Category: education

• July 13, 2011

  In these unsettled times: a brief case

  1. An unsettled time is characterized by the transition from workable habits to new ideas. Ann Swidler distinguishes between settled and unsettled periods. (“Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies,” American Sociological Review 51 (1986): 273-86.) A “settled culture,” she observes, is defined by “traditions and common sense.” The agent “refines and reinforces skills, habits, modes…
• July 12, 2011

  Fukuyama on institutional development & institutional decay

  “Rapid transformation destroys old coping mechanisms, old safety nets, while it creates a new set of demands, before new coping mechanisms are developed.” –Joseph Stiglitz, Forward to Karl Polanyi’s Great Transformations — Notes on Fukuyama’s Origins of Political Order (2011) Overview of Institutions “Institutions initially appear for what in retrospect were historically contingent reasons. But…
• July 8, 2011

  Traveling notes

  Airport culture shock. NYC still a walking culture. At airport, breathless. Barely breathe. Very, very, very fat. Grotesquery of broken bodies. Impending health care epidemic. Fear & trembling. Agriculture and dehumanization. Manning, in Against the Grain, traces problems w/ food back to the beginnings of agriculture 10,000 yrs. ago. Epochal change from hunter-gatherer to agricultural.…
• July 6, 2011

  On hovering parents & tea-cup children

  Best overview I’ve read on helicopter parents. Period. Truly a must-read for all parents raising their children to “be happy” and to avoid disappointment. The paradox? We’re getting tea-cup children and young adults. Article should be read alongside Franzen’s Freedom. Also alongside the literature on “emerging adulthood.”  The chief problems with the essay? 1. No…
• July 5, 2011

  A successful life is a plentiful life

  my phone a rose ‘no service’ — To say that a life is “successful” is to say, minimally, that: You have access to abundant good food. “Abundant”: just enough, not too much. “Good”: locally grown, ethically raised, sufficiently satisfying. Your work nourishes your soul. “Work”: the manifestation of self through activity. “Nourishes”: makes lighter, raises up,…