Host: Zoom session due to pandemic
Date: Friday, March 27th at 6pm
Topic: The group decided on going with a topic that allows us to listen to a podcast episode or TED talk/lecture together at this session, and then discuss the podcast episode/topic after. We did this the one time with Laughter with much enjoyment. See possible topics voted on below. Final topic voted was Anil Seth’s TED talk “Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality.” https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality/up-next
Poll for topics: https://doodle.com/poll/8mqha9fgya44fzzk
Monday, January 27, 2020
Monday, January 13, 2020
Banter 54: Elitism
Topic: Elitism
Date:
Saturday, January 25th at 4pm
Chris Holdhusen's house
Becoming
interested in the topic of elitism might willfully take us up, down, and under
all manner of our habits, tendencies, and limitations with our concepts of
social class or groups that we are and aren't a part of; particularly, it seems
worth noting, with more and more clarity, our own placement within a social
class or various social groups and how that impacts our point of view,
behaviors, use of language, and every other aspect of how we see and make our
way through interactions, sense of self, and the world. Some of us will
likely be interested in how Trumpsters see liberals as elites, and how this has
led to a dismantling of facts, experts, science, academic voices being valued
by a large portion of the country and media; others will likely be interested
in elitism on smaller scale interactions we have in the aisles of grocery
stores or at school drop off/pick up or in other daily social interactions with
those in and outside of your social groups/class; and others will be interested
in the concept historically, across cultures, philosophically, psychologically,
and so on. Bring all layers of this topic to the table via your
contributions below.
Here
are some preliminary articles to get started if you want a briefing of how
elitism has been used in some of the media lately:
"Which
Force is More Harmful to the Arts: Elitism or Populism?" from the NY
Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/books/review/which-force-is-more-harmful-to-the-arts-elitism-or-populism.html
"In
Defense of Kenny G" from Jacobin magazine: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/01/kenny-g-gorelick-jazz-blues-criticism-analysis-music
"Americans are Fast to Judge Social Class" in Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/americans-are-fast-to-judge-social-class1/
Sabine's interest and contribution:
Coming from two sets of grandparents who lived very different quality of lives pre- and post-WWII in Berlin, and later finding myself with one foot in the kitchens of rural Wisconsin dairy farmers (stepmom's family), one foot in the kitchens of my German grandmothers, one hand in the kitchens of the Blackfeet reservation, and one hand in the kitchens that make up a ski town (lofty log mansions to trailers and cabins without enough heat), I have had a sense of how much each set of people are putting their all into the foods they are used to or value or lucked out in having at all. I've loved being in each one of those kitchens, and have grown my tastebuds on all of it.
The first time I had a sense of judgment of other people's kitchens it came from my mom distinguishing that we did not eat maple syrup on our pancakes, other people did that; we rolled ours (crepes) in fine sugar. In my mind though, while swallowing my very tasty crepes, I thought of how I very much enjoyed fluffy buttermilk pancakes with loads of Aunt Jemima knock off syrup with my young divorced dad, later with my stepmom's family, at Wisconsin restaurants with my cousins, so I knew that this "we" she was referring to had little to do with what I did eat, but had to do with a group she wanted me to be part of and, conversely, a group she didn't approve of, nor want me to be part of.
Now, part of this is complicated (as always with human behaviors & rudenesses), as she and my grandparents were grieving a loss of Germany and all things German, and trying to keep hold of that for their families even while integrating into America. Part of her phrasing had to do with assuring my sense of being German over being American, and part of me is very grateful for that. The other part cringed and planned never to allot people's food preferences as below or above mine.
The second time I came across this off-color sense of judgement in an equally jarring way was at the local Montessori preschool, among mommies who were eliminating sugar for their children, only feeding them organic, requiring it be so also parties, and so on. I reacted viscerally as though a spoon had gagged me, as well as I felt a flash of anger in defense of all those kitchens I've known whose cooks would not feel anything other than bad about themselves and very snubbed should they be privy to bring an item to such a potluck or preschool bbq or birthday party, only to realize it isn't going to be eaten by this set. Thankfully these groups rarely cross over, so my rural Wisconsin family or my rez friends haven't been at any Whitefish potlucks or bday parties to experience this elitism. Yet it is that lack of cross over that is precisely the problem as well. The lack of weighted, caring awareness of those outside of one's own means, insights, habits, and class is as common among all strata of humans as Wonder Bread and jello wigglers are in rural Wisconsin kitchens. Marie Antoinette's lack of purview outside of her own context comes to mind as an easy example to clarify what I'm trying to bumble my way through saying:
"Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!” Though to be accurate (and elitist in that need for accuracy and awareness of Antoinette being German and French speaking), she said, upon finding out that the peasants had no bread, "Let them eat brioche!" which was even more out of the peasants' reach than the basic bread they couldn't acquire. "Let them eat organic, stevia or honey sweetened, dye free, heirloom, local, hormone free foods and have the time, insight, different family traditions to do so, so that my child doesn't have to be exposed to what your family has survived on for at least three generations!" Getting off my own rude soapbox, this does tie into a decent scholarly article titled " Let Them Eat Cake, Caviar, Organic, and Whole Foods: American Elitism, White Trash Dinner Parties, and Diet" which I'll have to email to the group as I only have a pdf and no way of attaching it here on the blog.
