[Third of a series of blog posts about sessions at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas on Saturday 22nd October] Dr Fiona Kerr (of Adelaide University; all the best people went there) gave a barnstorming tour through the brain (her day job), and talked about the impacts on it of prolonged exposure to new technologies. She made... Continue Reading →
Sustainable jobs in sustainable communities #AdlFoI
[Second of a series of blog posts about sessions at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas on Saturday 22nd October] “Sustainable” is one of those motherhood-and-applie pie words (fnords,if you will) that don’t offer clarity. However John Spoehr, Heather Smith (a friend) and Sean Williams overcame this as far as could be expected in a short session.... Continue Reading →
Athenian Democracy? A few funny things will need to happen on the way to the forums… #AdlFoI
[First of a series of blog posts about sessions at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas on Saturday 22nd October] Nicholas Gruen started out with a stark example of the limits/dangers of ‘Vox Pop Democracy’. In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis the Obama Administration asked for people’s suggestions/priorities. And the answers were not ‘health/education’... Continue Reading →
Reaction formations- of time, space, rallies and camps #activism
Our choices - conscious and unconscious - of where, when and 'how' we protest - constrain our options, whether we can see that or not. In 2005 activists at the Gleneagles G8 meeting realised that "summit-hopping" and responding to elite agendas was demoralising and debilitating. Thus was born the principle of a 'Camp for Climate... Continue Reading →
Directions on misdirections at the Festival of Ideas
Phillip Adams and Barry Jones are two of the grand old men of Australian culture (and I know some people will have sniggered at that phrase; to one I say ‘see you in the divorce court, love’). For over fifty years they have fought the good fight – against the death penalty, against censorship, for... Continue Reading →
But which BIT of big business gets its way in which circumstances, eh?
The State is merely the committee for managing the affairs of the bourgeoisie, innit? The evil moustache-twirling CEOs get together and tell their political meat-puppet underlings what to do. Simples. Well, sometimes, but every so often maybe it is more complicated. I’m collecting examples of these every-so-often moments for my PhD thesis. I have quite... Continue Reading →
Maunderings and meanderings (Thesis) #Window #Metaphors #sense-making
Maundering #1 One of the key techniques for defensive institutional work is to make nonsense; to destroy or at the very least degrade the sense-making capacity of your opponents. Disorientate your enemy, deprive them of the ability to figure out – (quick enough - these are OODA loops, don't forget), what is going on. Screw... Continue Reading →
Getting your head around other people’s heads. Phenomenologically, tingle-ing-ly good
Can we ever really know what is going on in someone else's head? Meh, there's one way to piss someone off and that's to say “I know exactly how you feel, the same exact thing happened to me.” Because, of course, there's events but they have to be interpreted, and even the same person's interpretations... Continue Reading →
Rallying the troops. #smugosphere
I went to a rally yesterday. It was good – started on time, didn’t outstay its welcome, had an admirably diverse range of speakers (the [old] white male quotient was low, much lower than it would have been even ten years ago). Well-organised, nothing about to say a reflection etc etc. So why was I... Continue Reading →
You cannot be Serres-ist?! Baal and the Challenger explosion
Okay, I will admit to being prejudiced. Or rather, having encountered a certain group and then unfairly tarred'em all with the same brush. And that group is.... late 20th century French "philosophers". I read a bit of Fucko, couldn't get into Derrida, liked bits of Virilio... a bit of Auge, but decided to leave Badiou,... Continue Reading →
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