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laodan is a guy from Milford, Pennsylvania, USA

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THE WAY THINGS ARE: The meaning of life is to be found in thinking about what is reality and the beauty of reality is to be found in our DNA's memorization of all forms that have been successfully retained along the four billion years of evolution of the principle of life on Gaia our earth. In the end what I mean to say is that beauty is something objective and what we call ugliness is then simply our unconscientious feel of something evolution did not retain.
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Question: Can We Design The Next-Evolution of Community?...

Rated Apr 22 2009 • 2 reviews • evolution, society, change • twine.com

Question: Can We Design The Next-Evolution of Community?
on Twine by Nova Spivek

I've been thinking about community lately. There is a great need for a new and better model for communities in the world today.

Our present communities are not working and most are breaking down or stagnating. Cities are experiencing urbanization and a host of ensuing social and economic challenges. Meanwhile the movement towards cities has drained the people -- particularly young professionals -- away from rural communities, causing them to stagnate and decline.

Question: Can We Design The Next-Evolution of Community?
My take on the question

My personal take is that "The Next-Evolution of Community" is out of our hands. It will result as a new realignment or balance of the near infinite load of factors interacting in the "whole earth ensemble" or "whole earth system": climate, resources, species, humanity, etc. This in no way implies any determinism. We are faced with many possible outcomes.
Our dreams and visions of a better tomorrow will eventually bring us to act as a nano-push on the unfolding balance between those many possibles.
"I believe that what we do today depends on our image of the future, rather than the future depending on what we do today. We build our equations by our actions. These equations, and the future they represent, are not written in nature. In other words, time becomes construction. Of course, we have some conditions that determine limits of the future but within these limits are many, many possibilities.
Therefore, since no deterministic prediction is likely to be valid, visions of the future--utopian visions--play a very important role in present conduct." (quote of Ilya Prigogine from an interview by NPq of Fall 2004 titled "Beyond Being and Becoming")

Just read this piece in
Scientific American concluding that "Engaging in rituals involving rhythmic synchrony might not only have bound us together in cooperative groups: they might have brought us together to practice the very skills essential to survival."
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Le � pire � spectacle du chor�graphe Jan Fabre - LeMonde.fr

Rated Apr 02 2009 • 1 review • society, worldviews • lemonde.fr

L'Orgie de la tolerance
a one-sided review by Rosita Boisseau in Le Monde

Il n'y a que le metteur en scene et plasticien flamand qui puisse chausser des sabots aussi gros et oser une telle surchauffe au demarrage. Le titre du spectacle, L'Orgie de la tolerance, lui ressemble et met le curseur au niveau ad hoc : en dessous de la ceinture. C'est a prendre ou a laisser.

Au royaume du politiquement correct et des faux-culs, Fabre propose une alternative devastatrice. Programmee au Festival d'Avignon, L'Orgie de la tolerance signe le crepuscule de l'humanite dans un rire d'ogre, une demesure rageuse et vengeresse.

L'Orgie de la tolerance

The orgy of tolerance is a piece I wish I could see. I understand from where comes the vitriolic critique of Rosita Boisseau. It has to do with the contrast between a certain snobbish Parisian lightness and a down to earth Flemish passion for life and believe me I know what I'm speaking about. I know both attitudes intimately for having lived within both areas during my earlier years.

But this choc between Parisian lightness and Flemish passion for life is not what I'm interested in here. It's "the orgy of tolerance" that interests me. It is something that resonates particularly in Dutch Europe. it seems to have started in Holland as a reaction toward what was perceived as an invasion by Muslim fundamentalism. Theo Van Gogh's assassination by a Muslim fanatic (Vincent brother's great grand-son who was a movie maker), a few years earlier, had repulsed the Hollandish who were the most tolerant white people since as early as the reformation. What caught my eye was that Flanders seems now to follow Holland.
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Op-Ed Columnist - Has a 'Katrina Moment' Arrived? -...

