[Xmca-l] Re: Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart - The New YorkTimes

Lplarry lpscholar2@gmail.com
Fri Aug 11 09:19:09 PDT 2017 

Helena and others engaged with this question of what is impossible leading to mis-steps or mis-takes and what is possible.

What does this impossibility of  theory say or indicate (about) theory? 
Is there some other aspect of humanity (not theory)  that IS  generating possibility of nurturing humanity?

Possibility becoming actually Helena says, is  happening ALL the time (within time)

Seems to indicate no aspect of our current situation is total or mono (...) All the time small groups are creating (beach heads)  generating human relations that are otherwise than commonly  currently instituted.
 
If possibility of humanity is not occurring within the vehicle of theoretical con / structures then  being / becoming human may actually order, (organize) our human (causes) otherwise.

Hybrid melees (flows not mixtures) being one approach (aspect)  to seriously consider.

Wolff-Michael’s exemplary  article articulating this immanent flow form  approach is worth deeper consideration as a (marriage) of personal historicity with institutional historicity.

The (melee) process does not overthrow or overcome monolithic  totality as such, but
Rather indicates  a process of  utterances that are (seeing through) monolithic totalities to their historical imaginal actuality emerging within particular here and now (orders). 

Grist for the mill





Sent from my Windows 10 phone

From: Helena Worthen
Sent: August 11, 2017 1:35 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart - The New YorkTimes

Greg - Theoretically impossible; happens all the time,  however. 
 
Helena Worthen
helenaworthen@gmail.com
Vietnam blog: helenaworthen.wordpress.com

On Aug 11, 2017, at 12:29 PM, Greg Thompson wrote:

> Helena,
> Do you think that it would be possible to do both? Or is that a Faustian
> bargain?
> -greg
> 
> On Thu, Aug 10, 2017 at 5:22 PM, Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> Hello --
>> 
>> This message from Alfredo struck me as especially vivid and typical of
>> teaching in higher education today. It's that moment of getting back to
>> work in the morning and facing afresh the question, "How can I make my
>> research useful to the human cause?" in the face of the crowd of interests,
>> powers and constraints that condition the response to the question - that
>> moment is familiar to so many people! Including the need to find new jobs,
>> over and over.
>> 
>> Joe and I are now in Viet Nam at Ton Duc Thang University. This is the
>> second time we've come, to teach in the Faculty of Trade Unions and Labor
>> Relations. Like a lot of universities all over the world, it is tooling up
>> to teach in English and become "ranked." One aspect of this is publishing.
>> Faculty are being encouraged (you might say pressured very hard) to publish
>> in journals on certain ranking lists. Success will be rewarded with cash
>> (value of a couple of thousand dollars per article). This is not support
>> for research -- it's pay for research. Joe and I are going to convene and
>> mentor a "research group" and talk about how to get published. The
>> enthusiasm for getting in on this bandwagon is palpable. I'm not kidding.
>> They are highly motivated to do it. But they are not asking "How can I make
>> my research useful to the human cause?"
>> 
>> Joe and I are going to have to tool our mentoring to put Alfredo's
>> question into the picture.
>> 
>> Alfredo's snapshot of him sitting at the start of a work day is like a
>> message from the future. I too would like to hear what the ISCAR community
>> has to say.
>> 
>> Thanks -- Helena
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Helena Worthen
>> helenaworthen@gmail.com
>> Vietnam blog: helenaworthen.wordpress.com
>> 
>> On Aug 9, 2017, at 8:56 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote:
>> 
>>> Capitalism is incapable to carry over humanity. The other way around is
>> another story, I guess. I do wish we could attain a true democratic
>> (communist) society though.
>>> 
>>> In any case, I often wonder what WE, each one of us, can do. The first
>> thing I come up with, and not surprisingly because that's the field in
>> which I work, is pedagogy. On the one hand, it is a contradiction, because
>> the whole of pedagogy, as institutionalised field (I mean, as faculties, as
>> my temporary salary, as the pursuing and achievement of publishing
>> incentives, etc...), it wholly belongs to Capitalism.
>>> 
>>> Yet, judging by the level of involvement and engagement that education
>> faculties show, it seems to me that the notion of pedagogy that most
>> faculty members hold is that our field is about learning, when in fact I
>> think it is about generating culture. I sit every day with my freshly
>> collected data at a small independent school and wonder, having briefly
>> checked the discouraging world news, and I wonder:  'how can I make my
>> research useful to the human cause?' But then I need to address journal
>> audiences, the motives that got me the funding for my research, my
>> temporary contract and the need to find a new job soon... and one feels
>> pretty hopeless. I don't give up, though. It feels good having you all out
>> there, xmca'ers,
>>> 
>>> How does, e.g., the ISCAR community stands for these matters? How does
>> your respective faculties/institutions stand for this?
>>> 
>>> Alfredo
>>> 
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> on behalf of Ulvi İçil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com>
>>> Sent: 09 August 2017 14:38
>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Our Broken Economy,       in One Simple Chart -
>> The New York Times
>>> 
>>> Capitalism should be destroyed urgently.
>>> Primarily in US and China.
>>> Otherwise, it will destroy humanity even without wars.
>>> 
>>> I wonder if anyone is able to claim that human species can be saved by
>>> mechanisms belonging to capitalism which is itself the very owner of the
>>> current destructive mechanisms.
>>> 
>>> Like it or not, communist society is the unique exit. Capitalism is
>>> incapable to carry over humanity.
>>> 
>>> I do not believe communism is inevitable but I think that communism is a
>>> necessity to save human species. This is a scientific truth.
>>> 
>>> Otherwise, we are the final generations of our species and humanity will
>>> not survive after 21st century.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 9 Ağu 2017 15:03 tarihinde "Larry Purss" <lpscholar2@gmail.com> yazdı:
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> THIS IS DRAMATIC:
>>>> 
>>>> This graph captures the depth of the crisis.
>>>> 
>>>> The 8 richest people in the world have more wealth than the bottom half
>> of
>>>> the planet’s population.
>>>> 
>>>> Also...
>>>> Canada’s latest census also documents that for the first time single
>>>> occupancy residency is now the dominant form of living arrangement.
>> Only a
>>>> single person in each apartment or townhouse is now the most prominent
>>>> living arrangement
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart
>>>> This chart captures the rise in inequality better than any other chart
>>>> that I’ve seen.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/
>> opinion/leonhardt-income-
>>>> inequality.html?emc=edit_mbe_20170809&nl=morning-briefing-
>>>> europe&nlid=69072237&te=1
>>>> Sent from Mail for Windows 10
>>>> 
>>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson

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