What're You Up To? Wednesday #14

Happy Wednesday, once again my friends. Life's been kind of busy this last week. On Saturday I'll be pulling up my roots again and migrating to my new home in College Park, MD. As you can imagine, I've had a lot to do from saying my goodbyes to packing up my apartment. Last Friday I attended Aikido class (for the first time in months) and went out to Freestate afterward with some of the aikido folks. It was nice to see them all again, and nice to know that I'll be missed. Tonight is my final night teaching the kid's class there, so I'm sure there will be plenty of excitement there too.
On Thursday, Megan and I went to our last downtown movie showing - this time it was "Head of State" (starring Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn again). It was a typical Frank Capra film with plenty of stirring, idealistic speeches - I enjoyed it much more than the last two. Monday, we walked downtown and got some t-shirts from our favorite places (Freestate and Local Burger - I wanted a Bourgeois Pig shirt, but they changed the design and I didn't like it as much). We've also been working on getting Megan's room painted, because she'll be moving back to Wichita and somebody else will be moving in to her room - we're almost done.
Other than that, I'm just getting ready to go. I'm mostly packed, we've made our plans for the trip out there and bought some of the things we'll need (food mainly). So everything looks good for the move.
I'm still engaged in my summer reading. I finished the other Bateson book (Angels Fear) this weekend, and, since Brendan enjoys it so much, I'm going to subject all of you to the tortures of reading an entire series of Bateson posts later on this summer (after I get settled in MD). Now I'm reading a book by Arturo Escobar called Territories of Difference. It's an ethnography of afro-indigenous social/environmental activist groups in Columbia. It uses some of the new theoretical frameworks made possible by complexity theory, so I'm really excited to read it. There are a lot of exciting things going through my mind these days, and I hope I'll have time and motivation to write about them here before I become bogged down again in my academic career. We'll see.
Have a good week and tell me - What're You Up To?

To 'Be the Change' or 'Fight the System'

This post is a response to Derrick Jensen's latest article on the Orion website "Forget Shorter Showers." Those of you who have read my blog for a while know that I like Derrick Jensen's writing, and have, at times, shared his point of view. My views now are perhaps slightly milder, but I'm glad to see his new column in the Orion, and all of the attention it has been garnering. His writing is provocative, and, though we may not always agree with him, those of us in the environmental movement need to engage his (and similar) ideas in order to continually renew our own vision and action.

That said, I realized while reading this new article that Jensen's "Industrial Civilization" (a term I've used many times myself) is a reification. He presents it as a thing, which can be opposed, attacked and eradicated like the kudzu vines that he sanctimoniously chops down in his back yard. What this view fails to recognize is that "Industrial Civilization" is really a complex set of relationships which we are all implicated within. This has been made apparent by some of the commenters who referred to the fact that, for example, golf courses wouldn't exist if individuals didn't play golf.
On the other hand, the 'be the change you wish to see' camp relies equally on the reification of Industry and Culture which can be affected by the pokes and prods of our wallets and personal examples. The resulting changes may or may not comply with the end vision sought by the individuals trying to enact the change (see green-washing and biofeuls). Indeed, in any complex system (such as industrial civilization), the actions of one part of the system (i.e. individuals engaging in personal change) can resonate through the system to bring about a system-wide change. But that change will be unpredictable and limited at best.
An example of the complexity with which we are faced can be expressed in the concept of power. Jensen decries the power structures which we must oppose, but ignores the fact that those power structures are composed of people. Without the person, the position doesn't exist. On the other hand, those positions of power often serve as nodes in the web of relationships where many different factors converge. As a result, those positions may provide focal points where various forms of action can be more effectively directed (this may have implications for his concept of leverage which is discussed in Endgame), and the particular individual in the position can have a great effect on the character of the office.
The take home message of the article and this response, I think, is that personal change is not enough. In saying this, Jensen confronts the dominant ideology of the environmental movement, and challenges us to renew our vision. We need to 'live simply,' but we also need to do more than that. We need to confront the system that is destroying the planet while recognizing that we are part of that system. Only then can we bring about a more holistic change. I leave you with a quote that sums up my position well (Thank you, again, Aldous Huxley!):

"Patriotism is not enough" But neither is anything else. Science is not enough, religion is not enough, art is not enough, politics and economics are not enough, nor is love, nor is duty, nor is action however disinterested, nor, however sublime, is contemplation. Nothing short of everything will really do.
-Aldous Huxley, Island

What're You Up To? Wednesday #13

Happy Independence everyone!

