Saturday, June 23, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
Well, yes ...
... Scott McLemee on Mass Culture 2.0. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
What really bothers the neo-Luddite quasi-Mandarin is not the rise of digitality, as such. The problem actually comes from “the diminished sacredness of authority,” as Edward Shils once put it, “the reduction in the awe it evokes and in the charisma attributed to it.”
But it’s not that all cultural authority or critical intelligence, as such, are vanishing. Rather, new kinds are taking shape.
As Glenn Reynolds would say: Indeed. (By the way, here's the Britannica Blog: Web 2.0 Forum.
Someone I must read ...
... and maybe you should, too: More work for Margery Allingham.
I have one of her novel on my desk at the office. Maybe I'll read it while I'm on vacation next month.
I have one of her novel on my desk at the office. Maybe I'll read it while I'm on vacation next month.
What a surprise ...
... What Dickens Character Are You?
I wouldn't have guessed this about me.
I wouldn't have guessed this about me.
What Dickens Character Are You? |
 Esther Summerson, from the book Bleak House. You are the nicest person EVER! You have so many friends because you treat everyone with respect. You're also very idealistic and root for the underdog, which is ironic because you're mother is a Lady and super rich. You have many admirers but you don't seem to notice becuase you don't have very high self esteem. You end up marrying the honey of your dreams, Allan Woodcourt, who's a doctor! You go girl! Take this quiz!  Quizilla | Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code |
The rest was silence ...
... Today's Today in Literature email includes this from No More Words, Reeve Lindbergh's memoir of here mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who was born on this date in 1906:
She describes how, after a lifetime of writing and engagement, Morrow became increasingly and then almost totally uncommunicative: “Words were central to her life for as long as I have known her, and yet she appears perfectly comfortable without them. She does not miss them. I on the other hand, am at a loss. I am bewildered, confused, absolutely at sea, in my mother’s silence.”
I said this yesterday ...
... in a talk at the Franklin Inn Club: The Incredible Shrinking New York Times.
Shadowy angels ...
... Mystery writer John Shannon prowls L.A.'s dark streets. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The soul of brevity ...
... Ponder Post 1.
For what it's worth, the meaning of life has to do with the quest for life's meaning.
For what it's worth, the meaning of life has to do with the quest for life's meaning.
Holy sorcery ...
... Harry Potter Hacked?
The security measures being taken by the publisher to keep this book out of anybody's hands until the date of publication are such as to make me want to tell them to take their book and shove it.
Information and knowledge ...
... From Great Ideas to Our Greatest Opportunity - The Internet. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
"... I can’t see obeisance to authority as either a practical solution or a social good. Rather, let the principles of open societies flourish in a world made flatter by the liberating potential of the Internet. ... On whom then should today’s students rely? On a wealth of sources, on the thoughtful guidance of good teachers, and on their own ever-growing understanding—the same things as ever. "
Indeed.
"... I can’t see obeisance to authority as either a practical solution or a social good. Rather, let the principles of open societies flourish in a world made flatter by the liberating potential of the Internet. ... On whom then should today’s students rely? On a wealth of sources, on the thoughtful guidance of good teachers, and on their own ever-growing understanding—the same things as ever. "
Indeed.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Beware of information ...
... Information Ain’t the Issue . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
"... no quantity of information, however defined, will solve our problems or advance us in the project of building a genuine civilization. "
True enough, though I'd like to know who has argued to the contrary. Moreover, lack of information is certainly not useful. The title of the post indicates what the body of the post ignores - that this is not about about information: It is about access and authority.
"... no quantity of information, however defined, will solve our problems or advance us in the project of building a genuine civilization. "
True enough, though I'd like to know who has argued to the contrary. Moreover, lack of information is certainly not useful. The title of the post indicates what the body of the post ignores - that this is not about about information: It is about access and authority.
And by the way, though I admire Mortimer Adler immensely, I am not sure that everyone is educable. But practically everyone is trainable, which is why colleges and universities, as enrollment has increased, have turned themselves more and more into training schools.
Hear, hear ...
... Birdsong 2.
"... people used to talk intelligently about such matters, now they just lurch from one conceited category error to the next." And in the process, degrade science.
"... people used to talk intelligently about such matters, now they just lurch from one conceited category error to the next." And in the process, degrade science.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
These are fabulous ...
... Roane County Bucolic and Roane County Bucolic, Part 2. (Hat tip, Roberta Nolte.)
I find this bizarre ...
... The Counter-Information Age. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
"... we now have a whole generation of digital idealists who believe that information should be free, that it’s liberating, and that computers are emancipating our intellects, unbottling our creativity."