Rated Mar 22 2009 • 1 review • economics, society, finance, change • nytimes.com

Has a "Katrina Moment" Arrived?
in the NYT by FRANK RICH

What made Jon Stewart's takedown of Jim Cramer resonate was less his specific brief against CNBC's cheerleading for bad stocks than his larger indictment of the gaping economic inequality that defined the bubble. As Stewart said, there were 'two markets' "the long-term market that Americans earnestly thought would sustain their 401(k)'s, and the fast-moving, short-term 'real market' in the back room where high-rolling insiders wagered 'giant piles of money' and brought down everyone with them.

... why has there been so little transparency and so much evasiveness so far? The answer, I fear, is that too many of the administration's officials are too marinated in the insiders' culture to police it, reform it or own up to their own past complicity with it.

Has a "Katrina Moment" Arrived?
The A.I.G. Bonuses: A National Furor

Those of us who follow closely the developments of this economic and financial crisis have known since the first days of the Obama administration that, while the president is a smart guy, he just does not get the economic and financial reality. As Frank Rich writes ...too many of the administration's officials are too marinated in the insiders' culture to police it.

Now that populist rage has intensified dramatically will Obama come to his senses? It does not seems so. The title of Rich's article asks the right question. Obama does not seem to be able to act forcefully which drives his administration straight into paralysis.

It seems to me that the present financial crisis could have been transformed into one of those rare opportunities toward radical action but the ineffectuality of Obama's economic and financial team is destroying that opportunity. This could very well, in turn, destroy any other initiatives of this administration. What a shame!
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Canadian Military Units To Undertake �Domestic Security�

Rated Mar 18 2009 • 1 review • economics, society, order, change • globalresearch.ca

Canadian Military Units To Undertake "Domestic Security"
in Global research Canada by Paul Joseph Watson

"The Canadian military has embarked on a wide-ranging plan to turn its reserve soldiers into focused units trained and equipped to respond to a nightmarish array of domestic threats," reports the National Post.

The militarization of law enforcement duties in the U.S., Canada and Britain is accelerating at a pace never before seen.

Last week it was revealed that the British Army is on standby to deal with rioting on UK streets as a result of the economic crisis, according to a newspaper report, which states that MI5 is targeting political activists who could help create a "summer of discontent".

Meanwhile, in the U.S., urban warfare training drills are taking place across the country as Northcom announces that tens of thousands of active duty troops will be stationed inside the U.S. for domestic purposes.

The U.S. Army War College in November released a white paper called Known Unknowns: Unconventional "Strategic Shocks" in Defense Strategy Development. The report warned that the military must be prepared for a "violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States," which could be provoked by "cunforeseen economic collapse," "purposeful domestic resistance," "pervasive public health emergencies" or "loss of functioning political and legal order." The "widespread civil violence," the document said, "would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security."

Canadian Military Units To Undertake "Domestic Security"
Military readies reservists for threats to 'domestic front' Adrian Humphreys, National Post, March 04, 2009

Is anyone shocked?

If the powers to be go as far as to prepare for internal unrest it is because they know that such unrest is going to take place in the foreseeable future. This has nothing to do with the threat of external terrorism. It concerns instability emerging from within the borders of Western societies due to economic dislocations following, perhaps a financial collapse, perhaps skyrocketing energy prices due to "peak oil", perhaps a drastically diminished economic cloud following the realignment of economic forces in the wake of the present financial shock, or perhaps other scenarios not yet documented...

So what to think? Those who detain power always try to keep it. Be it in a dictatorship as China or be it in Western democracies power is in the hands of a small elite. In China it is in the hands of the leadership of the communist party. In Western countries power is in the hands of the establishment that is comprised of the biggest capital holders in the banks, the media, the universities, etc. We better be informed about this very basic fact that those people are committed to do what it takes to preserve their power. So we the citizens, whatever action we might privilege, should only act in full knowledge of the fact that power seeks to guarantee its preservation.
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Worldchanging: Bright Green: Living In The Age Of Stupid

Rated Mar 17 2009 • 4 reviews • environment, change, society, late modernity • worldchanging.com

Living In The Age Of Stupid

The Age of Stupid is the new four-year epic from McLibel director Franny Armstrong. Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didnu2019t we stop climate change when we had the chance?

