Crafting Gentleness

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Healing Presence

"From therapy to friendship to family life, doing something drastic or dramatic to the other person is rarely in their best interest. Being genuinely helpful has more to do with a certain way of being than with doing a certain thing. Healing presence does not smack of heroism; it’s more like radiating comfort with oneself and others, even under emotional duress.

"Too many of the things we do in the name of help are aimed at getting others to conform to our expectations. We want to get their minds and their behaviors in line with our standards for them. We try to do it through several means, including advice, guidance, and direction; new insight and understanding; moral instruction; morale boosting, and the like. In frustration, we can end up trying to argue the other person out of feeling upset. Sometimes, in righteous frustration, we resort to outright force.

"The creation of a healing presence focuses on ourselves rather than on the person we are trying to heal or to help. In creating healing presence, we don’t change the other person as much as we transform ourselves in response to the other person."

(Peter R. Breggin, The Heart of Being Helpful, p.5, New York: Springer).

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Walking on New Power-Generating Floor Creates Electricity

Date: 22/03/2007

A "power generating floor" has been developed that uses brand-new technology to generate power. It utilizes the mechanism of resonance energy that is created when people walk across the floor. The application of this kind of energy from people walking on a surface has been largely neglected, but Mr. Kohei Hayamizu, CEO of the Onryoku Hatsuden Co., has been working on it since 2003. He successfully increased the power generating efficiency and durability by combining elements of piezo-electricity and resonance phenomena, and brought the technology up to the level of experimental practical application.

This technology is also considered important for reducing environmental impacts. East Japan Railway Company and Keio University cooperated in conducting an experiment using "power generating floor" technology for about two months at the Marunouchi North Ticket Gate in Tokyo station.The floor-type dynamo needs no other equipment to generate power, so it is considered particularly appropriate as an auxiliary power source for households and hospitals in the event of power failures due to natural disasters such as typhoons and earthquakes. It could also be used as a power source for the increasing number of sensors and information/ telecommunications devices that are becoming ubiquitous in society.

This technology received an award at the fourth Annual Idea to Product (I2P) Global Competition, which features early-stage technologies seeking commercialization, held November 10-11, 2006 at the University of Texas at Austin, U.S. It attracted participants' attention and received sponsorship offers.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Northern Ireland news

Yesterday was a pretty momentous day in Northern Irish politics:

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/ulster/article2396057.ece

Friday, March 23, 2007

The dog isn't so keen ...

... on the second-hand concertina I just bought. I think I may be playing it to the sound of whining :)

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

The Ecstasy of Influence

(Copyright-/Intellectual property-/Appropriation-/Collage-related)

Edmund O'Reilly from the Library of Congress has just alerted me to a wonderful essay by Jonathan Lethem that was published in Harper's in February:

http://www.harpers.org/TheEcstasyOfInfluence.html

"The notion of a collage text is, of course, not original to me. Walter Benjamin's incomplete Arcades Project seemingly would have featured extensive interlaced quotations. Other precedents include Graham Rawle's novel Diary of an Amateur Photographer, its text harvested from photography magazines, and Eduardo Paolozzi's collage-novel Kex, cobbled from crime novels and newspaper clippings. Closer to home, my efforts owe a great deal to the recent essays of David Shields, in which diverse quotes are made to closely intertwine and reverberate, and to conversations with editor Sean Howe and archivist Pamela Jackson. Last year David Edelstein, in New York magazine, satirized the Kaavya Viswanathan plagiarism case by creating an almost completely plagiarized column denouncing her actions. Edelstein intended to demonstrate, through ironic example, how bricolage such as his own was ipso facto facile and unworthy. Although Viswanathan's version of “creative copying” was a pitiable one, I differ with Edelstein's conclusions" (Jonathan Lethem).

What is worth doing and what is worth having - Curly Pyjama Letters Leunig

(From Mr. Curly to Vasco Pyjama)

Dear Vasco,

In response to your question, “What is worth doing and what is worth having?” I would like to say simply this. It is worth doing nothing and having a rest; in spite of all the difficulty it may cause, you must rest, Vasco — otherwise you will become RESTLESS! I believe the world is sick with exhaustion and dying of restlessness.

