tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67829552024-03-19T01:59:12.711-07:00In the DarkMass Ignorance in the "Information Age"Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.comBlogger1191125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-17063719823086971112022-12-14T09:59:00.001-08:002022-12-14T09:59:54.772-08:00Propaganda 2.1 on WGN-TV<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="347" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3YTTH51bu_4" width="441" youtube-src-id="3YTTH51bu_4"></iframe></div><br />In my first television interview in 21 years, I spoke this morning with Larry Potash and Robin Baumgarten, hosts of the WGN-TV Morning News in Chicago, about my new book, <i>Propaganda 2.1: Understanding Propaganda in the Digital Age</i>.<p></p><p>In all fairness to the hosts and producers of the show, they assumed what most people assume when they hear the title of the book: "Oh, this guy is going to show us how to identify fake news that comes to us via social media." That's kind of the zeitgeist right now, isn't it? That's exactly what seven years of mainstream mass media, propaganda 2.0 coverage has done to us. We've been massaged (sometimes brutally) to doubt everything that comes to us through our "new media" digital information environment and to trust <i>only</i> the information we receive through the older, non-digital mass media.</p><p>Unfortunately (or fortunately) that kind of thinking -- so typical of our society at the moment -- is proving itself to be less than productive. Reliance on the mass media for our information brought us Donald J. Trump in the first place, and made Bernie Sanders' candidacy for the Presidency a dead issue. (With the help, of course, of a rigged primary system, a thoroughly corrupt Democratic Party establishment, and an indolent and acquiescent mass media establishment.)</p><p>This book has been a real learning experience for me -- from ten years of reading and writing, a year in the editing/publication process, to three months of promotion. My mind has changed on a lot of issues in ten years, and the entire thrust of the book changed with. It actually started out (which is to say that <i>I</i> actually started out) as exactly the kind of "Don't trust the Internet" book that everyone seems to be expecting.</p><p>It's not. I hope you'll read it. Who knows? It may turn out to be a learning experience for you as well.</p>Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-64024379486720308702022-10-05T09:16:00.000-07:002022-10-05T09:16:09.830-07:00<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZSV3aiUuGU3uw8SocgfvbWpfHwfBe1nsDmhLVvvU_1IiRcF0cLa5ph0CFmfKm7zDRQyzTnXllyg6tz2IW8ny4xwrqltZX7hYXdqbZPs0oEtf8NVR8pCA_JCBrKqEG12dDEyjlnJYnr2DQF-Zjq9653OZFXYez-anPW5uVJEEwJefrjQjabg/s812/Postman%20Poster%204.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="631" data-original-width="812" height="466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZSV3aiUuGU3uw8SocgfvbWpfHwfBe1nsDmhLVvvU_1IiRcF0cLa5ph0CFmfKm7zDRQyzTnXllyg6tz2IW8ny4xwrqltZX7hYXdqbZPs0oEtf8NVR8pCA_JCBrKqEG12dDEyjlnJYnr2DQF-Zjq9653OZFXYez-anPW5uVJEEwJefrjQjabg/w592-h466/Postman%20Poster%204.jpg" width="592" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: cyan;">Neil Postman</span></a> </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/obituaries/09POST.html" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">died nineteen years ago today</span></a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">. The sadness I feel still is hard to describe.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">In </span><a href="https://listserv.temple.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0310b&L=mmc&O=A&P=486" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: calibri;">the e-mail</span></a><span style="font-family: calibri;"> that brought me news of his death from lung cancer at the age of 72, </span><a href="http://lancestrate.blogspot.com/" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: calibri;">Lance Strate</span></a><span style="font-family: calibri;"> described Neil, very accurately, as "the mentor of hundreds, in fact thousands of graduate students, and so the loss is personal as well as professional. We will miss him as a friend, colleague, teacher, and father."<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">I have to say right off the bat that I was not one of those people to whom Lance refers. I cannot claim Neil Postman as a mentor. A teacher and an inspiration? Yes. But not a mentor. Frankly, he frightened and intimidated me (not deliberately, of course; the insecurities were all mine) and reminded me of my own self-perceived intellectual inadequacies. (In fairness to the topic, if anyone deserves credit – or perhaps I should say blame – for mentoring me, it would be Neil’s NYU colleague </span><a href="http://ffanzeen.blogspot.com/2010/12/remembering-christine-nystrom.html" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: calibri;">Christine Nystrom</span></a><span style="font-family: calibri;">, who was able to encourage and coax from me my best thinking and writing.) Yet Neil supported and helped me in so many ways--academically, professionally, personally—and, as it turns out, influenced my thinking far more deeply than I understood at the time, that the shock of his passing has barely abated after all this time. How I’d love to sit and talk with him now about our shared media ecology.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">I first heard of Neil Postman while working on my Master’s Degree in Communication at New York Institute of Technology around 1976. A couple of serendipitous events occurred. One, I took a course with a professor named Irving Weingarten who, during my time at NYIT, defended his dissertation and received his Doctorate in Media Ecology from New York University and introduced me to Neil’s work. Two, I took a course with Philip Miele – “Vocabulary of the Media Critic” – whose core text was </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Innis" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: calibri;">Harold Innis</span></a><span style="font-family: calibri;">’s “</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Bias-Communication-2nd-Edition/dp/0802096069" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: calibri;">The Bias of Communication</span></a><span style="font-family: calibri;">.” I had, of course, read </span><a href="http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: calibri;">Marshall McLuhan</span></a><span style="font-family: calibri;">’s “</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Media-The-Extensions-Man/dp/0262631598" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: calibri;">Understanding Media</span></a><span style="font-family: calibri;">” as an undergraduate – depending on your point of view, either essential reading or de rigueur at the time – and was of course fascinated by him and his aphoristic probes. But I had an uneasy feeling that one could make of much of McLuhan’s wisdom just about anything one wanted. A Nostradamus for the electronic age. There was great vision and imagination – even poetry – in McLuhan’s probes but not a whole lot of specificity.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Innis, on the other hand, supplied the structure and method that I felt lacking in McLuhan’s work. Innis told me, in different words, that the medium is the message. But he also supplied me with historical examples that provided a foundation upon which I could build an understanding of exactly what that phrase meant. And Irv Weingarten turned me on to Neil’s writing and the concept of a “media ecology,” so similar to what I was reading in McLuhan but so much more grounded in common sense and reason. My first encounter with Neil’s work was “</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Talk-Stupid-Defeat-Ourselves/dp/0385281781" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: calibri;">Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk</span></a><span style="font-family: calibri;">” (1977), followed almost immediately by “</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Subversive-Activity-Neil-Postman/dp/0385290098" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: calibri;">Teaching as a Subversive Activity</span></a><span style="font-family: calibri;">” (1969). By the time I was awarded my Master’s degree in 1980, I knew I had to get into that “Media Ecology” program at NYU. Money, work, life being what they are, it took me six more years.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Neil was a humble, funny, gregarious person who, at the same time, was a towering, imposing figure. He was also, at the time of my arrival, the author of a new book that everyone seemed to be talking about, “</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Business/dp/014303653X" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: calibri;">Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in an Age of Show Business</span></a><span style="font-family: calibri;">.” At the risk of repeating myself, I had enormous difficulty finding the same comfort level with Neil as so many others in the program so easily managed to do. At first, my end of our infrequent exchanges were limited pretty much to a stumbling “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” and “I’m not sure, sir.” Oh, I answered questions and gave my opinion when called upon to do so, but I’m pretty sure my mouth dried and my tongue tied every time I had to speak with him. At the end of the first semester, in our “Seminar in Media Ecology: Analysis,” my colleagues and I in the class of ‘90 cohort had to write and submit a brief (mine was 35 pages) history of a medium, after which we defended it orally in front of Neil and Chris Nystrom. I’ll never forget the feeling of horror and humiliation as I sat across from the two of them and watched Neil hold my paper between his thumb and forefinger, dangling it to his side as though it were a soiled tissue picked up from the floor, while he leaned back in his chair, took a deep drag on his cigarette, paused, and said only this: “Peter…your writing is so…florid…Why is that?” Chris rescued me, even remarking that she enjoyed my writing, but if I could have melted into the woodwork at that moment, I surely would have. I must also say (with considerable pride but also immeasurable relief) that in time Neil came to appreciate and perhaps even respect both my writing and my thinking.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Over the years, I learned so much from Neil, as well as from Chris, Terry Moran, Henry Perkinson, John Mayher, and others. It was impossible not to learn in this program. I learned about and read the works of John Dewey, George Herbert Mead, Alfred Korzybski, I.A. Richards; of Alfred North Whitehead and Suzanne Langer; of Lewis Mumford and Jacques Ellul; of Marx, Engels, and Freud; of Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas; and of course, of Marshall McLuhan. For Neil, there was no educational replacement for the information technology of the Gutenberg era, the printed book. As he </span><a href="http://archive.pressthink.org/2003/10/07/postman_life.html" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: calibri;">explained to Jay Rosen</span></a><span style="font-family: calibri;"> with typical understatement, “We’re just trying to give people a good liberal arts education,” and that good liberal arts education was the education of literacy, the education of the Enlightenment. I got to know Neil Postman as an eminently reasonable – and rational – man; but a man for whom reason was simply one piece of the human intellect, incomplete without its complementary counterpart, imagination. And the imagination, seat of the emotional life, was the foundation of empathy.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">“From the beginning,” Neil said in </span><a href="http://media-ecology.org/publications/MEA_proceedings/v1/humanism_of_media_ecology.html" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: calibri;">the keynote address at the inaugural convention of the Media Ecology Association</span></a><span style="font-family: calibri;">, “we were a group of moralists.” This appealed to me, because I am something of a media moralist myself. It was what attracted me to the program in the first place. I could see this moralism subtly in Innis, more overtly in Ellul. But it was absent in McLuhan. McLuhan had once said “A moral point of view too often substitutes for understanding in technological matters” (I have an imaginary discussion of this point with McLuhan </span><a href="http://rujournalism.blogspot.com/2010/10/my-imaginary-conversation-with-marshall.html" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: calibri;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: calibri;">). I couldn’t understand why, in the act of understanding media, one would not be moved to improve the situation of the people that those media serve. And so my affinity for Neil’s thinking grew. “It was our idea,” Neil continued in his 2000 keynote, “to have an academic department that would focus its attention on the media environment, with a particular interest in understanding how and if our media ecology was making us better or worse. Not everyone thought that this was a good idea—Marshall McLuhan, for one. Although McLuhan had suggested that we start such a department at NYU, he did not have in mind that we ought to interest ourselves in whether or not new media, especially electronic media, would make us better or worse. He reminded me several times of the lines in Stephen Vincent Benét’s long poem John Brown’s Body. At the end of the poem, Benét makes reference to the Industrial Revolution and finishes with these lines:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">“Say neither, it is blessed nor cursed.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">“Say only ‘It is here.’<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">“No room for moralists there. McLuhan claimed that we ought to take the same point of view in thinking about modern media: that they are neither blessed nor cursed, only that they are here. He thought that this moral neutrality would give the best opportunity to learn exactly how new media do their stuff. If one spent too much time on the question of whether or not that stuff was good, one would be distracted from truly understanding media. As a consequence, although I believe McLuhan liked me, I feel sure he would not have much liked my books, which he would have thought too moralistic, rabbinical or, if not that, certainly too judgmental.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Neil Postman was a true heir to the legacy of the Enlightenment: a proponent of propositional language and thought who wrote clear, concise, rational prose; a man of imagination and transcendence who knew that humans were more than the sum of their material parts. Far from being the Luddite he is generally accused of being, Neil rejected the idea that all technological change constituted “progress” and refused to be controlled by technology – or the people who market them – but enthusiastically embraced those technologies – and only those – that measurably improved the quality of human life. And he did not apologize for that.<br /><br />He did not hesitate to point a finger at the mendacity of marketers who sell newness for its own sake or to ridicule the baseless and unsupported claims of the acolytes of our new digital religion. “</span><a href="http://w2.eff.org/Net_culture/Criticisms/informing_ourselves_to_death.paper" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: calibri;">Through the computer, the heralds say, we will make education better, religion better, politics better, our minds better — best of all, ourselves better. This is, of course, nonsense, and only the young or the ignorant or the foolish could believe it</span></a><span style="font-family: calibri;">.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">But throughout human history, Neil also acknowledged, it was technologies that shaped the information, psychic, and spiritual environments that allowed people to make things better. In true humanist fashion, Neil </span><a href="http://media-ecology.org/publications/MEA_proceedings/v1/humanism_of_media_ecology.html" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: calibri;">left us some questions to think about</span></a><span style="font-family: calibri;"> when trying to make judgments about which value system would be served by a given technology: “The first question is this: To what extent does a medium contribute to the uses and development of rational thought? Here is a second question: To what extent does a medium contribute to the development of democratic processes? A third question—related to the previous two—is: To what extent do new media give greater access to meaningful information? Here is a final question: To what extent do new media enhance or diminish our moral sense, our capacity for goodness?” Neil would never reject any technology that provided suitable answers to those questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Nineteen years after his death, one of my fondest memories of Neil is sitting in the courtyard of Fordham's Lincoln Center campus at lunchtime during the first MEA conference. My Mom had just died, and I was nursing my Dad through his final (two year) illness. Much of my personal life, at that moment, was a shambles. Neil came and sat with me and we just talked about life--its difficulty, its tragedy, and its beauty. I was impressed not so much by what he said – what does one say, after all, to someone who believes his life is falling apart? – but by the sheer humanity of the gesture. I really don’t remember the specifics of our conversation, but I’ll never forget the moment. One of the reasons that Neil was the teacher, thinker, and writer that we know him to be is that he was – for all the criticisms of his "Luddite" work – wholly alive and in love with life and the phenomenon of human intelligence. He had a profound faith in ALL of us. Those moments with Neil – no longer the “towering figure” I stammered before but the compassionate friend who listened to me – are burned into my memory forever.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">Nineteen years ago this semester I began a new phase in my career and my life out here on the prairie, and I was unable to attend the various memorials and social events in Neil's honor. I was unable to be in NY for his funeral, although I would dearly have loved to pay my respects in person to all who knew Neil. My sympathies remain with all of you who continue to mourn Neil's passing, just as my joy will always be with those of you who celebrate his life and carry on his work. I am proud to count myself among your ranks. I honestly believe it is time for a “Neil Postman Renaissance.” We need a corrective to the orgy of technophilia that has surrounded this false information “revolution” for the last two decades. We need a direction and while Neil Postman is not that direction – and would blanch at any suggestion to the contrary – his work may provide with clues to that direction.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">At the end of his </span><a href="http://media-ecology.org/publications/MEA_proceedings/v1/humanism_of_media_ecology.html" style="color: #dd7700; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: calibri;">2000 MEA keynote</span></a><span style="font-family: calibri;">, Neil (who was snarky before snarky was cool) made it clear that he, if no one else, envisioned Media Ecology as a logical extension of Enlightenment and Renaissance humanism, in which no answers are given, but methods for questioning are constantly improved and the end of this intellectual activity is the improvement of the human condition. He concluded “by saying that as I understand the whole point of media ecology, it exists to further our insights into how we stand as human beings, how we are doing morally in the journey we are taking. There may be some of you who think of yourselves as media ecologists who disagree with what I have just said. If that is the case, you are wrong.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b><span style="font-family: calibri;">Neil Postman Bibliography<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: calibri;">Author<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century: Ideas from the Past that Can Improve Our Future. New York: Knopf, 1999.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School. New York, Knopf, 1995<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•The Disappearance of Childhood: Redefining the Value of School. New York: Vintage Books, 1994, c.1982.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. New York: Vintage Books, 1993<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•Conscientious Objection: Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology and Education. New York: Vintage Books, 1992, c.1988.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin, 1985<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•Teaching as a Conserving Activity. New York: Delacorte Press, 1979.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk: How We Defeat Ourselves by the Way We Talk and What to Do About It. New York: Delacorte Press, 1976.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•Teaching as a Subversive Activity. New York: Delta Book Publishing, 1971, c.1969.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•Languages of Discovery. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1967.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•The Uses of Language. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1967.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•Exploring Your Language. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1966.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•Linguistics: A Revolution in Teaching. New York: Delta Book Publishing, 1966.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•The New English: A Forward Look. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1965.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•Discovering Your Language. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1963.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•Television and the Teaching of English. New York: Appleton Centruy Croft, 1961.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: calibri;">Co-author<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•with Donald N. Wood. Post-Intellectualism and the Decline of Democracy: The Failure of Reason and Responsibility in the Twentieth Century. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1996.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•with Steve Powers. How to Watch TV News. New York: Penguin, 1992.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•et al. Myths, Men and Beer: an Analysis of Beer Commercials on Broadcast Television. Church Falls, VA.: Foundation for Traffic Safety, 1987.