Foucault’s Reflection on [sic] Man

   “Strangely enough, man – the study of whom is supposed by the naive to be the oldest investigation since Socrates – is probably no more than a kind of rift in the order of things, or, in any case, a configuration whose outlines are determined by the new position he has so recently taken up in the field of knowledge. Whence all the chimeras of the new humanisms, all the facile solutions of an ‘anthropology’ understood as a universal reflection on man, half-empirical, half-philosophical. It is comforting, however, and a source of profound relief to think that man is only a recent invention, a figure not yet two centuries old, a new wrinkle in our knowledge, and that he will disappear again as soon as that knowledge has discovered a new form.”

Michel Foucault. The Order of Things 1.970. pp. xxiii

 

Sheffield Photography

 

On Writing Essays

College and university essays are prime examples of situated educational praxis and an element of learning how to live. This view however, is in stark contrast with the more popular, wide spread and understood view that essays are important as far as the student gaining a grade that either passes or fails them in a given class. The college and university essay however, is a preface to future work, and life. That is, a training that sees the student honing their skills and raising their abilities ready for jobs that require specific skills and abilities. Therefore, the aim of this short piece is to discuss the meaning and place of college and university essays by situating them as important social, life living phenomena and not something separate to or removed from life.

University is an apprenticeship which trains the student in the necessary skills of their life to come. In this way then college and university essays are situated ‘outside’ or ‘before’, but instead they exist as a specific important, in many ways a necessary, way and part of the life of the student. This view does not simply apply to the young student who is the stereotypical writer of college and university essays, but for anybody who is embarking on education. In fact these view and the other viewpoints depicted here dealing with college essays could easily be transcribed into education and training at all levels. The difficult area is making the work relevant the showing the student its importance.

Learning how to discuss, reason and argue in a sophisticated way is important to writing, specifically, and in life, generally. These are skills that must be demonstrated sufficiently well within the confines of an essay for a good grade to be conveyed.

Chambers online dictionary cites the root/route of ‘essay’ as a sixteenth century French word meaning ‘to try’. This meaning is exactly what students wishing to demonstrate their knowledge, through learning, do. Students try, they attempt, they make a go at laying down, writing down, an understanding of something they have been taught. The other beauty of the essay is that it is short form prose, and most usually consists of a sole thesis which is introduced in the first paragraph and elaborated upon for the length the essay.
The fact that essays are also prominant in academic journals, as well as newpapers and mainstream magazines, books are also most usually composed of a collection of essay length chapters. Thus, this makes the teaching method of essay writing relevent when one is learning their trade. After all, when one is learning how to make a brick and mortar wall, the ultimate test is whether they are able to build the wall correctly.

The old adage ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’ is one to be mindful of. This is because the most powerful of non-fiction, in some cases even fiction (see 1984), are the pieces that demonstrate learning not simply as an esoteric academic study, but as something important and necessary in the world. A piece of writing that discloses to the reader something that changes them.

 

Wordle 020090130: From my grad workshop presentation notes

 

Analysing Bollywood with Dancing Children

At first viewing, the video above, a song called ‘Hum To Hain Aandhi’ from Bhoothnath, features a school fight in a sight most reminiscent of West Side Story, but with kids and, obviously, in Hindi. There is little need to go into detail about the film, as this post takes the video above as it’s context and subject matter. More details of the film can be found Here.

When one watches the film closer it is possible to see that the video, in all its parts, is symbolic of Bollywood but viewed at a different scale. The meaning of this symbolism will be discussed below. Firstly, the dress of the actors could easily be the dress of any recent Bollywood actor/actress, whether appearing in a film or not.

Secondly, the dance moves are not transfigured for children, they are simply standardised Bollywood moves performed by children. Thirdly, the music and lyrics are in some ways out of place for a children’s film. The song’s title can be translated as “I am a Sand Storm”. The song also has lyrics, powerfully sung, such as “I am a sand storm, I am a rain storm”. While the music is not out of place of any recent Bollywood film. Which leads to the fourth point, which is the setting and costume changes. The setting is urban, and in many ways divorced from what is happening within the film at the time, an element seen many times within Bollywood. In this way so are the costume changes, of which there are several. It is not until the song ‘gets going’ that the scenes switch to that of the school playground.