While it is true that periods of weariness help the spirit to grow, the prolonged, ongoing state of fatigue, to which our world seems to be rapidly adapting, is ultimately soul-destroying as well as earth-destroying. The ecology of evil flourishes and love cannot take root in this sad situation. Tiredness is one of our strongest, most noble and instructive feelings. It is an important aspect of our CONSCIENCE and must be heeded or else we will not survive.

When you are tired you must HAVE that feeling and you must act upon it sensibly — you MUST rest like the trees and animals do. Yet tiredness has become a matter of shame! This is a dangerous development. Tiredness has become the most suppressed feeling in the world. Everywhere we see people overcoming their exhaustion and pushing on with intensity — cultivating the great mass mania which all around is making life so hard and ugly — so cruel and meaningless — so utterly graceless — and being congratulated for overcoming it and pushing it deep down inside themselves as if it were a virtue to do this.

And of course, Vasco, you know what happens when such strong and natural feelings are denied — they turn into the most powerful and bitter poisons with dreadful consequences. We live in a world of these consequences and then wonder why we are so unhappy.

So I gently urge you, Vasco, do as we do in Curly Flat — learn to curl up and rest — feel your noble tiredness — learn about it and make a generous place for it in your life and enjoyment with surely follow.

I repeat: it’s worth doing nothing and having a rest.

Yours sleepily, Mr. Curly x x x

Monday, March 19, 2007

Can Justice Be Kind?

"I find it difficult even to imagine a criminal justice system infused with kindness. The United States stands in the midst of a decades-long expansion of an ever-meaner prison-industrial complex. The system now holds 2 million souls, of whom several thousand await execution and many thousands more are held for years at a stretch in sensory-deprivation-style solitary confinement.

"As if to highlight the venemous nature of this experiment, American criminal laws were long ago rewritten to excise anachronistic references to rehabilitation as a primary goal of imprisonment. As they are now written, the laws speak only of punishment and 'deterrence' - which is a fancy term for using prisoners and the brutal treatment to which they are subjected as examples to potential lawbreakers.

"If there is a nexus between the criminal justice system and kindness, it is not to be found among the venal politicians who have built the system or the petty bureaucrats who administer it. Rather, it is to be found among those who struggle against the system, from both within and without prison walls. During the years I have spent as a criminal defense lawyer - and before that as an anti-prison activist - I have found myself working with some of the finest and kindest people I have ever encountered.

"I have known dedicated volunteer activists who have built sophisticated grassroots campaigns that seek to expose torture and injustice. I have known women in prison who risk and sometimes suffer punishment for smuggling freshfruits and vegetables - contraband, according to the rules - to fellow prisoners bedridden with AIDS or cancer. I have known lawyers who have spent 10, 20, or more years, often for no pay, fighting to free a single innocent person. And I have known people of meager means who manage to send 20 dollars every month so that a prisoner can buy extra food or writing paper from the canteen.

"I would like some day to live in a society where prisons are unnecessary. In the shorter term, if our current criminal justice system is somehow to be reformed, the task will not be accomplished based on the cruel values of those who have built it, but on the values of kindness and love exemplified by those who refuse to accept it as it currently exists."

Scott Fleming, criminal defense lawyer from Oakland, California, representing Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3 (From A Revolution in Kindness, Anita Roddick ed., 2003).

See 'Getting Shot on the Docks' and 'In Good Conscience' and the Angola 3 coalition

Read more about Anita Roddick's interest in the Angola 3 case

Visit http://www.prisonactivist.org

Non-aligned initiatives in education

Call for Summit: Non-aligned initiatives in education
http://summit.kein.org/
Berlin, May 24-28 2007

The debates around education are shifting. In Europe, questions of coordinated systems with comparable outcomes seem to dominate the concerned discussion around the forthcoming "Bologna" accord. While much critical opposition focuses on the loss of local traditions and fears of global homogenization -- both sets of responses serve only to fetishize knowledge within a commodity economy of education.