This was another pretty slow week, I guess. You know, some Wednesdays I have a real hard time thinking of what I did in the previous week - sign of a weak memory. It will only get worse from here on.
I remember going to see fireworks on Saturday. They had a big food/music festival at the park here in Lawrence. We don't have any money, though, so we just packed our own food. Little did we know, however, that coolers would not be allowed (to make sure that people would have to buy their overpriced alcohol at the park instead of bringing their own). We ate our food on the fringe of the park and then I walked back to my apartment to bring the cooler back - injuring my ankle in the process. Then Megan and I sat around reading our books and listening to the music until the fireworks started. The fireworks themselves went on for a really long time, and were not terribly impressive. The "grand finale" was a split second bout of explosions followed by some showers over the river that were barely visible behind the trees - pretty lame. Many people had left by that point, though, because the show was dragging on and it had started to sprinkle. We had fun sitting around reading and talking, though, and it made for a nice relaxing day.
I finished another book last week, too - Capitalism and Christianity, American Style by William Connolly. It was really good political and social philosophy based on complexity theory and the immanence philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. I will definitely be reading more of his work (Neuropolitics is next, I think, but I have to wait until I have some money). The theme of the book is what he calls the evangelical-capitalist resonance machine. The underlying theory is that certain ideas (neoliberal capitalism and evangelical Christianity in this case) resonate with each other for various reasons and that these ideas can come together into a "resonance machine" that is greater than the sum of its parts. Resonance machines then become the driving forces behind political policy, economic activity and personal behavior. I'll try to do a more thorough post about it in a little while, but he develops the argument about the evangelical-capitalist resonance machine as being the driving force for the last 30 years or so, and proposes some techniques for overcoming it.
Now I'm back to reading Bateson. I re-started A Recursive Vision by Peter Harries-Jones, which is about Bateson and then I decided to go ahead and read another Bateson book instead (Angels Fear). I'm still struggling to understand much of what he says, but I feel as if I'm learning to sift through his thoughts bit by bit. I've always intuited that his sense of applied work was in accord with my own, and I'm starting to sort that out, despite his blunt statements against applied science. I suppose most of you don't care about all of that, though.
Other than that, I'm working and starting to get ready to move. Have a good week and let me know what you all are up to!

What're You Up To? Wednesday #12

GO ZEBRA!

First of all, I hope you all enjoyed the complexity post last week; I just hope it wasn't too dense. I'm still doing more research on it - I'm particularly interested in the theories of William Connolly, who proposes a philosophy of "Immanent Naturalism." Maybe I'll do a post on it a little later - I don't want to go into it now.

Second, in case you hadn't heard, the supreme court declared the strip search of a teenage girl by school officials illegal (see my previous post on the topic). Unfortunately, they decided that the particular school officials in question cannot be held liable for their actions. Furthermore, as far as I can tell, the decision doesn't prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future - as long as the administrators believe that they have substantial evidence of the veracity of the claim and the danger of the drugs, strip searching is still allowed. For now, though, I'm happy with the result.

What have I been up to this past week? Well, I've been working on reading the Annual Reports from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (still) - I'm almost done with that work, which is good because I'll be leaving here pretty soon. On Thursday, Megan and I went to another downtown movie - yet aother Hepburn/Tracey film, but this one was a little better than the last - Without Love. On Friday, we went down to Ottawa to visit Josh and Meg. They have a real nice place down there, right next to the park. We got to play with their daughter Nicole and had some delicious eggplant parmesan - it was a nice night, thanks, Josh!

Megan was in Wichita all weekend, so I just hung out here by myself and did some reading. It was a nice quiet weekend. On Monday we watched another MST3K and yesterday we watched the first episode of Connections with James Burke. Yep...it's pretty boring right now. That's okay, though, cause in a few weeks everything will get really hectic as I get ready to move out to MD. I still haven't gotten any visitation promises - why don't you two hooligans come down to DC on your motorbikes? We'll tear up the town and paint the Washington Monument red! Woo! I'll be back in CT at the beginning of August for a family gathering and then again in November for my brother's wedding. Maybe I'll see some of you then.

