Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Source: chocolate4lulu)
The Jack Pine by Tom Thomson, 1916-17. Tom Thomson was a key influence to the Group of Seven, a Canadian modernist group of landscape painters working in the 1920s and 1930s. He died mysteriously at the age of just 39 but if he hadn’t, it could be suggested that the group might have been called the Group of Eight.
きのこの下僕
DOG AND OWL EXERCISE TOGETHER
Willow the Owl and Merlin the Dog often go on walks together at the Pen y Bryn Falconry center in North Wales. They are the best of friends. (Courtesy of msnbc)
/takes notes for future
It is appropriate at this point to ask why inequality matters. Schutz offers several compelling reasons. First, from the fact that the power that generates inequality is inherently undemocratic, it follows that societies that exhibit consistently high degrees of inequality, as is true of all capitalist societies, cannot be democratic. As inequality rises in the United States, even the formal democracy we do have becomes less meaningful. Is it not by now, for example, pointless to vote in national elections?
Second, inequality is also harmful to the formation of the social bonds so necessary for human well-being. It isolates us from one another; in effect, there are two worlds, that of the rich and that of the rest of us. The rich exert power over us and, by doing so, deny us our full humanity. Schutz says: “The concept of alienation clarifies both the extent and the significance of what is lost for those subordinated in social power structures. Not only is their full self-initiative denied…but the full development of their faculties and intentions in all other realms of life is thereby stifled and more or less permanently stunted. People…manifest behaviors ranging from withdrawal to social or intellectual incompetence, from distraction to aimlessness or apathy, from anger, confusion, depression and anxiety to obsession and neuroses and, in some, violence of one kind or another” (162).
Third, inequality is not good for the economy. As the working class loses ground, its members cannot spend as much money, and this can cause a reduction in the demand for many goods and services, which can dampen capital spending and employment growth. Growing inequality has reduced economic mobility, and this can lower the willingness of workers to put forth as much effort as previously. Fourth, inequality does great damage to the environment. There is no way out of our environmental crisis without a radical change in public policies. Yet, the more inequality there is, which is to say, the greater the power of the well-to-do over everyone else, the less likely is this to happen. Governments become more subservient to business and its growth mania, and they are less likely to combat the rampant consumerism that is the lifeblood of corporations; the more conspicuous and energy-wasting consumption there is; and the more the rich will seek individual ways to insulate themselves from environmental catastrophes.
(Source: azspot)
Are we asking the right questions?
Questions have surprising power to improve our lives, say a group of thinkers, if only we take the trouble to figure out how they work.
Rothstein is the cofounder of the Right Question Institute, a Cambridge-based nonprofit that exists to promote an idea he’s been nursing for more than a decade—that asking good questions is a life skill far more important than we realize. Rothstein, who has a doctorate in education and social policy from Harvard, believes that learning how to ask questions should be considered as critical as learning how to read, write, and do basic math. He thinks the ability to use questions strategically can make people smarter and better at their jobs, and give them more control when dealing with powerful bureaucracies, doctors, and elected officials.
There is, as yet, no field of “question studies,” but Rothstein and his codirector at the Right Question Institute, Luz Santana, are among a handful of thinkers making a career of taking a close look at how questions work, what our brains are doing when they put a question together, and how questions could drive learning, child development, innovation, business strategy, and creativity.
All of them are driven by the belief that a question is more than the simple thing we might think it is—that, in fact, it’s a unique instrument that we can get better at using if we try. Wielded with purpose and care, a question can become a sophisticated and potent tool to expand minds, inspire new ideas, and give us surprising power at moments when we might not believe we have any.
For Watts, a good question is one that is both “interesting” and “answerable.” “It’s relatively easy to come up with an answerable question that is not interesting,” he said, “and it’s relatively easy to come up with an interesting question that is unanswerable.” McKinney describes something similar in his book, writing that good questions are ones that can only be answered through investigation, such as, “What is surprisingly inconvenient about my product?” and “Who is using my product in a way I never intended—and how?”
Of course, for most people, asking questions is usually not just about coming up with innovative ideas—it’s about extracting information from others. But even seemingly factual questions can be deployed tactically: In their new book from Harvard Education Press, “Make Just One Change,” Rothstein and Santana from the Right Question Institute outline a basic classification system, dividing questions into ones that can be answered with a single word (like “yes” or “no”) and ones that require a more discursive response. Choosing the right question is in part a matter of making the right trade-off between clarity and depth: “Does the president support gay marriage?” versus “How have the president’s views on gay marriage evolved?” As part of their “Question Formulation Technique,” which is what the kids at Cambridge Rindge and Latin were engaged in that Friday morning, they ask people to transform one type of question into the other, in order to demonstrate that the way a question is structured can determine the range of possible answers it can inspire.
(Source: sunrec)
