Sunday, November 26, 2006
TM kooperatiba
I wasn't paying attention, but I caught a Touch Mobile TV commercial offering a special service for cooperatives. Sounds like an interesting concept.
Thanksgiving?
This different way of teaching Thanksgiving makes one wonder how a community's rituals ought to be taught.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Fr. Danny's talk.
Fr. Danny Huang, SJ, the Philippine provincial of the Jesuits, gave the faculty a talk yesterday about what it means for Ateneo de Manila to be a Jesuit, Catholic university in this day and age.
As one could expect from Fr. Danny, it was a very good talk; the complexities were well-articulated and his ideas were nuanced and forceful.
First he emphasized that the Jesuit's educational apostolate is only one among its many apostolates.
Second, he talked about Paul's letter to Philemon and reflected about how that letter demonstrates how Christ had transformed the world in that Christ's message allowed for a new way of looking at property, at freedom, at social justice, at money, at persons.
The Church's mission is not expansion, he emphasized, but the redemption of history. It is (and this is my rephrasing) the creation of a new world order in every and all areas of human life, such that the world here may begin to look more like the Kingdom of God. In my own words again: the Church seeks not to increase in number, but to transform the world. (Something that one can only understand, I think, when one stops seeing the Church as "a denomination.")
In this sense, the Church sharply rejects the privatization of faith, the notion that faith is something that is articulated and experienced only in one's private life.
What, then, does it mean to be a Catholic university?
Again, my rephrasing: it is not merely a question of adding a Catholic element (such as theology classes or a campus ministry) to the work of a university, more than that and more importantly, it is to be a university in a way that is oriented to the redemption of history.
It is to form and educate the youth as mature Catholics or at least mature Christians or at least youths with a mature sense of the transcendent, young people, then, who emerge from university "with their hearts transformed and their freedom reoriented." It is to prepare our students as future professionals -- but to do this in a way that has been touched by the mission of building the Kingdom of God here on earth. In other words, it is to form students to be citizens and professionals for service and (if you prefer) nation-building. It is to do research that reflects on questions in light of God's mission to redeem history, drawing from the Catholic tradition of wisdom in an integrated and appropriate way. It is to be, as an institution, a witness to and advocate of the message of the Gospel in society and the world.
To be a Catholic university, then, does not make the university less of a university in the interest of becoming more Catholic. Moreover, being a Catholic university is not to become a monastery, or a seminary, or an NGO. (Again, the university is just one among the many apostolates of the Jesuits, and for that matter, just one sector in the entire world that the Church seeks to transform.)
To be a Catholic university is to be a university, a good university, an excellent university, in a thoroughly Catholic way. (My own reflection: in the same way that to be a Catholic person is to allow the Gospel to transform and reorient my entire human life, to be a Catholic university is to allow the Gospel to transform and reorient its being a university.)
Fr. Danny ended with some reflections on the realities within which the university must discern on the best way to proceed in this. Some of those realities including the diminishing number of Jesuits in the province, the increasing pluralism in society and among our students and faculty. Given this, the university must discern how to accomplish this task appropriately. Some of the questions raised in the open forum articulated this more specifically: the university must discern, for example, when it is best to explicitly label its work as "Catholic" and when it is appropriate to be more implicit; it must discern which practices and symbols to publicly express; it must discern how to dialogue with other faiths in a way that is true to its Catholicism yet also ecumenical and non-exclusive in spirit.
Truly, it was an excellent, thought-provoking talk.
As one could expect from Fr. Danny, it was a very good talk; the complexities were well-articulated and his ideas were nuanced and forceful.
First he emphasized that the Jesuit's educational apostolate is only one among its many apostolates.
Second, he talked about Paul's letter to Philemon and reflected about how that letter demonstrates how Christ had transformed the world in that Christ's message allowed for a new way of looking at property, at freedom, at social justice, at money, at persons.
The Church's mission is not expansion, he emphasized, but the redemption of history. It is (and this is my rephrasing) the creation of a new world order in every and all areas of human life, such that the world here may begin to look more like the Kingdom of God. In my own words again: the Church seeks not to increase in number, but to transform the world. (Something that one can only understand, I think, when one stops seeing the Church as "a denomination.")
In this sense, the Church sharply rejects the privatization of faith, the notion that faith is something that is articulated and experienced only in one's private life.
What, then, does it mean to be a Catholic university?
Again, my rephrasing: it is not merely a question of adding a Catholic element (such as theology classes or a campus ministry) to the work of a university, more than that and more importantly, it is to be a university in a way that is oriented to the redemption of history.
It is to form and educate the youth as mature Catholics or at least mature Christians or at least youths with a mature sense of the transcendent, young people, then, who emerge from university "with their hearts transformed and their freedom reoriented." It is to prepare our students as future professionals -- but to do this in a way that has been touched by the mission of building the Kingdom of God here on earth. In other words, it is to form students to be citizens and professionals for service and (if you prefer) nation-building. It is to do research that reflects on questions in light of God's mission to redeem history, drawing from the Catholic tradition of wisdom in an integrated and appropriate way. It is to be, as an institution, a witness to and advocate of the message of the Gospel in society and the world.
To be a Catholic university, then, does not make the university less of a university in the interest of becoming more Catholic. Moreover, being a Catholic university is not to become a monastery, or a seminary, or an NGO. (Again, the university is just one among the many apostolates of the Jesuits, and for that matter, just one sector in the entire world that the Church seeks to transform.)
To be a Catholic university is to be a university, a good university, an excellent university, in a thoroughly Catholic way. (My own reflection: in the same way that to be a Catholic person is to allow the Gospel to transform and reorient my entire human life, to be a Catholic university is to allow the Gospel to transform and reorient its being a university.)
Fr. Danny ended with some reflections on the realities within which the university must discern on the best way to proceed in this. Some of those realities including the diminishing number of Jesuits in the province, the increasing pluralism in society and among our students and faculty. Given this, the university must discern how to accomplish this task appropriately. Some of the questions raised in the open forum articulated this more specifically: the university must discern, for example, when it is best to explicitly label its work as "Catholic" and when it is appropriate to be more implicit; it must discern which practices and symbols to publicly express; it must discern how to dialogue with other faiths in a way that is true to its Catholicism yet also ecumenical and non-exclusive in spirit.
Truly, it was an excellent, thought-provoking talk.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Sorry for the rant.
Newsweek featured a story last issue about the "veil debate" ongoing in Europe. One quote from Jack Straw bothered me. In stating his arguments against the face-covering Muslim veil, he said something about how people communicate with one another not only verbally but also visually: "You not only hear what people say, but you also see what they mean."
I have a huge problem with this argument. If you ask a Muslim woman to remove her veil because it is a visual meaning that you are uncomfortable with, at what point will it end? The long curls of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi have visual meaning too--is that what is next to go? The sari of an Indian woman is a visual meaning too--will you ask Indian women to change their dress? Or how about the turban of a Sikh man? What's next? The traditional garb of an Irish man? The same can be said even for the color of my hair, the color of my eyes, the color of my skin, the shape of my nose. When you see all those and know that I am, say, "Filipino," is that also not a "meaning" that you must learn to contend with? Are you next going to ask all ethnic minorities to bleach their skin, dye their hair, get noselifts to make their noses more Western?