Postlethwaite's final monologue then really drives the message home:

We wouldn't be the first life form to wipe itself out. But what would be unique about us is that we did it knowingly. What does that say about us?

The question I've been asking is: why didn't we save ourselves when we had the chance? Is the answer because on some level we weren't sure if we were worth saving?

Living In The Age Of Stupid commentary on WorldChanging
The Age of Stupid the film
video clips

"... on some level we weren't sure if we were worth saving".

This comment is devastating. Does it denote stupidity? I don't think so. Think about it. Are you really so sure that humanity is worth saving?

From whichever viewpoint we look at this question the fact is that modernity and mostly late modernity are projecting a very ugly image of humanity. Late modernity acts as the most abject form of totalitarianism. Under the guise of rationality we justify the extinction of all non-modern societies. But our hypocritical consciousness only seems to know about Tibet. Why only Tibet and not the entire tapestry of cultures the world over? The same is true of languages.
But there is more. Observe our own daily lives. We work always more hours and have always less time for ourselves. Industrialization took away our self-sufficiency, our gardens and livestock breeding, our house building and decoration, our clothes making and all that is necessary in our daily lives. While all this was taken away from us we discovered that we now were obligated to purchase all those same things...

But the most abject, to me at least, is the latest scientific foray into the field of terra-forming. Now that we discover the potential threat of extinction some scientists and some ecologists want to impose on all human beings the idea of changing the configuration of the earth. Studies are already being undertaken financed with public money and the solutions arrived at will one day in the not so distant future be put in practice without any of us having been asked for our opinion. Totalitarianism in its most ultimate form.

I absolutely believe that humanity in its late-modern societal form is not worth saving. Some believe that a collapse of late-modernity is the chance to foment the emergence of something societally new. But I think that the formation of the future is largely out of our own hands...
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Feminizing the economy: metaphors, strategies, politics |...

Rated Mar 17 2009 • 1 review • economics, society • twine.com

Feminizing the economy
by JENNY CAMERON, School of Environmental Planning, Griffith University, Australia and J.K. GIBSON-GRAHAM, Department of Human Geography, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Australia and Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

In this paper, we ask how feminist economic theory might contribute to envisioning or enacting alternative economies. We find answers to this question through reading feminist interventions for glimmers of a deconstructive project that opens "the economy" to difference. Pursuing these glimmers we attempt to insert the possibility of noncapitalist forms of economy including economies of generosity, nonprofit businesses, worker collectives and alternative capitalist enterprises impelled by a social or environmental ethic. In place of the view of the economy as a whole comprised of a pre-estab lished number of parts or sectors, we begin to see the economy as a discursive construct that can be reconstructed to contribute to social transformation.

FREE 25 pages PDF

Surely worth considering the tenets of animist economics when women were in charge of societies that ignored power structures...

With the rise of agricultural societies men had lost most of their economic "raison d'etre" and as a consequence diverted their hunter's aggressiveness towards controlling women through societal power. Herein lays the rise of kingdoms and empires, of domination and hierarchy. In one word this societal power grab opened the way to patriarchal societies where authority established by force would, over time, unleash the demons of individualism and greed from which capitalism would ultimately emerge.

Today in late modernity we are witnessing the utter societal sickness of patriarchalism. Hunger, wars, brutal inequality and foremost an inescapable sense, of incompetence, of non-functionality that makes us long for something different for something akin to what we diffusively sense matriarchal societies must have been all about: innocence, conviviality, playfulness, happiness and contentment. Is it not time to give this old societal route a fair trial?
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Publication Reprints: Jordan B. Peterson

Rated Mar 11 2009 • 1 review • psychology, worldviews, society • utoronto.ca

Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief.
by Jordan B. Peterson, Ph.D, PDF revision with figures of his book published in 1999

There's a link here to the complete text of Maps of Meaning, which brings a new understanding of the role of myth in human psychology. Peterson discusses the importance of the affective dimension of experience to how worlds are created and maintained by mythology.

