Towards Day 10: "Mapping the unknown"

 

Discussion notes

by veritatemdilexi 

Map of the Internet (echoing some of our brain pictures...?)

I.  mapmaking: what I know for sure

* President McAuliffe's schedule

* naming one another and signing-in

* today's notetaker: Mary Margaret

* talking about (not) grading: the rationale
for this (and its relationship to "getting lost"?)

maht91: when we get lost intellectually, is when we discover our strengths and weaknesses, what interests us

Patty Lather, Getting Lost: Feminist Efforts Toward a Double(d) Science (2007):
Normal.dotm 0 0 1 17 102 Bryn Mawr College 1 1 125 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false Writing against the authoritative voice of the kinds of knowledge we are used to, knowledges of demarcation and certitude ....  Normal.dotm 0 0 1 27 157 Bryn Mawr College 1 1 192 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false It is a means of critiquing a certain confidence that research must muster in the audit culture….loss bears the very possibility of Foucault’s idea that, finally, we can begin to think again ....

[what would you "know," if I had given you a 3.3 along w/ my commentary on our paper? what do you "know," w/out a grade? what do you "not know," in either case?]

cf. pfischer's flagging the June 2010 NYTimes series on "The Anosognosic's Dilemma," and my commentary:
Basically the idea is that we're not very good at knowing what we don't know, and that this self-deception profoundly channels our lives. It's a problem of hubris (we see the world the way we want to see it), but also one of epistemology (what we see is strongly shaped by our preferences, our wishes, our fears, our desires). This wider, broader usage of anosognosia, to describe other types of denial than that triggered by a particular neurological deficit (such as an unacknowledged paralysis), makes it clear that what we call "belief" is not monolithic; it has many layers. I'm really REALLY captivated by this notion of "layered belief - the idea that some part of the brain can believe something and some other part of the brain can believe the opposite (or deny that belief)"....

...we are all always in the process of denying physical reality in order to preserve our fantasies of what the world (and our selves) are like.  Psychologists have long thought of this sort of denial as "a somewhat knuckle-headed technique in self-deception," a conscious refusal to recognize the truth of something we don't want to confront. But Morris's column explores the idea that such "cluelessness" is something much more profound: "another way of expressing our relationship to the unknown unknowns.  We don’t know what questions to ask, let alone how to answer them." Our ability to convince ourselves of "congenial conclusions while denying the truth of inconvenient ones" we can call "self-deception, but it also goes by the names rationalization, wishful thinking, defensive processing, self-delusion, and motivated reasoning."

II. what I don't know yet:
where we are going from here
Tuesday the real fun begins, as we
design the remainder of the semester together.

As per the course homepage:
Since the list of potential texts is inordinately vast and variegated, we will pause @ mid-semester to select together what we intend to study for the second half of the course.

Do you want to
*read some more texts by the authors we've already encountered?
*read some more texts in the same sub-genre(s?)
*"read" something entirely new
(feminist film documentaries, or science journalism, or ...?)
*explore non-textual forms?
*read some internet-based examples of non-fictional prose?
*explore the "deep history" of the genre?
*read some classics: St. Augustine's Confessions, Thoreau's Walden....? 
*design the course around a theme (slave narratives? women's educational histories? ecological texts?)
*read some theory about the genre?

BY midnight Sunday, Oct. 3rd, post in our course forum a proposal for the remainder of the semester. If you were designing a 6-week independent study for yourself, as a continuation of the work we have already done together, what would it look like?  What would be the logic of your proposal? What might be its theoretical frame? What imaginative test cases would you choose to look @? What might you expect to learn? Make a pitch for the what--and how (any pedagogical innovations??) you want to learn more about...

On Tuesday, based on those individual proposals,
we'll work towards something more collaborative
(this is where it really gets to be fun: how to construct something
for brains that are as various as ours:
a maze, a web, a projection room, subterranean caverns,
two-zoned (not-so-orderly filing cabinets over no-gravity slow-motion zones), vs. one zone of very orderly filing cabinets,
a monkey swinging from branch to branch,
stars in the galaxy, labeled neurons, an amusement park, "a bunch of rooms with a lot of junk," Hogwarts, not representable, "a tree w/ roots and branches, but different from day to day," chaos organized ...

