“When we resist awkwardness, the social order looks good. When we resist the social order, awkwardness looks good. But on rare occasions when we figure out a way to stop resisting the the social order and yet also stop resisting awkwardness and just go with it , something genuinely new and unexpected might happen: we might be able to simply enjoy one another without the meditation of any expectations or demands. ”
—Adam Kotsko, Awkwardness., p. 27
Study finds that older siblings are smarter and generally more awesome than younger siblings
Or something like that:
The study, detailed in the June 22 issue of the journal Science, analyzed the IQs of nearly 250,000 Norwegian 18- and 19-year-old draftees and found that older siblings had higher scores than younger siblings.
Another study, by the same authors of the new Science study but published recently in the journal Intelligence, looked at more than 100,000 Norwegian brothers and found that first-borns on average had an IQ 2.3 points higher than their younger brothers (the IQs were all taken when the brothers were 18 or 19, so they compare the older brother’s score at that age to the younger brother’s score when he reached that same age).
#Dumenil & #Levy...
“Despite the deeply rooted faith in free-market economics and the so-called discipline of the markets, the crisis initiated a chain of interventions from central institutions. There is nothing surprising about this sharp reversal away from the basic tenants of the neoliberal creed. Neoliberalism is not about principles or ideology but a social order aiming at the power and income of the upper classes, Ideology is a political instrument. Considered from this angle there was no change in objectives. In neoliberalism the state always worked in favor of the upper classes… That this crisis might usher in a different social order is a different issue.”
The phasing here is important because i tend to think of neoliberalism as an ideology or discourse, whereas here the emphasis is on a social order. With the consequence that the set of discourses that make up neoliberalism are understand through their goals. Perhaps its a more useful abstraction… However it does begin to explain why the central issue with Tim Jackson’s Prosperty Without Growth is ideological. Because there is no central universal of human emancipation it can potentially become merely another supporting toolset for a social order aiming at the support of power and income for the ruling classes. The evidence to support this is the preface…
“Contemporary anarchists are faced with much the same task: to expose the ‘superstitious’ and frankly absurd nature of many of our social beliefs – principally our beliefs about the legitimacy of various forms of exploitation, domination, and authority – even when these beliefs are themselves presented as the fruit of enlightened reason. In challenging these beliefs, anarchists facilitate a rational and moral challenge to the social order itself.”
—Paul McLaughinIntro to Activism
Everyone knows the problem. Though there are a myriad of symptoms, everyone comprehends the sickness. It is so saturated in the soil of our society, that it leaks onto the concrete, and the toxic off draft is the only nourishment of our impoverished minds. It is so many centuries old, that it is almost a testimony to the nature of humanity-intellectual distinction- social disparity created by the virtue of difference- all of the lesser animals of the kingdom, by now have internalized the order.
The great problem, the dilemma that is the root we cannot seem to dig up, is the simple catastrophe of human existence, is the incredible disproportion of wealth that reaps thus sows, this pervasive inequality. Every half-reluctant sentiment of bitterness, and attempt at social reform-doomed by the inescapable truth that not only are the entire riches of the world held by the top 2% of its inhabitants, but that the rest of humanity contributes unquestioningly to the institution of this structure. The implications of our acceptance are gruesome-beyond the world of politics are a million starving bellies, a creeping presence of oil through our oceans and pollution through our skies, encases us in the economy of this hierarchy. We are imprisoned by a system that manages our subjugation-it is a beautiful life, but humanity is dripping off the pages of its own existence. We are phasing ourselves out.
In my opinion, the first step to activism is recognition. Right now, in this very moment, congress is choosing politics over us. They are choosing image over righteousness and power over virtue. This will go on eternally. Accountability is not some abstract concept that our politicians need to keep in mind, it is the daily reassurance that we are watching; and not only that, but also that we have our own visions about what tomorrow should look like.
Next, and in my mind most importantly, we must be willing to risk our lives for the general betterment of the human condition. We must take as fact, that no one is working to change the dynamic of power. Conversations about redistribution, empowerment of the people, immigration and social reform are looked upon as terrorist activity and as a National threat. This is because it is a national threat. For the people to want justice, true justice, a paradigm shift in our social reality and for the impoverished to rise up, and for the uneducated to become educated- this would indeed terrorize the state as we know it. But the state of insecurity that we are so afraid of, already exists.
Only through collective action, will we be able to make a change. Individuals do not alter systems-shared visions that shake thousands of people in their constitutions, do. The leaders of the institution of capitalism, which despite what many would attest, is not as benign an institution in its execution as in its ideal, are banking on regional biases to keep the masses uninspired and unattached. I call these differences regional, because that is all they ever were. The only difference between Europeans and Africans was their distance from the equator; the facets of their lifestyles fleshed out uniquely based on their variant geographical conditions.
The difference between what a New Yorker thinks and what a Texan thinks, is similarly shaped by these geographical distinctions. You will find that you share much more in common with your neighbor of a different race than with someone of the same race from a different region. We may not agree on every fiscal policy, but we must agree that inhumanity is universal degradation.
The activist may come from any walk of life, as long as he is committed to an almost spiritual dedication to his fellow man. The lines between his life and theirs must be blurred. He must be unwittingly unafraid of death.
We do not have to have the audacity to hope that power is in our hands. The many outnumber the few, and always have. They think we lack the moral consciences to lead ourselves; and the media continues to degrade our intelligence by sectioning us off. America, as a state, as a representative entity, is not the sleeping giant. The true sleeping giant is the unstirred conscience of the people with the most democratic history in the world. It may be resting, but it is haunted by the most wretched of nightmares. I ask that that sleeping giant wake up, because nothing comes to a sleeper but a dream.
There is a difference between liberal and revolutionary. The latter demands to escape the prison of the political spectrum altogether.