From Chris / Lynda:
Brainpickings blog, such as:
https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/12/27/in-praise-of-idleness-bertrand-russell/
or, https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/11/25/the-school-of-life-book/?mc_cid=3342fcd10c&mc_eid=20675c7769
From Isaac:
"I was looking for something on inequality and civilizational collapse, and found a bunch of stuff suggesting that it was inevitable...but chose to go with this instead. I listened to the audible version:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/02/the-rich-cant-get-richer-forever-can-they?fbclid=IwAR1WGSoPJq95Me90QHBo3_wG8pR0vRmrKQbZ9vzr6dJ2kBXWYV29k5hn_70
Also from the below resource, "Those participants who had spent time thinking about how much better off they were compared to others ended up taking significantly more candy for themselves -- leaving less for the children."
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/?fbclid=IwAR1oJJIoeXNlvcGl7pPjVNJwG_HiGeTjj2HzN-cR0YNgZJwMMm_-NsyzVM4
From Mitch:
‘Elite’, to my ears, is more often used as a positive word than ‘elitist’, which seems has negative connotations (and hints at pomposity and exclusion).
In my field of work hotshot crews are often described as ‘elite firefighting crews’. To me, this is meant in the sense of being highly specialized, well trained, and experienced for their particular niche of work, but many dictionary definitions of elite include words like ’superior’, ‘best’, ‘most powerful’. Those broad, all-encompassing usages of the word have caused me to bristle.
Not to be pedantic, but I’m wondering if the meaning of the word has changed, over time?
Elite, to me, is a descriptive and complimentary word to be used to describe others for being ’specialized’, ‘expert’, ‘highly trained’.…to use it to describe yourself is, well, elitist.
I saw a short video of Richard Dawkins where he made the point that most people want their doctors and pilots to be elite. I want all specialists to be elite, I don’t want them to be elitist.
The first that I heard the word ‘elite’ being used in politics, and always negatively, was during the Obama administration.
Since that time, the word seems to have become code for those who see intelligent and well-spoken political leaders, teachers, experts, and scientists as suspect. To be sure, a lot of elites are pompous asses and snobs, which doesn’t help but, politically, I see the term being used in a new fashion….a ‘my opinion is as valid as your experience and education’ attitude that seems to be getting worse in our society.
I would be interested in discussing the opposite of elite, as well. Are there any good antonyms for the word? I can’t think of a good single term, but there are two tangential topics from the reverse side of the elite coin that would be fun to discuss. One is the Dunning-Krueger effect (see image, below) and the other is the Galileo Gambit Fallacy (which asserts that if your ideas are met with ridicule from the establishment, that they must be right).
At the risk of falling into Dunning-Kruger myself (if I haven't already), I will close with a quote from the elitist author and professor, Isaac Asimov (what a snob):
The full context for the above quote is in the short article from 1980 (so, it appears, this whole anti-intellectual thing is not such a new phenomena?
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Banter 53: Evolutionary Psychology (of Shame, of Love, of Empathy...; as a faux science?; etc.)
Sunday, December 8th at 3pm
Host: Chris Holdhusen
We went with the broad topic of Evolutionary Psychology but hope that you'll each help narrow this based on what you are interested in within evolutionary psychology, or in showing the problematic aspects of evolutionary psychology. The associated contribution you make (article, chapter, podcast, reflections of your own, TED talk, etc.) will facilitate this. Please send your contribution to Sabine via email by Dec. 1. Those contributions will be posted below.
Some preliminary ideas to get us started thinking about this topic:
Lecture: "Evolutionary Psychology: An Introduction" - Dr. Diana Fleischman
Article: "Seven Key Misconceptions about Evolutionary Psychology" by Laith Al-Shawaf, Ph.D.
https://areomagazine.com/2019/08/20/seven-key-misconceptions-about- evolutionary-psychology/
From Sabine:
After having followed an array of pretty solid academic trains of thought (incl. entertaining articles & conversations with a couple of UM profs - Abhishek and also his friend Nathan, a neurobiologist) that debunk evolutionary psychology, I do still have interest in it, but more so from the perspective of what the field might do next to bring itself more up to speed with the methodology that biology and the other sciences assume as standard fare. I'm also very interested in how a couple of women (well-respected even by the naysayers of EP) are contributing to EP from an interdisciplinary approach. One is a philosopher, Janet Radcliffe Richards, and the other is an anthropologist and primatologist, Sara Blaffer Hrdy. Richards says EP isn't all bad, but is certainly asking the wrong questions, but that asking the questions it is at all will help us come up with better questions to ask. Hrdy is a hands on researcher interested in getting at, among other things, becoming more precise as to the sources of human propensity for working together/empathy/sharing; she attests that it has been wrongly assumed by the social sciences for too long that our empathetic/social human wiring derives from survival due to warring conditions that made humans work together in order to succeed more, which led to brains wired to work together more via evolutionary selection, and so on. Hrdy says that our empathy/social human wiring likely derives first from the way early humans raised their children, making us and our predecessors much more like tamarins and marmosets than like chimpanzees and gorillas. Sadly/interestingly, she finds that like tamarins and marmosets we are in such need for social support and shared care of raising children (alloparenting), that when we don't have it, abandoning of newborns, etc. occurs also in humans. This has never been observed to happen in other primates, except for tamarins and marmosets. Hrdy concedes that warring conditions later in our human history perhaps further solidified this already present social wiring.