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•with Charles Weingartner. The School Book: for People Who Want to Know What all the Hollering Is About. New York: Delacorte Press, 1973.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•with Charles Weingartner. How to Recognize a Good School. Bloomington: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation, 1973.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•with Charles Weingartner. The Soft Revolution: A Student Handbook for Turning Schools Around. New York: Delacorte Press, 1971.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•with Charles Weingartner. Teaching as a Subversive Activity. New York: Delacorte Press, 1979, c. 1969.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•with Charles Weingartner. Linguistics: A Revolution in Teaching. New York: Delacorte Press, 1966.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•with Howard C. Damon. The Language of Discovery. New York: Delacotre Press, 1965.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•with Howard C. Damon. Language and System. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1965.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•et al. Television and the Teaching of English. New York: Appleton Century Crofts, 1961.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: calibri;">Editor<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•Language in America: A Report on Our Deteriorating Semantic Environment. New York: Pegasus, 1969.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•The Roots of Fanaticism. Ed. with Howard C. Damon. New York: Holt Reinhart and Winston, 1965.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: calibri;">Articles<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Science and the Story that We Need. First Things. No. 69 (1997), 29-32.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Making a Living, Making a Life: Technology Reconsidered.” College Board Review. No. 176-177 (1995), 8-13.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Virtual Students, Digital Classroom.” The Nation. No. 261 ign (1995), 377-378ff.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“The American Experiment” Education Week, Vol. 15 (1995), 56.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Error of Our Ways.” Teacher Magazine. Vol. 6 (1995), 32-37.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Technology as Dazzling Distraction.” The Education Digest. Vol. 59 (1994), 25-28.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Deus Machina” Technos. Vol. 1 (1992), 16-18.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•with Camille Paglia. “She Wants Her TV! He Wants His Book!” Harper’s Vol. 282 (1991), 44-51, 54-55.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“What is a Conservative? (And Why Reagan Is Not One).” Utne Reader (Mar/Ap, 1989), 75.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Learning by Story.” The Atlantic. No. 264 (1989) 119-124.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“The Educationist as Painkiller.” English Education. (1988), 7-17.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“The Blurring of Childhood and the Media.” Religious Education, Vol. 82 (1987) 293-295.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“The Limits of Language.” Etc. Vol. 43 (1986), 227-235.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“TV News as Vaudeville.” The Quill. Vol. 74 (1986), 18-23.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Media and Technology as Educators.” Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. (1985), 183-200.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Social Science as Theology.” Etc. Vol. 41 (1984), 22-32.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“The Day Our Children Disappear: Predictions of a Media Ecologist.” Phi Delta Kappa. Vol. 62 (1981), 382-386.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Fine Tuning the Balance Between Education and Media Culture.” Teacher. Vol. 98 (1980), 28-30.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Language Education in a Knowledge Context.” Etc. Vol. 37 (1980), 25-37.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Landmarks in the Literature: the Limits of Language.” New York University Education Quarterly. Vol. 11 (1979), 29-32.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“The Ascent of Humanity: a Coherent Curriculum.” Educational Leadership. Vol. 37 (1980), 300-303<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Order in the Classroom!” Atlantic. Vol. 244 (1979) 35-38.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“The First Curriculum.” Phi Delta Kappa. Vol. 61 (1979), 163-168.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“The Information Environment.” Etc. Vol. 36 (1979), 234-245.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Landmarks in Literature: Where Have All the Critics Gone?” New York University Education Quarterly. Vol. 9 (1977), 28-31.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“What an Educator Means When He Says…” Journal of the International Association of Pupil Personnel Workers. Vol. 20 (1976), 153-156.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Whatever I Call It, It Is.” Etc. Vol. 31 (1974), 37-44.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•with Charles Weingartner. “Two Tests to Take - to Find Out if Yours Is a Great School.” American School Board Journal. Vol. 161 (1974), 23-26.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Media Ecology: A Growing Perspective.” Media Ecology Review. Vol. 3 (1973), 10-11.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“Illich, Pro and Con.” Social Policy. Vol. 2 (1971), 33-42.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“The New Literacy” Grade Teacher. Vol. 88 (1971), 2-52.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: #333333; clear: both; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #333333; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: calibri;">•“The Politics of Reading.” Harvard Educational Review. Vol. 40 (1970), 244-252.</span></div>Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-24192702787208239892022-09-24T15:18:00.001-07:002022-09-24T15:19:30.386-07:00Propaganda 2.1: Understanding Propaganda in the Digital Age<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0kGAMWHU09_QwI4HEQ5iTfrHAVjofgOGYj8CTaXpWXZv6U9zg4njJ3c6_lMP0XnTPbtgPbccbOLkeg7cqaEq-ZQ1NK0ZA12TWtM_Ibx0KK7I6DgFUkj__UZfrKNUNbMDFxGCL4uHhovkpd8KpFkgTON-c8oqQADWJEjrFBjdAvAMdfAbHZg/s447/9781666731347.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="298" height="447" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0kGAMWHU09_QwI4HEQ5iTfrHAVjofgOGYj8CTaXpWXZv6U9zg4njJ3c6_lMP0XnTPbtgPbccbOLkeg7cqaEq-ZQ1NK0ZA12TWtM_Ibx0KK7I6DgFUkj__UZfrKNUNbMDFxGCL4uHhovkpd8KpFkgTON-c8oqQADWJEjrFBjdAvAMdfAbHZg/w309-h447/9781666731347.webp" width="309" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm happy to announce the publication of my fourth book, Propaganda 2.1: Understanding Propaganda in the Digital Age. (Cascade Books, Eugene OR, September 8, 2022)</span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here's a blurb:<br /><br /><span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5px;">Since the US presidential election of 2016 the words propaganda and fake news have been prominent in American political and cultural discourse. Yet very few people can provide a coherent explanation of what they mean, precisely, when using them. On the two sides of the political spectrum ("red" and "blue"), each points out messages from the other side that they think are untrue--or that they simply don't like. Unlike our dangerously biased political system, however, reality has more than only two sides. For decades, Americans sat by while their mediated world was carved into a single "red reality" focused in necessary opposition to a single "blue reality." We've been given "red media outlets" and "blue media outlets" to stoke our collective rage, each against the other's lies. But the first two decades of the twenty-first century have presented us with a new information environment, one of unregulated and seemingly uncontrollable information. Like the young boy in a popular folktale, we can now see--if only we can resist the pressures of social conformity--that both emperors, red and blue, strut proudly before us, naked. Propaganda 2.1 is a handbook for seeing reality clearly--and coping with it.</span></span><br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">And here are some early reviews:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5px;">Writing in the tradition of media-ecology scholars such as Jacques Ellul and Neil Postman, Peter Fallon takes on the subject of propaganda with intelligence, insight, and moral clarity. Coupling historical context with contemporary analysis, </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">Propaganda 2.1</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5px;"> is essential reading for anyone concerned about the contemporary media environment and where we may be headed in the years to come. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5px;">—<b>Lance Strate, Fordham University</b></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.5px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.5px;" /><span style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">Propaganda 2.1</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5px;"> is a timely contribution to digital-literacy education. After a thoughtful rereading of Ellul’s classic work, the book offers in a lucid exposition a wealth of original research and insights into the changing nature of propaganda in the twenty-first century. No student of media or reader who wants to better understand and defend themselves from the new generation of propaganda in the digital age can afford to ignore this extremely resourceful book.</span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5px;">—<b>Casey Man Kong Lum, William Paterson University</b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.5px;" /><span style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">Propaganda 2.1 </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5px;">is a brilliant contribution to our fragile planet and civilization. . . . The picture is bleak, but Fallon shows how the emergence of the World Wide Web and various internet technologies can open up new possibilities—not just QAnon and Alex Jones, but WikiLeaks, Occupy Wall Street, and Black Lives Matter. Individuals and smaller movements can have a voice. Resistance, truth, justice, freedom, and community may not be likely—but they are possible with </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">Propaganda 2.1</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5px;">.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.5px;"><b>—David W. Gill, International Jacques Ellul Society</b></span></span></div><div><span><span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.5px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">The book is available on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BG8Z2Z7P/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i2" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/propaganda-21-peter-k-fallon/1142285559" target="_blank">Barnes & Noble</a>, <a href="https://www.booksamillion.com/product/9781666731347" target="_blank">Books-a-Million</a>, the website of <a href="https://wipfandstock.com/9781666731347/propaganda-2-1/?fbclid=IwAR324pJYH5yem25oLatkiQcvm85izQyDYRny_uqUvvTLcgtWMcM40eytVDQ" target="_blank">Wipf & Stock Publishers</a>, and at select bookstores. You can also support your local independent bookstore by finding Propaganda 2.1 on <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781666731347" target="_blank">IndieBound</a> and buying it there. </span></span></div><div><span><span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.5px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">A limited preview can be found on <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PFWIEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ViewAPI&hl=en&fbclid=IwAR37D0GXB_eVj1ewQecRJ11nIuS8FUwUAREz-t-EDuWEsmlJ2Jytl6-gv3s#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Google Books</a>.</span></span></div>Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-69160228601252079352021-04-06T12:56:00.000-07:002021-04-06T12:56:34.998-07:00I'm in Facebook Jail!<p>Last weekend, on the 53rd anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's last speech ("I've been to the mountaintop!"), I posted a video of that speech on Facebook. I was immediately banned from posting on Facebook, and my account deactivated, for thirty days for violations of "community standards."<br /><br />This is not a rare piece of video. I have posted it a half-dozen or more times in the last decade or so, and I've seen it posted elsewhere on social media. Facebook said it was in violation of copyright law, and I responded that, being an educator, I was claiming <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html" target="_blank">fair use</a> as a rationale for posting it. That didn't seem to matter, and I now have 28 days to sit quietly in the corner.</p><p>In fact, I believe it was my commentary on the video that got me in (good) trouble. The post is gone now so I can't remember precisely what I said, but it was something very much like this:<br /><br /></p><blockquote><p>53 years ago today, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his last speech to striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. He told them that he had "been to the mountaintop" and had seen "the promised land," and he promised them that they would too.</p><p>The next day he was murdered.</p></blockquote><p>Here is that video.</p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='467' height='388' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzt4W1VworVVALSfFVnzG-XysPIE9iS8qQ3sutuafU7wXiZuVZ8siGNP_NEK4BuZUerYNX-um6FRMw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>So maybe, just maybe, if you're reading this post and watching this video you'll feel like reposting it to one of your social media sites, like Twitter -- or Facebook. And then please tell the nice folks at Facebook how sorry I am for violating their "community standards."<br /><br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='440' height='366' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyLEgJuuhClKS2r_U6BG67bp27vZrVTAteUR6fvHKSwkTMJLvfTm5AwCoSsvy0A-tLCq_RDmSAu6JQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /><p></p>Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-62581553982372780412021-04-06T11:51:00.001-07:002021-04-06T13:39:43.130-07:00I'm Returning...<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.peterkfallon.com" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="962" height="324" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYf-kJ-qfxeegaK4YV0V0qULHwzP6KduGuVrg2RW_hx_ZYNNjC0GZFr_laB34a0ZYAxjgQSNa1NMz_GMn5SDSobGZ4gziDXr7x5AcXYdVSEOnvz2wiHLIl_J_iAYbkmVLYMXfc/w510-h324/PKF+Website.JPG" width="510" /></a></div><br /> After several years of sporadic posting -- and wasted time on social media outlets like Facebook -- I've decided to slowly get back into blogging. I mean, now that blogging is, for all intents and purposes, passe (if not obsolete), it seems like an entirely appropriate time for me to return to it. <br /><br />Over the years this blog has logged more than 90,000 hits and garnered hundreds of thoughtful responses (with a few crackpots and nasties trolling for trouble). I appreciate those thoughtful responses, and I have even appreciated the moments that the crackpots and trolls chose to have serious discussions about whichever of my thoughts and words offended them. As a teacher, you're expected to change everyone's thinking. But as a good teacher, you know that this is impossible, and it's not even particularly desirable, from a societal point of view. The goal of education is not (or certainly ought not to be) to get everyone to march in lock-step. The goal of education is to get people to think critically, and in order to do that you have to do two things: 1] propose ideas that not everyone will like, and 2] to be willing to discuss those ideas.<br /><br />I used to think social media outlets were the more appropriate venue for these two activities. In recent years I believe this has not been the case (although I still believe that it can be, under the right circumstances). When I look back on the seventeen years I've had this blog, I have to admit that I had more success in having frank discussions about our world here than on social media.<br /><br />So I'm trying again.<p></p><p>I've also gone public with my own personal website, pictured (and linked) above. In the coming weeks I intend to link this blog to my website so that whoever happens upon it can hop over to the blog to see whatever happens to be my peeve of the day.<br /><br />I hope to see you soon, and even better, to hear from you.</p>Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-54205814256495618762019-10-05T00:30:00.000-07:002019-10-05T06:57:23.524-07:00Neil Postman Sixteen Years On<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit5Qzdht_WoVBB4wvzQyKJs_lbo2byn_DMum9nz9vsp8diw5MMlNGEA3ImS-WpAmNVFmam9my17kaXCxQY6qM9QEtwWizNYlw0f5mBTWoplEN70QN3T18VeB7GzVvVwHBQ7ifj/s1600/Neil+Postman+1975+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit5Qzdht_WoVBB4wvzQyKJs_lbo2byn_DMum9nz9vsp8diw5MMlNGEA3ImS-WpAmNVFmam9my17kaXCxQY6qM9QEtwWizNYlw0f5mBTWoplEN70QN3T18VeB7GzVvVwHBQ7ifj/s1600/Neil+Postman+1975+2.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman" target="_blank"><span style="color: cyan;">Neil Postman</span></a> </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/obituaries/09POST.html"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">died sixteen years ago today</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">. The sadness I feel still is hard to describe.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">In </span><a href="https://listserv.temple.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0310b&L=mmc&O=A&P=486"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "calibri";">the
e-mail</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> that brought me news of his death from lung cancer at the age of 72,
</span><a href="http://lancestrate.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "calibri";">Lance Strate</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> described Neil,
very accurately, as "the mentor of hundreds, in fact thousands of graduate
students, and so the loss is personal as well as professional. We will miss him
as a friend, colleague, teacher, and father."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I have to say right off the bat that I was not one of those
people to whom Lance refers. I cannot claim Neil Postman as a mentor. A teacher
and an inspiration? Yes. But not a mentor. Frankly, he frightened and
intimidated me (not deliberately, of course; the insecurities were all mine)
and reminded me of my own self-perceived intellectual inadequacies. (In
fairness to the topic, if anyone deserves credit – or perhaps I should say blame
– for mentoring me, it would be Neil’s NYU colleague </span><a href="http://ffanzeen.blogspot.com/2010/12/remembering-christine-nystrom.html"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "calibri";">Christine
Nystrom</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">, who was able to encourage and coax from me my best thinking and
writing.) Yet Neil supported and helped me in so many ways--academically,
professionally, personally—and, as it turns out, influenced my thinking far
more deeply than I understood at the time, that the shock of his passing has
barely abated in ten years. How I’d love to sit and talk with him now about our
shared media ecology.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I first heard of Neil Postman while working on my Master’s
Degree in Communication at New York Institute of Technology around 1976. A
couple of serendipitous events occurred. One, I took a course with a professor
named Irving Weingarten who, during my time at NYIT, defended his dissertation
and received his Doctorate in Media Ecology from New York University and introduced
me to Neil’s work. Two, I took a course with Philip Miele – “Vocabulary of the
Media Critic” – whose core text was </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Innis"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "calibri";">Harold Innis</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">’s “</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Bias-Communication-2nd-Edition/dp/0802096069"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "calibri";">The
Bias of Communication</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">.” I had, of course, read </span><a href="http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "calibri";">Marshall McLuhan</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">’s “</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Media-The-Extensions-Man/dp/0262631598"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "calibri";">Understanding
Media</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">” as an undergraduate – depending on your point of view, either
essential reading or de rigueur at the time – and was of course fascinated by
him and his aphoristic probes. But I had an uneasy feeling that one could make
of much of McLuhan’s wisdom just about anything one wanted. A Nostrodamus for
the electronic age. There was great vision and imagination – even poetry – in McLuhan’s
probes but not a whole lot of specificity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Innis, on the other hand, supplied the structure and method
that I felt lacking in McLuhan’s work. Innis told me, in different words, that
the medium is the message. But he also supplied me with historical examples
that provided a foundation upon which I could build an understanding of exactly
what that phrase meant. And Irv Weingarten turned me on to Neil’s writing and
the concept of a “media ecology,” so similar to what I was reading in McLuhan
but so much more grounded in common sense and reason. My first encounter with
Neil’s work was “</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Talk-Stupid-Defeat-Ourselves/dp/0385281781"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "calibri";">Crazy
Talk, Stupid Talk</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">” (1977), followed almost immediately by “</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Subversive-Activity-Neil-Postman/dp/0385290098"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "calibri";">Teaching
as a Subversive Activity</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">” (1969). By the time I was awarded my Master’s
degree in 1980, I knew I had to get into that “Media Ecology” program at NYU.