What is the issue, really? Rectify the names. Is it really the veil? Or is it your discomfort at immigration? At the end of the day, you just don't like to be reminded that there are all these "different" people? Your imperial past is haunting you now.
Jack Straw said that the veil "separates people." By all means, if we truly believe in a multicultural society, then let us please, please be separated, by the diversity of our faiths, of our ethnicities, of our individual perspectives. This is the 21st century. Surely by now we should've learned to celebrate diversity. And then let us find unity within that diversity, not at its expense. Malaysia and Singapore might not yet have experienced perfect integration, but I do feel that their example is something the Western European countries can learn from.
In the past century, women have fought to wear trousers. People in colonized countries have fought to wear their traditional dress. Ironic that now, faithful Muslim women should have to fight for their right to wear a veil.
A just society is a society where, as Arendt said, we are both gathered and separated: separated by our individual views, where no single person is forced to be homogeneous with the other. And gathered by our common interests.
I have a huge problem with this argument. If you ask a Muslim woman to remove her veil because it is a visual meaning that you are uncomfortable with, at what point will it end? The long curls of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi have visual meaning too--is that what is next to go? The sari of an Indian woman is a visual meaning too--will you ask Indian women to change their dress? Or how about the turban of a Sikh man? What's next? The traditional garb of an Irish man? The same can be said even for the color of my hair, the color of my eyes, the color of my skin, the shape of my nose. When you see all those and know that I am, say, "Filipino," is that also not a "meaning" that you must learn to contend with? Are you next going to ask all ethnic minorities to bleach their skin, dye their hair, get noselifts to make their noses more Western?
What is the issue, really? Rectify the names. Is it really the veil? Or is it your discomfort at immigration? At the end of the day, you just don't like to be reminded that there are all these "different" people? Your imperial past is haunting you now.
Jack Straw said that the veil "separates people." By all means, if we truly believe in a multicultural society, then let us please, please be separated, by the diversity of our faiths, of our ethnicities, of our individual perspectives. This is the 21st century. Surely by now we should've learned to celebrate diversity. And then let us find unity within that diversity, not at its expense. Malaysia and Singapore might not yet have experienced perfect integration, but I do feel that their example is something the Western European countries can learn from.
In the past century, women have fought to wear trousers. People in colonized countries have fought to wear their traditional dress. Ironic that now, faithful Muslim women should have to fight for their right to wear a veil.
A just society is a society where, as Arendt said, we are both gathered and separated: separated by our individual views, where no single person is forced to be homogeneous with the other. And gathered by our common interests.
Some Arendtian critiques I'd like to work on.
Arendt's critique of Marx
... can be summed up in these two excerpts, one referring to the problem of labor, the other referring to the problem of history:
-- from here.
It just occurred to me that anyone who quotes Marx but doesn't know Hegel, doesn't really know the full implications of Marx.
======
Arendt's view of 20th century totalitarianism
... as an evil that surpasses our traditional moral standards
I think that this element in Arendt may address what I perceive to be a weakness in Levinas. Levinas appears to place the locus of ethics only in the indvidual subject. However, if we admit to the possiblity of "structural sin," then is it not also possible to speak of a structural ethics? Levinas does not appear to address that.
Leninist Marxism tried to but ended up with a "structural ethics" that goes against the ethics of the individual subject.
We return again to Ricoeur's problem of the socius and the neighbor.
... can be summed up in these two excerpts, one referring to the problem of labor, the other referring to the problem of history:
To put it another way: while others were concerned with this or that right of the laboring class, Marx already foresaw the time when, not this class, but the consciousness that corresponded to it, and to its importance for society as a whole, would decree that no one would have any rights, not even the right to stay alive, who was not a laborer. The result of this process of course has not been the elimination of all other occupations, but the reinterpretation of all human activities as laboring activities....
For Hegel, thinking historically, the meaning of a story can emerge only when it has come to an end. End and truth have become identical; truth appears when everything is at its end, which is to say when and only when the end is near can we learn the truth. In other words, we pay for truth with the living impulse that imbues an era, although of course not necessarily with our own lives.
-- from here.
It just occurred to me that anyone who quotes Marx but doesn't know Hegel, doesn't really know the full implications of Marx.
======
Arendt's view of 20th century totalitarianism
... as an evil that surpasses our traditional moral standards
The thread of our tradition, in the sense of a continuous history, broke only with the emergence of totalitarian institutions and policies that no longer could be comprehended through the categories of traditional thought. These unprecedented institutions and policies issued in crimes that cannot be judged by traditional moral standards, or punished within the existing legal framework of a civilization whose juridical cornerstone had been the command Thou shalt not kill.
I think that this element in Arendt may address what I perceive to be a weakness in Levinas. Levinas appears to place the locus of ethics only in the indvidual subject. However, if we admit to the possiblity of "structural sin," then is it not also possible to speak of a structural ethics? Levinas does not appear to address that.
Leninist Marxism tried to but ended up with a "structural ethics" that goes against the ethics of the individual subject.
We return again to Ricoeur's problem of the socius and the neighbor.
Professor Emeriti
Two of my teachers were conferred with the title of Professor Emeritus last night.
From one, I learned clarity--that the minute you find yourself obfuscating your ideas in highfalutin words, you are no longer thinking. He is also my model for equanimity, for patience with and respect for students, and for, despite his achievements and wisdom, always maintaining a humble sense of wonder at all things new.
Mula naman sa kabila, natutunan kong mag-isip nang tunay at buhay, at hindi lamang magsuka ng mga salita. Ginising niya ako sa kalaliman ng ating wika. At higit sa lahat, natutunan ko mula sa kanyang mga salita, buhay, at pagkatao, na maging mas mapagkumbabang mag-aaral ng pilosopo, mas mapagkalingang guro, mas mapagtiwalang Kristiyano, at mas mabuting tao.
From one, I learned clarity--that the minute you find yourself obfuscating your ideas in highfalutin words, you are no longer thinking. He is also my model for equanimity, for patience with and respect for students, and for, despite his achievements and wisdom, always maintaining a humble sense of wonder at all things new.
Mula naman sa kabila, natutunan kong mag-isip nang tunay at buhay, at hindi lamang magsuka ng mga salita. Ginising niya ako sa kalaliman ng ating wika. At higit sa lahat, natutunan ko mula sa kanyang mga salita, buhay, at pagkatao, na maging mas mapagkumbabang mag-aaral ng pilosopo, mas mapagkalingang guro, mas mapagtiwalang Kristiyano, at mas mabuting tao.
Future reads.
Fareed Zakaria's book. I read his column weekly (and don't always agree with him). I wonder what he said in this book.
Something about Keynes.
Something about Keynes.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Deng Xiaoping, Asian Filipino Values
A theme which was present in both my colleague's and my presentations at the last Colloquium was the notion of creating a social justice framework that springs from our own culture (rather than imposing foreign--whether capitalist or socialist--models that might be incompatible with our culture).
Tonight I was reading about Deng Xiaoping on Wikipedia, and I came across these paragraphs:
For all of Deng's faults, his pragmatic way of approaching reforms--not immediately accepting or rejecting them simply because they fit or didn't fit the ideology--interests me.