One of EP's biggest critics is PZ Myers who is worth listening to here to understand the ways it seems that evolutionary psychologists seem to be often misusing or misunderstanding key principles of evolution. His talk (linked in previous sentence) is long, but I think useful to listen to for a primer in evolution. Perhaps it would have been best for our group to dive first into readings on evolution, historically and contemporarily, and then take on evolutionary psychology so as to be able to weigh in more informedly on how EPs are using/misusing evolution in their field. I know that I don't understand evolution enough, particularly where the field of evolutionary research is now, to use it to critique or weigh in on how the evolutionary psychologists are or aren't misusing it. Neil Shubin's "Your Inner Fish"concept is helpful in reviewing key concepts of evolution as well, and works particularly well for me since I generally disdain the humancentric approach of all fields, thinking us something special or fairly removed from the line of animals from which we've descended, brain/language/emotions/opposable thumbs/relationships included. PBS did a series on Shubin's concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8ttoKGxEKc
I'm throwing a lot at you here, so if you only have time for a couple of my contributions, these below are the voices I most wish you to hear:
Take a listen to Richards here via some Oxford lectures she gave on sexuality, particularly lecture #3 has to do with evolutionary psychology: http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2012/12/janet-radcliffe-richards-on-the-past-present-and-future-of-sex-part-3/
And, watch Hrdy here giving a short lecture on her book Mothers and Others, which traces why and how humans came to be wired as socially oriented as we are, much more so than other primates. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsuuPMUIMEE
For those of you not keen on videos/audio, looking up papers or books by both Richards and Hrdy would be a great approach to hearing them weigh in on this topic too.
Mitch's Submission:
Psychology is endlessly exciting, if not a little heavy on conjecture and broad generalizations. Evolution, too, is fascinating, but very linear, logical and lacking some of the creative passion of its more bubbly extroverted cousin. Combining these sciences is intoxicating, initially. Like a classical cover of a heavy metal song, it interesting, at first listen. Over time, the novelty wears off and you realize that the beauty and complexity of the classical, and the power and adrenaline of the metal, are both watered down and worse off with the genre merge.
Host: Chris Holdhusen
We went with the broad topic of Evolutionary Psychology but hope that you'll each help narrow this based on what you are interested in within evolutionary psychology, or in showing the problematic aspects of evolutionary psychology. The associated contribution you make (article, chapter, podcast, reflections of your own, TED talk, etc.) will facilitate this. Please send your contribution to Sabine via email by Dec. 1. Those contributions will be posted below.
Some preliminary ideas to get us started thinking about this topic:
Lecture: "Evolutionary Psychology: An Introduction" - Dr. Diana Fleischman
Article: "Seven Key Misconceptions about Evolutionary Psychology" by Laith Al-Shawaf, Ph.D.
https://areomagazine.com/2019/08/20/seven-key-misconceptions-about- evolutionary-psychology/
From Sabine:
After having followed an array of pretty solid academic trains of thought (incl. entertaining articles & conversations with a couple of UM profs - Abhishek and also his friend Nathan, a neurobiologist) that debunk evolutionary psychology, I do still have interest in it, but more so from the perspective of what the field might do next to bring itself more up to speed with the methodology that biology and the other sciences assume as standard fare. I'm also very interested in how a couple of women (well-respected even by the naysayers of EP) are contributing to EP from an interdisciplinary approach. One is a philosopher, Janet Radcliffe Richards, and the other is an anthropologist and primatologist, Sara Blaffer Hrdy. Richards says EP isn't all bad, but is certainly asking the wrong questions, but that asking the questions it is at all will help us come up with better questions to ask. Hrdy is a hands on researcher interested in getting at, among other things, becoming more precise as to the sources of human propensity for working together/empathy/sharing; she attests that it has been wrongly assumed by the social sciences for too long that our empathetic/social human wiring derives from survival due to warring conditions that made humans work together in order to succeed more, which led to brains wired to work together more via evolutionary selection, and so on. Hrdy says that our empathy/social human wiring likely derives first from the way early humans raised their children, making us and our predecessors much more like tamarins and marmosets than like chimpanzees and gorillas. Sadly/interestingly, she finds that like tamarins and marmosets we are in such need for social support and shared care of raising children (alloparenting), that when we don't have it, abandoning of newborns, etc. occurs also in humans. This has never been observed to happen in other primates, except for tamarins and marmosets. Hrdy concedes that warring conditions later in our human history perhaps further solidified this already present social wiring.