Money, work, life being what they are, it took me six more years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Neil was a humble, funny, gregarious person who, at the same
time, was a towering, imposing figure. He was also, at the time of my arrival,
the author of a new book that everyone seemed to be talking about, “</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Business/dp/014303653X"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "calibri";">Amusing
Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in an Age of Show Business</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">.” At the
risk of repeating myself, I had enormous difficulty finding the same comfort
level with Neil as so many others in the program so easily managed to do. At
first, my end of our infrequent exchanges were limited pretty much to a
stumbling “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” and “I’m not sure, sir.” Oh, I answered
questions and gave my opinion when called upon to do so, but I’m pretty sure my
mouth dried and my tongue tied every time I had to speak with him. At the end
of the first semester, in our “Seminar in Media Ecology: Analysis,” my colleagues
and I in the class of ‘90 cohort had to write and submit a brief (mine was 35
pages) history of a medium, after which we defended it orally in front of Neil
and Chris Nystrom. I’ll never forget the feeling of horror and humiliation as I
sat across from the two of them and watched Neil hold my paper between his
thumb and forefinger, dangling it to his side as though it were a soiled tissue
picked up from the floor, while he leaned back in his chair, took a deep drag
on his cigarette, paused, and said only this: “Peter…your writing is so…florid…”
Chris rescued me, even remarking that she enjoyed my writing, but if I could
have melted into the woodwork at that moment, I surely would have. I must also
say (with considerable pride but also immeasurable relief) that in time Neil
came to appreciate and perhaps even respect both my writing and my thinking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Over the years, I learned so much from Neil, as well as from
Chris, Terry Moran, Henry Perkinson, John Mayher, and others. It was impossible
not to learn in this program. I learned about and read the works of John Dewey,
George Herbert Mead, Alfred Korzybski, I.A. Richards; of Alfred North Whitehead
and Suzanne Langer; of Lewis Mumford and Jacques Ellul; of Marx, Engels, and
Freud; of Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas; and of course, of Marshall
McLuhan. For Neil, there was no educational replacement for the information
technology of the Gutenberg era, the printed book. As he </span><a href="http://archive.pressthink.org/2003/10/07/postman_life.html"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "calibri";">explained to Jay
Rosen</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> with typical understatement, “We’re just trying to give people a good
liberal arts education,” and that good liberal arts education was the education
of literacy, the education of the Enlightenment. I got to know Neil Postman as
an eminently reasonable – and rational – man; but a man for whom reason was
simply one piece of the human intellect, incomplete without its complementary counterpart,
imagination. And the imagination, seat of the emotional life, was the
foundation of empathy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">“From the beginning,” Neil said in </span><a href="http://media-ecology.org/publications/MEA_proceedings/v1/humanism_of_media_ecology.html"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "calibri";">the
keynote address at the inaugural convention of the Media Ecology Association</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">,
“we were a group of moralists.” This appealed to me, because I am something of
a media moralist myself. It was what attracted me to the program in the first
place. I could see this moralism subtly in Innis, more overtly in Ellul. But it
was absent in McLuhan. McLuhan had once said “A moral point of view too often
substitutes for understanding in technological matters” (I have an imaginary
discussion of this point with McLuhan </span><a href="http://rujournalism.blogspot.com/2010/10/my-imaginary-conversation-with-marshall.html"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "calibri";">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">).
I couldn’t understand why, in the act of understanding media, one would not be
moved to improve the situation of the people that those media serve. And so my
affinity for Neil’s thinking grew. “It was our idea,” Neil continued in his
2000 keynote, “to have an academic department that would focus its attention on
the media environment, with a particular interest in understanding how and if
our media ecology was making us better or worse. Not everyone thought that this
was a good idea—Marshall McLuhan, for one. Although McLuhan had suggested that
we start such a department at NYU, he did not have in mind that we ought to
interest ourselves in whether or not new media, especially electronic media,
would make us better or worse. He reminded me several times of the lines in
Stephen Vincent Benét’s long poem John Brown’s Body. At the end of the poem,
Benét makes reference to the Industrial Revolution and finishes with these
lines:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">“Say
neither, it is blessed nor cursed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">“Say only ‘It is here.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">“No room for moralists there. McLuhan claimed that we ought
to take the same point of view in thinking about modern media: that they are
neither blessed nor cursed, only that they are here. He thought that this moral
neutrality would give the best opportunity to learn exactly how new media do
their stuff. If one spent too much time on the question of whether or not that
stuff was good, one would be distracted from truly understanding media. As a
consequence, although I believe McLuhan liked me, I feel sure he would not have
much liked my books, which he would have thought too moralistic, rabbinical or,
if not that, certainly too judgmental.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Neil Postman was a true heir to the legacy of the Enlightenment:
a proponent of propositional language and thought who wrote clear, concise,
rational prose; a man of imagination and transcendence who knew that humans
were more than the sum of their material parts. Far from being the Luddite he
is generally accused of being, Neil rejected the idea that all technological
change constituted “progress” and refused to be controlled by technology – or the
people who market them – but enthusiastically embraced those technologies – and
only those – that measurably improved the quality of human life. And he did not
apologize for that. <br />
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He did not hesitate to point a finger at the mendacity of marketers who sell
newness for its own sake or to ridicule the baseless and unsupported claims of
the acolytes of our new digital religion. “</span><a href="http://w2.eff.org/Net_culture/Criticisms/informing_ourselves_to_death.paper"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "calibri";">Through
the computer, the heralds say, we will make education better, religion better,
politics better, our minds better — best of all, ourselves better. This is, of
course, nonsense, and only the young or the ignorant or the foolish could
believe it</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">But throughout human history, Neil also acknowledged, it was
technologies that shaped the information, psychic, and spiritual environments
that allowed people to make things better. In true humanist fashion, Neil </span><a href="http://media-ecology.org/publications/MEA_proceedings/v1/humanism_of_media_ecology.html"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "calibri";">left
us some questions to think about</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> when trying to make judgments about which
value system would be served by a given technology: “The first question is
this: To what extent does a medium contribute to the uses and development of
rational thought? Here is a second question: To what extent does a medium
contribute to the development of democratic processes? A third question—related
to the previous two—is: To what extent do new media give greater access to
meaningful information? Here is a final question: To what extent do new media
enhance or diminish our moral sense, our capacity for goodness?” Neil would
never rejectaAny technology that provided suitable answers to those questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Ten brief years after his death, one of my fondest memories of
Neil is sitting in the courtyard of Fordham's Lincoln Center campus at
lunchtime during the first MEA conference. My Mom had just died, and I was
nursing my Dad through his final (three year) illness. Much of my personal
life, at that moment, was a shambles. Neil came and sat with me and we just
talked about life--its difficulty, its tragedy, and its beauty. I was impressed
not so much by what he said – what does one say, after all, to someone who
believes his life is falling apart? – but by the sheer humanity of the gesture.
I really don’t remember the specifics of our conversation, but I’ll never
forget the moment. One of the reasons that Neil was the teacher, thinker, and
writer that we know him to be is that he was – for all the criticisms of his
"Luddite" work – wholly alive and in love with life and the
phenomenon of human intelligence. He had a profound faith in ALL of us. Those
moments with Neil – no longer the “towering figure” I stammered before but the
compassionate friend who listened to me – are burned into my memory forever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Ten years ago this semester I began a new phase in my career
and my life out here on the prairie, and I was unable to attend the various
memorials and social events in Neil's honor. I was unable to be in NY for his
funeral, although I would dearly have loved to pay my respects in person to all
who knew Neil. My sympathies remain with all of you who continue to mourn
Neil's passing, just as my joy will always be with those of you who celebrate
his life and carry on his work. I am proud to count myself among your ranks. I
honestly believe it is time for a “Neil Postman Renaissance.” We need a
corrective to the orgy of technophilia that has surrounded this false information
“revolution” for the last two decades. We need a direction and while Neil
Postman is not that direction – and would blanch at any suggestion to the
contrary – his work may provide with clues to that direction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">At the end of his </span><a href="http://media-ecology.org/publications/MEA_proceedings/v1/humanism_of_media_ecology.html"><span style="color: cyan; font-family: "calibri";">2000
MEA keynote</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">, Neil (who was snarky before snarky was cool) made it clear
that he, if no one else, envisioned Media Ecology as a logical extension of
Enlightenment and Renaissance humanism, in which no answers are given, but
methods for questioning are constantly improved and the end of this intellectual
activity is the improvement of the human condition. He concluded “by saying
that as I understand the whole point of media ecology, it exists to further our
insights into how we stand as human beings, how we are doing morally in the
journey we are taking. There may be some of you who think of yourselves as
media ecologists who disagree with what I have just said. If that is the case,
you are wrong.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Neil Postman
Bibliography<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Author<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ideas from the Past that Can Improve Our
Future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Knopf, 1999. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York, Knopf, 1995 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•The Disappearance of Childhood:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Redefining the Value of School.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Vintage Books, 1994, c.1982. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Vintage Books, 1993 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•Conscientious Objection:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology and Education.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Vintage Books, 1992, c.1988. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•Amusing Ourselves to Death:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Penguin, 1985 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•Teaching as a Conserving Activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Delacorte Press, 1979. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How We Defeat Ourselves by the Way We Talk and What to Do About It.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Delacorte Press, 1976. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•Teaching as a Subversive Activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Delta Book Publishing, 1971,
c.1969. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•Languages of Discovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1967. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•The Uses of Language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1967. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•Exploring Your Language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>New York:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Holt, Reinhart and
Winston, 1966. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•Linguistics: A Revolution in Teaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Delta Book Publishing, 1966. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•The New English: A Forward Look.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1965. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•Discovering Your Language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1963. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•Television and the Teaching of English.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Appleton Centruy Croft, 1961.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Co-author<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•with Donald N. Wood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Post-Intellectualism and the Decline of Democracy:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Failure of Reason and Responsibility in
the Twentieth Century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood, 1996. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•with Steve Powers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How to Watch TV News.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York:
Penguin, 1992. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•et al.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Myths, Men
and Beer:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>an Analysis of Beer
Commercials on Broadcast Television.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Church Falls, VA.:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Foundation for
Traffic Safety, 1987. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•with Charles Weingartner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The School Book: for People Who Want to Know What all the Hollering Is
About.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Delacorte Press, 1973. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•with Charles Weingartner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How to Recognize a Good School.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Bloomington: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation, 1973. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•with<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Charles
Weingartner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Soft Revolution:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Student Handbook for Turning Schools
Around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Delacorte Press, 1971.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•with Charles Weingartner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Teaching as a Subversive Activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>New York: Delacorte Press, 1979, c. 1969. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•with Charles Weingartner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Linguistics:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Revolution in
Teaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Delacorte Press,
1966. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•with Howard C. Damon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Language of Discovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New
York:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Delacotre Press, 1965. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•with Howard C. Damon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Language and System.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York:
Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1965. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•et al.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Television
and the Teaching of English.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York:
Appleton Century Crofts, 1961.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Editor<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•Language in America: A Report on Our Deteriorating Semantic
Environment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Pegasus, 1969. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•The Roots of Fanaticism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ed. with Howard C. Damon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New
York: Holt Reinhart and Winston, 1965. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Articles <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Science and the Story that We Need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First Things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No. 69 (1997), 29-32. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Making a Living, Making a Life: Technology
Reconsidered.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>College Board
Review.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No. 176-177 (1995), 8-13. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Virtual Students, Digital Classroom.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Nation. No. 261 ign (1995), 377-378ff. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“The American Experiment”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Education Week, Vol. 15 (1995), 56. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Error of Our Ways.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Teacher Magazine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 6 (1995),
32-37. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Technology as Dazzling Distraction.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Education Digest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 59 (1994), 25-28. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Deus Machina”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Technos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 1 (1992), 16-18. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•with Camille Paglia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“She Wants Her TV! He Wants His Book!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Harper’s Vol. 282 (1991), 44-51, 54-55. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“What is a Conservative? (And Why Reagan Is Not One).” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Utne Reader (Mar/Ap, 1989), 75. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Learning by Story.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Atlantic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No. 264 (1989)
119-124. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“The Educationist as Painkiller.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>English Education.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(1988), 7-17. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“The Blurring of Childhood and the Media.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Religious Education, Vol. 82 (1987) 293-295. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“The Limits of Language.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 43 (1986), 227-235. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“TV News as Vaudeville.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Quill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 74 (1986), 18-23.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Media and Technology as Educators.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yearbook of the National Society for the
Study of Education. (1985), 183-200. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Social Science as Theology.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Vol. 41 (1984), 22-32. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“The Day Our Children Disappear: Predictions of a Media
Ecologist.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Phi Delta Kappa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 62 (1981), 382-386. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Fine Tuning the Balance Between Education and Media
Culture.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 98 (1980), 28-30. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Language Education in a Knowledge Context.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Vol. 37 (1980), 25-37. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Landmarks in the Literature: the Limits of Language.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York University Education Quarterly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 11 (1979), 29-32. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“The Ascent of Humanity: a Coherent Curriculum.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Educational Leadership.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 37 (1980), 300-303 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Order in the Classroom!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Atlantic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 244 (1979) 35-38. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“The First Curriculum.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Phi Delta Kappa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 61 (1979),
163-168. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“The Information Environment.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Vol. 36 (1979), 234-245. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Landmarks in Literature: Where Have All the Critics
Gone?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York University Education
Quarterly. Vol. 9 (1977), 28-31. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“What an Educator Means When He Says…”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Journal of the International Association of
Pupil Personnel Workers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 20 (1976),
153-156. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Whatever I Call It, It Is.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Vol. 31 (1974), 37-44. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•with Charles Weingartner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Two Tests to Take - to Find Out if Yours Is a Great School.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>American School Board Journal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 161 (1974), 23-26. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Media Ecology: A Growing Perspective.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Media Ecology Review.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 3 (1973), 10-11. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“Illich, Pro and Con.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Social Policy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 2 (1971),
33-42. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“The New Literacy”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Grade Teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol. 88 (1971),
2-52. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">•“The Politics of Reading.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Harvard Educational Review.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vol.
40 (1970), 244-252.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com2Chicago, IL 60605, USA41.8703314 -87.62357420000000741.8230309 -87.7042552 41.917631899999996 -87.542893200000009tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-16955133934905346042015-12-21T07:35:00.000-08:002015-12-21T07:35:42.896-08:00Christmas 2015<a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting" border="0" src="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y38/pfallon/povertyignorance.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><span style="color: #33ff33;">This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but <strong><em><span style="color: red;">most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.</span></em></strong> Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end.'<br />'Have they no refuge or resource?' cried Scrooge.<br />'Are there no prisons?' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. 'Are there no workhouses?'" </span><br />
<blockquote>
<br /><span style="color: #33ff33;">- A Christmas Carol, Stave 3: The Second of the Three Spirits</span></blockquote>
This Christmas, as always, my fervent wish is that we use our wealth and our might to lift people out of poverty, to share the blessings that God has given us with the billions in the world who, through no fault of their own, have been left behind. But my<strong><em> most</em></strong> fervent wish is that we take back control of our media from the hands of multinational corporations, and bring real journalism back to America. Otherwise, we will remain ignorant of the crushing poverty and pain that others suffer, and we'll continue to live <strong>IN THE DARK</strong>.<br /><br /> Merry Christmas. <b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-81510897047272285222015-09-01T17:17:00.002-07:002015-09-01T17:17:06.501-07:00Propaganda as Psychic ViolenceThis is a brief excerpt of a chapter that I have written for a forthcoming book, "Jacques Ellul on Violence, Terrorism, and War."<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">“We need a revolution,”
Ellul concludes, “in a world in which it has become impossible,”<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/Violence,%20war,%20and%20terrorism/Propaganda%20as%20Emotiona1.docx" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> a
highly technologically developed world of the mass-manufactured, mass-marketed,
and mass-distributed reality. “We need a rediscovery of the meaning of human
activity, of the relation between means and ends, of their true place in a
world which is given up to the love of power”<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/Violence,%20war,%20and%20terrorism/Propaganda%20as%20Emotiona1.docx" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
over material reality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The revolutionary
spirit – the will to fight the violence of technique – demands that we
acknowledge the fact that violence is a natural and normal part of society,
that it dwells in what Ellul calls “the realm of necessity” “imposed on
governors and governed, on rich and poor. If this realism scandalizes
Christians, it is because they make the great mistake of thinking what is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">natural</i> is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">good</i> and what is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">necessary</i>
is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">legitimate</i>.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">”</b><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/Violence,%20war,%20and%20terrorism/Propaganda%20as%20Emotiona1.docx" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In considering violence
to be part of the human condition dwelling in the realm of necessity, and
acknowledging that fact, it might become possible to cease our attempts to
avoid it. For in our avoidance, it seems, we often do nothing more than replace
one form of violence with another, move the realm of necessity from the world of
nature to the world of technique. With great and constant and unavoidably
violent force, our technological culture promises to protect us from violence
and consistently delivers on that promise. All we have to do in return is to
allow ourselves to be constrained, limited, shaped, and guided by values that
aren’t our own; to give up everything that makes us most authentically human – our
curiosity and creativity, our empathy and reason, our organic connections to
nature and to each other. True human freedom is found in that brief,
too-frequently comfortable interval between the stimulus and the response,
between the offer and the acceptance, and in the realization that freedom is that
perpetual struggle against necessity implicit in our conscious free will. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/Violence,%20war,%20and%20terrorism/Propaganda%20as%20Emotiona1.docx" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ibid., p. 118.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/Violence,%20war,%20and%20terrorism/Propaganda%20as%20Emotiona1.docx" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/Violence,%20war,%20and%20terrorism/Propaganda%20as%20Emotiona1.docx" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> Ellul (1969), op. cit., p. 127.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-8639772871345533772015-06-05T09:58:00.001-07:002015-06-05T09:58:13.720-07:00Why We Fight: Resisting the Incursion of Free-Market Technique in US Higher Education (An Educator's Manifesto)<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">(This is a brief excerpt of a paper I'll be delivering in July in France at a colloquium on "Resistance in the work of Jacques Ellul")</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We are now being told that a transformation is under way in American
Higher Education. This transformation is commonly explained by two major
factors: 1] cuts in state support for higher education, and 2] increased
competition from non-traditional educational institutions (e.g., on-line “universities”
such as the University of Phoenix, Argosy University, and Capella University).
Universities have become dependent on tuition due to decreased external
(usually state) funding; in fact, nearly half (47%) of the national average
institutional cost of educating a student is paid for by tuition,</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[1]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
up from 23.8% in 1988.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[2]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
Today, roughly 71% of all US graduates finish their schooling in debt</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[3]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">;
their average indebtedness rose to $29,400.00 in 2012 – an increase of 25% over
an average indebtedness of $23,450 in 2008.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[4]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
Furthermore, the addition of new technologized education platforms, on-line
universities, MOOCs (“massive open on-line courses”) and the like have only
exacerbated the situation by drawing students away from traditional colleges
and universities, making those institutions even more tuition dependent. In
alarming rhetoric, we are told by administrators that academia is in an
existential crisis which demands executive action without regard to the wishes,
needs, or aims of faculty:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Unprecedented problems
confront our campuses. Institutions ignore a changing environment at their peril.