In actuality numerous non-aligned initiatives are converging around "education", recognizing that it is equally a platform for cultural actualisation and self organization. Within self organised educational forums that range from free academies, to exhibitions as educational modes to ad-hoc initiatives within social, political and economic organisations, it is becoming clear that beyond knowledge transfer, education is one of our most important tools for the transformation of subjects towards a participatory mode. Equally many initiatives to articulate contemporary subjects and forge new methods, to see education as itself a creative cultural practice, are taking place within established and recognised institutions of higher learning. While these two efforts might be perceived as separate due to their institutional and structural status, they share a desire to reclaim education for present needs.

The crisis in education offers us potential modes of critical engagement: drawing on activist practices and processes of participation which circulate in the wider culture, it allows us to claim the power to shape and define the terms of the debate. It is clear from the many exhibition, art practice and research projects which have recently converged on the notion of 'education', that there is much potential for seeing it as far more than the transmission of knowledge within dedicated institutions.

SUMMIT is a proposal to change the terms of the debate away from a purely bureaucratic engagement with quantitative and administrative demands and from the ongoing tendency to privatize knowledge as so-called "intellectual property". Instead of concerns with its purely organisational dimensions we would hope to steer it towards some of the important questions faced by our cultures today.

KNOWLEDGE AND MIGRANCY:

How does migration affect canonised knowledge? Can we conceive of anon-linear projection of learning? Whom do notions of fluidity andprecarity serve? How do emergent subjectivities, produced out ofcurrent mobilities, produce newly situate knowledges?

SELF-ORGANIZATION, -AUTHORIZATION, -VALORIZATION:

What are the gestures of "un"-organizing education? If to define wasto own, where do we encounter emergent possibilities of mutuality andcollaboration within education? How can we envision new configurationsof multiple ownership of knowledge? Is self-organization a mode ofeducation beyond the patterns of identification?

CREATIVE PRACTICES:

The model of education has become central to a range of creativeartistic practices and to a renewed interest in radical pedagogy. As amode of thinking an alternative to the immense dominance of art ascommodity and display as spectacle, education as a creative practicethat involves process, experimentation, fallibility and potentialityby definition, offers a non-conflictual model for a rethinking of thecultural field.

EDUCATION, UNREALIZED AND ONGOING:

There are principles within learning and teaching that extend farbeyond the years spent within the institutions of education. Whatmodels are emerging for an understanding of both an expanded durationof education as well as for our need to redefine what needs to be knowwithin a contemporary civic landscape?We call on all those interested and engaged in the debates aroundeducation to come forth and unalign.

SUMMIT offers the following formats:
- A public program with "keynote-lectures" by prominent thinkers,"curated conversations" between actors in the field, and 'history lessons' which locate previous moments of radical aspirations or transformations in the field.
- Working groups, caucuses and concept labs: A series of meetings andsessions on burning questions of education
- Open space: Forum for initiating proposals, highlighting practicesand making theory urgent
- Collaborative drafting of a declaration

DATES: May 24 to 28, 2007

VENUES:
Hebbel Am Ufer (HAU 1), Stresemannstr. 29, 10963 Berlinunitednationsplaza, Platz der Vereinten Nationen 14a, 10249 Berlinbootlab, Tucholskystrasse 6, 10117 Berlin

REGISTRATION: http://summit.kein.org info[at]summit.kein.org

FACILITATING COMITTEE:
Kodwo Eshun, Susanne Lang, Irit Rogoff, Florian Schneider, Nicolas Siepen, Nora Sternfeld

SUMMMIT is organized by Multitude e.V., in collaboration withGoldsmiths College, London University and Witte de With, Rotterdam.

SUMMIT is supported by the Federal Culture Foundation, Germany.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

snippet from a quiet car journey

There's hint of grey, but the wisdom comes falling slow
As accidents and epitaphs keeping laying out the paths to follow
But harbours of the heart are still few and far between
And conversation's hard when the words they matter so much we stop listening

Words

"It is not necessary to always think words. Words often keep me from acting in a fully intuitive way. Fears, indecision and frustration feed on words. Without words they usually stop. When I am trying to figure out how I should relate to someone, especially a stranger, if I will stop thinking words, and listen to the situation, and just be open, I find I act in a more appropriate, more spontaneous, often original, sometimes even courageous way. Words are at times good for looking back, but they are confining when I need to act in the present."

Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself (1970).

I am welcoming dog into my life

There's a blizzard blowing away outside. I was hoping to bring the dog for a walk early this morning, but I think I'll wait until the blizzard subsides a little.

It has been a very interesting experience with Cassie (sorry, no photos - I put the camera in a 'safe place' ...) over the last couple of weeks.

In the first week I found that it was incredibly easy to think 'Ah, I'm being gentle' when I'm looking after a cat who pretty much looks after herself, but not quite so easy when there's a boisterous puppy leppin' all over you and knocking your food over and chewing up the sitting room and peeing and pooping on the floor and extricating the contents of the bin from their rightful place. Never mind her escape out the back of the garden for a whole day (in an area where there are a lot of sheep).

I must admit I was already a little stressed at the time, but whatever about the stress, I found myself getting angry with a dog, a dog who was just doing what cross-breed greyhound puppies do. I was shouting, getting all het-up, and getting a headache as a consequence. I think I decided to get rid of her about six times on and off over the first two weeks.

When in doubt, wait it out. And think about doing something helpful.

I kept telling everyone that I was getting rid of her, but I came to thinking that maybe I should make an effort to improve the situation before deciding to chuck her out of the house (to an almost certain extermination). It took some work to get to that point.

So, I put up a fence in the back garden. I decided to get her spayed. I bought her a bed so she can hang out in the house. It looks like I'm keeping her.

She has calmed down quite a bit. She still hasn't properly met the cat (i.e. still hasn't been sideswiped on the nose). I made a promise to take her out on walks more often, which is getting me out of the house in the morning, and the evening.

She's generally a very friendly and well-behaved dog, very loving. My family think I'm crazy. I probably am.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Patchwork

There’s a scene from the movie Patch Adams that I mentioned in my talk in Cork, and which I constantly refer to in class. As it turns out, I was relaying the spirit of it but getting the description all wrong. (Makes me wonder about the variable helpfulness of accurate description ...). Anyway, here’s the script version of what appears in the Robin Williams movie Patch Adams, which was based on the life of the real Patch Adams.

The scene is a mental hospital, where Hunter Adams has checked himself in. Arthur is a mathematical genius and inventor who probably had a breakdown at some point. Hunter has just put a piece of sticky tape on the bottom of Arthur’s leaking coffee cup, stopping the leak.

[Arthur holds up four fingers]

Arthur: How many do you see?

Hunter: There are four fingers, Arthur.

Arthur: - No, no, no. Look at me.

Hunter: What?

Arthur: Y-You're focusing on the problem. If you focus on the problem, you can't see the solution. Never focus on the problem. Look at me! How many do you see? No, look beyond the fingers. How many do you see?

Hunter: Eight.

Arthur: Eight. Eight. Yes! Yes! Eight's a good answer. Yes. See what no one else sees. See what everyone else chooses not to see ... out of fear and conformity and laziness. See the whole world anew each day. Ah, the truth is, you're well on the way. If you didn't see something here ... besides a crazy, bitter old man ... you wouldn't have come in the first place.

Hunter: What do you see when you look at me, Arthur?

Arthur: You fixed my cup. I'll see you around ... Patch.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Some lovely quotes that made me smile

Man is a knot into which relationships are tied. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras, 1942, translated from French by Lewis Galantière

Having someone wonder where you are when you don't come home at night is a very old human need. ~Margaret Mead

Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow. ~Swedish Proverb

Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand. ~Emily Kimbrough

There's one sad truth in life I've foundWhile journeying east and west -The only folks we really woundAre those we love the best.We flatter those we scarcely know,We please the fleeting guest,And deal full many a thoughtless blowTo those who love us best.~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person - having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. ~Dinah Craik, A Life for a Life, 1859