One of EP's biggest critics is PZ Myers who is worth listening to here to understand the ways it seems that evolutionary psychologists seem to be often misusing or misunderstanding key principles of evolution. His talk (linked in previous sentence) is long, but I think useful to listen to for a primer in evolution. Perhaps it would have been best for our group to dive first into readings on evolution, historically and contemporarily, and then take on evolutionary psychology so as to be able to weigh in more informedly on how EPs are using/misusing evolution in their field. I know that I don't understand evolution enough, particularly where the field of evolutionary research is now, to use it to critique or weigh in on how the evolutionary psychologists are or aren't misusing it. Neil Shubin's "Your Inner Fish"concept is helpful in reviewing key concepts of evolution as well, and works particularly well for me since I generally disdain the humancentric approach of all fields, thinking us something special or fairly removed from the line of animals from which we've descended, brain/language/emotions/opposable thumbs/relationships included. PBS did a series on Shubin's concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8ttoKGxEKc
I'm throwing a lot at you here, so if you only have time for a couple of my contributions, these below are the voices I most wish you to hear:
Take a listen to Richards here via some Oxford lectures she gave on sexuality, particularly lecture #3 has to do with evolutionary psychology: http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2012/12/janet-radcliffe-richards-on-the-past-present-and-future-of-sex-part-3/
And, watch Hrdy here giving a short lecture on her book Mothers and Others, which traces why and how humans came to be wired as socially oriented as we are, much more so than other primates. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsuuPMUIMEE
For those of you not keen on videos/audio, looking up papers or books by both Richards and Hrdy would be a great approach to hearing them weigh in on this topic too.
Mitch's Submission:
I must start by saying that I’m quite certain that I don’t have a very good grasp on evolutionary psychology. I have read, watched and listened to almost all of Sabine’s extensive background content but may, now, be more confused about what this field is than when I started. My thoughts, below, are, likely, naive, fallacious and full of biases and incorrect assumptions. I am looking forward to learning more on this topic from the better studied in our group.
I haven’t studied evolutionary psychology much. I find some of it fascinating but something about it also makes me queasy. The focus on nature over nurture. The confusion of correlation and causation. The broad generalizations and uncomfortable, maybe incorrect, conclusions.
Something about it reminds me of the great Douglas Adam’s puddle analogy, which he uses to refute the fine tuning argument for religion, below. It is very short and worth the watch.
In the case of evolutionary psychology, the merging of those two sciences requires some leaps of faith to the level that it could be used in place of religion in Adam's analogy. Is psychology the puddle, incorrectly believing that it fits perfectly in the evolutionary hole?
Psychology is endlessly exciting, if not a little heavy on conjecture and broad generalizations. Evolution, too, is fascinating, but very linear, logical and lacking some of the creative passion of its more bubbly extroverted cousin. Combining these sciences is intoxicating, initially. Like a classical cover of a heavy metal song, it interesting, at first listen. Over time, the novelty wears off and you realize that the beauty and complexity of the classical, and the power and adrenaline of the metal, are both watered down and worse off with the genre merge.
It must admit that my discomfort might just be me obstinately holding onto beliefs and desires that I am not yet ready to part with. Many of the concepts of evolutionary psychology seem to circle around questions of free will. It is probably not correct, but I like to think that creatures with complex cognitive abilities are more than the sum of their parts (Not ants. Ants are just biological machines….I am special). I want to believe that each creature is unique being with a one of a kind personality and the ability to consciously make choices. I don’t believe in eternal ’souls’ but I like the idea that there is a fire inside of us that, while living at least, is not composed solely of cells and genes and predictable chemical interactions. The fact that I evolved from an ape doesn’t bother me in the least, it’s kind of cool. I’m even OK with the concept that every great ape has genetically instinctual fears (e.g., snakes), but the idea that ALL of my thoughts, dreams, desires, passions and fears are similarly evolved disturbs me. Possibly worse, I fear that, in writing that, it is transparent to all that I am making hasty generalizations and may be rejecting an entire valid field of science only because it makes me uncomfortable.
I can’t close without bringing this last item up. I do feel like some of the concepts in evolutionary psychology could be dangerous. The more uncomfortable conclusions remind me of how the pseudoscience of phrenology was used to fuel racism.
I try to watch news and opinion from sources with viewpoints different than my own. In those, I have seen concepts of evolutionary psychology used to justify racism, in particular, but, also, sexual preference and gender discrimination. It’s possible that some groups are putting a dishonest spin on the research to give their bigotry a veil of scientific validity…but they don’t have to stretch as far as I would hope. Dr. Fleishman’s discussion about how narcissism and psychopathy are expected and natural evolutionary adaptations for success in today's world, even if true, is something that society should try to overpower. If a society can ‘choose’ to overcome individual psychological ‘adaptations’, then is this really evolution at all, or just psychology and sociology? We could, maybe, hijack the evolutionary process and genetically engineer wings so we can fly…but we can’t think our way into that adaptation.
There is a lot of material out there to discuss on evolutionary psychology and racism, and it’s almost all depressing but, if you are interested, this is a short primer: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201801/the-psychology-racism
Skepticism and curmudgeonliness aside, I do find the topic fascinating. Who couldn’t like a good mix of psychology, anthropology, biology, sociology and evolution? The Dr. Diana Fleishman video had excellent content and ideas and I fell, instantly, for her bravery and ability to talk about almost any taboo subject. I got a chuckle when, about halfway through her presentation, she mentioned that her specialty was ‘disgust research’…well, that explains things. Anyway, I’m looking forward to learning more about this topic from the banter team.