Like dinosaurs, they risk becoming exhibits in a kind of cultural Jurassic
Park: places of great interest and curiosity, increasingly irrelevant in a
world that has passed them by.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[5]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Many governing
boards, faculty members, and chief executives believe that internal governance
arrangements have become so cumbersome that timely decisions are difficult to
make, and small factions often are able to impede the decision-making process.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftnref6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[6]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In response to
these systemic economic problems, university administrators across the country
have introduced with surprising consistency – to the dismay of faculty and of
many staff but with the encouragement of governing boards – sets of policies
that, while no two universities may have exactly the same response, still
contain a number of curiously similar items: the elimination of tenure, diminution
of faculty’s role in shared governance, the remediation of “curricular
stagnation,” an increase in (faculty) productivity, the control of costs, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Notwithstanding the sacrifices that
have been borne – almost exclusively – by faculty and staff around the US in
the last several years (faculty salaries have essentially flat-lined in the
last few years and in many cases have not kept up with inflation</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftnref7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[7]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">;
the proportion of full-time, tenure-track faculty has been steadily decreasing</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftnref8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[8]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
while at the same time 25% of all US adjunct faculty are forced to supplement
their income with public assistance such as Medicaid and food stamps</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftnref9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[9]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">),
I choose not to question immediately the need for greater institution-wide productivity
or the control of costs. Indeed, as I shall soon argue, these are critical
issues for the survival of higher education in the US; just not in the same
way, or for the same reasons, as argued by administrators and governing boards.
However, I believe that three of these issues – tenure, shared governance, and
the so-called “curricular stagnation” – are a red herring that places an even
greater burden on both full-time and adjunct faculty, threatens academic
freedom, denies administrative accountability, commoditizes curriculum, and
will, if left unchallenged, hurt students.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I believe that US higher education
is on the verge of adopting a “free-market” model of higher education, a
top-down structure of bosses and workers, a commoditization of information that
mirrors the technological society, that focuses not on the needs of students as
citizens and people, but on the culturally-derived desires of students as
consumers and future functionaries of the free market.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[1]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
Woodhouse, Kellie. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Public Colleges'
Revenue Shift</span></i><span style="font-size: x-small;">, Inside Higher Education, April 13, 2015. Accessed April 15,
2015 from: </span></span><a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/04/13/report-shows-public-higher-educations-reliance-tuition"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/04/13/report-shows-public-higher-educations-reliance-tuition</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[2]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
Bidwell, Allie. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Colleges Get More State Funds, but Rely on Tuition.</span></span></i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> US News & World Report, April 21,
2014. Accessed April 16, 2015 from: </span><a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/04/21/states-increase-higher-education-spending-rely-on-tuition-in-economic-recovery"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/04/21/states-increase-higher-education-spending-rely-on-tuition-in-economic-recovery</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[3]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
The Institute for College Access and Success. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Quick Facts About Student Debt, </span></i><span style="font-size: x-small;">March 2014. Accessed April 16, 2015
from: </span></span><a href="http://ticas.org/sites/default/files/pub_files/Debt_Facts_and_Sources.pdf"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://ticas.org/sites/default/files/pub_files/Debt_Facts_and_Sources.pdf</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[4]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[5]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Kellogg
Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities. </span><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Taking charge
of change: Renewing the promise of state and land-grant universities</span></i><span style="font-size: x-small;">. (Washington,
DC: National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, 1996),
p. 1.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[6]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
Board of Directors, Association of Governing Boards of Universities and
Colleges. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">AGB Statement on Institutional
Governance</span></i><span style="font-size: x-small;">. (Washington, DC: Association of Governing Boards of
Universities and Colleges, 1998), p. 3.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[7]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
Curtis, John, and Thornton, Sarenna. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Losing
Focus: The Annual Report on the State of the Profession, 2013-14</span></i><span style="font-size: x-small;">. Academe (Washington,
DC: American Association of University Professors, March-April 2014), p. 5.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[8]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
Jaschik, Scott. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Disappearing
Tenure-Track Job.</span></i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Inside Higher Education, May 12, 2009. Accessed May 12,
2015 from: </span></span><a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/12/workforce"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/12/workforce</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Ellul/France/Presentation%20for%20Ellul%20Colloquium.docx" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[9]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Jacobs,
Ken; Perry, Ian; and MacGillvary, Jenifer. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The High Public Cost of Low Wages</span></span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">. The University of California at Berkeley
Center for Labor Research and Education, April 2015. Accessed June 2, 2015
from: </span><a href="http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/pdf/2015/the-high-public-cost-of-low-wages.pdf"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/pdf/2015/the-high-public-cost-of-low-wages.pdf</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-62370892036534448802014-02-20T14:19:00.002-08:002014-02-20T14:38:02.245-08:00W. H. Auden's "The Unknown Citizen" -- a Critical Analysis<h1 class="TITLE">
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</span><a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/120"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">W. H. Auden</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(To JS/07 M 378<br />
This Marble Monument<br />
Is Erected by the State)</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span></i><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One against whom there was no official complaint</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And all the reports on his conduct agree<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Except for the War till the day he retired<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He worked in a factory and never got fired</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For his Union reports that he paid his dues</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And our Social Psychology workers found<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every
way.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it
cured.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And had everything necessary to the Modern Man</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our researchers into Public Opinion are content <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That he held the proper opinions for the time of year</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When there was peace, he was for peace:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>when there was war, he went.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He was married and added five children to the population,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his
generation.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Was he free? Was he happy?</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[17]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
The question is absurd:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[18]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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[</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">
The title itself takes liberties with the idea of “the tomb of the unknown
soldier,” within which is interred the arbitrarily chosen remains of an
unidentified World War One casualty. This single unknown soldier symbolizes all
who have fought and died anonymously for the United States. So this poem
appears to be satirizing the idea of serving and giving one’s life to one’s
country by applying this honor to the mere citizen, a not-wholly-outrageous
idea, in fact, until you read the details of the poem.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">
The unknown citizen didn’t die on any battlefield and the poet – who we will
soon find sounds like little more than a dispassionate bureaucrat – seems to
know a lot of details of his life; so it’s reasonable to question why he
remains anonymous at the end of his life. This seems an oblique foreshadowing –
whether conscious or not, deliberate or not – of themes developed by Jacques
Ellul in The Presence of the Kingdom (1949), The Technological Society (1964),
and Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (1965): the relationship of
the individual to the mass, the primacy of the mass, the loss of identity in
technological society, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Praise is replaced by an official accounting; praise is replaced by the absence
of criticism.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">
The “modern sense of an old-fashioned word” – saint – has very little to do
with sanctity and much to do with conformity to technical standards.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
[</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">
There’s an odd juxtaposition here that could easily be missed: the poet/bureaucrat
is saying “except for the war” – which is a cataclysmic, life changing event
that leaves no one unaffected – he led a rather mundane life as a factory
worker. But how do we skip so blithely over this anonymous individual’s wartime
experiences? The “unknown citizen” has no voice of his own in this poem –
indeed, we suspect he had no voice of his own during the entire course of his
life – and it would be tempting to hear what he has to say about his experiences
in the war, as a worker, as a citizen, as a family member, etc. And, once
again, to note that he “never got fired” is as close as we get to praise in
this line; the absence of criticism in lieu of actual praise.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">
Again, faint praise: he “satisfied” his employer. Did he only do the minimum?
Or is “satisfaction” the best any unknown citizen can expect as a consequence
of a life’s labors?<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">
The unknown citizen was a conformist in every possible way. Not only was he a
dutiful employee (who “satisfied” his employers), he was a dutiful member of
his class, the laboring class, a dues-paying union member.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">
Again the bureaucrat steps in to assure us that even the labor union –
potentially an agent of radical change in industrial society – was conformist
and “acceptable” to society.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">
Ellul, in “Propaganda,” talks about “human techniques,” that is to say the
various fields of psychological research and practice concerned the full
integration of the human person into an environment that is fundamentally
unnatural. Clearly, the unknown citizen was fully assimilated in his
meaningless existence, socializing comfortably with his “mates” and taking “a
drink” – but not to the point that his drinking behavior becomes disruptive to
his social roles.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">
This is a page ripped from Ellul’s “Propaganda.” Let me say right now that I am
completely aware that Auden composed this poem before either Ellul’s “Technological
Society” or “Propaganda,” and this is a testament to his critical vision. Ellul
tells us that the mass media of social control must be concerned that their
constant efforts are fruitful. Furthermore, to be effective propaganda must be
continuous and continual, affording the citizen no opportunities to find and
take recourse in points of reference outside the dominant system of propaganda.
So there is another “human technique” at work here; in our post-modern world it
is the ratings service (a la Neilsen), the socio-economic institution that
assures us that messages are hitting their intended audiences. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">
The technological society is far more concerned with product than with process.
It doesn’t really matter what malady the unknown citizen suffered from; what is
important is that the technological system worked to rid him of it.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">
The technological society no longer recognizes human ends; the means, in the
technological society, become the ends. We don’t produce to satisfy a need; we
produce only in order to produce, and use our “human techniques” (e.g., “marketing”
and “advertising”) to create artificial needs. The ability to respond to these
messages of artificial needs (i.e., “advertisements”) is a critically important
characteristic for an individual in the technological society. It proves he has
assimilated fully from individual to constituent of the mass.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">
I’m convinced there’s some significance to the fact that Auden referred to this
particular technology by a brand name (Frigidaire) rather than by its
technological name (refrigerator). I just haven’t figured out yet what the
significance is…<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">
Ellul, in “Propaganda,” emphasizes the centrality of public opinion research to
the processes of propaganda. For one thing, he notes that people in a highly
technologically developed society feel entitled to be a part of the political
system. Paradoxically, however, he notes that governments cannot follow public
opinion when forming, enacting, and carrying out policy: public opinion is
inherently volatile and changing; government policy cannot follow public
opinion, so public opinion must be made to follow government policy.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">
Passively, without dissent, to be sure. How could it be any other way?<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">
Planning is most certainly a central characteristic of the technological
society.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[17]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">
Freedom and happiness are central themes in all of Jacques Ellul’s works. The
highest form of human freedon, to Ellul, is individual thought; the ability to
think critically about the world and one’s place in it. Critical thinking – and
therefore freedom – is short-circuited by the various techniques of the technological
society, including (and, in fact, primarily) propaganda. To be most fully free
is to be able to question one’s culture and make moral judgments about it,
about its values, about its goals, about its direction, etc. Happiness, then,
is a natural consequence of freedom. One cannot truly be said to be happy if
one’s life is determined by one’s environment.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Unknown%20Citizen.doc#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[18]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;">
The bureaucrat brings the poem around full circle. The “unknown citizen’s” life
is planned, measured, and evaluated in real time. Judgments are made not on the
basis of achievements, but on the ability to adhere to the plan – on both the
individual basis but also on the basis of the plan’s effects on the level of
the mass. Notations are made only of deviations from the expected norm of the
mass, not on the basis of objective achievements of the individual. So the fact
that we (the bureaucratic class) are not aware of any “problems” (deviations
from the mass norm) is all the sign we need to make the final judgment: not
whether the “unknown citizen” was either free or happy (words which have no
meaning in this technological context), but whether he was in conformity with
the expectations of social planners. A perverse sort of utopia if ever there
was one.</span></div>
</h1>
Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-40212198889125162862014-02-19T10:54:00.006-08:002015-09-27T09:09:00.069-07:00A Church More Like Kaye<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcg1pAVLeDguPfj5PmauOZzZj5RUfVxOmAQm40rZ75fu8cVZ3fEXIVu2BTlAtMy8j_hDrNLdXM2YxPQRKan4FhyphenhyphenLL9ZjDgrWNQEGa73WwP6twy6FYRlBQ1xYi94bA0uYb8Jc8A/s1600/kayes-pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcg1pAVLeDguPfj5PmauOZzZj5RUfVxOmAQm40rZ75fu8cVZ3fEXIVu2BTlAtMy8j_hDrNLdXM2YxPQRKan4FhyphenhyphenLL9ZjDgrWNQEGa73WwP6twy6FYRlBQ1xYi94bA0uYb8Jc8A/s1600/kayes-pic.jpg" width="255" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">I just learned that an old, one-time friend of mine was
elevated to Bishop. I won’t mention where and for the purposes of this brief
essay, I’ll call him only “Jay.” And also without saying why, I’ll tell you
that I was flabbergasted when I heard this news. Not terribly surprised, I
admit, for Jay’s ambitions were always pretty apparent, but I was still flabbergasted.
After my usefulness as Jay’s friend diminished and we drifted apart, I decided
(perhaps uncharitably, perhaps not) that I didn’t think Jay was much of a
priest. He will, of course, make a perfect Bishop.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">One of the reasons this has jarred me as much as it has was
because of the passing of another friend this past weekend. Kaye Ashe was a
Dominican Sister, a scholar, a theologian, and a feminist. I met her and got to
know her simply because she was close friends with another wonderful soul who
had befriended me. Joan O’Shea, another Dominican Sister and childhood friend
of Kaye’s (they met in kindergarten!), was one of several faculty and staff
from Dominican University in River Forest who traveled to Fanjeaux, France, in
May of 2002 for a summer study program on Dominican history and the Dominican
tradition. I was one of the representatives of another Dominican college from
Long Island. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">My wife Mary Pat was also one of the Dominican University
travelers on this pilgrimage, and that, in fact, is where and how we met. Joan
was one of our first mutual friends and has remained our friend ever since.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">I first met Kaye at Mary Pat’s and my engagement party. Kaye
and Joan talked with us until late in the evening, after other guests had gone.
I have a very clear image in my mind – vivid, immediate – of Kaye standing
alone in the backyard of Mary Pat’s house, eyes closed, swaying to whatever piece
of music was playing on the stereo, a soft smile on her face, clearly enjoying
a moment of non-verbal prayer. That’s how I think of Kaye even now: swaying,
playing, praying.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">We last saw Kaye just around the New Year. We were having dinner
with Joan and other friends and Kaye stopped by (they lived in the same
apartment complex). She had been ill for the last few years but looked well
this evening. She left a copy of one of her books that she asked us to read a
passage from after we had finished eating. The book was “Today’s Woman,
Tomorrow’s Church,” and the passage was about Molly Burke, another friend who
was with us that evening, along with her husband Ed. This was Kaye: quick to
share her feelings, quick to praise the strengths of others.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">There was more to Kaye, of course, and I was privileged to
learn about her. Being a divorced and remarried Catholic, one is forced into
confronting certain uncomfortable facts about yourself that, like it or not,
others are bound to make judgments about. For instance, doctrinally I am
excommunicated. That’s a fact I live with. Again, doctrinally (and that is not
a meaningless word), if and when I go to mass and choose to receive communion,
I am not only in a state of sin, I am committing a further sin by receiving communion.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">One of the things I learned about Kaye – indeed, about Joan,
and Melissa, and Jeanne, and Clemente, and all the other members of my adoptive
Dominican family – was that there was no pretense of sanctity. Holiness is not
a façade you erect or a costume you don for special occasions. Holiness is a
life lived in the peace of Christ, a life of love and forgiveness. Kaye and my
Sisters acknowledged their own imperfection, lived with it, sought absolution
for it – and forgave it in others. There was never a finger pointed at me. If
Kaye or any of my Sisters judged me, it was no less merciful than the judgments
placed on them; the judgment of a loving and forgiving God.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">So losing Kaye – as little as I’ve known her, our handful of
get-togethers each year for only the last twelve years, and the last three of
them filled with her illness – has been really difficult for me. There’s no
real logical reason why it should have had the effect on me that it has.
Perhaps it’s the closeness of the event: other members of my Dominican family
have passed on to God since they welcomed me into the fold, but only a handful –
for whatever reason – have been as close in a spiritual sense as I felt to
Kaye. Joan, Melissa, Jeanne, Clemente, Jean and Philip Mary. Perhaps I’m simply
coming to terms with my own mortality and the mortality of my friends and
family. But perhaps there’s more to it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">The elevation of Bishop Jay represents something painful to
me. It represents a Church that’s not truly a home to me. It represents a Church
dominated by men and ruled by bureaucracy. It represents a church of darkness,
secrecy, chicanery; of hidden skeletons and con men playing three-card monte
with peoples’ lives. It represents asylum in the Vatican for negligent – or completely
incompetent – shepherds who relocate abusive wolves to new parishes where they continue
to prey on an unsuspecting and far-too-trusting flock. It represents a Church
that respects the primacy of men for no particularly good reason and
investigates, stigmatizes, and devalues women who lead lives guided by Christ.
