What I Think About Racism

Racism is like criminality: it’s something that obviously shouldn’t exist but does.

Back in Business in New York City

I’m sorry I haven’t been blogging lately. It’s been hard with the big transition I’ve been making. I am now living in New York City and attending The New School. It is quite a change living here compared to San Diego. Here I really feel that I can fulfill my goals. Here there really is opportunity for serious scholarly endeavors–a whole ton of it. So now it’s just a matter of making the right connections and taking the initiative to take the next step when the time is right. I’m still only starting out though. I’ve been here since August 14th and have spent much of the time since just getting settled in. But now that phase is about over and I’m ready to move on to the exciting stuff.

So that’s a little background on my life, but I also wanted to discuss other things. Throughout the life of my blog I’ve been wondering how academic or personal my blog should be. I personally enjoy both types. UnderstandingSociety is my overall favorite blog and is almost purely academic, but I also enjoy Ben Casnocha’s much more personal blog, as well as some middle-range blogs such as The Sociological Imagination and A (Budding) Sociologist’s Commonplace Book, both of which are authored by graduate students. But regardless of the various examples out there, I still do not know where on the Academic-Personal spectrum I want to aim for. Any advice?

Friday Favorites

My favorite blog posts of the week (sort of…):

Chicago, Chicago that toddling town… cry or laugh?

“Scale” in history: micro, meso, macro

Wealth inequality

What does it mean to be on the left?

the real comparison between iraq and the philippines

Thoughts on the History of Enlightenment Ideals (and More)

I apologize for not blogging much lately. I’ve been busy with stuff related to my upcoming move to New York and transfer to the New School and with a paper I am writing on the history of Enlightenment ideals in America.

Writing papers doesn’t come easy to me because I’m what they call a “big picture” thinker. I just figured out this existed a few weeks ago. It was a special moment for me. I’d never read such an accurate description of the way I think. Here’s an excerpt from the original source:

Big picture thinking really is a sort of upside-down thinking style, but if it is truly understood, it has many ramifications for education. Many big picture thinker struggle with time management problems and underachievement (poor written output) in their school years. When we ask many of these kids why it is hard for them to start writing, it becomes clear that the problem is more that they know too much (and have trouble narrowing their subject) than than they know too little. Many confess to us that they read more the assigned reading because they feel they need to understand things better if they are to understand a thing at all. Many of them are seeking the overarching framework inside which they can put their new bit of knowledge. Often these are ‘why’ kids – who need to know why something is true, not just that something is true. For those of us who are content to be ‘little picture’ thinkers when called for, the drive seems a little arbitrary and perhaps fatuous- but if you see enough of these kids, it seems more than a preference, it is a necessary requirement for learning at least in some people.

Goddamn, that’s so me! But this is an aside. What I really wanted to blog about tonight are my thoughts related to the paper I’m writing. For some reason I thought that it would be easier to express my thoughts through blogging than through paper writing. But I feel about just as stuck. Basically there are the Enlightenment thinkers and their advocacy of critical thinking and denunciation of superstition. And then there are the non-intellectual uncritical and unreflective thinkers that f**k everything up. In the colonial and young republic eras religion was a huge barrier to critical thinking, but it wasn’t the core of the barrier, since religious beliefs are just one category of beliefs. It seems that imposed beliefs are the real problem. Really, any social communication is either critical or not. If mom says X is true and son unhesitatingly accepts, that is uncritical communication. If mom asks son, “What do you think?” and son says Y and then mom asks “Why do you think that?” that is critical communication. And so if pattern A persists through a persons life he will most likely end up becoming an uncritical thinker, and if pattern B persists then the opposite will most likely occur.

But where do I go from here? Why didn’t it become obvious to everyone that critical thinking is superior to uncritical thinking? Was it because there were so few actually preaching critical thinking? Was the problem that most of the intellectuals could not get passed certain ideologies? Were they really nothing more than clever folk with a knack for theory and abstractions? Were most of the people we consider to have been intellectuals really critical thinkers? Obviously this is not a black or white issue. Yet how can I move forward in my investigation of this? I’d have to analyze each intellectual on a case by case basis . . . and meticulously so. So you see how projects just inflate and inflate for me as I advance toward their solution? And thus I always end up needing more time. ‘Tis life for a “big picture” thinker. But really, it would all be fine if only the educational institutions would let me work on one big all-encompassing project throughout my whole career. Eh, well those of you who know me know that that’s what I’m gonna do whether they “let me” or not.

An Entertaining and Insightful Podcast

Here’s the official description:

Today’s entertainment industry is eliminating the gap between real life and fantasy. Popular television shows like Big Brother turn ordinary life into an engaging drama. Virtual worlds like Second Life give users a chance to recreate themselves with the click of a button. But how real is reality entertainment. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we’ll explore the gray area where real life meets entertainment.

Check it out here.

Blog Posts of Note

Here are my favorites of the past 10 days or so:

From OrgTheory:
variety reducing organizations
favorite org theory books of the last twenty years

From UnderstandingSociety:
Power elites after fifty years
How good is deliberative democracy?

The Future of Cities

I listened to a great podcast today. It was an episode from Smart City Radio titled “The Future of Cities.” Cheryl Dorsey of Echoing Green made some great points about what makes a good non-profit. Then in the last part of the show Katherine von Jan talked about the salon she organizes called VELOCITY, which brings together a diverse group of people to discuss issues, which avoids the echo-chamber effect of many homogeneous discussion groups (e.g. congress, academic conferences, activist meetings). Check it out!

Three Types of People

There are three types of people: those who are good at the game and thus want the rules to remain the same, those who are bad at the game and thus want to change the rules, and those who are good at the game, yet find the rules unjust and so want to change them.

Thoughts?

In Defense of Science and Reason

If only all the relativist radicals would listen to this.

The Virtue of Ignorance

I came across this great article through Ben Casnocha’s blog. The second paragraph gets to the core of the argument:

Little attention has been paid to ignorance as a precious resource. Unlike knowledge, which is infinitely reusable, ignorance is a one-shot deal: Once it has been displaced by knowledge, it can be hard to get back. And after it’s gone, we are more apt to follow well-worn paths to find answers than to exert our sense of what we don’t know in order to probe new options. Knowledge can stand in the way of innovation. Solved problems tend to stay solved—sometimes disastrously so.

Later, the author points out that “The word ‘nescience,’ which simply means a lack of knowledge or awareness, may be a more fitting term for us to use, as it does not carry the pejorative connotations of ‘ignorance.’” Indeed.

The argument being made is similar to the one advocating for intellectual integrity. I really don’t have much more to add. The message is so simple that its elaboration almost seems absurd: the path toward truth lies in vigorous self-questioning, which must be preceded by a realization of how little we really know. This is nothing new; Socrates made the same point over 2400 years ago; for he stated that “I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.” The path is clear, my friends. No more excuses please.