Recently, I’ve been thinking about how we need to reinvent something like The Whole Earth Catalog.
The Whole Earth Catalog is an ancient thing. Initiated by Stewart Brand in 1968 as a response to the communard movement that followed the summer of love. During the autumn and winter of 1967/1968, more than 30.000 hippies sought to [...]
Posts under ‘Ponderings’
A Primer for a sustainable future
On utopias
Lately, I’ve been reading a book called “The Tao is Silent”. It is a series of reflections on tao and taoism by Raymond Smullyan, a mathematician, musician, magician, philosopher and all-round trickster figure.
Long-time readers of this blog may remember that I blogged about Smullyan’s text “Is God a taoist” ages ago. The whole book [...]
Unto this last
Some time ago, I happened upon a short essay by Alain de Botton in an issue of Monocle (the article isn’t online, it seems). The essay is a new year’s prediction for 2009. Based on the continuing economic crisis, de Botton argues that we will turn to new paths:
I believe 2009 will be the year [...]
Norms, habits, history, memory
Norms relate to habits in the same way as history relates to memory.
To explain:
History is the ever-changing, collectively negotiated understanding of the past.
Memory is the same on an individual level.
Habits are the unthinking actions and reactions shaped by the wear of individual daily life.
Norms are the same on a collective level.
Arendt’s dilemma
Found a very interesting piece on Hannah Arendt through the Savage Minds blog. It focuses on a central dilemma in Arendt’s writing: That between the public and the personal, and how it is expressed in her view on politics. A few excerpts:
Arendt’s experience at the Eichmann trial bolstered the belief that defines her political philosophy: [...]
What we lose growing up (and how to regain it)
Reading the Presentation Zen blog recently, I came across several good things:
1. A reference to the TED conference – a great conference where various brilliant people get 20 minutes each to present their great idea. Loads of great stuff there.
2. A list of great presentations with some great insights.
A recurring theme in many of these [...]
The difference between right and left
Today, I found an interesting presentation delving into a matter, which I touched upon before: the basic differences between the political right and left.
The presentation, given by one Jonathan Haidt, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. Based on his research into moral psychology, he claims to have found evidence of 5 moral [...]
Internet tribes
Recently, I read Seth Godin’s new book Tribes. It is a short clever book full of insights on what it means to build and lead a tribe. Godin’s main argument is borrowed from one of Hugh McLeod’s one-liners:
Or, as Woody Guthrie put it: “Basically, man is a hoping machine.”
As a marketing guru, Godin’s spin on [...]
Humble idiots
Not too long ago, I went to see Lars and the Real Girl at my local art cinema. It’s both a fun and a sad film but what sums it up best is that it’s so human.
The film revolves around the unlikely situation where a introvert but sympathetic young man buys a life size [...]
Romantic love as perversion
A funny sidenote to my recent review of Bitterfittan: Recently, I read Michael Moorcock’s “Behold the Man“, which contained the following exchange, which offers a rather different perspective on relationships:
“Your trouble, Karl,” said Gerard as they walked along the High towards the Mitre where Gerard had decided to buy Karl lunch, “is that you’re hung [...]
I'm an anthropologist working as an 