From Isaac:
"Empathy is Tearing Us Apart" - https://www.wired.com/story/empathy-is-tearing-us-apart/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=wired&utm_social-type=earned&fbclid=IwAR0QhO7mucZVlD-1zPB_8khiN0s4CL5lsILM8VtwjhTVEtlHOB-YgjUEfks
Patricia Churchland podcast episode:
From Jivan:
From Isaac:
"Empathy is Tearing Us Apart" - https://www.wired.com/story/empathy-is-tearing-us-apart/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=wired&utm_social-type=earned&fbclid=IwAR0QhO7mucZVlD-1zPB_8khiN0s4CL5lsILM8VtwjhTVEtlHOB-YgjUEfks
Patricia Churchland podcast episode:
From Jivan:
EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY IN A NUTSHELL
"Our psychology has definitely evolved over the millions of years. Now we are stuck with it.
Origins of anger and fear. Long ago it was necessary for our survival to distinguish between an animal to run away from and animal to eat . If it was an animal to run away from we got scared and ran. "Oh what do I see in the bushes. It has ears. Oh. I remember that animal. It's a tiger. I'm scared." Run away! If it is an animal to eat if it was a and kill it. "There is a small edible animal. What kind is it? It is a Gazelle. Run after it. Get It! I'm hungry." If it another human in
our territory we get angry and think, "Kill him! That guy is going to eat my food. Kill him!"
Origin of love. You learn to get along with other members of your tribe so you suppress feelings you don't like about them and express feelings you like about them. This is the beginning of politics. With individuals it's the same. I'm attracted to that person. If I want benefits, I better do the game of suppressing my feelings I don't like about him or her. This is love.
Origin of empathy. Empathy is in a different category all together. It is a beginning of getting unstuck with the way our minds have evolved. True empathy is not measurable. If you try to measure empathy you are only measuring what it has to do with what a person is feeling and thinking. True empathy takes place before feeling and thinking takes over perception. It happens before we get stuck in the casket of concepts that have evolved. For example, a sadist knows the other persons thoughts and feelings but has somehow gotten stuck and loves torturing others. Does anyone know how we can experience true empathy?"
From Chris:
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Banter 52: Shame
Topic: Shame
Friday, Nov. 15th at 6:30pm
Host: at Mitch's apartment
The topic began as a suggestion for a shame performance night, and then settled into simply shame (or possibly shame vs. guilt); do feel welcome to perform your shame if you'd like though, amid the varied threads of discussion.
Here are some tidbits to get us started:
Shame Culture vs. Guilt Culture: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/opinion/the-shame-culture.html
Materials from members of the group will be forthcoming and posted below the week before we meet.
From Sabine:
I'm interested in so many angles from which we might look at the idea and feelings of shame. I hope some of the others of you will pull in collective/societal shame, psychology of shame, etc. What I'll focus on is the way we work out our societal and individual shame via the arts. Sometimes the only thing to ease the absolute, oppressive, crushing nature of shame in the body and psyche is to stop holding it in, give it voice. Whether as a writer, a visual artist, a performance artist, or the reader/audience taking it in so much shame has been aired out and the awful, lonely, scary feelings of shame validated, and perhaps made less crushing by the arts. How lucky are we to have these platforms as humans to deal with ourselves and all we are capable of feeling and making others feel.
Read this first: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/08/top-10-books-about-guilt
Then read this, which was first experienced, then drowned under, then penned into a book of rough-hewn poems as a method of survival, some of which have been performed on a stage in front of several hundred via theatrical monologue, which completed the cycle of this shame (along with beginning tentative healing), and some of which are still in draft form (with associated shame awaiting its turn for revision too):
Mitch's Contribution:
This is a heavy topic so I looked for something short and funny.
Apologies that it's an advertisement.
Public humiliation is different than shame, but there is nothing more cringe worthy for me to see. When I speak or perform and it doesn't go well, it leads to incredible, lifelong personal feelings of shame for me...I have terrible stage fright for that reason. That said, I guess inducing shame (humorously) for a good cause (the environment) can be beneficial...at least I thought this ad was a form of 'positive shaming', if there is such a thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll22B4VcGPQ
Friday, Nov. 15th at 6:30pm
Host: at Mitch's apartment
The topic began as a suggestion for a shame performance night, and then settled into simply shame (or possibly shame vs. guilt); do feel welcome to perform your shame if you'd like though, amid the varied threads of discussion.
Here are some tidbits to get us started:
Shame Culture vs. Guilt Culture: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/opinion/the-shame-culture.html
Brene Brown on shame; TED talk
Materials from members of the group will be forthcoming and posted below the week before we meet.
