Category: ethics
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Allison Arieff on design ‘beyond the cubicle’
Over cocktails, an old-school literary agent told me that either an editor “gets your work” or she doesn’t. It was the best description of intellectual sympathy, of shared understanding, of common purpose that I’d heard since moving to New York 2 years ago. So when I read Allison Arieff”s “Beyond the Cubicle” yesterday, I saw…
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To become pessimistic or to let a hundred flowers bloom
It’s one of those mornings when I read scores of sour stories about a world headed downhill. In an effort to make playgrounds safer, parents, legislators, and lawyers have made our children more risk-averse and less thick-skinned. Meanwhile, the debt crisis in Greece rages on in the eurozone: no quick fixes, no easy solutions. On…
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‘The choice is to join an institution or die on the vine’
No, Jacoby, it isn’t. Five years ago I would have assumed that Jacoby was right. Three years ago I would have agreed with Jacoby. Two years ago I would have despaired with him. A year ago I floated the question: “Is it possible to live otherwise today?” That little question has made all the difference.…
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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…
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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.…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 