-of-civilizations-thesis-by-amartya-sen/ 

David Brooks:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/opinion/04brooks.html

Religious freedom and "Race-thinking."

I have been ruminating about today's decision by the Supreme Court in the Hooby Lobby case, and one sentence quoted from Alito's opinion struck me in particular.

In the New York Times, Alito was quoted as saying he thought it unlikely that " 'publicly held "corporate giants" would make religious liberty claims. And, the article continued, "Racial discrimination," he said, could not 'be cloaked as religious practice to escape legal sanction.' "

My questions are these: A) does this allegation that racial discrimination could not be cloaked as religious practice fly in the face of history? and B) why does discrimination on the basis of gender get to be cloaked as religious practice?

I realize this slightly veers off topic, but it does address the question we were discussing in seminar today about what happens when social values "penetrate" the political system in such a way as to legalize exclusionary practices.

Thoughts for tonight, open to discussion and dialogue on this blog.

An MLKjr -Arendt connection

On civil disobedience:
We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. But I am sure that if I had lived in Germany during that time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers even though it was illegal. If I lived in a Communist country today where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I believe I would openly advocate disobeying these anti-religious laws ...

On just vs. unjust laws:
How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

On moderates:
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.

From Nina: "Forum"

I apologize for sending a mass email but we haven't come to a concrete decision about a discussion forum. So until we do I would like to be able to communicate to everyone in this format.

I don't say much in the seminar because I'm more of a listener and I process things slower. So I would like to be able to take part in conversations even if it's after the fact.

I heard Joy say that it feels good and it's a right to take vengeance. Having had a horrendous experience in my own life which put the perpetrator in jail nearly for life, I have never thought about vengeance. I have always wanted to go back face-to-face with that person much like the truth and reconciliation commission and have closure. And not feeling vengeance had baffled my mind.

In Beauvoir's reading I read, "In dying he slips out of the world; he shrugs off his punishment." I wondered if Beauvoir was against capital punishment yet she didn't sign the petition to let Brasillach off death row. I wonder what vengeance gives us. And it made me think of non-violent resisters who decide not to hurt the perpetrator for a moral high ground. I wonder how this and religion fits into the conversation. Doesn't religion guide us not to take vengeance? Or I could be wrong.

In regards to the appropriateness of neo-Nazis rallying in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, I think that on the one hand, in a democracy, we don't have a right to suppress speech yet look at what hate speech has brought about.

Well, thanks for allowing me to contribute to the conversation.

From Bill: "Some things I thought of sharing based on today..."

This quote from Bobby Kennedy’s daybook:

The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend passion, reason, and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American society. It will belong to those who see that wisdom can only emerge from the clash of contending views, the passionate expression of deep and hostile beliefs. Plato said: “A life without criticism is a life not worth living.” 

The longish PPT (it is due for an overhaul—it’s a bit messy) I use for my AP unit on Social Theories of the 19th Century. It shows the context in which I bring the Buck v. Bell case into my classes, amusing personal connections via Irish racism myths and truths and my past as a skinhead—if you explore, look for a funny picture of me—and the current activity of neo-Nazis in Brazil. In terms of teaching, elements of the PPT may be useful in some classes. Feel free to curate and plunder.

Finally, in regard to humor: Hitler Takes The IB Higher Level Math Test...

 Enjoy!
—B.

P.S. I tried to send the ppt via email, but it was too large. Instead, I added it to a new folder in our shared NEH folder called “Participant Share-Alike.” I also added the Benedict Anderson chapter, an interview with Anderson and an example activity I do based on Anderson. Kathy, please feel free to evict me—I just thought I would take initiative.

 Looking forward to sharing-alike with all of you.

From June 25:

All,

I was reading some posts from the Arendt Center and came across this one, written by Roger Berkowitz in 2012. It's about education -- loving the world enough to lead students into the world, to care for the world, to refresh it.

 I found it lovely (for lack of a less redundant adjective), so wanted to share:

Link to blog post: http://www.hannaharendtcenter.org/?p=7983

 Quote from Arendt (The Crisis in Education): "Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from that ruin which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young, would be inevitable."

See you all soon!
Suzie