The Logic of Stupid Poor People →

Tressie McMillan Cottom…

“One thing I’ve learned is that one person’s illogical belief is another person’s survival skill. And nothing is more logical than trying to survive.”

Webcomic Worth Wreading: Diesel Sweeties →

Robynne Blume does a wonderful job explaining my favorite web comic, Diesel Sweeties…

“Most of the cast can seem two-dimensional at first, but over time, as we get to see more aspects of their personalities, they become quite well-developed. They still behave in ways that seem ridiculous, but one can see how this behavior originates in their personal issues and dysfunctional relationships with one another. Read enough Diesel Sweeties, and you could witness the deconstruction of a stereotype by the development of a believable character with all the necessary mental hang-ups to express that stereotype fully.”

“All that happens gradually and in the background, though. The focus, from strip to strip, is on the jokes. Only in looking at the combined weight and shifts in self-awareness of the characters over time and over hundreds of punchlines does a pattern start to shine through.”

“The problem of heroics is the central one of human life, that it goes deeper into human nature than anything else because it is based on organismic narcissism and on the child’s need for self-esteem as the condition for his life. Society itself is a codified hero system, which means that society everywhere is a living myth of the significance of human life, a defiant creation of meaning. Every society thus is a ‘religion’ whether it thinks so or not: Soviet ‘religion’ and Maoist ‘religion’ are as truly religious as are scientific and consumer ‘religion,’ no matter how much they may try to disguise themselves by omitting religious and spiritual ideas from their lives.” Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

The similar{selection} recent post book club

You are all required to read these books. There won’t be a test. But I will love you forever if you come sit in my living room,  drink wine, and tell me what you think.

Cybersexism: Sex, Gender and Power on the Internet by Laurie Penny

“Laurie Penny goes to the dark heart of the matter and asks why threats of rape and violence are being used to try to silence female voices, analyses the structure of online misogyny, and makes a case for real freedom of speech – for everyone.”

Carbon Zero: Imagining Cities That Can Save the Planet by Alex Steffen

“[A] short, clear, optimistic look at how cities can succeed in the age of climate consequences. It’s about changing how we grow our cities, so we can seize a better future. Whether your main concern is the future of your neighborhood or the future of the planet, this is a book you need to read.”

Five Fists Of Science by Matt Fraction

“True story: in 1899, Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla decided to end war forever. With Twain’s connections and Tesla’s inventions, they went into business selling world peace. So, what happened? Only now can the tale be told.”

Making Nikola Tesla a Saint Makes Us All Dumber →

Matt Novak; Paleofuture…

“Busting myths (about Tesla, or anybody else) should always be the goal of the popular historian. Anything less and we risk romanticizing a past that never was. And as I recently argued at a conference in Sweden last month, romanticizing the past affects our future. When we portray the people of yesterday as living in a black-and-white world, we start to draw the wrong conclusions. Sometimes this romanticization of the past breeds a sense of futility, like in the case of the Apollo space program. Other times our romanticization of something like a lone inventor harms our understanding of how innovation actually occurs, like in the case of the Edison versus Tesla myth.”

While I’m a big fan of appreciating and understanding the full, chaotic, and even paradoxical lives of intrinsically flawed human beings, I’m not so sure that romanticizing the past is making us dumber. It may not be the action, but the context around it. Mythical Tesla may be all well and good. As long as we admit that he is a not a product of empirical reason. He is a myth. We like him that way. We may even need him to be that way. As a matter of faith. As a way to better understand the parts of us we are deeply uncertain about.

Of course the irony of a Saint of Reason actually being an object of faith within the Church of Reason will probably be lost on its congregations. They are nothing if not elephant hoarders. But who isn’t?

Does that make them dumb? Does it even matter? Maybe only when there’s aggressive hypocrisy involved (My manufactured god-non-gods are more real than your manufactured gods, therefore I’m better than you)? But isn’t hypocrisy always involved?

The paradoxical lives of intrinsically flawed human beings.

It could be that the contradictions in the stories we tell about Tesla are the greatest truth he offers…In which case we should continuing telling all of them…While celebrating the opportunity to contemplate needs which are so strong they defy obvious discrepancy.

“[C]ontemplation as a particular ‘exercise’ done in a formal way, is simply the ritual enjoyment of that basic awareness of what is happening now, which goes on always from moment to moment. In the same way, dancing as dancing is the ritual form of dancing while cooking, or dancing with the pen while writing. It is therefore quite against the spirit of such contemplation to undertake it in a mood of grim seriousness, as is sometimes the way in monasteries and religious communities which are really schools for adolescents without true vocation to the contemplative life, where young people are drilled in ritual like conscripted soldiers. Children must under no circumstances be forced to participate in such exercises, just as we would not dream of requiring them to engage in sexual intercourse. In such ritual, it is equally absurd to treat ourselves as children, and to browbeat ourselves into arduous practice with the thought that it will be good for us. The good of contemplation is contemplation – not some future result that it may bring.”Alan Watts, The Art of Contemplation

Why the World Bank Is Taking On Climate Change →

“We’ve come to the realization that we cannot achieve our mission, which is to end poverty, unless we slow the rate of climate change […]”

“We’re on track for 4 degrees [global average Celsius temperature rise] by 2100 which is well over where we said as a global community we wanted to be. If you’re concerned about your children’s health, your own health, your grandchildren’s health, if you’re concerned about the job your child’s going to get, if you’re concerned about where your grandchildren are going to live—this is front of mind. We all agree, whichever way we vote, whichever church, synagogue or mosque we pray in, or if we don’t pray at all—we want the next generation to be better off than the current generation. The science is showing us that we are putting that in jeopardy every day we don’t make decisions about clean energy.”

Finding Out You’re a Sexist, Misogynistic, Homophobic, Classist, Racist Asshole and Hypocrite →

Shanley; Medium…

“I can only cringe and hate myself when I think of all the times I have totally fucked up and became part of the very problems I hate. Yes, I have slut-shamed, body-policed, name-called, bad-joked, appropriated, derailed, co-opted, silenced, objectified, stereotyped, trivialized, slurred, punished, isolated, insulted, benefited, and stayed silent with the worst of them. A highlight reel of my life profiting uncritically and even participating in the systems of misogyny, classism, racism, cis-normativity and homophobia that oppress my friends, my family, my fellow humans would not endear anyone to me, least of all myself.”

“It fees horrible to talk about. But I am because we all must realize how complete, how intersecting, how deeply fucked up the system is, and the role we play in it. It’s easy to become invested in an image of ourselves as good human beings, without blame or participation in the oppression of other people. Sometimes we even imagine ourselves as a helper to them, a healer, an ally, without even thinking it through.”

Shanley is on a tear lately. Go read everything she’s posted on Medium. If you find yourself feeling pissy in the middle take a breath, then read it again.