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting? ~Stephen Levine

Don't smother each other. No one can grow in the shade. ~Leo Buscaglia

Sticks and stones are hard on bonesAimed with angry art,Words can sting like anythingBut silence breaks the heart.~Suzanne Nichols

Assumptions are the termites of relationships. ~Henry Winkler

I like her because she smiles at me and means it. ~Tas Soft Wind

Someone to tell it to is one of the fundamental needs of human beings. ~Miles Franklin

You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you. ~Frederick Buechner

Present your family and friends with their eulogies now - they won't be able to hear how much you love them and appreciate them from inside the coffin. ~Anonymous

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh!" he whispered. "Yes, Piglet?" "Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. "I just wanted to be sure of you." ~A.A. Milne

I felt it shelter to speak to you. ~Emily Dickinson

Are we not like two volumes of one book? ~Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

Trouble is part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you enough chance to love you enough. ~Dinah Shore

http://www.quotegarden.com/relationships.html

Thursday, March 08, 2007

International Women's Day

Happy IWD everybody :)

http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

Monday, March 05, 2007

A Word to the People

A Word to the People
by Kamau Tebogo Zulu Damali (Raynell D. Morgan)
Prisonersolidarity.org
March 4, 2007

It is often stated that the youth are our future, and that if we want our future to be promising we must give them the guidance to be successful members of this society. In the Black, Brown and Red communities of Amerika, the youth are being sucked up by the prison industrial complex, and falling victim to homicide and self-destruction. If it is true that these youth are our future, then unless we get involved in their lives, and reclaim control of our communities, we're in a lot of trouble.

In assessing how our youth and community are being consumed by the prison system it must be noted that, at the dawn of the 21st century, the United States of Amerika has a cumulative incarceration populace of 2.7 million citizens of varied ethnicities- a non-negotiable figure that exceeds the prison population of China, which stands at 500,000, in a nation of over 1 billion people. The population of United States barely exceeds 291 million.

Throughout the first three quarters of the 20th century, the U.S. incarceration rate remained relatively stable, at about 110 prison inmates for every 100,000 people. In the mid-1970s the rate began to climb, doubling in the 1980s, and again in the 1990s. The rate now is estimated at around 760 per 110,000. Among adult men between the ages of 18 to 34 it is estimated at 1,160 per 100,000. 45% are of Alkebulanian (Black/Afrikan) descent.

It is no coincidence that the majority of the people incarcerated in Amerika's gulags are poor people and people of color. Without question, the conditions of the Black, Brown and Red community(s) in Amerika are designed and rooted in the legacy of racism, kapital exploitation, and apartheid/Jim Crow politics. We too, are to blame for the current dismal state of our communities. The physical poverty of the community, for instance, is the result of irresponsibility and complacency. We have been programmed to believe that there is nothing wrong with being impoverished, and have come to accept it. The unemployment in the community is a result of us not coming together to build/create jobs and support each other in business. The genocide/fratricide in the community is the result of fear, self-hatred, lack of respect, lack of unity, lack of self-knowledge, and a lack of concern for the welfare of others. The vast majority of our problems as a community could be solved by us. Our inactivity has aided the overall assault that's been lodged against us by the government. We need to come together, to work on ways to curb the pernicious behaviors that result from the structures of poverty, racism, kapitalism, unemployment, etc.

It must be emphasized that the youth emulate what they see us do, and also what they witness in the community. If we act responsibly, so will they. If we demonstrate responsibility and positive conduct and instill such values in them, they will act accordingly. If we don't teach them how to be responsible and respectful, they will turn to the streets for guidance. And, if the streets are saturated in negativity and criminal conduct, their attitude and behavior will reflect such. I base everything stated herein on personal experience, for instance:

My parents were a part of the Black consciousness movement in the 60s and 70s and tried to influence me and my two brothers with those experiences. They encouraged us to read, to be righteous, and to take pride in our Alkebulanian heritage, but they didn't lead by example. Well, Mama did, but not Pops. Pops had his problems with drugs and alcohol and was abusive to Mama, and that's what I picked up.