Now that you've read how exciting things have been around here, you can see that we need some fantastic tales of daring-do to entertain and enthrall us. So, tell us what you're up to!

Complexity Theory

After a little research, I feel confident that I can make a stab at some kind of basic explanation of Complexity Theory, and how it is relevant to our understanding of the world. However, my knowledge is still extremely limited, and I don't presume to know all of the...complexities...of the theory. So, take this for what it is, just a brief, limited overview of the subject.

The first thing to say about Complexity Theory is that there isn't one - a theory, that is. There is no unifying, underlying concept of complexity, what makes something complex, how one thing is more or less complex than another, how complexity emerges, etc. Furthermore, there is no such thing as a "complexity science" since it incorporates a whole array of very different lines of thought and covers a broad spectrum of disciplines. Complexity studies might be a better term, but I'm not sure even that quite fits. (See the following website for an idea of the various threads of Complexity)


I'm not sure it matters that there is no "Complexity Theory" or that there is no working definition of "complexity," though. I'm beginning to see, as Bateson did with cybernetics and General Systems Theory, that Complexity is not so much a "theory" as an epistemology - a way of understanding. It doesn't seek to describe any particular phenomena, but provides a framework for looking at a variety of phenomena.
Prior to the 20th century, the dominant epistemology was the clockwork universe which functioned in terms of serial causation. Complexity and its relatives look at the universe as being organismic rather than mechanistic, functioning by means of reciprocal causation, or recursivity. Complexity understands that systems are not reducible - that they are more than the sum of their parts. For example, culture cannot be explained as an amalgamation of individual behaviors, but must be understood as emerging from the relationship between those individuals and, perhaps, other environmental factors as well. The same is true for ecosystems, the body/mind, and other examples of non-linear, recursive systems.
This new epistemology draws together several different lines of thought including Chaos theory (which similarly doesn't exist), cybernetics, systems theory, artificial intelligence, computer modeling, etc. It has given rise to even more lines of thought such as network theory, cellular automata (such as the game of life), genetic algorithms, the new ecology, etc. However, what is most interesting to me is its application in the social sciences and attempts to integrate social theory and environmental studies such as Environmental Anthropology.
Environmental Anthropology and its progenitors (cultural evolution, cultural ecology, ecological anthropology, etc.) have faced numerous critiques over the years. They are said to be deterministic, reductionist, ahistorical, apolitical and any number of other sins. What complexity adds to this is an understanding of the relationships between the members of a society as well as the environmental factors. It rejects the old idea of a "climax ecosystem" and "equilibrium" and views systems dynamically, as constantly changing and emerging. It recognizes the role of accidents of history and differentials of power in the development of the system. It also recognizes that systems that appear stable can collapse at any time - all stability is temporary and elusive. Another benefit of Complexity is the attention to scale and levels of systems. This may make it possible to integrate an understanding of individual actions with institutional behavior - more work needs to be done in this regard. There is a lot of potential here that has yet to be explored, since anthropology hasn't really made any attempt to incorporate Complexity.

That's the best I can do for an explanation right now. I hope it's at least somewhat satisfying, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask. I also recommend reading the above website, and the following books/articles if you're interested in learning more:
Complexity: A Guided Tour
Complexity and Industrial Ecology
A New Ecosystem Ecology for Anthropology
Complex Adaptive Systems, Evolutionism, and Ecology within
Anthropology
Also, as always, anything by Gregory Bateson.
Finally, this blog: Immanence
I may post more later.