It represents a Church where, no matter what kind of a person you are, you can
still get to wear a fancy gown and bejeweled mitre if you have the right
contacts in Rome.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">And it all makes me sad – very, very sad. Because I think we’d
all be better off if we had a Church more like Kaye.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-23845738208882200592014-01-20T09:49:00.000-08:002014-01-20T09:49:04.497-08:00Happy Birthday, Dr. King<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/7yahGTU8G3g" width="420"></iframe><br />Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-62431608515006344522014-01-17T16:04:00.001-08:002014-01-17T16:20:41.587-08:00"The Second Coming" -- an Analysis<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqK3xiZCw8_oJEn-_XyNvNZKmiGas8XH6Z-rWviQs4d-Qh3Q8GY-s17_m3oXRyiiKI5MyzLY_tPIRd6S_vJEWOCR8AA1gioPebPqUawxkTv7SG7tlg77j13xI4LZVbP8aLiFtL/s1600/Sligo+Drumcliffe+Yeats+Grave+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqK3xiZCw8_oJEn-_XyNvNZKmiGas8XH6Z-rWviQs4d-Qh3Q8GY-s17_m3oXRyiiKI5MyzLY_tPIRd6S_vJEWOCR8AA1gioPebPqUawxkTv7SG7tlg77j13xI4LZVbP8aLiFtL/s1600/Sligo+Drumcliffe+Yeats+Grave+2.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Second
Coming<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> by
W. B. Yeats <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Turning and turning in the widening gyre</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The falcon cannot hear the falconer</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">;<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">;<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">,<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The ceremony of innocence is drowned</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">;<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The best lack all conviction, while the worst<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Are full of passionate intensity.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Surely some revelation is at hand;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Surely the Second Coming is at hand.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When a vast image out of <i>Spiritus Mundi</i><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Troubles my sight</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">:
somewhere in sands of the desert<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A shape with lion body and the head of a man,<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The darkness drops again</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">;
but now I know<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That twenty centuries of stony sleep<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
A gyre, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a “spiral” or a “vortex.”
The oral Irish culture, of which Yeats and his companions knew so much and with
which they were so familiar, is a culture that sees time unfolding not in a
straight line, not in a linear, unidirectional way, from a past which recedes
into the distance behind us to a future which extends infinitely before us; this
linear, uni-directional view is characteristic of literate, not oral cultures.
Oral folk see time as a cycle where “everything old is new again,” and “what
goes around, comes around.” Cyclical time is the time of birth, development,
maturity, degeneration, death, and renewal, a constantly repeating and renewing
process that reflects nature and the human experience. So I believe that Yeats
here is hinting at our approach to the end of a cycle and the beginning of a
new cycle (also borne out, I think, by the title “the second coming,” which not
only indicates a renewal but also, in the Christian sense, the apocalyptic
vision of “the end of days” and the establishment of the Kingdom of God –
except, as we shall see, Yeats has something quite different in mind than the
Kingdom of God). The image of the gyre also calls to mind Edgar Allen Poe’s
destructive and deadly maelstrom (“Descent into the Maelstrom”): a gyre, like
life itself, is powerful and dangerous and deadly and we don’t come out of it
alive. But, if we keep our wits about us, the gyre is also beautiful. But as we’ll
see, Yeats is suggesting that we’re no longer (in 1919 when he wrote this)
keeping our wits about us.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
The gyre – spiral, vortex, maelstrom – symbolizes chaos. We are in a situation
of chaos. Chaos is a natural function of the material world: entropy. The
natural order of the universe is disorder. It is only through reason and the
rational exertion of energy that we create and maintain order in the world.
This idea is reflected in information theory; the entropy in a communication
system (as in any system) yields “noise,” which is actually anything that interferes
with the process of transmission/reception of messages. The “widening gyre” is
an environment of entropy, chaos, noise and uncertainty. The falcon – bred, trained
and nurtured by the falconer – no longer follows his master’s commands. He can’t
hear him, can’t understand what he wants. This is a statement of existential anxiety,
of a zeitgeist of fear and uncertainty.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
Again, entropy: human history is descending into the maelstrom, the ordered
universe is coming undone, partnerships unravel, extreme views abound,
cooperation becomes difficult if not impossible. No one is listening to anyone
else.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
“Mere anarchy” has always struck me as a strange sort of phrase. Not being an
anarchist myself, I’ve always considered anarchy to be a pretty bad thing. But
I believe that Yeats is saying here: “Look at the mess this world is in. 37
million people just died in WWI. Nations are destitute. Revolutions (in Russia,
in Yeats’s own Ireland) are disrupting the normal cyclical flow of life. But
you think this is bad? This is mere anarchy. What awaits us in the future is
even worse.” We’ll soon look back, Yeats is saying, to a time when “mere
anarchy” was humankind’s biggest problem.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
The “ceremony of innocence” is, of course, the Christian rite of baptism, the
ritual washing away of original sin, the sin of Adam, the sin common to all humankind
by virtue of its refusal to conform human will to Divine will. This “ceremony
of innocence” is now, Yeats tells us, drowned in the “blood-dimmed tide,” a
powerful image that evokes the massive destruction and wanton murder of the
still-young 20<sup>th</sup> century. There can be no more Divine forgiveness as
humanity has fouled even the cleansing waters of nature with the gore of human
hatred and ignorance (in an environment of chaos and failed communication such
as Yeats describes here, what else could prevail but hatred and ignorance?).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
Hopelessness and despair are the legacy of the immediate past bestowed upon the
few who still believe humans can do better and be better; they believe in the
potential for human good, for human improvement, somewhere deep in their
hearts, but they’ve lost all hope that they’ll ever see it. I’ve always thought
Yeats was referring to himself in this part of the poem; descendant of an
Anglican cleric, Yeats all but abandoned Christianity but remained a fervent seeker
of spiritual realities. Meanwhile, the progeny of the immediate past – the product
of warfare and dissolution, denizens of a hellish world, children of the gyre –
know better than to hope fruitlessly for the improvement of the species and are
certain only of themselves, their own needs, their own desires, their own
feathered nests. As hope based on the Enlightenment concept of rational
progress gives way to disappointment, frustration, complacency, and apathy, an
irrational and entirely emotion self-interest becomes the dominant human
ideology. Perhaps Yeats is suggesting – as I believe he is – that in its “passionate
intensity” it has even become the new religion.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
The first eight lines of this poem are prophetic; in the sense that a true
prophet is not the person who sees the future, but the one who sees <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the present</i> more clearly than the rest
of us. Yeats is describing the nightmare world we humans inhabit in the year
1919 and pointing out the ugliness of its reality. The next fourteen lines are
also prophetic, but in a different way. They are, again, apocalyptic in that
they reveal to us what lies ahead. And, as I pointed out before, Yeats’s use of
the phrase “the Second Coming” (capitalized for emphasis) evokes the book of
Revelations in the New Testament and the second coming of Christ. But this is a
different sort of prophet in the second part of this poem than we read in the
first part. While the first eight lines are descriptive and emphatic, the next
fourteen are tenuous, fearful, and uncertain. The poet does not know what lies
ahead, but he fears what he <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">imagines</i>
to lie ahead.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
“The Second Coming!” An emphatic statement. All of what we once called “Christendom”
knows the meaning of this phrase. It was once a phrase imbued with hope; of
salvation, of perfection, of justice, of judgment, of eternal reward. But “hardly
are those words out” of the poets mouth when he is struck with the reality he
has only finished describing, of the reality of life in the “widening gyre.”
And he cannot ignore the image of that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Spiritus
Mundi</i> – the spirit of the world, the material worldview, the worldview of a
people awash in images but bereft of vision (this is the beginning of the age
of the image, the graphic revolution, of propaganda and advertising, of the mass
marketing of mass commodities). This <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Spiritus
Mundi</i> overwhelms the poet just as the dominance of images overwhelms the
peoples’ vision (I’m always reminded, when reading this poem, of the Old
Testament book of Proverbs, 29:16: “Where there is no vision, the people
perish.”).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
How’s that for an image? It’s horrible. It’s frightening. It’s mythic. “<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A
shape with lion body and the head of a man…” It is pagan mythology, this
sphinx-like being, this nightmare amalgam of human and animal, of civilization and
uncivilized nature, of reason and passion. Yeats sees a lion – the “king of the
beasts” – crowned with the head of a human – the human intellect? Pure
physicality ruled by pure reason. But this is not the human intellect as we
once viewed it, the human intellect of Enlightenment humanism. This is a
calculating intellect, an intellect devoid of compassion, indifferent to human
suffering, “blank and pitiless.” It’s irrational. It is atavistic. It is a
(cyclical?) return to pre-religious superstition, an embrace of magic and
demons, a denial of monotheism, a rejection of the personal relationship with
God shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It runs parallel to the
(cyclical?) abandonment of hope based on (linear) rational progress. And above
all the while circle the “indignant desert birds,” the vultures turning and
turning in the widening gyre, waiting for imminent death.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
This is another reference to the cyclical conception of time common to oral
(non-literate) cultures. It is also a marker in that cycle, for the poet is
telling us we are reentering a cycle of darkness, i.e., ignorance. </span></span><br />
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/pfallon/Documents/Essays/The%20Second%20Coming.doc#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> This is the payoff of “The Second Coming.” This
sphinx-like creature is not the problem, not what the poet fears. It is,
remember, nothing more than “</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">a vast image out of <i>Spiritus
Mundi</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">,” a bogeyman, a nightmare
image, the demon that lives in the closet or under our beds as children, our
imaginations playing tricks on us. “Twenty centuries of stony sleep,” two
thousand years of Christianity, of a placebo that calms us, distracts us from
our imperfect natures, and allows us to sleep peacefully – these twenty
centuries of stony sleep are disturbed by “a rocking cradle.” It is whoever
inhabits – or will soon inhabit – this rocking cradle that we should fear. Whoever
it is whose cradle is being prepared has disturbed our complacency, awakened
our fears, and driven this primitive, atavistic sphinx-monster – predatory animal
driven by compassionless, calculating intellect – into our nightmares. “W</span>hat
rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
We don’t know. And that makes its imminent arrival even more frightening.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, what does it all mean? Is it a “religious” poem? I don’t
think so, no. Yeats was not religious in that sense, despite his ancestry. He
dabbled in Theosophy, attended séances, and befriended spiritualists, but he
was not “religious” in the common sense of the term.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is clearly a fearful and anxious poem, perhaps a cynical
poem, certainly far from a hopeful poem. Yeats seems to have lost hope in
humanity. As a younger man before World War I, Yeats had been something of an
idealist and was a central, driving force in the so-called “Gaelic Revival” in
Ireland. Yeats saw Gaelic-Irish culture as being less refined and, therefore,
more “pure” and “authentic” than English culture, and his poetry and plays
highlight the nobility and heroism of the ancient mythic figures of Cuchullain,
Finn MacCumhall, Oisin, and Mebd. Bourgeois English and Anglo-Irish culture
lacked conviction (beyond commerce and profit); ancient Irish folk culture had
a passionate intensity to it. And Yeats championed that culture and brought it
to the people with the same sort of passionate intensity. Yeats’s work – along with
the work in general of the Gaelic Revival – was also a source of passionately
intense inspiration for the Irish revolutionary movement. He later worried (in
his 1938 poem “The Man and the Echo”) “Did that play of mine (“Cathleen Ni
Houlihan”) send out certain men the English shot?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By 1919, too, Yeats had suffered the loss of a romantic dream.
As a young man he pursued the affections of Maud Gonne, another leading Anglo-Irish
figure of the Gaelic Revival. He was rebuffed by her on many occasions
(although they remained friends and many – myself included – believe he never
surrendered his love for her) because he lacked sufficient revolutionary fervor
and finally married George Hyde Lees in 1917. There was a lot of youthful
idealism in Yeats’s life that he saw crushed by the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">spiritus mundi</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As banal as this sounds, I believe Yeats was (as we say
colloquially today) “in a bad place” when he wrote “The Second Coming.” He was
an aristocrat who, as a youth, turned his back on (English) aristocratic
manners and aligned himself with the common folk. Yet he hated Marxism and
could never muster a lot of sympathy for the plight of the proletariat. He was
a romantic who had his heart broken and settled, in his marriage, for second
best. He was an idealist who eventually saw all his ideals destroyed by the
ugly realities of the 20<sup>th</sup> century. And he had only just witnessed
millions of lives being destroyed in a war like no one had ever seen before.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As popular as “The Second Coming” has become since the 2003
invasion of Iraq, I don’t think Yeats was trying to write a political poem,
either. It is nothing more than the mark of good art that people found so many
parallels between Yeats’s poem and the Iraq war.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If there’s any real identifiable target of criticism in Yeats’s “The
Second Coming” I would say it is the moral bankruptcy of commercialized mass
culture and the banality of commoditized information. He makes no direct
references to either culture or media, to be sure, but even a cursory knowledge
of 20<sup>th</sup> century history would suggest Yeats would not be blind to
the effects of media on culture. The radiotelegraph brought news of the sinking
of the Titanic to the world in 1912. Broadcasts of music and speech were common
by 1919. Propaganda had driven all sides of the conflict in World War I. “Mass
production demands the education of the masses,” said Edward A. Filene, scion
of the Boston department store empire, in 1919. “The masses must learn to
behave like human beings in a mass production world.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Walter Lippmann published “Public Opinion” in
only 1922 (“When all think alike, then no one is really thinking…”) and Edward
Bernays “Propaganda” in 1927 (“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of
the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in
democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society
constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our
country…”). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is my and only my opinion, but I believe that William
Butler Yeats’s “The Second Coming” is an expression of his despair over the decline
of transcendent values in the new century, the decline of a compassionate
humanism founded on and supported by those values, and the loss of his own
idealism.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</div>
Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-51640286157790777552013-12-24T17:49:00.000-08:002015-12-21T07:32:11.230-08:00Christmas 2015<a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting" border="0" src="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y38/pfallon/povertyignorance.jpg" /></a><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #33ff33;">This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but <strong><em><span style="color: red;">most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.</span></em></strong> Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end.'<br />'Have they no refuge or resource?' cried Scrooge.<br />'Are there no prisons?' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. 'Are there no workhouses?'" </span><br />
<blockquote>
<br />
<span style="color: #33ff33;">- A Christmas Carol, Stave 3: The Second of the Three Spirits</span></blockquote>
This Christmas, as always, my fervent wish is that we use our wealth and our might to lift people out of poverty, to share the blessings that God has given us with the billions in the world who, through no fault of their own, have been left behind. But my<strong><em> most</em></strong> fervent wish is that we take back control of our media from the hands of multinational corporations, and bring real journalism back to America. Otherwise, we will remain ignorant of the crushing poverty and pain that others suffer, and we'll continue to live <strong>IN THE DARK</strong>.<br />
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Merry Christmas.Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-60750053329763801752013-04-30T14:57:00.002-07:002013-04-30T14:57:24.469-07:00Review: Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages (Richard E. Rubinstein)<span id="freeTextreview8173890">Okay. A book about the middle ages, right? Uh-huh. But wait, not only about the (ugh!) middle ages, but about PHILOSOPHY in the middle ages? You're kidding, right? But, you say, there's more? It's not just about medieval philosophy and philosophers, but also about the intricate, and delicate balance between rationalism and faith in revelation, is that what you're telling me? And about how three distinct strains emerging? One that rejected faith for reason, one that rejected reason for faith, and one that desperately tried to hold the other two together? Yeah, like anyone would want to read THAT!!!<br /><br />Well, this is one of the most beautifully written, intelligent, intriguing, and thought-provoking books I've read in a long time, and it was actually FUN TO READ. It was like a good novel, with surprisingly vital characters, even though they've all been dead for a millennium or so.<br /><br />Go on. Give it a try.</span>Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-34738991688015019022013-04-30T14:32:00.000-07:002013-04-30T14:36:43.752-07:00Review: The Murder Machine (Padraig Pearse)This indictment of British education in Ireland is really a thinly-veiled manifesto for radical change by one of the signatories of the Irish Declaration of Independence from Britain, and a martyr in the blood-thirsty British reaction to the 1916 Easter Uprising.<br />
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Pearse charges the English with taking away their language and traditions (see my own book, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/410542.Printing_Literacy_And_Education_in_Eighteenth_Century_Ireland_Why_the_Irish_Speak_English"><span style="color: cyan;">Printing, Literacy, and Education in Eighteenth Century Ireland: Why the Irish Speak English</span></a> for more information), usurping Irish sovereignty, creating foreign social, political, and cultural institutions, and then educating (or "re-educating") the Irish to administer them, essentially alien institutions, administered by alienated people -- all in their own land.<br />