"... we now have a whole generation of digital idealists who believe that information should be free, that it’s liberating, and that computers are emancipating our intellects, unbottling our creativity."
Does this mean that information should not be free and that it is not liberating? (Actually, to some extent, it can be constraining: If I learn that Nepal is in Asia, I am no longer free to think it is in South America.) And it isn't computers that people say are "emancipating our intellects, unbottling our creativity." It's the access to the aforementioned information, which enables me to cross-check your vaunted expertise. This is the same line of argument church authorities advanced against printing the Bible.
Of course, what can you expect from someone who describes Gorman's critique as "nuanced?"
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Not so fast ...
... Atheism and Evidence. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This is a remarkable sequence. A very strong assertion is made – we will “undoubtedly discover lawful connections between our states of consciousness [and] our modes of conduct” – but no evidence is offered in support of it; and indeed the absence of evidence becomes a reason for confidence in its eventual emergence. This sounds an awfully lot like faith of the kind Harris and his colleagues deride – expectations based only on a first premise (itself asserted rather than proven), which, if true, demands them, and which, if false, makes nonsense of them.
Precisely.
Not keen on Keen ...
... James Marcus on The Cult of the Amateur: Talent vs. authority. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Whatever, it's working...
... Britannica Blog Link-Baits from Google to Copyright/P2P to Kids Today. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Inquirer books today ...
... Peter Rozovsky scans Swdish crimes fiction: Killing's not the key to Swedish novelists.
... and Ed Colimore talks to Jill Jonnes about Mary Cassatt's brother: Historian digs up tale of a tunnel dreamer.
... and Ed Colimore talks to Jill Jonnes about Mary Cassatt's brother: Historian digs up tale of a tunnel dreamer.
Paging Big Bird ...
... or maybe not: Giant Birds 2. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Almighty Evolution created a species called homo sapiens. Now the members of that species attribute just about everything that they deem is going awry in nature to the works and pomps of their own species. Mere hubris - though of a comic rather than a tragic dimension. Let the random fluke play out, folks.
God and Paris Hilton ...
... OK, that's a cheap come-on. But it has bearing, as you will see, on this post of Bryan's, and I believe Ms. Hilton took a Bible with her to jail and said that God was with her: Free DVD With This Post!!!
Monday, June 18, 2007
The debate continues ...
... The Importance of Critical Judgment and The Siren Song of the Internet: Part I .
"As various of the contributors to the forum have mentioned, if only in passing, what is more important than the quantity or average quality of information that is available is what users of it do with it. Here is where the phrase “critical judgment” or some such usually makes its appearance. What we’d all like is to believe that most users employ keen critical judgment in seeking and assessing information. What we rather suspect is that they don’t."
That isn't what we'd like to think at all - and we don't think it. The issue from the dawn of civilization has been the nature of discourse. It's a perennial. Where the information or data resides is beside the point. How it used by whoever uses it has always been the fundamental issue. The point of all of this verbiage seems to be to disguise the main worry: that anyone can have access to the information, that gatekeepers are no longer able to keep the gates closed to those they deem unworthy of entrance. It still comes down to the experts know best. Well, read Nassim Nicholas Taleb's the Black Swan: They don't.
"As various of the contributors to the forum have mentioned, if only in passing, what is more important than the quantity or average quality of information that is available is what users of it do with it. Here is where the phrase “critical judgment” or some such usually makes its appearance. What we’d all like is to believe that most users employ keen critical judgment in seeking and assessing information. What we rather suspect is that they don’t."
That isn't what we'd like to think at all - and we don't think it. The issue from the dawn of civilization has been the nature of discourse. It's a perennial. Where the information or data resides is beside the point. How it used by whoever uses it has always been the fundamental issue. The point of all of this verbiage seems to be to disguise the main worry: that anyone can have access to the information, that gatekeepers are no longer able to keep the gates closed to those they deem unworthy of entrance. It still comes down to the experts know best. Well, read Nassim Nicholas Taleb's the Black Swan: They don't.
A worthy compettion ...
... (sorry, Ed): Antioch Review’s Neglected Books Contest. (Via The Neglected Books Page.)
Get it right ...
... Telling your Mixtecs from your Zapotecs.
I try never to confuse them myself - but I am a weak and fallen creature.
I try never to confuse them myself - but I am a weak and fallen creature.
Nature moves on ...
... Giant Birds.