What're You Up To? Wednesday #11

Hmm, there's not much to talk about this week, unfortunately. At least, not that I can think of. I finished The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin this weekend. It was a good book, a nice Summer time sci-fi break from the lofty crap I usually engage in. It's about a physicist from an anarchsit planet who visits an archist planet (with various forms of capitalism, socialism, and communism) in order to bring change to both. It was most interesting because Le Guin didn't proclaim the virtues of either political situation, but showed genuine, practical benefits and short-comings of both. For example, the capitalist state provides an excellent space for people to do what they want, to pursue non-pragmatic goals, but it only provides that opportunity to a handful of people while the rest live in misery and despair. The anarchists, on the other hand, are all equal, but, because of the importance of social solidarity, sometimes it is necessary for the individual to forgo his personal intentions and pursue what is best for the rest of society. I'd highly recommend reading it, if you get a chance.
So now I'm kind of reading a book about Gregory Bateson - I want to finish it, but I don't feel all that committed to it yet. I don't really feel like reading anything else, though, so maybe I'll finish it before something else comes along.
I didn't see any remarkable movies (just watched some MST3k and saw The Motorcycle Diaries again), and Megan and I didn't go anywhere exciting, so there's nothing to report on that front.
Puck had quite the week, though. All last week he was itching all over. I kept giving him benadryl and anti-biotics, but nothing seemed to help. He was staying up all night, and keeping me up with his scratching, and then just lethargic all day from the anti-histamines. I had just given him some flea/tick medicine, so that wasn't the problem, and I still don't really know what was going on. In any case, I clean up the house a bunch, vacuumed, sprayed bug spray on the furniture, and all that, and he just stopped itching. Then, on Sunday, I got him some rawhide treats and gave one to him. He chewed it up and then swallowed a big chunk at the very end. I was initially concerned that he would choke on it, and when he didn't I thought he'd be fine. Then, on Monday, he started vomiting every few hours, wasn't eating or drinking much, and just generally lying around (though, that's not really unusual for him). I got concerned and took him to the vet yesterday. They checked him over, did some x-rays, and took some blood. After about half an hour, they said he seemed to be fine and sent us home. Since then, he's been fine - no more itching, no more vomiting, and eating/drinking normally. I'm glad he's fine, but all those problems cost a good penny. That's responsibility, though.
One last thing, Megan and I got most of our plans for the D.C. trip together. I'm renting an SUV to load all of my stuff in, we reserved hotels along the way and looked at what we'll do for the few days that she's going to stay in MD with me. We're leaving the 18th of July, we'll arrive on the 20th and then she's leaving a few days later. It'll be a fun trip, and then I'll be settled in MD for the next few years.
Well, let me know what you're all up to. As promised, I'll have a post on Complexity Theory up in the next week, so keep an eye out for that. Take care!

What're You Up To? Wednesday #10

Wow, we've reached the tenth weekiversary of WRYUT?W! That's just amazing - I think this is the most commitment I've ever given to something on this blog. Kind of makes me want to do a flashback episode, but I won't.
You know what I like about WRYUT?W? I like that it has become a place where a few of us who have very tennuous links can come together once a week to tell our stories. It makes me feel connected to you all in some small way, even though I don't get to see you very often anymore. It's not about me telling you my wonderful ideas; it's about sharing and communicating. I enjoy reading your stories every week, and I'm happy to provide a space to maintain this tiny thread of connection - small, but strong, like a spider's web.

This week was a little slow. I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed by the online world lately, so I've been trying to spend less time there. I'm reading a book called The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. It's a sci-fi novel about anarchists. I like it because it explores the issues of freedom, power, money, etc. in a very sensible way - it's not utopian. I'm also continuing my research on Complexity. I'm glad you're excited Brendan, because I'll have a long, boring, and probably pointless post on it for you to read pretty soon. :) I've got a couple of other projcts bubbling in the back of my mind, too. Two of these are related to the Open Anthropology Coop. (which is suffering from some post-natal trauma at the moment). One is an environmental anthropology resources wiki that some of us have started. So far only two people (Stacie Gilmore and Myself) have contributed as far as I can tell, but you can see it here. The other, which hasn't found a genuine web presence yet, is a map of anthropological theory. This would be a timeline which shows not only the emergence of various theories in anthropology, but their connection in a sort of lineage. It will be extremely simplified, and probably contested, but very useful for students.
On Sunday, Megan and I went to the park for another picnic. It's really nice to get outside and away from the computer once in a while - I miss having the opportunity to get away from town and walk around in the peace and quiet of the woods. As it is, I'm pretty well stuck inside of Lawrence, which is a nice town, but I envy the solitude of the forest that is so easy to come by in Connecticut. We watched a couple of movies - Defiance, which is about polish resistance fighters during WWII, and Why We Fight, which is about the military-industrial complex. That's about all we did this weekend, that I can think of.
I finally secured a place to live in Maryland. It's right in College Park, which means that I'll be able to ride my bike and walk to school/work. I'm glad to have a place to live; I've been a bit concerned for the last month as all of my plans have fallen through. It will be nice to be back on the East Coast, I'll be closer to my family, and to all of you. I'll still miss Lawrence, and everyone here, though.
That's it, I guess. So, What're you up to?