Pops and Mama split when I was nine years old, and although he stayed in touch, without his presence and discipline the household became fragile, and we (my eldest brother and I) wandered. To top it off, Mama became preoccupied with three jobs and thus had no time for us. We fell into the politics of street life and became the antithesis of everything our parents wanted us to be. Mama and Pops tried to reach out to us, years down the line, but it was too late. Had our parents and the parents of those we ran with in the streets had been involved in our lives on a consistent basis, led by example, and helped shape the community in a positive sense, most of
us probably would have become productive members of society.

I've been in prison since 1993, and before that in and out of group homes and juvenile detentions. All of the brothers (and a few sisters) who I came up with are either dead, in prison, or strung out on drugs and alcohol. The community failed us, and it failed itself. I'm not suggesting that an individual is not responsible for his or her own actions. For I'm the first to point a finger at myself. I'm only highlighting the fact that such actions are shaped by one's upbringing and, like the Afrikan proverb says, "It takes a village to raise a child"- translation: the child belongs to the community and therefore the community is responsible for the child. If the child succeeds, the community succeeds, and likewise when it fails.

Investing in the youth/community and building educational institutions and programs designed to edify the youth and community as a whole will not obliterate every problem that we as a community face, but it will definitely improve our condition and curtail many dilemmas that result from the lack of structure and opportunity.

Here are some ideas for community development:
1. Form a coalition with concerned members of the community. This coalition should be based on resolving issues in the community, such as crime, poverty, and unemployment.
2. Form a committee that specifically deals with the economic, political, educational, and social reconstruction of the community.
3. Become acquainted with every member of the community, if possible.
4. Form a committee that deals with beautifying the community. If you don't have funds to purchase needed supplies, petition your local politicians and ask for access to the sanitation building in your city, for brooms, rakes, and other utilities. This committee should involve the youth, to teach them the value of responsibility.
5. Form an economics committee, that will teach the community about business, and how to properly manage money. A savings account for each household should be established. This committee should teach the importance of spending money wisely and investing in beneficial ventures.
6. Write letters of complaint to local legislators and ask them why your tax dollars aren't being spent on programs in prisons that actually help in the rehabilitation of prisoners. Programs such as accredited college courses, vocational training, business school, and similar programs that would help the returning prisoner contribute to society. This is an issue that should concern all, considering that most of you have relatives in prison, and most of the people being released from prison will be returning to your communities. You the people must not remain silent on this issue. Become vocal and demand that your money (taxes) be spent to rehabilitate, and not just to punish.
7. Create Peewee football, baseball and basketball leagues for the community youth. This will give you something constructive to do, and will teach them the importance of sportsmanship, unity and teamwork.
8. Form a book reading club not only for the youth, but for adults as well.
9. Create a conflict resolution committee. The purpose of this committee will be for peace treaties between brothers and sisters who are at odds with each other. A lot of social groups, labeled by some as "gangs," could actually become true fighters for, and protectors of, the community. The agenda of these groups are rooted in community activism. But due to the lack of guidance, they have lost track of such teachings. Most of the conflicts that take place in the community are reconcilable, but usually blow out of proportion because no one ever steps in to mediate.
10. Form a community patrol task force. This task force will consist solely of people from the community, who are concerned with keeping it safe and watching out for each other. It's time we stand up and control the things we can.

Conclusion

I write these words, not only to persuade, but to encourage you to get involved with the affairs of the community and embrace all of the community youth, as if they were your own children. We can't save the world, but we can save our communities, and this is no one's responsibility other than own. On that note, I will conclude, and pray that Allah (God) will bless us all with direction and guide us to greater promise, greater than this world can offer. Peace!!!

