History, Evolution, and the Darwin Debate
Transition and modernity: the complexity of the modern transition, embracing and transcending revolution, and economic transformation, is the hard study for social movements of change, and a warning about the tendency of revolutions to fail (although the modern revolutions of the early phase up to the French Revolution) did produce democratic outcome in the end.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/26/occupy-protesters-bill-clinton
Zizek is a seductive rattle snake peddling Stalinism, torture and revolutionary liquidation in the context of the OWS’ somewhat nebulous ‘new and different’ activism.
I think that OWS is something more than a carnival, and if Zizek is so hip on Hegelian dialectic he might consider the complexity of real triads, Active/Passive/Reconciling being the old cliche. How about Passive/Active/Reconciling or Passive/Reconciling/Active? Moral: the affirmative thrust of old leftism is exhausted, and a starting point that pauses in passivity is not something I would start preaching to out of hand.
A better point is that Zizek’s style of Marxism and Hegelian dialectic is played out. And Hegel understood very little about the dialectic. It is not a safe form of thinking that can help the left at this point. A request: don’t corrupt the fresh minds of the OWS group with Hegelian drivel. It deserves the scorn that Shopenhauer heaped on it. You cannot solve social problems with dialectic, even if continued historical research into its logic can be of sideshow interest.
I share with Zizek the impulse to preach to the OWS people, but even a cursory study of leftist history shows the obvious: the left doesn’t have a real program at this point. A full twenty years since 1989 has passed and still the old left that has learned nothing and refuses to do its homework on something new.
For certain orchids, relatives more important than pollinators in shaping floral attractantsPhylogeny constrains floral scent rewards in a specialized bee-pollinated group of oil-secreting orchids
Human Brains Are Made of the Same Stuff, Despite DNA Differences
ScienceDaily (Oct. 26, 2011) — Despite vast differences in the genetic code across individuals and ethnicities, the human brain shows a “consistent molecular architecture,” say researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health. The finding is from a pair of studies that have created databases revealing when and where genes turn on and off in multiple brain regions through development.
Land Animals, Ecosystems Walloped After Permian DieoffScienceDaily (Oct. 25, 2011) — The cataclysmic events that marked the end of the Permian Period some 252 million years ago were a watershed moment in the history of life on Earth. As much as 90 percent of ocean organisms were extinguished, ushering in a new order of marine species, some of which we still see today. But while land dwellers certainly sustained major losses, the extent of extinction and the reshuffling afterward were less clear.
Face-To-Face With an Ancient HumanScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2011) — A reconstruction based on the skull of Norway’s best-preserved Stone Age skeleton makes it possible to study the features of a boy who lived outside Stavanger 7 500 years ago.
Plants Feel the Force: How Plants Sense Touch, Gravity and Other Physical Forces
ScienceDaily (Oct. 21, 2011) — “Picture yourself hiking through the woods or walking across a lawn,” says Elizabeth Haswell, PhD, assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. “Now ask yourself: Do the bushes know that someone is brushing past them? Does the grass know that it is being crushed underfoot? Of course, plants don’t think thoughts, but they do respond to being touched in a number of ways.”
Autistic Brains Develop More Slowly Than Healthy Brains, Researchers Say
ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2011) — Researchers at UCLA have found a possible explanation for why autistic children act and think differently than their peers. For the first time, they’ve shown that the connections between brain regions that are important for language and social skills grow much more slowly in boys with autism than in non-autistic children.
CLIMATE AND CAPITALISM
An online journal focusing on capitalism, climate change, and the
ecosocialist alternative.
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http://climateandcapitalism.com
Follow C&C on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/5teq6xm
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October 21, 2011 Read the rest of this entry »
ACLU in Appeals Court to Hold Officials Accountable For Torture of Jose Padilla
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/10/26-1
Kate Fried: Is the EPA Selling Out Your Water?