The Arendtian in me finds that very practical. (For Arendt the fundamental error of the totalitarian governments was their insistence on forcing reality to fit the closed logic of their ideologies.)
Hmmm. While "Asian values" as defined by Lee Kwan Yew are actually Confucian values (and not Filipino values), I'm interested in how a debate on "Filipino values" in national economics would go.
Tonight I was reading about Deng Xiaoping on Wikipedia, and I came across these paragraphs:
Unlike Hua Guofeng, Deng believed that no policy should be rejected out of hand simply for not having been associated with Mao, and unlike more conservative leaders such as Chen Yun, Deng did not object to policies on the grounds that they were similar to ones which were found in capitalist nations.
Although Deng provided the theoretical background and the political support to allow economic reform to occur, few of the economic reforms that Deng introduced were originated by Deng himself. Typically a reform would be introduced by local leaders, often in violation of central government directives. If successful and promising, these reforms would be adopted by larger and larger areas and ultimately introduced nationally. Many other reforms were influenced by the experiences of the East Asian Tigers.
For all of Deng's faults, his pragmatic way of approaching reforms--not immediately accepting or rejecting them simply because they fit or didn't fit the ideology--interests me.
The Arendtian in me finds that very practical. (For Arendt the fundamental error of the totalitarian governments was their insistence on forcing reality to fit the closed logic of their ideologies.)
Hmmm. While "Asian values" as defined by Lee Kwan Yew are actually Confucian values (and not Filipino values), I'm interested in how a debate on "Filipino values" in national economics would go.
Wikipedia
Reading a Wikipedia article can be quite funny. Most of a paragraph seems to flow quite well, then suddenly you stumble upon a sentence in a different voice that was obviously added by someone else.
I wonder what would happen if Wikipedia were aural instead of written. Imagine if each person who contributed to a Wikipedia article actually read what he/she contributed in his/her own voice. That would be quite interesting!
I wonder what would happen if Wikipedia were aural instead of written. Imagine if each person who contributed to a Wikipedia article actually read what he/she contributed in his/her own voice. That would be quite interesting!
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
There's no such thing as a free lunch.
Sorry, but I'm going to make a quick rant.
Sometimes I wonder ....
=======
At yesterday's talk, one of my colleagues said that education in Germany is free.
Later, during the discussion, I said, "Education in Germany is not free. You pay for it through your taxes."
Another colleague, who had studied in Europe said, "Oh but when I was there I was as a student so I didn't pay taxes."
I was puzzled. But you did pay taxes! Every time that you went out and bought food at the grocery or ate at a restaurant or paid your bills, a significant percentage of that went to the government coffers which provide for, among other things, the education of the populace.
Second anecdote. Many months ago I was at a meeting about social justice at school. A colleague recounted to me the story of a friend of hers, a lawyer, whom she was trying to get involved in some manner of political action. My colleague was annoyed at her friend for "not being involved" in nation-building. Her friend said, "I am involved. I pay my taxes in their entirety, and religiously. Almost forty percent of my income goes to the country." My colleague was recounting this story with incredulity, as if to say, "I can't believe that she thinks she's doing something for the country simply because she's paying her taxes!"
Well, duh. I do think it's noble to be involved politically in a way that transcends paying one's taxes but at the same time, her lawyer-friend did have a point.
======
Of course I'm aware that corruption in government muddles the whole discussion of taxation. But the fact of corruption shouldn't impede us from talking about the extremely basic issue of taxation.
Social services don't grow on trees.
Sometimes I wonder ....
=======
At yesterday's talk, one of my colleagues said that education in Germany is free.
Later, during the discussion, I said, "Education in Germany is not free. You pay for it through your taxes."
Another colleague, who had studied in Europe said, "Oh but when I was there I was as a student so I didn't pay taxes."
I was puzzled. But you did pay taxes! Every time that you went out and bought food at the grocery or ate at a restaurant or paid your bills, a significant percentage of that went to the government coffers which provide for, among other things, the education of the populace.
Second anecdote. Many months ago I was at a meeting about social justice at school. A colleague recounted to me the story of a friend of hers, a lawyer, whom she was trying to get involved in some manner of political action. My colleague was annoyed at her friend for "not being involved" in nation-building. Her friend said, "I am involved. I pay my taxes in their entirety, and religiously. Almost forty percent of my income goes to the country." My colleague was recounting this story with incredulity, as if to say, "I can't believe that she thinks she's doing something for the country simply because she's paying her taxes!"
Well, duh. I do think it's noble to be involved politically in a way that transcends paying one's taxes but at the same time, her lawyer-friend did have a point.
======
Of course I'm aware that corruption in government muddles the whole discussion of taxation. But the fact of corruption shouldn't impede us from talking about the extremely basic issue of taxation.
Social services don't grow on trees.
Monday, November 20, 2006
New Atheism
I'm surprised that Arts and Letters Daily didn't pick up this essay on the so-called "New Atheism."
Our department chair forwarded us the link to the essay a few days ago, but I didn't read it until after my husband prodded me to listen to a Wired podcast that was made as a follow-up to the article. Interesting stuff. Now I have something to discuss with my classes on Wednesday.
Our department chair forwarded us the link to the essay a few days ago, but I didn't read it until after my husband prodded me to listen to a Wired podcast that was made as a follow-up to the article. Interesting stuff. Now I have something to discuss with my classes on Wednesday.
Social Justice in the Philippines
I was one of three presentors at today's Philosophy Department colloquium entitled "Social Justice: A European-Philippine Dialogue." My Swiss colleague talked about the German economic system; another colleague talked about a conference he attended in Spain which explored third world conceptions of social justice.
I asked the question, "Ano ba ang kahulugan ng 'katarungang panlipunan' para sa mga Pilipino?"
My discussion had three parts.
Una, sinabi ko na ang mga pamantayan natin ng katarungang panlipunan ay pawang nagmumula sa mga dayuhan. I mentioned the Philippine poverty threshold and the UN measures as examples. I qualified this, of course, by saying that I agree that these are useful indices. However, I also asked whether Filipinos are actually able to articulate why these indices point to an "injustice" and what ideal of "social justice" they really desire.
Second, I proposed that we academicians should strive to articulate the Filipino understanding of "katarungang panlipunan." I shared my own initial reflections on the topic by going through a quick review of Philippine history of the last 120 years and by articulating four themes which I feel Filipinos have identified as their conception of a just society. (1) The revolutionary movement of the late 19th century equated social justice with anti-colonialism. (2) The influx of Marxist ideas beginning from the 1940s with the PKP and renewed in the 1960s with the foundation of the CPP introduced the concept of social justice as economic equality. (3) The changing global economic landscape and local political landscape of the 1980s shifted the concept of social justice from economic equality to upward social mobility. (4) Globalization and the expanding diaspora beginning from the 1990s shifted the attitude towards other nations from anti-colonialism to the desire to be able to compete globally with other nations not only economically but culturally as well (hence the Manny Pacquiao phenomenon?).