When I was a kid, I lived about a 15-minute walk from the Delaware. You never saw gulls or terns there. Now, you not only see them there - which is to say all up and down the river, way beyond the bay - but also here in the Italian Market (which isn't very far from the river) and even in suburbs like Abington (which isn't too near the river). Why? Fast-food joints for one. Also, animals are neither as dumb nor as programmed as humans seem to think. Wildlife in the city has less to do with humans destroying the animals' habitat than it does with many animals' discovery that human habitation is safer than the wilderness and has more abundant food. As the owner of an outfitters' store in Potter County (which advertises itself as "God's country"), told me, you can find more bears around Harrisburg than you can in Potter now - you can't hunt outside Harrisburg, and there's lots more garbage.
When I was a kid, I lived about a 15-minute walk from the Delaware. You never saw gulls or terns there. Now, you not only see them there - which is to say all up and down the river, way beyond the bay - but also here in the Italian Market (which isn't very far from the river) and even in suburbs like Abington (which isn't too near the river). Why? Fast-food joints for one. Also, animals are neither as dumb nor as programmed as humans seem to think. Wildlife in the city has less to do with humans destroying the animals' habitat than it does with many animals' discovery that human habitation is safer than the wilderness and has more abundant food. As the owner of an outfitters' store in Potter County (which advertises itself as "God's country"), told me, you can find more bears around Harrisburg than you can in Potter now - you can't hunt outside Harrisburg, and there's lots more garbage.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
The rest of me ...
... on Bloomsday (courtesy of Dave Lull): Changed, but still Joycean at its core.
Also: Hero of Joyce's gem gets 100-year due.
Also: Hero of Joyce's gem gets 100-year due.
Why am I not surprised ...
... that Maxine is a Julie Christie fan? (Is anyone not a Julie Christie fan?): Julie Christie is blogging.
Don't tell Richard Schickel ...
... or Michael Gorman: Bookshare on Facebook again.
This is just the sort of thing those people don't get.
This is just the sort of thing those people don't get.
Today's Inquirer reviews ...
... John Freeman revisits 9/11 with Don DeLillo: After 9/11, when lives lost their moorings.
... Roger Miller checks out the Waugh family: Analysis, great gossip from 4th-generation Waugh.
... Katie Haegele discovers how art is faring on the Net: State of 'Net art' way of the future?.
... Jen Miller weighs dog days in Manhattan: Brought together by their canines.
... Sandy listens, enchanted, to Khaled Hosseini's latest: Hosseini's second Afghan novel is, like its title, splendid.
... Carlin Romano finds yet another book solacing atheists: Slim, portable gift book for atheists. (I question whether Einstein was an atheist. He seems to me to have been a Spinozan, which is hardly the same thing. I also wonder about Voltaire, who I always thought of as a deist.)
During the past week ...
... Huntly Collins wrote a wonderful review of Jeff Gammage's story his daughter's adoption: An adoption story with beautiful depth.
... Roger Miller checks out the Waugh family: Analysis, great gossip from 4th-generation Waugh.
... Katie Haegele discovers how art is faring on the Net: State of 'Net art' way of the future?.
... Jen Miller weighs dog days in Manhattan: Brought together by their canines.
... Sandy listens, enchanted, to Khaled Hosseini's latest: Hosseini's second Afghan novel is, like its title, splendid.
... Carlin Romano finds yet another book solacing atheists: Slim, portable gift book for atheists. (I question whether Einstein was an atheist. He seems to me to have been a Spinozan, which is hardly the same thing. I also wonder about Voltaire, who I always thought of as a deist.)
During the past week ...
... Huntly Collins wrote a wonderful review of Jeff Gammage's story his daughter's adoption: An adoption story with beautiful depth.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Black dog ...
... is what Churchill called depression - by which he didn't mean just feeling down in the dumps. I've been down in the dumps a bit lately myself, but my fundamental shallowness always saves the day for me. Others aren't so lucky: Guidebook to Purgatory.
It is both brave and good of Lars to speak of this. It may be of help to others who suffer from the same. Let us keep them all in our prayers (one such person is always in mine).
It is both brave and good of Lars to speak of this. It may be of help to others who suffer from the same. Let us keep them all in our prayers (one such person is always in mine).
Yes ....
... Happy Bloomsday. (Hat tip, Joe of New York.)
Here (thanks to Dave Lull) is my colleague Eric Mencher's slide show that accompanied the special report we did for the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday three years ago: 100 Years of Bloomsday. My own humble contribution has apparently not been deemed worth saving.
Update: Thanks again to Dave Lull, here is one of my contributions to that Bloomsday package: Who's afraid of Joyce? The key to Ulysses.