I need Monday to sort through the material generated by these various brains, so meet this deadline! you canNOT opt out of this process!
(besides, if you don't participate, you can't complain about where we end up....!)

As resource/inspiration, one list of
"100 Best Nonfiction Prose Works":

   1. THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS by Henry Adams
   2. THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE by William James
   3. UP FROM SLAVERY by Booker T. Washington
   4. A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN by Virginia Woolf
   5. SILENT SPRING by Rachel Carson
   6. SELECTED ESSAYS, 1917-1932 by T. S. Eliot
   7. THE DOUBLE HELIX by James D. Watson
   8. SPEAK, MEMORY by Vladimir Nabokov
   9. THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE by H. L. Mencken
  10. THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT, INTEREST, AND MONEY by John Maynard Keynes
  11. THE LIVES OF A CELL by Lewis Thomas
  12. THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY by Frederick Jackson Turner
  13. BLACK BOY by Richard Wright
  14. ASPECTS OF THE NOVEL by E. M. Forster
  15. THE CIVIL WAR by Shelby Foote
  16. THE GUNS OF AUGUST by Barbara Tuchman
  17. THE PROPER STUDY OF MANKIND by Isaiah Berlin
  18. THE NATURE AND DESTINY OF MAN by Reinhold Niebuhr
  19. NOTES OF A NATIVE SON by James Baldwin
  20. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS by Gertrude Stein
  21. THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE by William Strunk and E. B. White
  22. AN AMERICAN DILEMMA by Gunnar Myrdal
  23. PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell
  24. THE MISMEASURE OF MAN by Stephen Jay Gould
  25. THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP by Meyer Howard Abrams
  26. THE ART OF THE SOLUBLE by Peter B. Medawar
  27. THE ANTS by Bert Hoelldobler and Edward O. Wilson
  28. A THEORY OF JUSTICE by John Rawls
  29. ART AND ILLUSION by Ernest H. Gombrich
  30. THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS by E. P. Thompson
  31. THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK by W.E.B. Du Bois
  32. PRINCIPIA ETHICA by G. E. Moore
  33. PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION by John Dewey
  34. ON GROWTH AND FORM by D'Arcy Thompson
  35. IDEAS AND OPINIONS by Albert Einstein
  36. THE AGE OF JACKSON, Arthur Schlesinger by Jr.
  37. THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB by Richard Rhodes
  38. BLACK LAMB and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West
  39. AUTOBIOGRAPHIES by W. B. Yeats
  40. SCIENCE AND CIVILIZATION IN CHINA by Joseph Needham
  41. GOODBYE TO ALL THAT by Robert Graves
  42. HOMAGE TO CATALONIA by George Orwell
  43. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN by Mark Twain
  44. CHILDREN OF CRISIS by Robert Coles
  45. A STUDY OF HISTORY by Arnold J. Toynbee
  46. THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY by John Kenneth Galbraith
  47. PRESENT AT THE CREATION by Dean Acheson
  48. THE GREAT BRIDGE by David McCullough
  49. PATRIOTIC GORE by Edmund Wilson
  50. SAMUEL JOHNSON by Walter Jackson Bate
  51. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X by Alex Haley and Malcolm X
  52. THE RIGHT STUFF by Tom Wolfe
  53. EMINENT VICTORIANS by Lytton Strachey
  54. WORKING by Studs Terkel
  55. DARKNESS VISIBLE by William Styron
  56. THE LIBERAL IMAGINATION by Lionel Trilling
  57. THE SECOND WORLD WAR by Winston Churchill
  58. OUT OF AFRICA by Isak Dinesen
  59. JEFFERSON AND HIS TIME by Dumas Malone
  60. IN THE AMERICAN GRAIN by William Carlos Williams
  61. CADILLAC DESERT by Marc Reisner
  62. THE HOUSE OF MORGAN by Ron Chernow
  63. THE SWEET SCIENCE by A. J. Liebling
  64. THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES by Karl Popper
  65. THE ART OF MEMORY by Frances A. Yates
  66. RELIGION AND THE RISE OF CAPITALISM by R. H. Tawney
  67. A PREFACE TO MORALS by Walter Lippmann
  68. THE GATE OF HEAVENLY PEACE by Jonathan D. Spence
  69. THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS by Thomas S. Kuhn
  70. THE STRANGE CAREER OF JIM CROW by C. Vann Woodward
  71. THE RISE OF THE WEST by William H. McNeill
  72. THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS by Elaine Pagels
  73. JAMES JOYCE by Richard Ellmann
  74. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE by Cecil Woodham-Smith
  75. THE GREAT WAR AND MODERN MEMORY by Paul Fussell
  76. THE CITY IN HISTORY by Lewis Mumford
  77. BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM by James M. McPherson
  78. WHY WE CAN'T WAIT by Martin Luther King by Jr.
  79. THE RISE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT by Edmund Morris
  80. STUDIES IN ICONOLOGY by Erwin Panofsky
  81. THE FACE OF BATTLE by John Keegan
  82. THE STRANGE DEATH OF LIBERAL ENGLAND by George Dangerfield
  83. VERMEER by Lawrence Gowing
  84. A BRIGHT SHINING LIE by Neil Sheehan
  85. WEST WITH THE NIGHT by Beryl Markham
  86. THIS BOY'S LIFE by Tobias Wolff
  87. A MATHEMATICIAN'S APOLOGY by G. H. Hardy
  88. SIX EASY PIECES by Richard P. Feynman
  89. PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK by Annie Dillard
  90. THE GOLDEN BOUGH by James George Frazer
  91. SHADOW AND ACT by Ralph Ellison
  92. THE POWER BROKER by Robert A. Caro
  93. THE AMERICAN POLITICAL TRADITION by Richard Hofstadter
  94. THE CONTOURS OF AMERICAN HISTORY by William Appleman Williams
  95. THE PROMISE OF AMERICAN LIFE by Herbert Croly
  96. IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote
  97. THE JOURNALIST AND THE MURDERER by Janet Malcolm
  98. THE TAMING OF CHANCE by Ian Hacking
  99. OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS by Anne Lamott
 100. MELBOURNE by Lord David Cecil