Third, I criticized the shifts in conceptions of social justice as being historical accidents rather than products of critical thought. I pointed out how, in the last decade, there has barely been any debate or discussion in our dominant public spheres that has explored whether upward social mobility and global competitiveness are the best standards of social justice; and what measures ought to be taken to achieve authentic social justice. Political punditry in the last decade, I pointed out, has largely been limited to reactions to scandals and events involving individual persons, and has not expanded into a more critical discussion of economic systems and policies. I mentioned some possible reasons for this (e.g., the collapse of communism and our personalist political culture), and said that we academicians should take on the task of transforming the kind of political discussion that takes place in the public sphere.
Bow.
I asked the question, "Ano ba ang kahulugan ng 'katarungang panlipunan' para sa mga Pilipino?"
My discussion had three parts.
Una, sinabi ko na ang mga pamantayan natin ng katarungang panlipunan ay pawang nagmumula sa mga dayuhan. I mentioned the Philippine poverty threshold and the UN measures as examples. I qualified this, of course, by saying that I agree that these are useful indices. However, I also asked whether Filipinos are actually able to articulate why these indices point to an "injustice" and what ideal of "social justice" they really desire.
Second, I proposed that we academicians should strive to articulate the Filipino understanding of "katarungang panlipunan." I shared my own initial reflections on the topic by going through a quick review of Philippine history of the last 120 years and by articulating four themes which I feel Filipinos have identified as their conception of a just society. (1) The revolutionary movement of the late 19th century equated social justice with anti-colonialism. (2) The influx of Marxist ideas beginning from the 1940s with the PKP and renewed in the 1960s with the foundation of the CPP introduced the concept of social justice as economic equality. (3) The changing global economic landscape and local political landscape of the 1980s shifted the concept of social justice from economic equality to upward social mobility. (4) Globalization and the expanding diaspora beginning from the 1990s shifted the attitude towards other nations from anti-colonialism to the desire to be able to compete globally with other nations not only economically but culturally as well (hence the Manny Pacquiao phenomenon?).
Third, I criticized the shifts in conceptions of social justice as being historical accidents rather than products of critical thought. I pointed out how, in the last decade, there has barely been any debate or discussion in our dominant public spheres that has explored whether upward social mobility and global competitiveness are the best standards of social justice; and what measures ought to be taken to achieve authentic social justice. Political punditry in the last decade, I pointed out, has largely been limited to reactions to scandals and events involving individual persons, and has not expanded into a more critical discussion of economic systems and policies. I mentioned some possible reasons for this (e.g., the collapse of communism and our personalist political culture), and said that we academicians should take on the task of transforming the kind of political discussion that takes place in the public sphere.
Bow.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Suspicion
I had a few interesting thoughts over the week.
==========
A few days ago, I was at a meeting with some colleagues and we began discussing technological advances. I began to notice that my colleagues were much more suspicious about "progress" than I was. I myself recognize that not all scientific and technological progress is used in a helpful manner; I recognize that it can be and has been distorted and has harmed humans in many ways. However, I do not think this distortion is innate to technology; I do feel that on the whole scientific and technological progress opens up potential for the good, and that, if harnessed properly, can be helpful rather than harmful to humanity.
This led to my question: Why do I appear to have a more optimistic view of progress and history than many of my colleagues do?
My tentative answer, after some reflection, is this (and don't laugh): I truly think it's because I'm a woman. Woman's history is a history of progress: Women have fought for emancipation and they are finally, little by little winning. Very few women can honestly say that it was better to be a woman a hundred years ago, or three hundred years ago, or five hundred years ago, than it is today. I think that men view history differently, however.
==========
Over the weekend, I read up a little on the Waldorf educational system, prompted by a discussion with a colleague who was Waldorf-educated all through elementary and high school. There are aspects of the Waldorf educational system that I find very attractive--the respect for each child, the emphasis on art and on holistic development, etc.
However, one aspect of the Waldorf educational system that I am less comfortable with (and this is where my discussion with my colleague headed) was (again) the very high levels of suspicion regarding technology. I tried to understand more the rules in Waldorf schools about not allowing children below the age of seven to look at "moving pictures" (such as television or videos) and the hesitation even that they look at pictures at all (such that stories are recited orally to students). My colleague explained that this had to do with Steiner's concern that moving pictures would hinder the child's development of his imagination.
On the one hand, I do understand Steiner's point, but I also wondered whether there was a uncalled for bias against pictures. Might it not be possible, I suggested, that pictures also help to stimulate a different kind of imagination? Perhaps an emphathetic or emotional imagination?, I suggested.
The other thing is not being allowed to read until you're seven. I can't imagine that.
==========
I worked in broadcast journalism for a short time, and I can clearly pinpoint in my mind the two moments in my life when I first felt the compulsion to do so.
The first when I was around six or seven years old. I was living in Singapore at the time, and I watched a documentary on television about child abuse in Singapore. I remember being extremely affected by what I had watched, and to this day, the images I saw on television and the interviews with child abuse survivors that I listened to stand out among my many memories of being a child in Singapore. I feel now as I did then that that watching that documentary: (1) exposed me to an issue I had no other way to learn about as a six-/seven-year-old child, (2) was a moment that helped me to develop an empathetic imagination for people in a situation different form mine, and (3) made me believe in the power of mass media to expose, to educate, to inform, and most of all, to open people's minds.
The second moment was when I was around eight years old, in the midst of the Ethiopian famine. Again, the images of the Ethiopian famine that I saw on television altered the way that I looked at the world. To this day, they remain the archetypal images in my mind of how dire poverty can be, of how forgotten certain sectors of the human race can be, and also of how much power mass media has to bring to light problems and issues that demand our attention.
==========
A few days ago, I was at a meeting with some colleagues and we began discussing technological advances. I began to notice that my colleagues were much more suspicious about "progress" than I was. I myself recognize that not all scientific and technological progress is used in a helpful manner; I recognize that it can be and has been distorted and has harmed humans in many ways. However, I do not think this distortion is innate to technology; I do feel that on the whole scientific and technological progress opens up potential for the good, and that, if harnessed properly, can be helpful rather than harmful to humanity.
This led to my question: Why do I appear to have a more optimistic view of progress and history than many of my colleagues do?
My tentative answer, after some reflection, is this (and don't laugh): I truly think it's because I'm a woman. Woman's history is a history of progress: Women have fought for emancipation and they are finally, little by little winning. Very few women can honestly say that it was better to be a woman a hundred years ago, or three hundred years ago, or five hundred years ago, than it is today. I think that men view history differently, however.
==========
Over the weekend, I read up a little on the Waldorf educational system, prompted by a discussion with a colleague who was Waldorf-educated all through elementary and high school. There are aspects of the Waldorf educational system that I find very attractive--the respect for each child, the emphasis on art and on holistic development, etc.
However, one aspect of the Waldorf educational system that I am less comfortable with (and this is where my discussion with my colleague headed) was (again) the very high levels of suspicion regarding technology. I tried to understand more the rules in Waldorf schools about not allowing children below the age of seven to look at "moving pictures" (such as television or videos) and the hesitation even that they look at pictures at all (such that stories are recited orally to students). My colleague explained that this had to do with Steiner's concern that moving pictures would hinder the child's development of his imagination.