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/26-8
Kelly Rigg: The War Against Climate Science Unravels
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/26-7
Dean Baker: The Military Spending Fairy
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/26-4
No Escape from Screen for US Children
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2011/10/26
Glenn Greenwald on Two-Tiered U.S. Justice System, Obama’s Assassination Program, the Arab Spring, and Occupy Wall Street
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2011/10/26-0
When It Needs Them Most, World Turns Back on Youth
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/26-4
Violent Police Turn Oakland Into War Zone
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/26-1
Supercommittee Dems Put Medicare Benefits on the Table
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/26-5
Labor and Occupy Movements Continue to Stand in Solidarity
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/26-7
The 1% Enjoy 275% Wealth Increase
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/26-6
Amy Goodman: Globalizing Dissent, From Tahrir Square to Liberty Plaza
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/26
Temperature targets slipping away: study
The international community will not meet agreed temperature targets unless it puts the brakes on current levels of carbon emissions now, warn climate scientists.
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http://www.amazon.com/War-Worldviews-Science-Vs-Spirituality/dp/0307886883/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319652619&sr=1-1
I am reading this book, and hope to comment soon: I think that the duality of science/spirituality will go nowhere in the end. We have referred to Indian ‘Samkhya’ many times here: its history and real format (lost) is unclear, but it represents an ancient version of an attempt to boil science (not yet discovered, in India) and ‘spirituality’ and recast them as a single discourse.
In any case, the implications of Quantum Mechanics remain tantalizing, even as the New Age attempts to coopt it (next to mainstream science determination to play dumb) it fizzle out.
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Extreme Melting On Greenland Ice Sheet, Team Reports; Glacial Melt Cycle Could Become Self-Amplifying
ScienceDaily (Oct. 25, 2011) — The Greenland ice sheet can experience extreme melting even when temperatures don’t hit record highs, according to a new analysis by Dr. Marco Tedesco, assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at The City College of New York. His findings suggest that glaciers could undergo a self-amplifying cycle of melting and warming that would be difficult to halt.
Russia’s aesthetic revolution: How Soviet building still influences today’s architects
An exhibition of Soviet architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts will showcase radical work of great prescience and experimental power. And, says Jay Merrick, its influence is still felt today
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/26/the-anti-semites-of-occupy-wall-street/
From Frontpage: an attack on antisemitism in the OWS movement.
I understand completely the concern of Jews at this point, and think that any supporter of OWS ought to be wary of this rattle snake, one that could derail the movement. At the same time it is important not to be manipulated by charges of antisemitism into a silence about Zionist debates. Anti-zionism, whatever its problems, is not identically antisemitism, and to say so confuses the issue.
More generally, I think that secular liberal Jews should face the obvious: Shakespeare’s ‘non-wisdom’ on the Jewish question is coming home to roost. The antisemitic slogans we are seeing here link Jews and Wall Street (yawn squared, and cubed). Look at the sad case of Obama: a liberal, thought radical, presidential candidate entered the White House, and was visibly triangulated toward Wall Street fawning by a cadre of four, FOUR, Jewish economic svengalis, Axelrod, Ram Emmanuel, Sumners, and Geithner. The tringulation was disgustingly obvious, although I should welcome correction from inside commentary better informed than mine. To be fair, it was probably after the fact, and the real culprit was probably Bill Clinton et al. in the background. I do not say this is fair judgment, and I am not talking about deep reality here, but about perceptions. FOUR svengalis, of Jewish background, let themselves be seen as destroying the liberal potential of someone expected to a sort of FDR.
Even as a super-philosemite of longstanding I found myself head-scratching here. How could anyone operate in such a provocative style???
People with latent antisemitic feelings can, I would well imagine, start freaking out over this public relations bungle, a monumental botch of a great moment of opportunity.
Again, this kind of analysis is the royal road to prejudicial judgments, so let me repeat I am talking about perceptions, in the context of OWS protestors equating jewishness with Wall Street excess.
Five centuries after Shakespeare, we are all still in the same rut.
There is a disturbing undercurrent to the current Occupy Wall Street movement. It isn’t merely its passionate denunciations of capitalism and excuses for corporatism. It isn’t merely its perverse love for a president who has received more Wall Street money than any candidate in American history, and its hatred for Wall Street itself.
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http://chronicle.com/article/LoveAnarchy/129467: Love and Anarchy
Emma Goldman’s passion for free expression burns on
November/ December 2011
Dumbing Down Darwin
Robert Frank’s effort to explain the lessons of evolution without offending libertarian sensibilities
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november_december_2011/on_political_books/dumbing_down_darwin032997.php
By James K. Galbraith
I will restrain myself from foaming at the mouth and wait til I read this book. I should get a free review copy to pan it, but will probably have to buy it.
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