From Sabine:
I'm interested in so many angles from which we might look at the idea and feelings of shame. I hope some of the others of you will pull in collective/societal shame, psychology of shame, etc. What I'll focus on is the way we work out our societal and individual shame via the arts. Sometimes the only thing to ease the absolute, oppressive, crushing nature of shame in the body and psyche is to stop holding it in, give it voice. Whether as a writer, a visual artist, a performance artist, or the reader/audience taking it in so much shame has been aired out and the awful, lonely, scary feelings of shame validated, and perhaps made less crushing by the arts. How lucky are we to have these platforms as humans to deal with ourselves and all we are capable of feeling and making others feel.
Read this first: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/08/top-10-books-about-guilt
Then read this, which was first experienced, then drowned under, then penned into a book of rough-hewn poems as a method of survival, some of which have been performed on a stage in front of several hundred via theatrical monologue, which completed the cycle of this shame (along with beginning tentative healing), and some of which are still in draft form (with associated shame awaiting its turn for revision too):
Poem for the
Bunnies (draft iii)
for Naya
by Sabine
Brigette (orig. April 27, 2016, audio)
I.
There is a
scene in The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies where
Mr. MacGregor scoops in his palm each of the flopsy bunnies out of the hay
pile, or grass clippings pile, rather.
And he does it so gently.
II.
There’s this
tender tenderness to the scooping. But,
of course, his intentions are not kind.
The tenderness of scooping a sleeping, cozy, sure little rabbit out of
one area and tucking it into another area safely—well, in this case, it is not
safe, it is a sack, and the sack is headed to his kitchen; the threat was real
for us too—I suppose that’s my interest in the scene.
III.
I wish I
could remember scooping you from the walled in scene we found ourselves. My hands cupped so you would have slept
through his scary + my mute, and through my collapse after. Oh that I could have sheltered more, carried the
darkened wholly myself, and delivered you safely from it to soft-hued light and
a bird song ending.
IV.
You and your
sister and me, we are safe now. We
delivered ourselves, though you remember all of it, and she, none of it. And so, for you + me, the lingering hollow still
follows from that chapter.
There were two objects that I actually could have scooped to safety in my
two cupped hands, but they were the very things that I absolutely did not, and
that I personally delivered to harm, the bunnies.
In this case, not the sweetly drawn flopsy bunnies held in a book for
the first time by your chubby 3-year old hands on an airplane back from
Bangkok, but our Mr. MacGregor and our Strawberry, our own wee flopsy bunnies. The Holland lop-eared rabbits you showed at
the fair when you were eleven.
V.
Elder
daughter, whose arms got bruised, who I left alone in all that heat, builder of
ladders, if I could, believe me, I would reach back—like added pages of
drawings to a children’s story—my two hands into that chapter that runs my
blood cold. The very first thing I would scoop are your bunnies, right out of
the forest. Let them have one hour there
for a few glorious leaps of joy, then reach down, scoop, and deliver them
safely to our yard to you. Wake you now,
soon to leave, and tell you the good news of who came home before you go.
VI.
But the
bunnies are the ones that got left behind. It is an unscoopable thing that I
carry like a burden sack. Yet,
childlike, when I hike in those woods with the dogs, I look for them
still. Then on the way back across the
river where we dug their carrot-lined warren I try to set the shame down before
I return home. I remind myself of all
the times he said how they’d taste for dinner, and how he sounded when he said he could do what he wanted with any of us. Like you, I know what he is
capable of. I often thought we would all
get left behind, not just them strewn with weasel-punctured necks in a forest. When I grow brave and visit the empty warren,
agitated by my own hope, I recall your shriek and my firm voice for you not to
look, not to look, and hugging you and hugging you. Maybe it was another rabbit who lay lifeless
in leaves, I had said. Your faith in me
heart-breakingly unshaken, you did not look.
Fact is we both know for certain that one of the bunnies did not make it
past a full day. Other fact is I felt
safer in the woods that day, despite your sorrow in my arms at what I’d done,
than I had or would for years.
VII.
I had been
trying to build us all a safe warren to huddle in together, away from
predators, as I scooped out the dirt by hand in their warren to reveal a
beautiful tree-root ceiling the week before.
The boards I placed at their entryway were with loving hands that had only
ever held them gently. The moss and
straw I laid inside, winter coming, I imagined keeping us warm too from the
cold our life had become. The carrots
and rabbit pellets I heaped in their imagined kitchen, their own start to Watership Down, more chance than we
would have for a good life when we had to leave the quiet of the woods beside trickling stream, where water would be plentiful for
them, even if they woke in winter. I was
in a sack and could see very little in the dark of it. But for keeping hold of
your hand and hers, I lost hold of everything else.
VIII.
They were
deeply loved.
IX.
You were so
little and had no say. I am so very sorry.
X.
Remember
“happy baby,” the way they leaped the first time we let them into our backyard
as babies? I do. And when I can’t, I try
to.
Mitch's Contribution:
This is a heavy topic so I looked for something short and funny.
Apologies that it's an advertisement.