On the one hand, I do understand Steiner's point, but I also wondered whether there was a uncalled for bias against pictures. Might it not be possible, I suggested, that pictures also help to stimulate a different kind of imagination? Perhaps an emphathetic or emotional imagination?, I suggested.
The other thing is not being allowed to read until you're seven. I can't imagine that.
==========
I worked in broadcast journalism for a short time, and I can clearly pinpoint in my mind the two moments in my life when I first felt the compulsion to do so.
The first when I was around six or seven years old. I was living in Singapore at the time, and I watched a documentary on television about child abuse in Singapore. I remember being extremely affected by what I had watched, and to this day, the images I saw on television and the interviews with child abuse survivors that I listened to stand out among my many memories of being a child in Singapore. I feel now as I did then that that watching that documentary: (1) exposed me to an issue I had no other way to learn about as a six-/seven-year-old child, (2) was a moment that helped me to develop an empathetic imagination for people in a situation different form mine, and (3) made me believe in the power of mass media to expose, to educate, to inform, and most of all, to open people's minds.
The second moment was when I was around eight years old, in the midst of the Ethiopian famine. Again, the images of the Ethiopian famine that I saw on television altered the way that I looked at the world. To this day, they remain the archetypal images in my mind of how dire poverty can be, of how forgotten certain sectors of the human race can be, and also of how much power mass media has to bring to light problems and issues that demand our attention.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Does Wikipedia work?
Here's an interesting story. A SUNY Buffalo academic wrote various bits of false information on Wikipedia, some easier to fact-check than others. Guess how long it took before the information was corrected?
Take a guess ... then read the article to find out if you were right.
Take a guess ... then read the article to find out if you were right.
What makes the Internet different from traditional tri-media?
- No single entity owns it; no single entity controls it. There are no programming managers or station owners to decide what gets "aired" and what doesn't. And it eludes censorship more than any other medium.
- Related to the previous point, the amount of "airtime" is infinite. Infinite viewpoints. Infinite voices. A teenager's blog can exist side by side with BBC News.
- More conducive to interaction and discussion. (Compare any bulletin board with any phone-in radio or TV show.) In some ways it allows for more discussion than even face-to-face meetings, because it transcends geographic limitations (more than all other media as well), and people don't even have to be in the same time zone.
- It'll only get cheaper and more accessible, while TV spots are only getting more expensive. In major cities in the Philippines, it now only costs P15 for an hour of high-speed broadband Internet use in an Internet cafe, and that price is only going to go down.
- The number of people that access tri-media is going down. The number of people using the Internet is going up. The most recent McCann study shows that urban Philippine teenagers don't read newspapers or watch traditional TV as much anymore; they get both their news and entertainment from the Internet.
- While it is currently limited by mobility (up until now you still need to be in front of a computer to use the Internet), as the technology improves, it will only become more mobile.
Of course it has it's limits. For the most part, it's only available where the necessary infrastructure (electricity, for example) is available. But similar limitations affect traditional tri-media as well.
===================
Introduction
My husband is one of the country's experts on Internet marketing; he is also one of the founders and the current GM of the most successful Internet bulletin board in the country, that also happens to be the most succesful non-news Philippine website. He is, in addition, in charge of ad sales for the Filipinos' favorite social networking site.
Both of us are fascinated with but realistic about the possibilities that the Internet provides. As an economics graduate who is very much interested in culture, he's been spending the last five years or so observing and analyzing how the Internet is gradually transforming the marketplace. As a political philosopher who is also very much interested in culture, I've been wondering what effect the Internet might also have on our public spaces.
The Marketplace
My husband, of course, has already accumulated lot of data about how the Internet has already been transforming the marketplace. Neither of us think that the Internet is going to make brick-and-mortar stores obsolete any time soon (as some people have exaggerated). However, the way that commerce on the Internet works does seem to be somewhat different from the way it works in the brick-and-mortar world. Instead of only buying the most popular, the most marketed, the most advertised goods online, people appear to take a relatively more active role in purchasing and looking also for books that might not necessarily be on the bestseller list, looking also for films or video that did not have the same multi-million marketing budget that Hollywood films had (a phenomenon that has launched an interesting debate about "The Long Tail", the shift from mass markets to niche markets--a view that I think is a little extreme in some respects but quite insightful). Instead of being taken just by the flashiest ads, consumers use the Internet to look for information and reviews about the computer, the car, the gadget, or the cellphone that they're interested in. And in that way, more power is put into the hands of the consumers; the most famous story is of how a defect in a Pentium chip was discovered by a consumer, how information about the defect was spread through the Internet, and about how this forced Intel to launch the first mass recall of computer chips in the history. Ethically-minded consumers in the UK visit Ethiscore to find out information that will not be voluntarily provided by companies: how they do in terms of fair trade, animal welfare, and environmental responsibility.
The stories abound, and most of you are probably familiar with them. One of the most viewed You Tube videos are home made videos made by a pair of Japanese teenagers in their college dorm. You Tube itself and Google before it, are stories of how the little person with limited resources can become a major player in the Internet marketplace. And then of course, there is my favorite story of all, the story of Open Source. (Mozilla rules!)
This is not to say that the Internet is a magical balm for the problems of the market. But to brush aside the very real changes in the marketplace that the Internet is introducing would be foolish.
Public Space
Which leads to my own question, regarding the Internet and public space. There are quite a lot of problems with viewing the Internet in this light, because, first of all, it is not one space, but a multiplicity of spaces where people congregate among other users with similar interests. For the most part, then, the Internet is actually a multiplicity of largely private spaces: a small group here of online friends who read one another's blogs, a small group there of World of Warcraft fanatics who frequent the same bulletin board, and so forth ....
But there are a few phenomena that I want to think about which I think point to the possibilities of how the Internet might affect our public spaces.
One is the rise of the public blogger. A few weeks ago, a book was published of the collected blog entries of "Batjay", a rather popular blogger who writes about his experiences being an overseas Filipino, first in Singapore, now in the United States. Several months ago, the Philippine Star introduced their new regular columnist, "Sassy Lawyer", a lawyer and mother who was "discovered" through her popular blog where she comments on news and public affairs. Both Batjay and Sassy Lawyer became popular bloggers not because of any social network of powerful people, nor because of any extraordinary educational credentials, but simply because, for whatever reason, people liked their blogs. More and more people linked to them from their own blogs. And then finally, the publishers of books and newspapers took notice. The rise of public bloggers is an interesting phenomena which is very different from the way that pundits ordinarily become public thinkers in the traditional tri-media.
There are other interesting phenomena as well, such as the increase of eyewitness accounts to newsworthy events. Just twenty years ago, when a big event happened--a bomb blast, for example--news organizations would send a single journalist to the site and the entire event would be reported from his perspective and the perspective of the few people that he had the chance to interview. Today, when a bomb goes off, what happens is you have hundreds of people directly affected by the bomb blast, all living within its locality, typing on their blogs their own eyewitness accounts, uploading their own videos to You Tube, uploading their own photos to Flickr. The news reports that do come out on official news websites are no longer dependent on the journalists who managed to make the trip to the site, but they draw also from accounts of bloggers, You Tube and Flickr users.
And there's more that I have yet to think about.