Yours in Continued Struggle,

Kamau Tebogo Zulu Damali
(Raynell D. Morgan)
Wisconsin Secure Program Facility
P.O. Box 9900
Boscobel, WI 53805

Kamau Tebogo Zulu Damali is housed in Wisconsin's sole supermax, the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility. He describes himself as a self-educated man who has been learning Swahili and dreams of receiving a college degree if ever released. He is helping his wife-to-be plan the founding of a nonprofit organization for underprivileged children in Washington, D.C. Kamau recently completed a book entitled, Prison Letters, and is working on a second, called Poetic Revolution. He is looking for progressive publisher for these two works. If interested (or if you'd simply like to write), please contact Kamau by writing to him at the address listed above. Below are links to his previously published Prisonersolidarity essays.

http://www.prisoner solidarity.org/RaynellMorgan2.htm
http://www.prisoner solidarity. org/RaynellMorgan3.htm
http://www.prisoner solidarity.org/RaynellMorgan.htm

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Cassy

I now have a dog. Didn't mean to get one. She just turned up. I named her Cassy, as we have a family tradition of naming dogs Cappy ('Capitan') going back a number of doggy generations. Cappy was a guy's name, so Cassy she is. The tradition continues, sort of. She's much bigger than I would have ever wanted (she can't read or switch on a computer, so I doubt she'll get offended), a greyhoundish mongrelish doggie, and she's young and strong and boundy. She'll get checked out at the vet today, and then I'll let her into the house. I'm guessing Nila (the cat) won't be all that happy! but I am intended to let Cassy have the run of the backyard and the garden for the most part, while Nila gets the house.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

There's cultural relativism and cultural relativism ...

Someone posted the following on one of the lists I am on. It's a pretty common attitude to find among anthropologists, folklorists, ethnomusicologists and suchlike ...

"Our job is to document, study, and put in context cultural phenomena, not to judge it. We may as persons have opinions about appropriateness of certain phenomena, and as sensitive individuals we may forgo studying materials that we find personally offensive, but that is as far as it goes. Everything human is there for a reason and if we understand it, then we can come to terms with it."

I'm not quite sure who the 'we' is in this statement. I would like to raise my hand to say that I respectfully disagree as far as my own work is concerned. Too many people getting blown to bits and beaten up and denigrated and displaced from their homes and abused and too many academics are contributing to expansionary dynamics of violence, coercion, domination, and oppression by their positions of value-neutrality, their purported objective distanciation, or their silence on matters that call for them to speak out. Functionalism like this ('everything human is there for a reason') is for me a position that I cannot hold in good conscience.

'Absence of judgement' is for me still a judgement call, and one that concedes the initiative to the rhetoricians, policy makers, and the financially advantaged, with long historical precedent. I live in the assumption that there are less misrepresentative, less partial, less disrespectful ways to make sense of what happens.

I think as professional thinkers and academics, with the financial luxuries and political privileges that entails, there is an onus on the likes of us to work as hard as we can to craft more respectful attitudes, more politicallly appropriate positions, more personally accountable understandings, to make our crafting visible, and to invite others to engage in similar work. If we don't, then I don't think we're helping much, and probably unhelping. We are sitting in the cauldron of discourse-generation, workers in institutions that frequently produce industrial quantities of unhelpful thinking for the purpose of institutional maintenance and personal career kudos. We can often unhelp when we are trying to help - best intentions can be tricky and cruel companions, but a commitment to more helpful ways of making sense of experience and relationship is possible, although it is crucial that we work out for ourselves what we address the 'helpful for what?' question as we go.

Cultural relativism works, for me, merely as a position of critique, whereby people who assume privileged, unassailable positions of 'Truth' are reminded that there are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies. Where cultural relativism fails for me, where it feeds unhelpful dynamics, as I understand them, is when it gives us permission to cleanse our hands of the political responsibilities of our own participation in social change and social life, when it allows us to persist in the dangerous beliefs that anything is natural, inevitable, or necessary, or 'just the way it is' (theories of 'functionalism' frequently fall into this trap), when it tricks us into thinking that we are merely scientists and that scientists mainly describe, sometimes explain a little, but surely don't get involved. Things don't have to be the way they are, and we always-already make a difference in relation to that. How we (human beings) do that is a matter for each of us to work out, as I see it.

I'm all for more careful understanding of what's going on, but I think it's important to signal that there are a few of us out there that consider our jobs in anthropology, folklore, ethnomusicology to be quite different from the one outlined above.