Update: Thanks again to Dave Lull, here is one of my contributions to that Bloomsday package: Who's afraid of Joyce? The key to Ulysses.
The timbre of truth ...
... Myths of the Sioux.
The “timbre” of a people’s stories tells of the qualities of that people’s heart. It is the texture of the thought, independent of its form or fashioning, which tells the quality of the mind from which it springs.
The sin of boredom ...
... `Thankful for a Limpet'
A psychiatrist friend of mine used to insist that people have it wrong when they say of something that "it is boring." What they really mean, he said, is, "I am bored."
A psychiatrist friend of mine used to insist that people have it wrong when they say of something that "it is boring." What they really mean, he said, is, "I am bored."
Trying to remember ...
... Memory Unbound.
"In Call It Sleep I invented a victim to cover over the true me," he told Jonathan Rosen, who profiled him for Vanity Fair. But with his later novels, he said, "I tried to reconcile myself to the louse I was. Who I detested. I loathed. And maybe get the reader to do it too."
"In Call It Sleep I invented a victim to cover over the true me," he told Jonathan Rosen, who profiled him for Vanity Fair. But with his later novels, he said, "I tried to reconcile myself to the louse I was. Who I detested. I loathed. And maybe get the reader to do it too."
Down but not out ...
... Europe’s Christian Comeback.
The use here, in the deck, of the non-word prophesize is certainly alarming. That aside, the marginalization of religion in a society may not be good for the society, but it is usually good for the religion.
The use here, in the deck, of the non-word prophesize is certainly alarming. That aside, the marginalization of religion in a society may not be good for the society, but it is usually good for the religion.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Something to be sure of ...
... certainty sells: In the know. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The most intelligent thing I've seen said on this subject of late comes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb: "Religion has very little to do with 'belief'; it is an indivisible package of aesthetics, ethics, social-emotional commitments, and transmission of κηρύγμα, a set of customs and rituals inherited from the elders. Indeed the complication of 'belief' is mostly a Western Christianity type of constructed problems, and a modern one at that: ask an Eastern Orthodox monk 'what he believes', and he will be puzzled: he would tell you what he practices. [I discussed the 'amin' in an earlier note]. Orthodoxy is principally liturgy, fasting, practices, and tradition; it is an ornate religion that focuses on aesthetics and requires a very strong commitment. 'Belief' is meaningless; practice is real. What we now translate by 'veneration', προσκυνει is literally bowing down to the ground a very physical act [Note that I am not partaking of the current debate on religion out of disrespect for almost all the participants: aside from being journalistic in the worst bildungsphilistinistic sense, particularly when they talk about 'probability', most are not even wrong]."
The most intelligent thing I've seen said on this subject of late comes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb: "Religion has very little to do with 'belief'; it is an indivisible package of aesthetics, ethics, social-emotional commitments, and transmission of κηρύγμα, a set of customs and rituals inherited from the elders. Indeed the complication of 'belief' is mostly a Western Christianity type of constructed problems, and a modern one at that: ask an Eastern Orthodox monk 'what he believes', and he will be puzzled: he would tell you what he practices. [I discussed the 'amin' in an earlier note]. Orthodoxy is principally liturgy, fasting, practices, and tradition; it is an ornate religion that focuses on aesthetics and requires a very strong commitment. 'Belief' is meaningless; practice is real. What we now translate by 'veneration', προσκυνει is literally bowing down to the ground a very physical act [Note that I am not partaking of the current debate on religion out of disrespect for almost all the participants: aside from being journalistic in the worst bildungsphilistinistic sense, particularly when they talk about 'probability', most are not even wrong]."
Great catch ...
... by Glenn Reynolds: Adjusting to Climate Change.
"Human-caused global warming goes back 20,000 years? Who knew?"
"Human-caused global warming goes back 20,000 years? Who knew?"
A GOB miscellaney ...
... Further to the former.
With admirable succinctness, the GOB responds to Michael Gorman:
With admirable succinctness, the GOB responds to Michael Gorman:
Galleycat reports that a big-shot librarian has attacked web 2.0 culture. The fellow in question, Michael Gorman, has a few valid points, but he seems to think that the internet is incompatible with respect for expertise and scholarship. I think the reverse is true. I think the internet provides a wonderful route whereby one can access expertise and scholarship, in a way, and with an ease, which was not even dreamed of by earlier generations of scholars and experts.
But you see, Michael, Mr. Gorman is a scholar and an expert.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Barbarossa the Lion ...
... whom I have adopted as part of The Shameless Lion Writing Circle. (I am composing something in his honor, but it isn't finished yet.)
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