Again, I don't think that any of this spells the end of the newspaper or of the television news organization. But I think that there is something about the logistics of the Internet that does have some real impact on our public spaces.
(And if I may just add, I think that the whole radical postmodern deconstructionist reading of how the Internet is going to destroy the meaning of the "self" is just a little ... well ... silly. Gaya ng sinabi ni Padre Ferriols sa isang panayam, ang tao ay maaaring magpanggap kahit nasa harapan mo na siya. Even on the Internet, one isn't completely "disembodied." And deceptive portrayals of the self are a decision that a person makes whether he is sitting in front of you or communicating with you via YM; such deception is not a direct product of being in a "noncorporeal" universe.)
- Related to the previous point, the amount of "airtime" is infinite. Infinite viewpoints. Infinite voices. A teenager's blog can exist side by side with BBC News.
- More conducive to interaction and discussion. (Compare any bulletin board with any phone-in radio or TV show.) In some ways it allows for more discussion than even face-to-face meetings, because it transcends geographic limitations (more than all other media as well), and people don't even have to be in the same time zone.
- It'll only get cheaper and more accessible, while TV spots are only getting more expensive. In major cities in the Philippines, it now only costs P15 for an hour of high-speed broadband Internet use in an Internet cafe, and that price is only going to go down.
- The number of people that access tri-media is going down. The number of people using the Internet is going up. The most recent McCann study shows that urban Philippine teenagers don't read newspapers or watch traditional TV as much anymore; they get both their news and entertainment from the Internet.
- While it is currently limited by mobility (up until now you still need to be in front of a computer to use the Internet), as the technology improves, it will only become more mobile.
Of course it has it's limits. For the most part, it's only available where the necessary infrastructure (electricity, for example) is available. But similar limitations affect traditional tri-media as well.
===================
Introduction
My husband is one of the country's experts on Internet marketing; he is also one of the founders and the current GM of the most successful Internet bulletin board in the country, that also happens to be the most succesful non-news Philippine website. He is, in addition, in charge of ad sales for the Filipinos' favorite social networking site.
Both of us are fascinated with but realistic about the possibilities that the Internet provides. As an economics graduate who is very much interested in culture, he's been spending the last five years or so observing and analyzing how the Internet is gradually transforming the marketplace. As a political philosopher who is also very much interested in culture, I've been wondering what effect the Internet might also have on our public spaces.
The Marketplace
My husband, of course, has already accumulated lot of data about how the Internet has already been transforming the marketplace. Neither of us think that the Internet is going to make brick-and-mortar stores obsolete any time soon (as some people have exaggerated). However, the way that commerce on the Internet works does seem to be somewhat different from the way it works in the brick-and-mortar world. Instead of only buying the most popular, the most marketed, the most advertised goods online, people appear to take a relatively more active role in purchasing and looking also for books that might not necessarily be on the bestseller list, looking also for films or video that did not have the same multi-million marketing budget that Hollywood films had (a phenomenon that has launched an interesting debate about "The Long Tail", the shift from mass markets to niche markets--a view that I think is a little extreme in some respects but quite insightful). Instead of being taken just by the flashiest ads, consumers use the Internet to look for information and reviews about the computer, the car, the gadget, or the cellphone that they're interested in. And in that way, more power is put into the hands of the consumers; the most famous story is of how a defect in a Pentium chip was discovered by a consumer, how information about the defect was spread through the Internet, and about how this forced Intel to launch the first mass recall of computer chips in the history. Ethically-minded consumers in the UK visit Ethiscore to find out information that will not be voluntarily provided by companies: how they do in terms of fair trade, animal welfare, and environmental responsibility.
The stories abound, and most of you are probably familiar with them. One of the most viewed You Tube videos are home made videos made by a pair of Japanese teenagers in their college dorm. You Tube itself and Google before it, are stories of how the little person with limited resources can become a major player in the Internet marketplace. And then of course, there is my favorite story of all, the story of Open Source. (Mozilla rules!)
This is not to say that the Internet is a magical balm for the problems of the market. But to brush aside the very real changes in the marketplace that the Internet is introducing would be foolish.
Public Space
Which leads to my own question, regarding the Internet and public space. There are quite a lot of problems with viewing the Internet in this light, because, first of all, it is not one space, but a multiplicity of spaces where people congregate among other users with similar interests. For the most part, then, the Internet is actually a multiplicity of largely private spaces: a small group here of online friends who read one another's blogs, a small group there of World of Warcraft fanatics who frequent the same bulletin board, and so forth ....
But there are a few phenomena that I want to think about which I think point to the possibilities of how the Internet might affect our public spaces.
One is the rise of the public blogger. A few weeks ago, a book was published of the collected blog entries of "Batjay", a rather popular blogger who writes about his experiences being an overseas Filipino, first in Singapore, now in the United States. Several months ago, the Philippine Star introduced their new regular columnist, "Sassy Lawyer", a lawyer and mother who was "discovered" through her popular blog where she comments on news and public affairs. Both Batjay and Sassy Lawyer became popular bloggers not because of any social network of powerful people, nor because of any extraordinary educational credentials, but simply because, for whatever reason, people liked their blogs. More and more people linked to them from their own blogs. And then finally, the publishers of books and newspapers took notice. The rise of public bloggers is an interesting phenomena which is very different from the way that pundits ordinarily become public thinkers in the traditional tri-media.
There are other interesting phenomena as well, such as the increase of eyewitness accounts to newsworthy events. Just twenty years ago, when a big event happened--a bomb blast, for example--news organizations would send a single journalist to the site and the entire event would be reported from his perspective and the perspective of the few people that he had the chance to interview. Today, when a bomb goes off, what happens is you have hundreds of people directly affected by the bomb blast, all living within its locality, typing on their blogs their own eyewitness accounts, uploading their own videos to You Tube, uploading their own photos to Flickr. The news reports that do come out on official news websites are no longer dependent on the journalists who managed to make the trip to the site, but they draw also from accounts of bloggers, You Tube and Flickr users.
And there's more that I have yet to think about.
Again, I don't think that any of this spells the end of the newspaper or of the television news organization. But I think that there is something about the logistics of the Internet that does have some real impact on our public spaces.
(And if I may just add, I think that the whole radical postmodern deconstructionist reading of how the Internet is going to destroy the meaning of the "self" is just a little ... well ... silly. Gaya ng sinabi ni Padre Ferriols sa isang panayam, ang tao ay maaaring magpanggap kahit nasa harapan mo na siya. Even on the Internet, one isn't completely "disembodied." And deceptive portrayals of the self are a decision that a person makes whether he is sitting in front of you or communicating with you via YM; such deception is not a direct product of being in a "noncorporeal" universe.)
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Shopping.
If I were to teach history to undergrads, I'd teach classes by focusing on the development of one mundane item--like a class entitled "The History of Philippine Footwear," for example--and use that as a take-off point to discuss the changes in society through the centuries.
And that's why i really enjoy articles like this one entitled, The Invention of Shopping. It would be interesting to do a study like this in the Philippines.
I watched a Deutsche Welle program that was very similar: its hook was the competition in more and more German cities between the giant supermarket and the small neighborhood grocer's store. From there, it explored how economic changes in Germany in the last two centuries had affected grocery-shopping habits in the country.
