Two particular Cultural Artefacts bumped together in my head just now, and I realised they are the same thing. Item the first - "This be the verse" by Philip Larkin. It's the one that begins "They fuck you up, your mum and dad". Get beyond that, and there's dark despairing wisdom (my favourite kind, obvs).... Continue Reading →
Podcast worth your time – “To Stay in the Fight we must navigate Trauma and Find the Healing We need”
This is good. To Stay in the Fight we must navigate Trauma and Find the Healing We need https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5N5nDHr81U Doesn't talk enough about movement organisation pathologies, or the emotacycle or what might - concretely - be done. But surfaces questions and problems in a way that is useful.
Happy D/days, “currently abled” and Time’s Winged Chariot… (notes)
Marking theses. Some good, some probably AI gibberish. So it goes. Anyhoos, before antibiotics and public health measures, an infected wound or an epidemic of [insert disease here] could remind you very very starkly of the Impermanence Of All Things. These days, we think we are gonna make it to 85 (spoiler, if you're less... Continue Reading →
Cartoons, catastrophe and the “long” view (even a generation seems as much as we can cope with)
Jotting a note to self for future possible work. I love old cartoons that talk about the ecological crisis - back to Pogo in 1971 "we have met the enemy and he is us" but also others from the same period. They remind me that the stakes have been known since the time I was... Continue Reading →
Cornucupians are structurally lucky in arguments
I should be working (1). Anyway, I am sure some of the readers (singular? plural?) of this blog will have had the experience of trying to explain that there are in fact limits - ecological, social, cognitive, physical, to someone who just denies it all and says, oh, you know the drill "limitless capacity for... Continue Reading →
Laughing at the end of the world… Earthdoom!!
You really do have to have a laugh. And this looks like it might provide some... Arrived today, via the wonders of abebooks
Reading headlines, and pushing back
Long before we scrolled, we skimmed. The headlines are supposed to give you the story "in a nutshell". That and the first sentence, that is there to tell you who did what when, where and 'why'. Except of course, it's always more complicated than that - but these are the myths journalists like to believe... Continue Reading →
Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, godlike technology – what could possibly go wrong?
The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous. E.O. Wilson Am so in love with this quote. Yes, yes, the dangers of mystifying class relations by harkening back to our hominid ancestry. Blah blah 'it's not the anthropocene, it's the capitolocene' blah blah.... Continue Reading →
Cortisol, long-term stress (versus “one and done”) and brain architecture
On Saturday, at a wedding, talking - as you do - about cortisol levels in people in long-term stressful situations and brain architecture. Pushback from a none-too-bright ideologue (no, seriously) who tried to evade questions about their position/experience (always a sign, that), and had some, ah, odd, ideas about how fear and negative stimuli work... Continue Reading →
“Cognitohazards”, fnords and things that would fry your brain… #Climatechange
Short post: should be working. Lunch yesterday with an old friend (my oldest in the UK?). Found myself ranting (cough, cough) about the lies we need to tell ourselves to get through the day/up the greasy poles etc. "If you woke up every morning saying to yourself 'I am a basically powerless individual living in... Continue Reading →