In case they don't grab you, a second list:
   1. THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS by AYN RAND
   2. DIANETICS:THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH by L. RON HUBBARD
   3. OBJECTIVISM: THE PHILOSOPHY OF AYN RAND by LEONARD PEIKOFF
   4. 101 THINGS TO DO TIL THE REVOLUTION by CLAIRE WOLFE
   5. THE GOD OF THE MACHINE by ISABEL PATERSON
   6. AYN RAND: A SENSE OF LIFE by MICHAEL PAXTON
   7. THE ULTIMATE RESOURCE by JULIAN SIMON
   8. ECONOMICS IN ONE LESSON by HENRY HAZLITT
   9. SEND IN THE WACO KILLERS by VIN SUPRYNOWICZ
  10. MORE GUNS, LESS CRIME by JOHN R. LOTT
  11. PSYCHIATRY: THE ULTIMATE BETRAYAL by BRUCE WISEMAN
  12. FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS by G. HANCOCK
  13. CLASSICAL INDIVIDUALISM: THE SUPREME IMPORTANCE OF EACH HUMAN BEING by TIBOR MACHAN
  14. FREE TO CHOOSE by MILTON AND ROSE FRIEDMAN
  15. AIN'T NOBODY'S BUSINESS IF YOU DO by PETER MCWILLIAMS
  16. THE ROAD TO SERFDOM by F. A. HAYEK
  17. FREEDOM IN CHAINS by JAMES BOVARD
  18. AMERICA'S GREAT DEPRESSION by MURRAY N. ROTHBARD
  19. THE ROOSEVELT MYTH by JOHN T. FLYNN
  20. THE TRUE BELIEVER by ERIC HOFFER
  21. VINDICATING THE FOUNDERS by THOMAS WEST
  22. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE by CARL L. BECKER
  23. COGNITIVE THERAPY AND THE EMOTIONAL DISORDERS by AARON T. BECK
  24. DEATH by GOVERNMENT by R. J. RUMMEL
  25. A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN by VIRGINIA WOOLF
  26. LONGITUDE by DAVA SOBEL
  27. ORDINARILY SACRED by LYNDA SEXSON
  28. SPEAK, MEMORY by VLADIMIR NABOKOV
  29. THE ART OF MEMORY by FRANCES YATES
  30. DUMBING US DOWN by JOHN TAYLOR GATTO
  31. THE GOLDEN BOUGH by JAMES FRAZER
  32. UNDAUNTED COURAGE: MERIWETHER LEWIS, THOMAS JEFFERSON, AND THE OPENING OF THE AMERICAN WEST by STEPHEN E. AMBROSE
  33. A MODERN PROPHET by HAROLD KLEMP
  34. THE FLUTE OF GOD by PAUL TWITCHELL
  35. REAL PRESENCES by GEORGE STEINER
  36. OUT OF AFRICA by ISAK DINESEN
  37. WAYS OF SEEING by JOHN BERGER
  38. THE SHADOW UNIVERSITY: THE BETRAYAL OF LIBERTY ON AMERICA'S CAMPUSES by ALAN CHARLES KORS
  39. PROPERTY MATTERS: HOW PROPERTY RIGHTS ARE UNDER ASSAULT AND WHY YOU SHOULD CARE by JAMES V. DE LONG
  40. STORMING HEAVEN by JAY STEVENS
  41. THE TEXAN by C. S. BARRIOS
  42. HOMAGE TO CATALONIA by GEORGE ORWELL
  43. THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE by WILLIAM JAMES
  44. HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS by DARRELL HUFF
  45. BUT IS IT TRUE? by AARON WILDAVSKY
  46. A MATHEMATICIAN READS THE NEWSPAPER by JOHN ALLEN PAULOS
  47. ANATOMY OF CRITICISM by NORTHROP FRYE
  48. THE MAINSPRING OF HUMAN PROGRESS by HENRY GRADY WEAVER