Interesting, 'di ba?
And that's why i really enjoy articles like this one entitled, The Invention of Shopping. It would be interesting to do a study like this in the Philippines.
I watched a Deutsche Welle program that was very similar: its hook was the competition in more and more German cities between the giant supermarket and the small neighborhood grocer's store. From there, it explored how economic changes in Germany in the last two centuries had affected grocery-shopping habits in the country.
Interesting, 'di ba?
Otto, Rational and Nonrational
I got myself into a little discussion about Otto's "rational" and "nonrational" categories.
I really love handling PH 103. I realized that during oral exams.
I really love handling PH 103. I realized that during oral exams.
"Capital," 2
More disjointed, uninformed questions to betray my ignorance of Bourdieu. :)
It's a good thing that the Internet has some primary sources, as some of my questions in my earlier post seem to be answered in some of Bourdieu's essays, as well as in some secondary texts.
First of all, Bourdieu appears to use the term "capital" when referring to culture and society, not as a metaphor, but really "capital as capital," and that the "logic" of capital applies across the board. Moreover, he appears to say that cultural and social capital do emerge from economic capital.
On the one hand, I see how this might be helpful from the perspective of wanting to measure or empirically quantify cultural and social capital (assuming it's possible). I find it useful in the way that Bourdieu describes how one form of capital can be transformed into another form of capital (such as in the way someone spends money to educate himself and then uses that education to earn more money).
But I also wonder if problems might arise when culture and society are seen in this way. As I alluded to in my previous post, economic resources are finite, storable, and disposable. It does not appear to be completely accurate to describe cultural and social capital in the same way.
Case in point: the notion of "surplus." If we were to follow Marxist analysis (Bourdieu seems to be a neo-Marxist), surplus of economic capital is what allows exploitation to emerge.
This appears to be problematic whether one agrees and disagrees with Marx's initial premise. First, if we agree with Bourdieu's neo-Marxism it would seem that the weakness of the word "capital" when used to describe culture and society is that we cannot describe a "surplus." In classical Marx, the meaning of "surplus" is clear--it is the extra labor that a worker produces to raise capital for the capitalist. Coming from a classical Marxist perspective, then, there is a clear basis for what can be constituted as "exploitative" or "unjust." It appears to become problematic, however, when we talk about social and cultural capital, as there appears to be no measure for "surplus" in those realms. (Cf. Comments made in this paper.)
Now, if we disagree with the Marxist premise to begin with, then a second question emerges: economic capital can be quantifiably measured in terms of "more" and "less." Can the same be said, however, for social and cultural capital, and can we place the same on a hierarchy? Are we to immediately assume, for example, that the social and cultural capital that emerges from those with more economic capital is "higher" or "more" than the social and cultural capital that emerges from those with less economic capital? While that does often seem to be the case, is it really always necessarily so? Or does Bourdieu have a more relative view of culture and society, wherein different situations demand different kinds of cultural capital not lined up in a neat hierarchy(for example, being a wealthy Australian won't do much for me if I want to do business in, say, rural China, unless I learn to integrate myself better into rural Chinese society). (Cf. Comments made in this paper.) Leland mentioned that Bourdieu speaks of different fields where different groups are dominant and are dominated, but if that is the case, then it certainly does not correspond to a single hierarchy, in which case the flaws of using the term "capital" emerge.
I also have a question regarding Bourdieu's views regarding the transmission of cultural capital. I'm not sure how to articulate the question, but while reading Forms of Capital the picture of the "technological generation gap" emerged in my mind. Just ten years ago, video games were seen as a waste of time, animation was seen as "unserious," and the last thing that a parent would want his/her child to do would be to spend all his time playing video games. Today, in many societies, that has changed. In South Korea, video game has emerged as a "sport," and professional video gamers are wealthy celebrities. Children who spend all their time doodling and fiddling with Photoshop rather than reading books are not punished for their lack of focus, but encouraged to pursue very lucrative respectable careers in animation. In many ways, it is the youth that has changed the landscape to which their elders had been accustomed. Today, it is children who are teaching their parents how to be computer-savvy.
I suppose my question in relation to the above case is twofold: first, how much does the specific content of cultural capital change and become more or less valuable? Secondly, does Bourdieu talk about the transmission of cultural capital being "two-way"; for example, not just from parent to child, but also from child to parent?
Anyway, sumasakit ang ulo ko dahil maliit lang ang tanghalian ko kanina, kaya magpapahinga muna ako, bago ko ipagpatuloy ang pag-compute ng mga marka.
It's a good thing that the Internet has some primary sources, as some of my questions in my earlier post seem to be answered in some of Bourdieu's essays, as well as in some secondary texts.
First of all, Bourdieu appears to use the term "capital" when referring to culture and society, not as a metaphor, but really "capital as capital," and that the "logic" of capital applies across the board. Moreover, he appears to say that cultural and social capital do emerge from economic capital.
On the one hand, I see how this might be helpful from the perspective of wanting to measure or empirically quantify cultural and social capital (assuming it's possible). I find it useful in the way that Bourdieu describes how one form of capital can be transformed into another form of capital (such as in the way someone spends money to educate himself and then uses that education to earn more money).
But I also wonder if problems might arise when culture and society are seen in this way. As I alluded to in my previous post, economic resources are finite, storable, and disposable. It does not appear to be completely accurate to describe cultural and social capital in the same way.
Case in point: the notion of "surplus." If we were to follow Marxist analysis (Bourdieu seems to be a neo-Marxist), surplus of economic capital is what allows exploitation to emerge.
This appears to be problematic whether one agrees and disagrees with Marx's initial premise. First, if we agree with Bourdieu's neo-Marxism it would seem that the weakness of the word "capital" when used to describe culture and society is that we cannot describe a "surplus." In classical Marx, the meaning of "surplus" is clear--it is the extra labor that a worker produces to raise capital for the capitalist. Coming from a classical Marxist perspective, then, there is a clear basis for what can be constituted as "exploitative" or "unjust." It appears to become problematic, however, when we talk about social and cultural capital, as there appears to be no measure for "surplus" in those realms. (Cf. Comments made in this paper.)
Now, if we disagree with the Marxist premise to begin with, then a second question emerges: economic capital can be quantifiably measured in terms of "more" and "less." Can the same be said, however, for social and cultural capital, and can we place the same on a hierarchy? Are we to immediately assume, for example, that the social and cultural capital that emerges from those with more economic capital is "higher" or "more" than the social and cultural capital that emerges from those with less economic capital? While that does often seem to be the case, is it really always necessarily so? Or does Bourdieu have a more relative view of culture and society, wherein different situations demand different kinds of cultural capital not lined up in a neat hierarchy(for example, being a wealthy Australian won't do much for me if I want to do business in, say, rural China, unless I learn to integrate myself better into rural Chinese society). (Cf. Comments made in this paper.) Leland mentioned that Bourdieu speaks of different fields where different groups are dominant and are dominated, but if that is the case, then it certainly does not correspond to a single hierarchy, in which case the flaws of using the term "capital" emerge.
