Page Lotze
@dinapage
Page Lotze
While there are clear dangers in inappropriate universalistic claims, Sayer notes, we also need to identify some common human capacities for flourishing and suffering if we are to do critical social science. To argue that such capacities are always culturally relative or socially constructed is to forgo the use of ethical categories such as justice... See more
Just a moment...
While it's important to be cautious about making overly broad or universal claims (because not everything applies to everyone in the same way), there's also a need to recognize that some human experiences—like the ability to thrive or suffer—are common across all cultures.
If we say that everything about human experience is entirely dependent on culture or social constructs, then we lose the ability to talk meaningfully about concepts like justice or oppression. To effectively study and critique society (which is what critical social science aims to do), we need to acknowledge that some aspects of human life are shared by everyone, no matter where or how they live. Without this common ground, it becomes difficult to talk about what's right or wrong on a broader, more ethical level.
Marshall McLuhan:^ 'Environments are not passive wrappings, but are, rather, active processes which are invisible. The groundrules, pervasive structure, and overall patterns of envi¬ ronments elude easy perception
Anatomy Trains : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
But hope is not what most of us think it is. It’s not a warm, fuzzy emotion that fills us with a sense of possibility. Hope is a way of thinking—a cognitive process. Yes, emotions play a role, but hope is made up of what researcher C. R. Snyder called a “trilogy of goals, pathways, and agency.”
Brené Brown • Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience
Often, hope works best alongside tools for proactively tackling future challenges. If our work becomes a catalysing force for people to imagine things they would not have been able to imagine otherwise and act upon that imagination, then that’s powerful, and for me, this is a slow form of critical activism.
Anab Jain • Calling for a More-Than-Human Politics
Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like, Valerio, such as reading to your... See more
Nick Cave • Following the Last Few Years I’m Feeling Empty and More Cynical Than Ever. I’m Losing Faith in Other People, and I’m Scared to Pass These Feelings to My Little Son. Do You Still Believe in Us (Human Beings)?
he pro¬ gressive deadening of this ’felt sense’ in our children, whether through simple ignorance or by deliberate schooling, lends itself to a collective dissociation, which leads in turn to environmental and social decline
Anatomy Trains : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Somatics