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The "murder" Pearse refers to is a spiritual murder -- a murder of the soul.<br />
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Read it. And seethe.<br />
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It is available in electronic form at the <a href="http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/E900007-001/index.html" rel="nofollow"><span style="color: cyan;">CELT (Corpus of ELectronic Texts) site</span></a>. Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-49273756381034380762013-04-23T11:32:00.005-07:002013-04-23T11:32:57.720-07:00Was Neil Postman denkt über die Internet ... (Mein imaginäres Gespräch) <a href="http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=1081632735&notes_tab=app_2347471856#!/note.php?note_id=407287873002"><span class="goog-text-highlight">Was Neil Postman denkt über die Internet ... </span>(Mein imaginäres Gespräch)</a> <br />
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<em>Einige von uns Facebook Arten wurden mit einer Diskussion über die " <a href="http://www.facebook.com/?sk=2361831622#!/group.php?gid=19188954527">Neil Postman Appreciation Group</a> ", die von Bob Berkman gebracht: Was würde Neil Postman sagen über Facebook, und" </em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnbN2kPlA685PRuCt_33TaTpQD_DfLS8wEZ30HMbG8XvXdv-9SL4LvUBrH07RQnFBt-WUa3ly5dtB4RPwXLdtXKxIqUh2DsnX4NC7C53LlGnwMFj-Q-Nl1U-MbHbeSLZedzuhO/s1600/neilpeter.jpg"><em><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5520877990641032082" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnbN2kPlA685PRuCt_33TaTpQD_DfLS8wEZ30HMbG8XvXdv-9SL4LvUBrH07RQnFBt-WUa3ly5dtB4RPwXLdtXKxIqUh2DsnX4NC7C53LlGnwMFj-Q-Nl1U-MbHbeSLZedzuhO/s320/neilpeter.jpg" style="float: left; height: 219px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 145px;" /></em></a><em>wissenschaftlichen "Social-Networking-Sites wie Academia.edu. Nun, ich begann darüber nachzudenken und erkannte er bereits die Frage beantwortet, um ein Vielfaches. In den letzten zehn Jahren oder so von seinem Leben, verbrachte Neil viel Zeit die Fragen er im Kapitel "Aufbau einer Brücke ..." Also, in die Beurteilung des Wertes von Facebook - oder der digitalen sozialen Netzwerken im Allgemeinen - könnten wir fragen: "Was ist das Problem, für die Facebook ist die Lösung?"</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>Die Vorstellung, die Diskussion, die, wenn ich zu Gunsten von Social-Networking argumentieren begann gefolgt, ich glaube, es wäre so etwas wie diese gehen: </em><br /><br /><span style="color: red;">Peter</span> : Facebook hält mich in Kontakt mit Menschen, die ich nicht auf einer täglichen Basis sehe. </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">Neil</span> : Was haben Sie vergessen, wie man schreiben? Peter, ich erinnere mich erzählst du mir im Jahr 1986 darüber, wie Sie schrieben Briefe jede Woche, um Ihre Vettern in Irland, darüber, wie Sie ein engagierter waren - und habituellen - Briefschreiber. Was ist mit dir passiert? </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Schreiben all diese Briefe nahm viel Zeit und viel Energie. Mit Facebook alles, was ich tun müssen, ist jemanden schicken eine Nachricht und sie bekommen es sofort. </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Braucht es nicht weniger Zeit oder Energie zu sitzen und zu denken und zu schreiben eine schön gestaltete Brief - oder "Nachricht" - auf Facebook als es tat, wenn Sie mit dem Schreiben wurden und Briefe durch die Post? </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Na ja, eigentlich, ich weiß nicht wirklich dazu neigen, so viel schreiben auf Facebook wie früher in einem Brief. Es ist in der Regel nur ein paar Zeilen. </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Warum ist das, Peter? </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Nun, für eine Sache Ich neige dazu, "in Bump" (in einer körperlosen Art und Weise) die eine oder andere meiner Cousins ziemlich häufig online, und wir Höflichkeiten austauschen fast auf einer täglichen Basis. Nicht so viel Zeit vergeht zwischen unseren Momente der Berührung, und ich habe nicht das Gefühl, als ob ich eine umfassende Chronik der jüngsten Ereignisse zu haben. Außerdem ist das, was meine "Wand" ist für. </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Ja, ja... Und teilen Sie alles auf Ihrem Wand? Sie teilen die gleichen möglichen Details Ihres Lebens auf Ihre sehr öffentliches Profil Seite, die Sie einst, in Briefen, mit Ihren Verwandten? </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Und so würden Sie sagen, dass Ihre Interaktionen mit Ihren Cousins verändert haben? </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Ja, ich denke schon. Sie sind viel häufiger, aber nicht annähernd so tief. Aber ist das nicht meine Schuld? Sie sind nicht darauf hindeutet, dass Facebook hat mir das angetan. </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Nein, Peter, aber das ist auch mein Punkt: Sie haben dies getan. Aber Sie haben dies mit Facebook getan. Facebook ihn gibt, und Facebook wegnimmt. Sie haben Facebook als Bequemlichkeit angenommen, aber selbst gesagt, dass es (wie Sie alle neuen Technologien zu betrachten) ist eine Notwendigkeit. Dies war eine Wahl, mit denen kein Zwang oder Kompromiss Ihrer Intelligenz oder Agentur. Sie haben akzeptiert, fraglos, Ihre Kultur, dass die Annahmen, in allen Belangen, vor allem aber diejenigen Informationen, mehr besser als weniger und schneller besser als langsamer ist. Und Sie haben akzeptiert dies wohl wissend, (wie ich euch gelehrt), dass die Geschwindigkeit, Menge und Bequemlichkeit Werte in ihrem eigenen Recht und muss mit anderen Werten, die Sie (weil Sie einmal tat) in höhere Wertschätzung halten könnte konkurrieren. So tat dies, Peter, und Sie dies auch weiterhin tun, jenseits aller Logik. Was ist los mit dir? </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Ich glaube nicht, dass Sie verstehen, die Ungeheuerlichkeit der Veränderung unserer Kultur geht durch in diesem Moment, Neil ... </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : (~ ~ ~ ~ schiefes Grinsen) </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : ... ich meine, diese digitale Sache ist nicht alles schlecht. Es gibt uns "kleine Leute" - wie BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg ruft uns - die Macht, weit kommunizieren mit einer potenziell weltweiten Publikum. In diesem Sinne ist es genauso revolutionär wie Gutenbergs Druckerpresse. Es hat eine enorme Verbreitung von Stimmen in den letzten zehn Jahren, was zu neuen Ideen und neuen Perspektiven, die sonst nie in einer Kultur des Top-down-Netze und Massenkommunikation aufgetaucht sein könnte. </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Sicher, Peter, ich kann sehen, dass. Aber zu welchem Zweck? </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Huh? Ist das nicht die Öffnung der Kommunikationskanäle, um die Informationen, entrechtet Selbstzweck enfranchise? </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Ich bin mir nicht so sicher. Haben Sie jemals lesen Jacques Ellul? </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : (~ ~ ~ ~ bockig) Ja ... </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Und vielleicht ein bisschen Thoreau? </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Ja ... </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Nun, dann solltest du wissen, dass unsere ganze Ansatz, wie eine Spezies, die Beziehung zwischen den Mittelwerten und Enden hat sich geändert. Unsere Technologien, Thoreau sagte, sind nichts anderes als ver - </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : ... verbesserte Mittel zu einem unbebauten Ende, ja ... ich weiß ... </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Ähm ... Ja ... und Ellul erinnert daran, dass die Werte einer technologischen Gesellschaft präsentieren uns mit einer gewissen ... unbedingt ... mit denen wir scheinen nur allzu gerne entsprechen, nämlich: zu tun, zu handeln, zu reagieren, zu erreichen, zu produzieren, ohne viel Rücksicht auf das, was es ist, genau, wir tun, die auf und reagiert auf zu erzielen, oder produzieren. Technologie, wie ich euch gelehrt (und Sie sollten inzwischen gelernt haben), beantwortet die Frage des Menschen ", wie." Ethik beantwortet die menschliche Frage "Warum" und es ist diese Frage, die mehr und mehr verloren gehen in unserer Kultur zu sein scheint. Ist eine Stimme zu geben diejenigen, die keine gute an und für sich haben? Vielleicht, vielleicht nicht. Unsere Kultur sagt uns, sicherlich ist es. Die Werte der postmodernen, hoch "Demokratien" sicherlich unterstützen diese Sicht technologisch entwickelt. Aber ist es nicht überhaupt lehrreich zu fragen, in erster Linie, ob diejenigen, die bisher keine Stimme hatte nichts haben, schließlich zu sagen haben ? </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Aber ist das nicht, wie Wissen wächst und breitet sich, Neil? Durch die Öffnung Kanäle von Informationen, die unterschiedlichsten Sichtweisen zulassen? </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Dies ist, wie Informationen verbreitet, Peter, nicht unbedingt Wissen. Wissen ist eine andere Geschichte. In Anlehnung an Henri Poincaré wird Wissen aus Sachverhalts, wie ein Haus aus Ziegeln besteht. Aber Wissen ist nicht mehr nur ein Haufen von Fakten als ein Haus ist nur ein Haufen Steine. Es ist eine Erkenntnistheorie hier am Werk, Peter, und ein Curriculum. Und es ist eine Methode. Kritisches Denken, auf propositionale Sprache, ist grundlegend für die Konstruktion von Körpern von Wissen. Die Fähigkeit, zu erkennen - und lehnen - nutzlos, irrelevant und trivial Informationen nicht unbedingt leicht kommen zu den Menschen. Es dauert Jahre harter Arbeit und Praxis, um die gebildeten Geist und die Strapazen des kritischen Denkens zu entwickeln. Und ohne diese alles, was wir haben, sind Berge von Fakten - und in der digitalen Welt wirklich erstaunlichen Haufen Fakten. Nicholas Carr fragte die falsche Frage, und damit schuf ein Strohmann Argument, dass die Befürworter der digitalen Epistemologien haben schadenfroh angegriffen und zerstört: Google wird uns dumm? Er vermisst den Punkt: Der Mensch entwickelte sich dumm. Wir sind dumm zu beginnen. Alphabetisierung und kritisch ist, ist der Gedanke propositionalen therapeutische Intervention wir erfunden, um unsere Dummheit zu heilen. Digitale Technologien in dem Umfang, dass sie uns mit einer Verknüpfung zu "Information" (wieder, ohne Rücksicht auf die Qualität der Informationen), die diese Denkprozesse umgeht, machen uns nicht dumm, aber entgegen den Therapien, die wir selbst erfunden unsere Dummheit zu verbessern. Erkenntnistheorie, Lehrplan, und das Verfahren kann nicht ohne Folgen getrennt werden. Also, was digitale Technologien getan haben, vielleicht in Ermächtigung der Informationen-Entrechteten (wie du sie nennst) ist nicht zur Verbreitung von Wissen haben, aber zu verbreiten Dummheit haben. </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Aber viele meiner Freunde und Kollegen darauf bestehen, dass diese digitalen Technologien propositionalen Gedanke, dass die Menschen das Lesen mehr sind als Folge des Internets, und zünden sie an, und iPads, und all die anderen verschiedenen Orten und Anwendungen zu unterstützen. Kannst du das leugnen? </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Ich kann weder bestätigen noch dementieren, und ich werde Ihnen gestehen, dass ich hoffe - und beten - dass es wahr ist. Aber ich werde Ihnen auch gestehen, dass ich meine Zweifel haben und weiterhin skeptisch gegenüber solchen Vorschlägen auf meinen Beobachtungen des menschlichen Verhaltens, vor allem in der Technologie beteiligt ist. </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Warum </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Peter, sind Sie sich bewusst, was die beiden am häufigsten verwendeten Anwendungen des Internets sind? </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> :. Ähm ... ja, als eine Angelegenheit der Tatsache... </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Na? Worauf wartest du noch? </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : E-Mail und Pornografie. </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Ja. Nahezu 100% der Internet-Nutzer haben eine oder mehrere aktive E-Mail-Konten. Fast 70% der Internet-Nutzer herunterladen und Pornografie. Nun, ich glaube, ich bin nicht prüde, Peter (viele Leute glauben, ich bin, Sie wissen schon), bin ich nicht verurteilen Menschen für den Eingriff in eine expressive Form, die so alt wie die Spezies ist. Es dient nur als Illustration mein Punkt. Bei einem Medium (eine, die ist in einem gewissen Sinne die Akkretion von allen bisherigen Medien), die für den Eingriff mit den beiden propositionally strukturierte Informationen und presentationally strukturierte Informationen ermöglichen, werden die Menschen wählen, Kitzel, Aufregung und Belustigung everytime. Lesen ist eine schwierige Arbeit und unnatürlich, sensorische Erfahrung ist es nicht. Ich bin von Christine Nyström Artikel erinnert - Sie erinnern sich Christine, meinst du nicht? <span style="color: red;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Natürlich tue ich. Sie war meine Dissertation <span class="hps alt-edited">Obfrau</span>. </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : (~ ~ ~ ~ genervt) Oh, ja. Das ist richtig, das war sie. Naja, jedenfalls bin ich von etwas, was sie schrieb einmal genannt erinnerte "literacy als Devianz." Ihr Punkt war, dass die Menschen das Schreiben erfunden und schließlich nur drucken, weil wir waren an diesen Punkten, unzureichend technologisch auf das Fernsehen zu erfinden. Alle menschlichen technologischen Entwicklung, schlug sie vor, ist der Bau-Tools, richtet mehr und mehr genau imitieren menschliche sinnliche Erfahrung. Daher unsere Begeisterung für "Virtual Reality" (als ob tatsächliche Realität nicht real genug), und ihre Beobachtung, dass alphabetisches Schreiben sei lediglich ein Umweg auf dieser path.At jedenfalls, ob Sie es ein iPad oder ein E-Book nennen oder eine schmindle, was Sie wirklich reden ist ein Computer süchtig nach dem Internet. Kommen Sie, daran zu denken, sind das, was einem solchen Umfeld leben wir, wenn Sie Anrufe auf ein Buch zu machen? Aber ich schweife ab. Solange wir über Computer mit mehreren Anwendungen reden, nur einer von denen sein, um Text zu übersetzen, sind wir sehr wahrscheinlich sind, glaube ich, zu finden, dass die Menschen sie nutzen, um sich die Bilder oder Filme schauen, Musik hören oder einfach nur so häufig - wenn nicht mehr - wie zu text.There lesen sind, natürlich, die anderen Fragen, was wir lesen (zurück zu unserer früheren Diskussion von Informationen) und wie wir lesen (wenn man wollte Sven Birkerts Ideen der tief innere Erfahrung von "deep reading") zu diskutieren, aber ich denke, du was ich meine. Ich bin skeptisch, was die Fähigkeit der digitalen Technologien, um die Erkenntnistheorie, Lehrplan, und das Verfahren der Druck Kultur unterstützt. Äußerst skeptisch. </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Hören Sie, Neil, wollte mein Freund Robert Berkman mich Ihnen eine Frage stellen ... </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Wie lange haben Sie Bob Berkman bekannt </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> Nun, wir haben eigentlich noch nie getroffen, aber ---: </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Also, warum nennst du ihn dein Freund? Schauen Sie, wie neue Technologien verändern unsere Sprache! </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Nun, er ist ein Facebook-Freund ist ... Ich weiß, es ist nicht das Gleiche, Neil, aber, schau, er ist ein netter Kerl, er ist intelligent und fragt gute Fragen, schlägt gute Antworten - - und sein Profilbild hat immer ein Lächeln! </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Nur auf sich mit ihm, Peter. Ich habe nicht den ganzen Tag. Ich spiele Brücke später mit McLuhan, Innis und Ong ... </div>
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<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Nun, dachte Bob, Sie könnten mehr zugänglich Angabe Ihrer Zustimmung auf Websites wie Academia.edu ... </div>
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<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Was ist das? Das ist ein neues für mich ... </div>
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</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Es ist eine Website für Gelehrte. Sie haben eine eigene Seite - ein Profil, dass Links zu persönlichen Informationen, Forschung Interessen und Aktivitäten, etc. Andere Wissenschaftler können "folgen" Ihre Arbeit, und Sie können Ihre Forschung hochladen und erhalten Kommentare von anderen Gelehrten. </div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Warum in die Welt wollen Sie das tun? </div>
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</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Nun, wieder Neil, es ist diese Idee der Öffnung von Kanälen der Kommunikation, immer Reaktionen aus verschiedenen Perspektiven, erzeugt Synergien ... </div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Synergy, schminergy, Peter. Du redest Kauderwelsch-gook hier ... Peter, lass mich dir eine Frage stellen. </div>
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</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Mit allen Mitteln. </div>
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</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Sie haben jetzt ein Buch geschrieben, richtig? </div>
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</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Ähm ... eigentlich nur mein zweites Buch kam heraus. Es heißt <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=8926707">"Die Meta - </a></div>
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</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> :.? Ja, ja, was Mein Punkt ist, haben Sie dieses Buch von selbst, oder haben Sie organisieren einen Ausschuss, um es für Sie zu schreiben </div>
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</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Ich habe es selbst geschrieben, Neil, aber es gab eine Menge Dinge, die ich über die waren ganz ehrlich, über die Grenzen meiner fachlichen und persönlichen und akademischen Erfahrungen. fand ich es sinnvoll und notwendig, um das Manuskript haben, lesen Sie in verschiedenen Phasen, von Philosophen und Theologen, um das Schreiben wurde sicher, dass i<span class="hps">ch</span> <span class="hps">wurde</span> <span class="hps">in</span> <span class="hps">die richtige Richtung</span>. </div>
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</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Und hast du diese Philosophen und Theologen auf Academia.edu? </div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Nein </div>
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</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Warum nicht? </div>
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</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Nun, ich weiß nicht, die meisten Menschen auf dieser Website --- </div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Sie wissen nicht, Bob Berkman, aber sie nennen ihn Ihren Freund ... </div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Aber das ist Facebook, und das ist anders Worüber wir jetzt reden, ist -. </div>
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</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> :. Facebook mit einem anderen Namen Sie nicht setzen Ihre Arbeit auf Academia.edu für Kommentare, und Sie würden nicht Anmerkungen oder Kritik, die auf Academia.edu angeboten wurden, weil Sie nicht wissen, wer verlässt sie angenommen haben. Oh, Sie können ihre Namen dort zu sehen, aber das doesn . 't bedeuten, dass Sie "wissen" sie Stattdessen fanden Sie Ihren Lesern, wo? <span style="color: red;"></span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: red;"></span> </div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Oh, das waren Leute, die ich persönlich kannte und respektierte Das waren Menschen, die andere zu kennen und zu respektieren.. </div>
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</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Eine andere Frage, Peter, über den spezifischen . Ausgabe von spezialisierten Antwort Sie nicht schreiben Kapiteln dieses Buches und senden sie an andere Antworten zu bekommen? </div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Nein </div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Hätten Sie, würden Sie modifiziert oder geändert haben Ihr Manuskript in irgendeiner Weise? <span style="color: red;"></span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: red;"></span> </div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Nein </div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Warum nicht? </div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: red;">PKF</span> : Oh, ganz einfach:.. war dies mein Buch über meine Ideen basierend Ich habe diese Erfahrung vor in Gesprächen über dieses Buch, und über die Perspektive, aus der ich schrieb es Menschen nicht berühren kann meine Daten, aber sie hassen meine Schlüsse. Wir bekommen in Streit über den "Sinn des Ganzen", und am Ende des Tages, die Menschen nur resistent gegen Standpunkte, die zu weit von ihren Komfort-Zonen sind. dachte ich über die Entsendung Auszüge auf Academia.edu, und in der Tat hat Auszüge Beitrag auf Goodreads.com - das ist mehr daran interessiert, in literarischen Verdienste als Stipendium - aber beschlossen, Academia.edu vermeiden Ich dachte, es ist zu viel Druck, um mehr Mainstream Punkten entsprechen. zu sehen. </div>
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</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" itemprop="description articleBody">