I also have a question regarding Bourdieu's views regarding the transmission of cultural capital. I'm not sure how to articulate the question, but while reading Forms of Capital the picture of the "technological generation gap" emerged in my mind. Just ten years ago, video games were seen as a waste of time, animation was seen as "unserious," and the last thing that a parent would want his/her child to do would be to spend all his time playing video games. Today, in many societies, that has changed. In South Korea, video game has emerged as a "sport," and professional video gamers are wealthy celebrities. Children who spend all their time doodling and fiddling with Photoshop rather than reading books are not punished for their lack of focus, but encouraged to pursue very lucrative respectable careers in animation. In many ways, it is the youth that has changed the landscape to which their elders had been accustomed. Today, it is children who are teaching their parents how to be computer-savvy.
I suppose my question in relation to the above case is twofold: first, how much does the specific content of cultural capital change and become more or less valuable? Secondly, does Bourdieu talk about the transmission of cultural capital being "two-way"; for example, not just from parent to child, but also from child to parent?
Anyway, sumasakit ang ulo ko dahil maliit lang ang tanghalian ko kanina, kaya magpapahinga muna ako, bago ko ipagpatuloy ang pag-compute ng mga marka.
Planned projects (all Arendt-related)
- Something on Arendt's critique of the consumer society/waste society. I'm fascinated that Arendt was so prophetic about this. And again, I find it interesting how Arendt directs a common criticism against two seemingly opposite ideologies: in Origins of Totalitarianism, she had done it with fascism and communism; in The Human Condition she did it with capitalism and communism.
- Storytelling, still. A continuation of what I've already written. This time I may include a comment on her biography-writing.
- The parvenu/pariah distinction.
- Political judgment. I've been planning this for a few years, but I just can't get around to re-reading Kant. Aargh.
*And aside from all this writing, maybe I should suggest to my colleagues that we teach an undergraduate elective on conceptions of power. We could do Foucault, Arendt, Nietzsche ....
"Capital"
So in between computing final grades for my various classes, I've been reading up a little more on Bourdieu, guided by Leland's comments to my previous post. Today, I read up a little more on the different forms of capital. I wonder why Bourdieu chooses to use that term--"capital"--when discussing the non-economic elements of one's habitus, such as cultural and social capital, and I wonder what the merits of using this analogy are.
Forgive me for jumping in immediately with an Arendtian comparison, but since I know Arendt more than I know any other thinker, it's really the only point of reference I can begin with. One of the central and most original features of Arendt's thought is her distinction between "work" and "action." She used the term "work" to refer to the human's activity on the material, tangible world that fabricates durable objects (such as when a carpenter makes a table or an artist paints a painting). She uses the term "action" to refer to humans' activity among one another (such as discussion or debate). (A third category is "labor" which refers to the human's activity for the purpose of biological survival.) The confusion of the categories of "work" and "action," she says, has sometimes, in the past, been fatal. When human history--that is, the stories of human action--is seen as a "work," as an object to be fabricated, then several presumptions are made: history is then something seen as something that can be "shaped" through an act of violence (in the same way that a carpenter must do violence to a tree in order to turn it into a table), and history is seen as something that can be "finished." The consequences of such a view of history is clear: a Utopian vision that must be "engineered" where humans are mere cogs in a machine to create that vision. Humans are seen as machines whose behavior can be predicted absolutely and controlled. Thus, the grand totalitarianexperiments disasters of the first half of the 20th century (parallels of which are still visible today). This is at the heart of Arendt's analysis of totalitarianism.
[Of course there are difficulties with the rigidity of Arendt's categories. Newspapers, for example, are products of work, because they are reified texts, but they are also where discussion and debate--action--take place. What, then, do we do with Arendt's categories in reference to such examples?]
So does all this have anything to do with Bourdieu? I don't know yet. Maybe not, heheh! :) But I wonder what the effects are of using language that sees culture, and social networks as "capital." Does Bourdieu emphasize that unlike economic capital, social networks and linguistic symbols cannot be "possessed,"' cannot be stored and depleted, and cannot be produced in an objective sense (cf. the section entitled "Forms of Capital" in this Wikipedia entry)? And if he doesn't, is there important merit in not making that distinction, and in maintaining the parallel among cultural, social and economic capital? Or does it, insofar as Bourdieu's thought is concerned, not even really matter? Am I merely unnecessarily quibbling with semantics?
Of course, maybe the question is larger than that, in that Bourdieu is a sociologist and Arendt is a philosopher (and a postmodern one at that), so they are speaking from two different sets of presumptions to begin with. Is it correct to assume that as a sociologist, Bourdieu has to speak with the presumption of predictable human behavior and action reified in artifacts? Whereas as a 20th century normative philosopher, Arendt has to begin from the recognition of the free individual human person. If this is the case, then maybe I'm making something out of nothing, and the only reason for his choice of words proceeds from the necessary presumptions of his discipline.
Forgive me for jumping in immediately with an Arendtian comparison, but since I know Arendt more than I know any other thinker, it's really the only point of reference I can begin with. One of the central and most original features of Arendt's thought is her distinction between "work" and "action." She used the term "work" to refer to the human's activity on the material, tangible world that fabricates durable objects (such as when a carpenter makes a table or an artist paints a painting). She uses the term "action" to refer to humans' activity among one another (such as discussion or debate). (A third category is "labor" which refers to the human's activity for the purpose of biological survival.) The confusion of the categories of "work" and "action," she says, has sometimes, in the past, been fatal. When human history--that is, the stories of human action--is seen as a "work," as an object to be fabricated, then several presumptions are made: history is then something seen as something that can be "shaped" through an act of violence (in the same way that a carpenter must do violence to a tree in order to turn it into a table), and history is seen as something that can be "finished." The consequences of such a view of history is clear: a Utopian vision that must be "engineered" where humans are mere cogs in a machine to create that vision. Humans are seen as machines whose behavior can be predicted absolutely and controlled. Thus, the grand totalitarian
[Of course there are difficulties with the rigidity of Arendt's categories. Newspapers, for example, are products of work, because they are reified texts, but they are also where discussion and debate--action--take place. What, then, do we do with Arendt's categories in reference to such examples?]
So does all this have anything to do with Bourdieu? I don't know yet. Maybe not, heheh! :) But I wonder what the effects are of using language that sees culture, and social networks as "capital." Does Bourdieu emphasize that unlike economic capital, social networks and linguistic symbols cannot be "possessed,"' cannot be stored and depleted, and cannot be produced in an objective sense (cf. the section entitled "Forms of Capital" in this Wikipedia entry)? And if he doesn't, is there important merit in not making that distinction, and in maintaining the parallel among cultural, social and economic capital? Or does it, insofar as Bourdieu's thought is concerned, not even really matter? Am I merely unnecessarily quibbling with semantics?
Of course, maybe the question is larger than that, in that Bourdieu is a sociologist and Arendt is a philosopher (and a postmodern one at that), so they are speaking from two different sets of presumptions to begin with. Is it correct to assume that as a sociologist, Bourdieu has to speak with the presumption of predictable human behavior and action reified in artifacts? Whereas as a 20th century normative philosopher, Arendt has to begin from the recognition of the free individual human person. If this is the case, then maybe I'm making something out of nothing, and the only reason for his choice of words proceeds from the necessary presumptions of his discipline.
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