It is in these ways that ‘Hum To Hain Aandhi’ is symbolic of Bollywood. It does not reference or imply a relationship with any particular film or actor, but instead with Bollywood as a whole. One could watch this video and learn much about contemporary Bollywood songs. The children are what make this point even more powerful. The fact that it is children not simply pretending to be Bollywood actors but acting along the same lines. The children cause the song to be ‘cute’ and ‘adorable’.

What this video becomes therefore, is satire of the highest kind, in two ways. The first is that it takes itself entirely seriously. The second is that through the videos existence it is possible to laugh at mainstream Bollywood songs and point to the kinds of theatrics and particular tropes presented to the film watcher. Tropes that are invariably not picked up on.

 

Brooker’s Obama article

“Last week I watched the most frightening horror movie I’ve ever seen.
It was about three hours long, and, incredibly, it all unfolded live.
I’m talking, of course, about the inauguration of Barack Obama.
Yes it was inspiring, yes it was uplifting … but it was also
genuinely terrifying on a very human level, because just like you I was
watching it with the terrible nagging suspicion that he might get shot
at any moment.” Is how Charlie Brooker’s article detailing Obama’s inauguration begins. An articles which is ineresting and raises the point:

“Because, quite frankly, the vast majority of people on this planet
would be far happier if, for the remainder of his presidency, Obama
only makes public appearances encased within a gigantic
iron-and-concrete ball, addressing crowds via a Wi-Fi link to a nearby
tannoy.”

Which for me goes against the reason that Obama becoming president can appear to be so great. Yes, people may fear for his safety, but the current times allows for Obama to stand where he does and do the job he does, safely. It is the ability for Obama to appear in public, to interact with the country that elected him to the Presidential office, that makes the figure head of being President even more potent. If everybody, thought or knew, that Obama was hiding in a bunker, then it would appear to the world that Obama was not safe and that he was not what people wanted in the President.

Brooker’s original article is here

 

Owls and Beevers

 

Contains exactly what the packet says

 

Rosetta Disc – We Has your Language Backup

The Rosetta disc,designed and manufactured by the Long Now Foundation is so impressive I will let the post about it being made a reality speak for itself.

[The] problem of long-term digital storage seemed a crucial hurdle for any civilization trying to act generationaly. How could a society think in terms of centuries unless there was a reliable way to transmit and store its knowledge over centuries? This puzzle was the focus of a conference hosted by Long Now in 1998, dedicated to technical solutions for Managing Digital Continuity. At this meeting Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive suggested a new technology developed by Los Alamos labs, and commercialized by the Norsam company, as a solution for long term digital storage. Norsam promised to micro-etch 350,000 pages of information onto a 3-inch nickel disk with an estimated lifespan of 2,000 -10,000 years.

This business side of the disk is pure nickel. Picking it up you would not be aware there were 13,500 pages of linguistic gold hiding on it. The nickel is deposited on an etched silicon disk. In effect the Rosetta disk is a nickel cast of a micro-etch silicon mold. When the disk is held at the right angle the grid array of the pages form a slight diffraction rainbow. You need a 750-power optical microscope to read the pages.

The Rosetta disk is not digital. The pages are analog “human-readable” scans of scripts, text, and diagrams. Among the 13,500 scanned pages are 1,500 different language versions of Genesis 1-3, a universal list of the words common for each language, pronunciation guides and so on. Some of the key indexing meta-data for each language section (such as the standard linguistic code number for that language) are displayed in a machine-readable font (OCRb) so that a smart microscope could guide you through this analog trove.

Our hope is that at least one of the eight headline languages can be recovered in 1,000 years. But even without reading, a person might guess there are small things to see in this disk.

A Rosetta Disc was also sent up in the European Space agency’s Rosetta Space probe launched in 2004.

The rest of the post is here

 

Aaron Sorking Speaking Sense

Sorry for the major gap in actual original content, with starting a new job and starting my research my free time is being eaten up.

The excerp below is from a New York Times column that was scripted by Aaron Sorkin (He of West Wing fame, and a few good men)

OBAMA The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?

BARTLET Well … let me think. …We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know … I’m a little angry.

OBAMA What would you do?

BARTLET GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

It may be a fictional meeting but that doesn’t stop the words being true. The rest is here

I realise this is my entry post into American Politics and the upcoming election. I guess you all know where I stand right in regards to it.