Maps of Meaning
Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief. 402 pages FREE pdf of Peterson's book.

Collossal work. Very similar to what I write in Artsense.

In short, the whole in which we are such tiny particles is unattainable. This leaves humanity in a bind of uncertainty that has to be filled by what we can call "belief". Such belief is then the substrate upon which societal cohesion is being build upon.
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Fox News "war games" the coming civil war - Glenn...

Rated Feb 23 2009 • 12 reviews • economics, politics, worldviews, society • salon.com

Fox News "war games" the coming civil war
in Salon by Glenn Greenwald

The week-long CNBC Revolt of the Traders led by McCain voter Rick Santelli and the fledgling little Tea Party movement promoted by the Michelle Malkins of the world are obvious outgrowths of this 1990s mentality, now fortified by the most powerful fuel: deep economic fear. But as feisty and fire-breathing as those outbursts are, nothing can match -- for pure, illustrative derangement -- the discussion below from Glenn Beck's new Fox show this week, in which he and an array of ex-military and CIA guests ponder (and plot and plan) "war games" for the coming Civil War against Obama-led tyranny. It really has to be seen to be believed.

Fox News "war games" the coming civil war

This is a follow-up of my last posts.
What's being described here is frightening but we all better be conscious of what is going on if we want to avoid being caught in the inferno...
Check the war-room videos and make up your minds.
We are de facto entering a historical societal aberration. After any such previous aberrations passed we wondered aloud "how could such a societal barbarity have taken place?". This time around will be no different.
This is a time to keep our eyes open and our minds quiet. The path through barbarity is always narrow. Each step counts and what matters is to keep our steps in the middle that means out of the polarities that divide our late-modern societies. Avoiding to become a barbarian ourselves will cost that much.

The Abyss Stares Back
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Rethinking Marx - World Economic Forum - TIME

Rated Feb 03 2009 • 1 review • economics, society • time.com

Rethinking Marx
in Times Online by PETER GUMBEL about "Das Kapitaal" a book by Reinhard Marx, the former Roman Catholic Bishop of Trier who is now Archbishop of Munich and Freisin

Rethinking Marx

Many things have been undertaken under Marx's name. The same can be said about Jesus Christ or many other philosophers.
Reality nevertheless shows that what has been being undertaken under the name of someone is not necessarily something this someone would approve of. In Marx case, one thing is certain, he would have strongly disavowed Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism and other isms. But fact is that, total ignorance of the content of his intellectual work, has driven Marx's name to be associated with the barbarity of such isms.
Those who have taken the time to read his works know that much of Marx's intuitions about capitalism were right and remain so today. But ignorance...
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The State as �ber-Entrepreneur: Berlin Sees No Limits to...

Rated Jan 22 2009 • 1 review • economics, society, worldviews • spiegel.de

THE STATE AS UBER-ENTREPRENEUR
in Der Spiegel by SPIEGEL Staff

As part of her efforts to combat the economic crisis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is increasing the state's influence in the market, buying holdings in banks and bailing out individual industries and companies. Is Germany turning into a planned economy?

Berlin Sees No Limits to Economic Intervention

Very interesting.
- First refuse the Anglo-Saxon financial model and say so forcefully ("crass Keynesianism")
-Secondly return to the roots of the Continental model of development: state + private sector where the state voluntarily leads society...

This European Continental model of development, it seems to me, is strangely similar to the Chinese model of development. Could it be that they are philosophically identical? From. Yes they are.
They both state:
- the centrality of the role of the state in defining, coordinating and investing in the economy, culture and social programs.
- the freedom of the economic and cultural actors within the realm of the societal understanding defined through the state's decision making process. (democratically or other)

Contrast that with the Anglo-Saxon model where:
- the market is considered to be the level playing field for economic and cultural actors
- the state is viewed as the guardian of the "leveled" character of the field and its intervention is thus limited to the authority of a guardian: army, police, courts...

The conclusion of the present economic depression will sanctify one model of societal development over another and, I believe, it is going to nullify the validity of the Anglo-Saxon model.
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