Keely Adler

While he was consumed with the administrative details of the work he undertook, he was always aware of the Big Picture. He had the anthropologist’s ability to stand back, gather information, and make independent judgments based on the facts. This was perhaps his strongest character trait. Whether he was laying out a university or a municipal park... See more

“things of the world,” by which she means precisely the human-built world, in, as she put it, “stabilizing human life”  — anchors of identity; but maybe not anchors but rather navigational beacons that help us map the self across time.)

As we sway between doom and denial, we are stuck in what Lauren Berlant calls a ‘State of Impasse’ — a moment where existing social imaginaries and practices no longer produce the outcomes they once did, but no new imaginaries or practices have yet been created.

The consequence of having your sense of value “artificially inflated” in this way can be particularly toxic in today’s workplace, she warns.

collective thinking behaviors are treated as epiphenomena at best, and pathologies at worst.

Semioticians rely on a certain amount of gut and leaps of faith beyond obvious logic. An advertised balance of science and art, and a recognition of a uniquely trained “sense” helps showcase rigor and justify the role this work can provide.