  49. MODERN TIMES by PAUL JOHNSON
  50. MEN TO MATCH MY MOUNTAINS by IRVING STONE
  51. THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS by HENRY ADAMS
  52. THE GREAT BRIDGE by DAVID MCCULLOUGH
  53. AMERICAN GAY by STEPHEN O. MURRAY
  54. THE DOUBLE HELIX by JAMES D. WATSON
  55. THE SENSE OF AN ENDING by FRANK KERMODE
  56. THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS by ELAINE PAGELS
  57. EROS THE BITTERSWEET by ANNE CARSON
  58. THE WESTERN CANON by HAROLD BLOOM
  59. THE WHITE GODDESS by ROBERT GRAVES
  60. HEALING OUR WORLD by MARY RUWART
  61. SILENT SPRING by RACHEL CARSON
  62. PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK by ANNIE DILLARD
  63. SEXUAL PERSONAE by CAMILLE PAGLIA
  64. THINK AND GROW RICH by NAPOLEON HILL
  65. A LIFE OF ONE'S OWN by DAVID KELLEY
  66. DOORS OF PERCEPTION by ALDOUS HUXLEY
  67. THE DISCOVERY OF FREEDOM by ROSE WILDER LANE
  68. MORE LIBERTY MEANS LESS GOVERNMENT by WALTER WILLIAMS
  69. LIBERTARIANISM: A PRIMER by DAVID BOAZ
  70. BEYOND LIBERAL AND CONSERVATIVE by WILLIAM MADDOX AND STUART LILIE
  71. A CONFLICT OF VISIONS: IDEOLOGICAL ORIGINS OF POLITICAL STRUGGLES by THOMAS SOWELL
  72. PARLIAMENT OF WHORES by P. J. O'ROURKE
  73. SEPARATING SCHOOL AND STATE: HOW TO LIBERATE AMERICA'S FAMILIES by SHELDON RICHMAN
  74. THE FUTURE AND ITS ENEMIES by VIRGINIA POSTREL
  75. THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE by WILLIAM STRUNK AND E. B. WHITE
  76. ORIENTALISM by EDWARD SAID
  77. ECOTERROR by RON ARNOLD
  78. WHY GOVERNMENT DOESN'T WORK by HARRY BROWNE
  79. OUT OF THE CRISIS by W. EDWARDS DEMING
  80. NOT OUT OF AFRICA by MARY LEFKOWITZ
  81. THE END OF RACISM by DINESH D'SOUZA
  82. BEHIND THE MASK by IAN BURUMA
  83. IN A DARK WOOD by ALSTON CHASE
  84. PRIVATE PARTS by HOWARD STERN
  85. THE TELEPHONE BOOK by AVITAL RONELL
  86. THE MINUTEMAN: RESTORING AN ARMY OF THE PEOPLE by GARY HART
  87. WAKING AND DREAMING by JOSEPH HART
  88. THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD by LANA CANTRELL
  89. RADICAL SON by DAVID HOROWITZ
  90. UNDER THE SIGN OF SATURN by SUSAN SONTAG
  91. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X by ALEX HALEY AND MALCOLM X
  92. A FEELING FOR BOOKS by JANICE RADWAY
  93. THE HERO OF A THOUSAND FACES by JOSEPH CAMPBELL
  94. THE JOB by WILLIAM BURROUGHS
  95. SILENT INTERVIEWS by SAMUEL R. DELANY
  96. SLATS GROBNIK AND SOME OTHER FRIENDS by MIKE ROYKO
  97. RISE OF THE UNMELTABLE ETHNICS by MICHAEL NOVACK
  98. REVERSE ANGLE by JOHN SIMON
  99. PLACING MOVIES by JONATHON ROSENBAUM
 100. RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING by PATRICK J BUCHANAN