Public humiliation is different than shame, but there is nothing more cringe worthy for me to see. When I speak or perform and it doesn't go well, it leads to incredible, lifelong personal feelings of shame for me...I have terrible stage fright for that reason. That said, I guess inducing shame (humorously) for a good cause (the environment) can be beneficial...at least I thought this ad was a form of 'positive shaming', if there is such a thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll22B4VcGPQ
Thursday, October 3, 2019
Banter 51: Motherhood and Defeasible Duties to Benefit
Thursday, October 17th at 6:30pm
at Annette's and Kirk's house
I argue that this mistaken assumption involves attributing to the mother a defeasible duty to perform each action that might benefit her child. This attribution is supported by implicit appeal to two arguments, both of which are initially appealing but ultimately unsound.
My first paper on this topic, which lays out the general philosophical issues is called 'Motherhood and Mistakes about Defeasible Duties to Benefit'. It has been published at Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. If you don't have access to PPR, you can download a author's draft of the paper at Publications and Works in Progress." (click on links embedded in this previous line)
It may help to review the concepts of defeasible reasoning also here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasoning-defeasible/#DefeConvComm
For this banter session, we can start with perhaps the specifics of what Woollard is concerned with and then expand outward or sideways to include other related issues as the group is interested in about defeasible duties, cultural/societal expectations that are constricting, motherhood, our own limiting ideas on our own duties or the duties of others.
at Annette's and Kirk's house
Motherhood and defeasible duties to benefit is a philosophical and cultural problem that contemporary philosopher Fiona Woollard is concerned with in her current research and writing.
(A quasi comedic, short lecture of Woollard's at a comedy club about this topic.)
I had the good luck of attending a lecture of hers in Oxford this past April (due to picking up a newspaper blowing past in a park as Edel played and seeing the event began in 45 minutes). It was fascinating to note the discomfort of various audience members around me for having dragged my six-year old to the lecture (a familiar feeling in Oxford, for last time I'd been there I had a 9-10 year old Naya hanging onto my apron-strings with confused onlookers at formal dinners in Christ Church hall, etc.); what kind of mother was I, what kind of mothering was I offering, shouldn't this child's needs come first, shouldn't the adult-oriented event come first above this mother's needs to attend if no childcare is at hand; or, perhaps they squirmed and stared in our direction for other reasons, wishing they'd or others had brought their children too (doubtful, though Edel did hang in there pulling off her childhood duties to benefit her mother, haha). Fiona, however, stared at Edel or alternately at me for lengthy periods when making various points about her argument, and seemed to have a soft set to her face in so doing, one of fascination and philosophical observation perhaps. Risking an egocentric take on her gaze, it did please me greatly to think of her mind to be the sort that would connect these obvious dots.
(A quasi comedic, short lecture of Woollard's at a comedy club about this topic.)
I had the good luck of attending a lecture of hers in Oxford this past April (due to picking up a newspaper blowing past in a park as Edel played and seeing the event began in 45 minutes). It was fascinating to note the discomfort of various audience members around me for having dragged my six-year old to the lecture (a familiar feeling in Oxford, for last time I'd been there I had a 9-10 year old Naya hanging onto my apron-strings with confused onlookers at formal dinners in Christ Church hall, etc.); what kind of mother was I, what kind of mothering was I offering, shouldn't this child's needs come first, shouldn't the adult-oriented event come first above this mother's needs to attend if no childcare is at hand; or, perhaps they squirmed and stared in our direction for other reasons, wishing they'd or others had brought their children too (doubtful, though Edel did hang in there pulling off her childhood duties to benefit her mother, haha). Fiona, however, stared at Edel or alternately at me for lengthy periods when making various points about her argument, and seemed to have a soft set to her face in so doing, one of fascination and philosophical observation perhaps. Risking an egocentric take on her gaze, it did please me greatly to think of her mind to be the sort that would connect these obvious dots.
Woollard summarizes:
Woollard summarizes:
"A recurring mistake influences discussion of the behaviour of pregnant women and mothers. The mistake in question is the assumption that a mother who fails to do something that might benefit her child must be able to provide over-riding countervailing considerations to justify her decision. It is assumed that in the absence of such a justification the mother is liable for moral criticism. We see this assumption operating in academic literature, medical advice given to mothers, mainstream media and social media.
I argue that this mistaken assumption involves attributing to the mother a defeasible duty to perform each action that might benefit her child. This attribution is supported by implicit appeal to two arguments, both of which are initially appealing but ultimately unsound.
It may help to review the concepts of defeasible reasoning also here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasoning-defeasible/#DefeConvComm
For this banter session, we can start with perhaps the specifics of what Woollard is concerned with and then expand outward or sideways to include other related issues as the group is interested in about defeasible duties, cultural/societal expectations that are constricting, motherhood, our own limiting ideas on our own duties or the duties of others.
Monday, August 12, 2019
Banter 50: Our Relationship With Animals
Saturday, September 28th at 7:00 PM at Chris' house in Whitefish.
Banter 50! Wow. Quite the ongoing tradition.This is Mitch writing this up as a placeholder for Sabine who likely has better insight and her typical great introductory ruminations that provide such good fodder for discussion. The topic speaks for itself, I suppose...what are your thoughts on human interactions with other animal species?
Mitch's Submission.
If I make this banter, it will be because the weather was lousy and I couldn't go to the cabin. Since there is a chance I'll miss it, I'll keep this short.