<span style="color: #33ccff;">NP</span> : Sie können sagen, dass Bob Berkman Ich stimme Meine Bücher, zum Besseren oder Schlechteren, haben alle schon meins.. <em>(Wie auch immer, das ist, wie ich das Gespräch in Gang vorstellen ...)</em></div>
Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-84235244751138991482013-04-17T10:48:00.000-07:002013-04-17T10:48:02.290-07:00My New Book -- "Cultural Defiance, Cultural Deviance" -- is Available<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwWOCAyCgyxqx1DUe37TCn7getdq7snVBT99FdNHciBsjomkhRw_UueYMjez_1J8TCeC-6Da4qBtrIgFfCMmBEH9nff-ThS9q1nscle39aR5EYuOkNwkIJddBgbQkN2r6_sYEo/s1600/Defiance-Deviance+Final.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Cultural Defiance, Cultural Deviance" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwWOCAyCgyxqx1DUe37TCn7getdq7snVBT99FdNHciBsjomkhRw_UueYMjez_1J8TCeC-6Da4qBtrIgFfCMmBEH9nff-ThS9q1nscle39aR5EYuOkNwkIJddBgbQkN2r6_sYEo/s320/Defiance-Deviance+Final.JPG" title="Cultural Defiance, Cultural Deviance" width="204" /></a></div>
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Long-term followers of IN THE DARK (there ARE a few, you know) will remember that my blog productivity drops whenever I'm working on a book, as it did with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1589662024?ie=UTF8&tag=httpwwwgoodco-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1589662024&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: cyan;">The Metaphysics of Media</span></a> (which won the <a href="https://vimeo.com/14504499" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: cyan;">Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Technics for 2010</span></a>) and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0773460330?ie=UTF8&tag=httpwwwgoodco-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0773460330&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: cyan;">Why the Irish Speak English</span></a> (Winner of the <a href="http://rujournalism.blogspot.com/2007/06/marshall-mcluhan-award-for-outstanding_12.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: cyan;">Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology for 2007</span></a>). </div>
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So my output on IN THE DARK has been pretty spare in the last year or so as I worked on my third book, a collection of essays titled <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Defiance-Deviance-Collected-Essays/dp/1482696517" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: cyan;">Cultural Defiance, Cultural Deviance</span></a>. CD/CD is a set of ten essays I've written over several years, some written as peer-reviewed articles and presentations, some written as nothing more than flights of imagination, but all with a nod to the notion that, if reality is a socially-constructed phenomenon, we ought to have a hand in the process and not out-source that construction to multi-national<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infotainment" target="_blank"> <span style="color: cyan;">infotainment</span></a> corporations.</div>
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While CD/CD is out only a week, it has garnered some praise from early reviewers:<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br />
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>To the names of McLuhan, Postman,
Ellul, and Ong, please now add Peter K. Fallon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This isn’t so much a book as it is a placeholder for polymaths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This isn’t a collection of essays unified by
a theme or subject, but rather a collection of discrete objects subjected to
the same methodology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are
historical, analogical, probing, semantic, linguistic, and psychological.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And not religious but spiritual, in the best
sense of that beaten dead horse… If you read the essays collected herein, even
some of them, you will have committed the cultural heresy of the title.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will have committed the act of
contemplation, in defiance of the noise, rush, bright colors, and distraction
from the unmitigated disaster of technological society’s clustercuss all around
you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that will be a deviant thing to
do. <strong><em>–<a href="http://www.wheaton.edu/Academics/Faculty/S/Read-Schuchardt" target="_blank"><span style="color: cyan;">ReadMercer Schuchardt</span></a>, Wheaton College (from the Foreword)</em></strong></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">
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<strong><em><o:p></o:p></em></strong> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>Neil Postman suggested that all of
the social and behavioral sciences would be best understood as a form of moral
theology. Without a doubt, he would have heartily approved of this well-written
and thoughtful collection of essays by Peter K Fallon, who writes in the
tradition of Jacques Ellul, Walter Ong, Marshall McLuhan, and Postman himself,
and brings deep insight, grounded in the media ecology intellectual tradition,
coupled with a sharp wielding of ethical criteria, to matters of contemporary
and universal human concern. <strong>– <em><a href="http://faculty.fordham.edu/strate/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: cyan;">Lance Strate</span></a>, Professor of Communication and
Media Studies, Fordham University</em></strong></div>
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<strong><em><o:p></o:p></em></strong> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>Both a student of renowned
Communications theorist Neil Postman and the winner of the Media Ecology
Association's Lewis Mumford Award (named for Postman’s own intellectual hero),
Peter K. Fallon is the perfect tour guide through our techno-mediated environment.
He adheres scrupulously to Postman's conception of media ecology as nothing
less than an exploration of the ways in which our communication habits and
technologies enhance or impede our chances for survival… In the words and
spirit of Jacques Ellul--one of the intellectual heirs Fallon pays homage to in
the book--"Contemplation as Defiance/Deviance" is "a call to the
sleeper to awake." <strong><em>– <a href="http://www.thespectacle.net/spectacle/about/about_eg.php" target="_blank"><span style="color: cyan;">Eric Goodman</span></a>, Producer, Composer,
Performer: <u>Thus Spoke the Spectacle</u></em></strong></div>
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<strong><em><u><o:p></o:p></u></em></strong> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>For nearly two decades, Peter K.
Fallon worked for NBC News. Today, he is a media scholar and a powerful critic
of the television he once produced… These essays by a writer of conscience and
acute observation insist on the continuity between our media and our moral
lives. Fallon’s evident passion for the potential of media, and his pointed
criticisms of the moments when television and other media betray their promise,
affect all who read his thoughtful books.<strong><em> – <a href="http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300111743" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: cyan;">Anne-Marie Cusac</span></a>, George Polk
Award-winning investigative journalist; author,<u> Cruel and Unusual: The
Culture of Punishment in America</u></em></strong></div>
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</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=peter+k+fallon&commit=Search" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: cyan;">Here is a link</span></a> to some quotes from the book on Goodreads, and here is the table of contents:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZaBPyQdyYjBPjWHsolkorX1JvxOoq4ufa3hTtTCQ_6VypBTx18mLwIUGkev84sYjtM-XTgX8IudxJhrFwnj5zo9KfejlIDWxYJmblf6HzkWyaZR9qNDBnjVicv-8MM_wCtx51/s1600/Contents.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZaBPyQdyYjBPjWHsolkorX1JvxOoq4ufa3hTtTCQ_6VypBTx18mLwIUGkev84sYjtM-XTgX8IudxJhrFwnj5zo9KfejlIDWxYJmblf6HzkWyaZR9qNDBnjVicv-8MM_wCtx51/s1600/Contents.JPG" /></a></div>
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Thanks for reading.</div>
Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-36971856344021343022013-04-17T09:26:00.001-07:002013-04-17T09:26:06.557-07:00"Silkie" by Anne-Marie Cusac<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1278093.Silkie" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Silkie" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1193323798m/1278093.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1278093.Silkie">Silkie</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/173801.Anne_Marie_Cusac">Anne-Marie Cusac</a><br />
My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8222944">5 of 5 stars</a><br />
<br />
This is a frighteningly beautiful book, based on old, oral, Celtic legends and folktales, of a "bad girl" with a good heart, of illicit love, of the difficulty of following the call of your heart, and of the comfort -- and discomfort -- of living in the skin we're in.<br />
<br />
Anne-Marie Cusac's "Silkie" is smart, and sensual, and funny, and sad, and scary. It is a beautiful and emotional work that tells us not only about its characters, but about its author. And, if you're paying attention, it will tell you something about yourself.
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/575026-peter">View all my reviews</a>
Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-643601059937783422013-04-17T09:15:00.002-07:002013-04-17T09:17:16.732-07:00Plato's Phaedrus: Beware of Bullshit<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1328.Phaedrus" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Phaedrus" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1311645778m/1328.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1328.Phaedrus">Phaedrus</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/879.Plato">Plato</a><br />
My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/528172782">5 of 5 stars</a><br />
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Spoiler alert: This book is not about a "philosophy of love" as many reviewers seem to believe. As every dream has its manifest content (a storyline) that masks a latent content (the suppressed, unconscious emotions that bubble into our semi-conscious REM sleep), Socrates' discourse on the nature of love thinly masks the true subject of this dialogue: bullshit, how to produce it, and how to recognize it. For the reader, his dialectical approach gives us a hint about how to resist it.<br />
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With self-deprecating charm -- true to form -- Socrates schools beautiful young Phaedrus on his own susceptibility to bullshit, alternately praising Phaedrus's current object of infatuation, the silver-tongued rhetor Lysias, and ruthlessly dismantling the rhetorical artifices of Lysias' manufacture.<br />
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This excellent translation by Christopher Rowe is not only accessible to the reader not familiar (or terribly comfortable) with the Socratic dialogs, but manages, too, to emphasize Socrates' sharp wit, good humor, and gentleness of pedagogy. Rowe's scholarly introduction provides context and background making clear the significance of this work.<br />
<br />
It is a testament to Plato -- an early generation child and devotee of alphabetic literacy -- that he takes pains to accurately convey to us Socrates' belief that writing would sap the intelligence of the Athenian youth, making them both less knowledgeable about the universal precepts of logic, and less inclined to engage in a dialectic with thought externalized and made permanent.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/575026-peter">View all my reviews</a>
Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-20722721884318779382013-04-09T15:19:00.000-07:002013-04-09T15:20:13.332-07:00Margaret Thatcher is Dead<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Margaret Thatcher is dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Margaret Thatcher, about whom Scottish MP George Galloway said “destroyed
more than a third of Britain’s manufacturing capacity, significantly more than
Hitler’s Luftwaffe ever achieved.” Margaret Thatcher, who, in his novel “Satanic
Verses, author Salman Rushdie called ‘Mrs. Torture.’<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Margaret Thatcher, the friend of bloody Chilean dictator
Augusto Pinochet whom she praised for “bringing democracy to Chile,” all while
Pinochet engaged in the murder and torture of political opponents. The Pinochet
Government was responsible for the death of at least 3,197 people and the torture
of about 29,000.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Margaret Thatcher, whose Government continued previous
Governments’ practices against political detainees (which eventually found
their way to Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram) judged by the European Commission
on Human Rights (Ireland v. United Kingdom, 1976 Y.B. Eur. Conv. on Hum. Rts.
512, 748, 788-94) to constitute torture.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Margaret Thatcher, who watched without emotion as Bobby
Sands, Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh, Patsy O’Hara, Joe McDonnell, Martin
Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Thomas McElwee, and Michael Devine died in
a 1981 hunger strike, rather than granting IRA members the status of “political
prisoners.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Margaret Thatcher, who provided the inspiration to a
generation of political leaders holding human rights and due process of law in
contempt, instituting a “shoot to kill” policy against suspected (SUSPECTED!)
IRA members. Mairead Farrell, Sean Savage and Daniel McCann died, unarmed, and
uncharged, in a hail of 29 bullets in Gibraltar in 1988.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Margaret Thatcher, who, in the 1980s, revived a “black
propaganda” campaign of the 1970s called “Operation Clockwork Orange”
(originally a smear campaign against then PM Harold Wilson) to feed
misinformation to British and global journalists. Those stories about IRA drug
dealers? About young Irish mothers delivering bombs in prams? About the IRA “crime
godfathers”? All fabrications of British Military Intelligence, hungrily
snapped up and reported by an unquestioning “liberal media.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Margaret Thatcher, who both allowed and encouraged British
Army collusion with Northern Irish terrorists, the arrest and internment
without due process or trial, the murders, bombings, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and framing of innocent victims, black
propaganda campaigns, a shoot-to-kill policy, search of private homes and
seizure of private property without warrant, jury-less Courts, torture, and
kidnappings (known today as “rendition”).<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Margaret Thatcher is dead. That chapter in history is
closed. Have we learned anything?</span></div>
Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-7282757585296518482012-04-04T14:13:00.005-07:002012-04-04T14:27:15.071-07:00More Thoughts on Racism in America<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip3GPIyTA7GExm4BfbRPqpP77CAS9jmiGp_A3SKqK2uy9RRnWTcwdom5XuqIU4mfvPNRciNZCrehMjAI4zWSZzlyhkFjbEio17hxP4TSsUAEoZunHw347bstzRbbJ41f8NzVHV/s1600/million-hoody-march-trayvon-martin.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; width: 320px; height: 177px; text-align: center; display: block; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5727657087266098146" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip3GPIyTA7GExm4BfbRPqpP77CAS9jmiGp_A3SKqK2uy9RRnWTcwdom5XuqIU4mfvPNRciNZCrehMjAI4zWSZzlyhkFjbEio17hxP4TSsUAEoZunHw347bstzRbbJ41f8NzVHV/s320/million-hoody-march-trayvon-martin.jpg" /></a>The Trayvon Martin case has touched a very raw nerve in American culture. After years of being hidden away in the closet of the American mind, the spectre of racism once again haunts us. Ever since the 1960s – the “Freedom Riders,” the civil rights movement, the march on Washington and Dr. King’s stirring speech at the Lincoln Memorial, the march from Selma to Montgomery, the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act – Americans have been convinced that racism is a thing of the past in the United States of America.<br /><br />There’s no question that the attitudes of average Americans changed during this time. Where white Americans once either ignored the group of people we once called “negroes” or thought about them as somehow less than human, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s was very likely helped by the emergence of television. Images of men, women, and children in peaceful protest being beaten with truncheons, attacked with dogs, and swept off their feet and blasted with fire hoses, brought home to America the injustices of inequality. The powerful, emotional images entering our homes night after night sparked our sympathy for Americans of African descent and changed our minds about accepting the status quo of Jim Crow segregation.<br /><br />I’m pretty certain that anyone reading this post who happens to be white will vehemently – angrily! – disagree with me, but we’re fooling ourselves. Ask a white American what he or she thinks of racism, and they will tell you just how awful and inhuman it is. Ask a white American if he is racist and he will be shocked – shocked! – at the suggestion. “I am not a racist,” he<br />will tell you. “I have black friends.” But, I repeat, we are fooling ourselves.<br /><br />No one wants to think of himself as racist any more than he would think of himself as stupid or ignorant or hateful. But stupidity, ignorance, and hatred are in no short supply in the United States in the second decade of this new millennium. So you must be talking about someone else. It’s not me.<br /><br />Racism did not disappear from our nation in the 1960s. It merely disappeared from our words and actions. It lives on, alive and well in our hearts. Certain words have disappeared (we all know the words I’m referring to). Certain behaviors have disappeared. We now consider the words vile and disgusting and the behaviors boorish and uncivilized.<br /><br />But have we changed? Have our hearts changed?<br /><br />A lot of the problem stems from our understanding of the words “racism” and “hatred.” It’s very easy to have a friend, black or white. Friends are people we like. We like them because we believe they’re good, and we believe they’re good because we’ve bothered to get to know them, to know<br />their hearts. I have black friends and white friends and Asian friends and Latino friends. I have Christian, Jewish, and Muslim friends. My students are black, white, Latino, Asian, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and atheist. I can honestly say I love my friends. And I can honestly say that I love the vast majority of my students (if I have a problem with a student, it would be more<br />connected with their seriousness and work ethic than their ethnicity). They are, like me, American. Does that mean I am not a racist? It’s a bit more complicated than that.<br /><br />If I am walking down a Chicago street late at night and a young black man wearing a “hoodie” is walking toward me, am I uncomfortable? Why? I do not know the young man, not anything about him. I have no reason to believe that he has any intention, good or ill, other than to walk down the same street I am walking. What could possibly be the reason for this discomfort?<br /><br />Human beings tend to fear two things: 1] that which they don’t understand, and 2] that which they do understand, if they understand it incorrectly. And here’s where racism comes in. Very few (if any) Americans will admit this, but we all have preconceived notions of others based on social categories. We react to people that we don’t yet know not as individuals, but as members of one of these categories. And we make decisions about what category people belong to based on their appearance. We all do this. All of us.<br /><br />In <a href="http://rujournalism.blogspot.com/2012/03/were-all-trayvon-martin.html">an earlier post</a>, I talked about both white racism and black racism (what some white people refer to as “reverse racism”). And I said I understood black racism far more than I understand white racism. I said that white racism is based on deeply-seated feelings of privilege and cultural superiority, and "reverse racism" (black racism) is based mostly on resentment of white privilege and on fear – fear of someday being a victim of white racism.<br /><br />Like Trayvon.<br /><br />And here’s where hatred comes in. In order to hate, it is not necessary to actually take a gun and shoot someone. It is not necessary to beat someone with a club until unconscious, chain him to a pickup truck, and drag him around town until his lifeless body literally falls into pieces. In<br />order to hate, it is not necessary to make someone sit in the back of a bus, give him a separate bathroom, or make him step off the sidewalk as you walk by. In order to hate someone, it is not necessary to call him a vile and disgusting name.<br /><br />All that is really necessary to hate someone is not to give a shit about what happens to him. And when we don’t give a shit about what happens to a whole group of Americans because of the color of their skin, that is racism.