George Monbiot talked with journalist Rachel Donald of Planet Critical. In a nutshell, Monbiot has many views in common with Chomsky: People with the money have become the people with the power, and the masses are voting based on “presumed consent,” which means we cast a vote before it’s clear
Continue readingTag: human nature
A Puff of Absurdity: Culture of Uncare or Pandemic of Inhumanity
Psychoanalyst Sally Weintrobe coined the term “culture of uncare” to explain intentional efforts to sever links from one another and from the environment. She calls it “severing links,” but the word that comes to mind is alienation. We’ve been alienated from our environment, from our work, from others, and from
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: A Laughing Matter
I got laughed at in the grocery store today. That hasn’t happened in a while. Cases of hospitalizations/day are at their lowest since December 2021 right now, which is fantastic, but they’re still higher than some of the earlier peaks that once sent us into lockdown and masking everyone everywhere. Our
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: What Went Wrong? Hubris.
Mario Possamai, senior advisor for the SARS commission, was interviewed in an hour-long video from ISPR Respiratory Protection back in July 2022. Here’s a summary of his talk with some of his slides: He started comparing reactions to SARS. Back in 2003, a single patient with SARS walked in to Vancouver
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Our Duty to Others IS Love
In my class recently, we were asked to get into groups to get a reading down to one key word. The passage was on Confucius, and it was about human-heartedness, taming unruly impulses, filial piety, benevolence, and justice. In my little group, I suggested it’s all about love. My group
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The John Snow Project on Spooky Masks
The John Snow Project has the singular goal of cleaning the air in public buildings the way its namesake demonstrated the link between cholera and contaminated drinking water, and eventually was able to convince the government to clean water for public consumption. Cholera was one of the deadliest diseases in
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Being a Bad Person
I forgot to post this from last month – my monthly posting at 3 Quarks Daily: A student asked, “How many bad actions does a good person have to do before becoming a bad person?” The notion of good and bad people raises the image of final judgment at the pearly
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Next Steps: Violence? Policy? Adaptation? Acceptance?
Ezra Klein wrote a compelling piece about Andreas Malm’s book How to Blow Up a Pipeline. We’re not doing enough to stop the trainwreck we’re driving, but is violence the answer? “Decades of climate activism have gotten millions of people into the streets but they haven’t turned the tide on
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: What are the Chances We’ll Learn Anything from This?
It’s fascinating to watch behaviours now that we’re stuck together in limbo. In my little house, we are all perfectly healthy; we’re just more together. This should be a piece of cake! My kids shopped last Friday night, very late, and, since the stores were packed with everyone else who
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Manne’s "Down Girl"
With thorough argumentation and heavily footnoted facts brought to the table, Down Girl, by Kate Manne delineates misogyny from sexism and hopes “to offer a useful toolkit for asking, answering, and debating” (13) issues centred around misogyny. Right off the bat, let’s clarify that it’s not remotely a man-hating thesis.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Is This Really Something To Be Proud Of?
I find myself these days thinking about the beasts that have been unleashed upon society. In the United States, of course, it is Donald Trump who has made it acceptable to openly hate, mock, exclude and even kill. In Ontario, citizens have selected Doug Ford as their new premier. While
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On the Necessity for a Public Takedown
When, a couple months back, I read Katie Way’s depiction of a date between “Grace” and Aziz Ansari, at first I felt badly for him to be outed as such a crappy date. How embarrassing. Then in the New York Times, Bari Weiss responded that Ansari was being asked to be a mindreader. My
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Shame, Honour, and Vulnerability
I was forwarded this 47 minute podcast with Brené Brown on 1A, and some of the ideas she has are remarkably similar to Timothy Snyder’s views in On Tyranny (e.g. connect with others in real life, speak truth to bullshit), so I bought her newest book, Braving the Wilderness. I was sorrily
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Inconceivable! His Dinner with Chomsky
Wallace Shawn sat down for a chat with Noam Chomsky, and here’s what they talked about – slightly abridged and loosely quoted (for clarification purposes) with links. It’s a great recharge for activists! Shawn – Many people are shocked to see the president is now a cruel, brutal, greedy type
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Boyden’s Questionable Ancestory
It’s hard when we find our heroes as fallible as the rest of us. Boyden, the prize winning indigenous writer found to be not so indigenous, is taking a hit now. Some, like Aaron Paquette, think Boyden can’t claim status without having endured the hardship that went with being raised
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Boyden’s Questionable Ancestory
It’s hard when we find our heroes as fallible as the rest of us. Boyden, the prize winning indigenous writer found to be not so indigenous, is taking a hit now. Some, like Aaron Paquette, think Boyden can’t claim status without having endured the hardship that went with being raised
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: A Shift in Values
Further to my last post about the current values and the boundaries of the social imaginary that prevent us from making any significant and necessary changes in the world, George Monbiot has data to show that actual shift in pervasive attitudes: A study published in the journal Cyberpsychology reveals that
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: A Shift in Values
Further to my last post about the current values and the boundaries of the social imaginary that prevent us from making any significant and necessary changes in the world, George Monbiot has data to show that actual shift in pervasive attitudes: A study published in the journal Cyberpsychology reveals that
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: What Happens in the Arctic, Doesn’t Stay in the Arctic
There are more and more signs of climate change about to pull a number on us, but we still won’t listen. We’ve got ammonia in our atmosphere and a spike in methane concentrations: “CO2 is still the dominant target for mitigation, for good reason. But we run the risk if we
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: What Happens in the Arctic, Doesn’t Stay in the Arctic
There are more and more signs of climate change about to pull a number on us, but we still won’t listen. We’ve got ammonia in our atmosphere and a spike in methane concentrations: “CO2 is still the dominant target for mitigation, for good reason. But we run the risk if we
Continue reading