Month: September 2007

Cornel West and Simon Critchley discussion

Cornel West (Princeton) and Simon Critchley (New School) will speak on Thursday night on the topic of  “The Meaning of Ethical Commitment and the Possibility of Political Resistance” at the New School for Social Research. According to their website:

The program will be held on Thursday, Sept 20, at 8:00 p.m. in the Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, 55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor. Admission is free, and no reservations required. Seating is first-come first-served. For more information call 212.807.9680

This promises to be an engaging evening, and I am really looking forward to it! I have heard Cornel West speak (though never in person), and I know Simon Critchley has a reputation as being an engaging speaker and professor as well.  I often do not make time to attend cultural events such as this one; always working or studying instead. However, this is one of the reasons I live in New York–the culture, educational opportunities, and energy that comes from so many things happening all the time that work to expand horizons. 

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Facebook makes Crain’s

There is an interesting article in the current issue of Crain’s New York Business, which is the hand’s down best New York City business weekly, about how the senior editor at Crain’s New York Business magazine found his job through Facebook. While I am not fond of this social networking tool, it is interesting to to see a positive outcome, as opposed to just more hype.

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Family Guy and Philosophy

Family Guy and PhilosophyThe newest book in Bill Irwin’s The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series, Family Guy and Philosophy just came out (the link is to my Amazon Store that helps in a very minor way to pay for this blog’s expenses). Too bad Amazon does not have the image for this book yet. It is partly thanks to this book that a wider audience gets exposed to philosophy at all. Philosophy as a discipline has gotten (perhaps even promoted?) the reputation that it writes for and speaks to only itself. While this is far from its roots in the Greeks, much of the philosophy in the English-speaking world has become more and more focused upon issues that do not have an immediate relevancy for ordinary people. Am I the only one who notices this and thinks that perhaps many in academia may be missing something here?

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Facebook research results: Real vs. “Virtual” friends

In a new research study unveiled at the British Association Festival of Science, it seems that people who have oodles of Facebook “friends” have in fact the same number of close friends as those who do not use social networking sites. I have a suspicion that a lot more research needs to be done in this area, with studies probably already underway, to investigate this phenomenon.

One of the more interesting items this study revealed is the active “defriending” process in social networking sites rather than the gradual losing touch that happens in face-to-face (F2F) relationships.

I wonder what other things may be learned by following this research further? Perhaps that more casual friendships may effect F2F relationships? Perhaps geographic proximity may play less of a role in social relationships, thereby benefiting the travel industry? I wonder if this will positively or negatively affect cultural, religious, or socioeconomic sensitivity? What role will education play in this? How about online crime, personality deception, racketeering, and predatory behaviors?

Oh, what brave new world . . .   

Pouring in learning

I am currently participating in a discussion entitled Active Learning Strategies for Online Learning at SCoPE, and one of the participants posted this image that struck me as very applicable to a host of learning issues. funnelI used to believe that information could be dumped in, but have since learned that socio-cultural and historical factors make this impossible. No two people could ever learn the same thing in the same way–context is against it.

I think about how this exemplifies Paulo Freire and his criticism of traditional pedagogy as “banking” education. In this form, education is banked and thus controlled by those in power to choose a curriculum. All knowledge is conveyed through this lens, with what is considered right and wrong, good and bad, and just and unjust seen in this manner as being what should (morality?) be done. Power is thus maintained by promoting a worldview that protects the establishment, even while on the surface claiming to challenge it. There is no more certain way to challenge a social system than by challenging both the content as well as the methodology of its educational establishment.

It is no wonder why many in society complain about our current state of education, yet it seems nearly impossible to fundamentally change the system itself. That would disrupt many whose careers are built around promoting the very thing that they claim is wrong. I wonder, in a psychoanalytic way, if this is a veiled form of self-hatred?

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