<br /><br />So I feel it necessary to point out the following inconvenient truths:<br />On average, African-Americans have a lower life expectancy than white Americans, with higher infant mortality, greater risk of coronary artery disease, diabetes, stroke and HIV/AIDS. (<a href="http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/assets/uploads/file/Race_Racial_Inequality_Health.pdf">source</a>)<br />African-American unemployment is on average twice the white unemployment rate, at all times, not just during the current economic crisis. (<a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/ib257/">source</a>)<br />At some point in their lives, 42% of African-Americans will experience poverty as opposed to 10% of whites. (<a href="http://www.npc.umich.edu/publications/policy_briefs/brief16/PolicyBrief16.pdf">source</a>)<br />One third of black children live in poverty today compared with 15% of white children. (<a href="http://www.npc.umich.edu/publications/policy_briefs/brief16/PolicyBrief16.pdf">source</a>)<br /><ul><li>Black Americans experience homelessness at a rate seven times that of white Americans. (<a href="http://www.nynp.biz/index.php/breaking-news/9473-racial-disparities-in-homelessness-even-worse-than-poverty-">source</a> and <a href="http://www.icphusa.org/index.asp?page=16&report=91">source</a>)</li><li>70% of white high school students go on to college as opposed to 55% of black students. (<a href="http://cte.rockhurst.edu/s/945/images/editor_documents/content/PROJECT%20INEQUALITY%20STUDENT%20PAPERS(Listed%20Alphabetically%20by%20P/rest.pdf">source</a>)</li><li>A black man is three times more likely than a white man to be stopped and searched by police (racial profiling), and once stopped is four times more likely to encounter physical force by police. (<a href="http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/department-justice-statistics-show-clear-pattern-racial-profiling">source</a>)</li><li>A black man is nearly 12 times more likely than a white man to be sent to prison on drug charges, even though the greatest number of drug users is white. (<a href="http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-racial-discrimination-0">source</a>)</li><li>Young black students are three times more likely to be arrested than white students. (<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/federal-data-show-racial-gaps-in-school-arrests/2012/03/01/gIQApbjvtR_story.html">source</a>)</li><li>If and when arrested and convicted, black prisoners spend about 10% more time in prison than white prisoners. (<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-quigley/fourteen-examples-of-raci_b_658947.html">source</a>)</li><li>A white man who kills a black man is far less likely to face the death penalty than a black man who kills a white man. (<a href="http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=54">source</a>)</li><li>Someone of any race who kills a white man is four times more likely to face the death penalty than someone who kills a black man. (<a href="http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=54">source</a>)</li></ul>And most of America doesn’t give a shit. Not about any of this. On the contrary – if we’re going to be honest with ourselves – we rather expect that this is pretty much “just the way things are.” We like to tell ourselves that in America “anyone can make it if they try,” that all you have to do is “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and “work hard to get ahead.” In other words, if you are one of the 45 million Americans living in poverty, you’re just not trying hard enough. And if the majority of that 45 million is black – well, the numbers speak for themselves, don’t they? As Herman Cain said, “If you’re poor and unemployed in America, blame yourself!”<br /><br />White Americans will never admit it, but deep in their hearts they still believe that black people are inferior. And any attempt to point out the disparities and injustices in our social and economic structures, any attempt to suggest that there are structural inequalities built into the<br />system that we have never addressed, any attempt to argue that racism survives in America – these are all met with the charge of “race baiting!”<br /><br />None of this is ever going to change until each of us changes. The change has to come from us, and the object of that change is us. We have to change our hearts. And we have to change our<br />minds. We have to stop thinking in terms of stereotypes and deal with people as people. We have to stop thinking in terms of narrow self-interest and begin to reclaim the idea of the common good.<br /><br />A week before he died (forty-four years ago last week, to be exact), The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached at the National Cathedral in Washington DC. He called his sermon “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.” In it he said the following:<br /><blockquote><p>We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.</p><p>John Donne caught it years ago and placed it in graphic terms: "No man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main." And he goes on toward the end to say, "Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." We must see this, believe this, and live by it if we are to remain awake through a great revolution.</p></blockquote><br />Trayvon Martin’s tragic death is bigger, I think, than a debate over a really bad self-defense law (“stand your ground”). It is bigger than our own narrow political agendas. It is bigger than our bruised egos when someone accuses us of racism. It is bigger than the terrible, incompetent<br />justice system in a small Florida town. It is about something bigger than all of these, I believe; something universal. It is about looking at ourselves and being honest, it is about realizing that no one in America is safe until everyone is safe, that no one in America is a success until everyone is a success, that there is no more central a self-interest than the interests of all. We are all Trayvon Martin.Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-26940220532721668222012-03-24T11:14:00.008-07:002012-03-24T12:42:22.824-07:00We're ALL Trayvon Martin...<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaJrvher5VxmWDkVLtuBoO0SyWcd3a6cxG3jHPMPDN2ze7qLLAzjUdyVL6BGKcOu-ULSFeuhiyqMnimTFWouRbNiK-B6o0Pnsm-JnGu3_Wv8Wf0Mc8Puzgw4B-iOI4T5vAjaN3/s1600/million-hoody-march-trayvon-martin.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; width: 428px; height: 250px; text-align: center; display: block; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723533442408222706" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaJrvher5VxmWDkVLtuBoO0SyWcd3a6cxG3jHPMPDN2ze7qLLAzjUdyVL6BGKcOu-ULSFeuhiyqMnimTFWouRbNiK-B6o0Pnsm-JnGu3_Wv8Wf0Mc8Puzgw4B-iOI4T5vAjaN3/s320/million-hoody-march-trayvon-martin.jpg" /></a>There's a lot of <a href="http://rujournalism.blogspot.com/2005/02/harry-g-frankfurt-on-bullshit.html"><span style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">bullshit</span></a> being spouted about the cold-blooded murder of Trayvon Martin; specifically, that it was not racially motivated. Americans are too busy either patting themselves on the back for electing an African-American President, or hating that President for being a Muslim, Socialist, Kenyan who planned a coup de etat <strong><em>in utero</em></strong> and unconstitutionally stole the presidency, to admit to themselves that we live in a society where racism not only survives, but thrives. And white progressives can't see their own racism; and white conservatives think that the only racists left in America are black.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>Geraldo Rivera, in a classic example of "blame the victim," <a href="http://content.usatoday.com/communities/entertainment/post/2012/03/geraldo-rivera-blames-hoodie-for-trayvon-martins-death/1"><span style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">reduced the crime to a morality play about fashion</span></a>: </div><div><div><div><blockquote><p>You have to recognize that this whole stylizing yourself as a 'gangsta' … You're gonna be a gangsta wannabe? Well, people are going to perceive you as a menace. That's what happens. It is an instant reflexive action...</p></blockquote></div><div> </div><div>The President has become a contortionist trying to avoid saying...well...<strong><em>anything</em></strong> that someone on the right might construe to be "playing the race card." He made s imple statement of sympathy for Trayvon Martin's parents, noting that if he had a son, he'd look like their son. The right-wing extremists who call themselves "conservatives" responded as expected.<span style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);"><a href="http://rujournalism.blogspot.com/search?q=howie"><span style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">They called</span> <span style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">the President a "race baiter.</span></a></span>"</div><div> </div><div><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/gingrich-calls-obamas-trayvon-martin-remarks-disgraceful/"><span style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">Newt Gingrich insisted</span></a> beyond the boundaries of reality that race did not and <strong><em>should not</em></strong> play an issue in this case, and took a slap at President Obama: </div><div><blockquote>Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe period. We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background. Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot that would be ok because it didn’t look like him?</blockquote></div><div> </div><div>Meanwhile, at a pistol range in Louisiana where <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-woman-at-gun-range-event-tells-santorum-to-pretend-its-obama-20120323,0,7804467.story"><span style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">Rick Santorum</span></a> was burnishing his right-wing bona fides by firing off a couple of dozen rounds, a woman in the crowd watching the candidate to him to "pretend it's Obama." And I suppose that's not racist, either.</div><div> </div><div>While I appreciate the sentiment that envisions a "post-racial society" and says "this is not a black/white issue," I also think that there's a self-consciousness about racism that too many people are vulnerable to. We are, of course, the worst judges of our own faults. Most Americans refuse to believe that their purchasing decisions are influenced by advertisements. Yet advertising is a $400 <strong><em>billion</em></strong> industry in the US alone. Like my <a href="http://rujournalism.blogspot.com/search?q=howie"><span style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">right-wing friend in New York</span></a>, constantly reminding the world that "I am not a racist," Americans -- particularly white Americans -- simply don't want to admit that racism is alive and well and living right smack dab in the center of their hearts. I happen to agree with Howie (no, really) that there's such a thing as "reverse racism." What he (and most of America) refuses to admit is that the dominant racism (white racism) is based on deeply-seated feelings of privilege and cultural superiority, and "reverse racism" (black racism) is based mostly on resentment and fear -- fear of someday, for no reason, becoming a target -- or worse: having one of your children become a target, of some hate-filled asshole like George Zimmerman. And then having the authority of the state essentially endorse that hatred by failing (or refusing) to bring that person to justice. </div><div> </div><div>I happen to understand black racism a lot more than white racism. </div><div> </div><div>The point is that we have to stop all of it. George Zimmerman didn't hate Travon Martin. He didn't even know him. He hated some *image* that Travon looked like in Zimmerman's ignorant, hate-addled brain. He didn't kill an innocent kid; he killed a stereotype. And that stereotyped thinking has to stop. The responsibility is white America's. When white people FINALLY see people who don't look like them as equal, when they stop looking at the Trayvon Martins of the world as "thugs" and "gangstas" and treat each individual human being as a person (as, by the way, Christ taught us to do), then people of color, immigrants, Muslims, and other groups suffering discrimination will be able to see white people as people too, and not as dangers to their safety. </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>Gandhi once said, "I like your Christ. I don't like your Christians." Well, I love America. But there are too many hateful Americans. </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>The way I see it, we're all either Trayvon Martin or we're George Zimmerman. The choice is ours. There's no in-between.<img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; width: 258px; height: 320px; text-align: center; display: block; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723545189371600482" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC7E6hl3LwFHfPnot06P3VRc3SJMjh6ox28y4a5hNO815gga5_wPwv0gDqrrm8IsxNTE20zO27hTaMqk39VknhhUgpxBijvRTxxkkdKXdxua47VDS3Go4NNVq960P3SJ0c3n5B/s320/drfallonhoodie.jpg" /></div></div></div>Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-66299388660719280162012-02-15T13:45:00.000-08:002012-02-16T13:32:02.606-08:00The Metaphysics of Media (Continued...)Long-time readers of <strong>IN THE DARK </strong>(there are some, yeah) might remember that four years ago this week I <a href="http://rujournalism.blogspot.com/2008/02/metaphysics-of-media.html"><span style="color:#ccffff;">posted something</span> </a>about Kansas State University's Mike Wesch (Associate Professor of Anthropology) and his video, <a href="http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o"><span style="color:#ccffff;">A Vision of Students Today</span></a>. I said that in the process of researching and writing my book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Metaphysics-Media-Postmodern-Cynicism-Construction/dp/1589662024/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1"><span style="color:#ccffff;">The Metaphysics of Media</span></a>, I came across a lot of information that called into question the unspoken assumptions of <a href="http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o"><span style="color:#ccffff;">A Vision of Students</span></a> and others of <a href="http://ie.youtube.com/user/mwesch"><span style="color:#ccffff;">Mike Wesch's videos</span></a>. Wesch is -- or has certainly appeared to be -- one of the "true believers" in technology in the classroom, even though there is as much (or more) evidence to support the contention that the digital classroom is a harmful learning environment as there is to think it is a helpful one. I advised readers to watch some of Wesch's videos and consider his ideas, because they are -- or are becoming -- the mainstream view about the new technologies we call "Web 2.0" and I mentioned -- as subtly as possible -- that I couldn't seem to find the same level of enthusiasm and support for that view as the rest of our culture has.<br />The Chronicle of Higher Education reports this week (<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/A-Tech-Happy-Professor-Reboots/130741/#disqus_thread"><span style="color:#ccffff;">A Tech-Happy Professor Reboots After Hearing His Teaching Advice Isn't Working</span></a>) that Prof. Wesch may be re-thinking his pedagogy.<br /><br /><blockquote><br /><p>Michael Wesch has been on the lecture circuit for years touting new models of active teaching with technology. The associate professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University has given TED talks. Wired magazine gave him a <a href="http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/multimedia/2007/04/ss_raves?slide=14"><span style="color:#ccffff;">Rave Award</span></a>. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching once named him a national professor of the year. But now Mr. Wesch finds himself rethinking the fundamentals of teaching—and questioning his own advice...<br />...To be fair, Mr. Wesch always pointed to the downsides of technology (it can be a classroom distraction, for instance). But he saw tech-infused methods as a way to upgrade teaching.Then a frustrated colleague approached him after one of his talks: "I implemented your idea, and it just didn't work," Mr. Wesch was told. "The students thought it was chaos."<br />It was not an isolated incident. As other professors he met described their plans to follow his example, he suspected their classes would also flop. "They would just be inspired to use blogs and Twitter and technology, but the No. 1 thing that was missing from it was a sense of purpose."<br />Mr. Wesch is not swearing off technology—he still believes you can teach well with YouTube and Twitter. But at a time when using more interactive tools to replace the lecture appears to be gaining widespread acceptance, he has a new message. It doesn't matter what method you use if you do not first focus on one intangible factor: the bond between professor and student.</p></blockquote>Prof. Wesch has perhaps had something of an epiphany, although to what extent I am not yet sure. On <a href="http://mediatedcultures.net/edparkour/a-tech-happy-professor-reboots/"><span style="color:#ccffff;">his website</span> </a>he mentions that his new approach is "not so much a reboot of my thinking, or even my message, it is simply a reboot in how I deliver my message."<br />At any rate, four years ago I produced a response to Wesch's "Vision" based (loosely and very generally) on a couple of themes in <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/M/bo8926707.html">The Metaphysics of Media</a> (University of Scranton Press, 2010). I offer them both once again in the hopes of keeping this conversation alive.<br /><br /><iframe height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/dGCJ46vyR9o" frameborder="0" width="420"></iframe><br /><br /><iframe height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7eixWcKhlXY" frameborder="0" width="420"></iframe>Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6782955.post-28972411007492984702011-12-15T08:19:00.000-08:002011-12-15T09:01:59.563-08:00A Few More Thoughts on Capitalism and Catholic Social Justice<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoH8VIr2PsbzsZKDju02dB2NSUZXTeOCQjTX86onUDod3muupJX4sWnwH0ZRxmduNg93CCOt2lbQPR0KyESuOxX4Zd9g7kNuY4VTL3471TMcA366j0Lv9FeGLioo8M4cc4MYJk/s1600/homeless_man_w_dog40-1.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 251px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5686400300639294642" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoH8VIr2PsbzsZKDju02dB2NSUZXTeOCQjTX86onUDod3muupJX4sWnwH0ZRxmduNg93CCOt2lbQPR0KyESuOxX4Zd9g7kNuY4VTL3471TMcA366j0Lv9FeGLioo8M4cc4MYJk/s320/homeless_man_w_dog40-1.jpg" /></a> If you were kind enough to make it all the way through my <a href="http://rujournalism.blogspot.com/2011/12/occupy-wall-street-social-justice.html"><span style="color:#ccffff;">last posting</span></a> you'll undoubtedly realize that my argument (as logical, well-formed, and supported by documentation as it was) did not go over well with <a href="http://www.certilmanbalin.com/attorneys/attorney_detail.asp?AttorneyID=30"><span style="color:#ccffff;">Thomas J. MacNamara</span></a> who spoke on behalf of laissez-faire Capitalism. I remarked in my post that the sort of adherence to a "pure" economic system (<strong><em>any</em></strong> economic system) without reference to how well it might be serving actual <strong><em>human needs</em></strong> is really little more than slavery to ideology.<br /><br /><div><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>And I wonder to myself, <em>"How can Christians surrender themselves to ideology?"</em></div><br /><div><em></em></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div>I was reminded of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, verses 31-46:</div><br /><br /><blockquote>“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he<br />will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. <a name="48025033">He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. </a><a name="48025034"></a><br /><br />Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, <a name="48025036">naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for<br />me, in prison and you visited me.’ </a><a name="48025037">Then the righteous</a> will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? <a name="48025038">When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? </a><a name="48025039">When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ </a>And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’<br /><br />Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, <a name="48025043">a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ </a>Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’<a name="48025045"> He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ </a>And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” </blockquote></div><br /><div><br /><div>The Son of Man does not ask us on the last day, "How balanced were your books? How closely did you adhere to the rules of Capitalism? How great a profit did you make for your stockholders? How efficiently did you run your business or the economy as a whole? How productive were your workers?" Indeed, he does not ask, "Are you gay? Are you a Socialist? Are you a Democrat?"</div><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>No, instead the question he asks -- and the standard he holds us to -- is quite simple: <strong><em>What did you do for the least among us, for the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the ill?</em></strong></div><br /><br /><div>And I wonder how a Christian Capitalist answers this question. But I believe I already know.</div></div>Peter K Fallon, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16160456656334463912noreply@blogger.com0