My first thought was that humans are animals. When I am in the presence of other hairless monkeys, I often find that fact hard to remember (having non-human animals around, wild or tame, is a great reminder of this). I found some decent long form videos on the topic of why we consciously or subconsciously separate ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom, with lots of conjecture on why (fear of mortality, feeling 'dirty' or 'uncivilized' etc.). It was all pretty long and heady stuff so, instead, I am posting some short videos you can peruse of human animals artistically and with reverence mimicking other non-human animals through body paint and contortions. One could overanalyze the art to make it fit the topic but, really, I just think it's pretty cool.
Link to several short videos here.
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Isaac's contribution:
This had some interesting discussion of the evolution of empathy as an outgrowth of maternal instincts
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2019/06/10/episode-50-patricia-churchland-on-conscience-morality-and-the-brain/
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Kirk Bryan's contribution:
Here is a documentary that sums up his
message in "Homo Deus"
Homo Deus also deals with the relation of people and animals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ChHc5jhZxs
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Sabine's contribution:
Still not fully knowing our topic (though thanks hugely Mitch for posting above!! just seeing this today 9/25/19), or whether we've even agreed on one topic or are showing up split between two topics, I've sort of just been mulling over humans, the eras we've been part of on the earth, and the one we are dragging (have dragged) the other animals into along with our various habits and neuroses, the Anthropocene. This concept seems it may kind of bridge the Homo Deus topic (which I haven't gotten a copy of yet via an awaited library hold) and the relationship with other animals topic.
Greta Thunberg's emotion-laden face from her speech yesterday comes to mind too; I've spent many days since I was her age with that chest-fallen feeling & a screwed-tight face about to burst into tears for feeling viscerally what we are doing to the ice that polar bears need to continue to exist, for the most beautiful, pupil-dilating ecosystems that would be vastly intact without our continual chiseling, for snow geese that would never have to confuse a safe body of water with an unsafe one (Butte) were it not for us, and a thousand other examples that make me fold in half sometimes with a sorrow that shouldn't really be shakeable and set down to get on with one's day best one can. Go Greta; don't set it down and get on with your day (much like Jane Goodall did not, has not - thanks for incl. her pic here, Mitch!).
I sometimes (to get through the day) will weigh my whole sense of humans not having wrecked it all based on particular geese flying overhead above Whitefish that I've seen leave on the same routes this time of year again and again. I concern my poetry with ecocriticism concerns at times, such as a couple published a while back called "Comfort Food" (has a geese migration line) and "Dialogue Between Species" (wolf/human dialogue). I hang seed from my roofline for birds like it offsets the whole house I occupy like a bully (filled with cats!) in a fragile ecosystem. I watch the songbirds sit at said feeder from inside on the coldest negative days in February and worry at the way a particular one will linger, fluff himself best he can, and lean against the glass, peering in (so it seems to my anthropomorphizing mind) at the fire. I say my soul mate, should such a thing exist, was a big bouncy black Newfoundland by the name of Ladybug who I know I made incredibly happy and who made me so incredibly too, in addition to aiding me to see the point of life & the point of not being morose so many times. What do I do without these animals to make me feel better about myself and about humans not being powerful enough to wreck a whole planet of lovelier systems? So, human absorbed, even my sorrows over this!
Yammerings aside, I wish to hear from Trista, our resident geologist in the group, if this working definition of Anthropocene has any merit among actual geologists, or is merely a popular term / concept at the moment only relevant to certain echo chambers: Noun: "t
he current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. Example:
"Some geologists argue that the Anthropocene began with the Industrial Revolution." Apparently it was first made popular by the atmospheric chemist and Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen in 2000 (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-is-the-anthropocene-and-are-we-in-it-164801414/). Also, I'd like to read this book I came across in sleuthing for podcasts or articles for this blog contribution: Wildlife in the Anthropocene by Jamie Lorimer. And I think this article is interesting, but perhaps too reassuring as to what the anthropocene actually should feel to us: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170801-the-animals-thriving-in-the-anthropocene The photo of this tiger at the head of this last article (http://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2018/07/when-human-wildlife-conflict-is-about-so-much-more/), brings to mind my concern and question for the evening, do we in the Anthropocene era need to assist wildlife differently in certain situations and ecosystems than our previous wildlife policies of hands off / let nature take its course (drowning polar bears, for example; drought-laden elephant herds that die far from the old water sources, etc.). If nature cannot take its course due to our impacts, other than extinction, do we still let nature take that course to try to keep hands off from the wildness & wild genius of our fellow animals we've doomed (polar bears, penguins, ocean life, and so on)? Does this relationship we have with wild animals need to remain the same when it was created under the conditions where we presumed nature could survive us? How awful if our lesser minds (in regard to wildness and being part of a natural system) end up, even in our compassion, erasing the migration paths from the geese's minds, erasing the paths of survival through the Arctic once known for so long by bears who handed it down to other bears. Do we keep them alive by making them all more like us, and less like they had been? Or, do we let them die off, along with their lovely oldest paths that won't be followed or known any more?
These are my cheery fall thoughts,
Sabine
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Pre-meeting Doodle Poll: https://doodle.com/poll/hia6pg8rgau7285p
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