A third list:

Normal.dotm 0 0 1 17 102 Bryn Mawr College 1 1 125 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false Normal.dotm 0 0 1 27 157 Bryn Mawr College 1 1 192 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false

THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot

A FIELD GUIDE TO GETTING LOST by Rebecca Solnit

A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN by Virginia Woolf

SILENT SPRING by Rachel Carson

THE GUNS OF AUGUST by Barbara Tuchman

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS by Gertrude Stein

BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON by Rebecca West

OUT OF AFRICA by Isak Dinesen

THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS by Elaine Pagels

WEST WITH THE NIGHT by Beryl Markham

PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK by Annie Dillard

THE JOURNALIST AND THE MURDERER by Janet Malcolm

OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS by Anne Lamott

A FEELING FOR BOOKS by JANICE RADWAY

UNDER THE SIGN OF SATURN by SUSAN SONTAG

THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD by LANA CANTRELL

THE TELEPHONE BOOK: Technology, Schizophrenia, Electric Speech

 by AVITAL RONELL

NOT OUT OF AFRICA by MARY LEFKOWITZ

THE FUTURE AND ITS ENEMIES by VIRGINIA POSTREL

THE DISCOVERY OF FREEDOM by ROSE WILDER LANE

SEXUAL PERSONAE by CAMILLE PAGLIA

HEALING OUR WORLD by MARY RUWART

EROS THE BITTERSWEET by ANNE CARSON

ORDINARILY SACRED by LYNDA SEXSON

THE GOD OF THE MACHINE by ISABEL PATERSON

THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS by AYN RAND

 

0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false

And a fourth:

 

Addison and Steele

    * The Spectator Papers     

Bloom, Harold

    * How To Read and Why

Bryson, Bill

    * The Mother Tongue      

Defoe, Daniel

    * Journal of the Plague Year

DuBois, W.E. B.

    * The Souls of Black Folk

    * The Suppression of the African Slave Trade

Hersey, John

* Hiroshima

Mencken, H. L.

    * On Politics

Madison, Hamilton and Jay

    * The Federalist Papers

McPhee, John

    * The Pine Barrens

    * Irons in the Fire

Naipaul, V. S.

    * The Return of Eva Peron

Orwell, George

    * My Country Right or Left

    * Inside the Whale and Other Essays

Ruskin, John

    * Sesame and Lilies

Woolf, Virginia

    * A Room of One's Own

Swift, Jonathan

   * A Modest Proposal
What to be “rich in loss” might be made to mean is perhaps best evoked in … knowledge that works otherwise than to secure claims through data ....distinguish between “lovely knowledge” and difficult knowledge. The former reinforces what we think we want from what we find, and the latter is knowledge that induces breakdowns in representing experience. Here, accepting loss becomes the very force of learning...
II. what I don't know yet:
where we are going from here
Tuesday the real fun begins, as we
design the remainder of the semester together.

As per the course homepage:
Since the list of potential texts is inordinately vast and variegated, we will pause @ mid-semester to select together what we intend to study for the second half of the course.

Do you want to
*read some more texts by the authors we've already encountered?
*read some more texts in the same sub-genre(s?)
*"read" something entirely new
(feminist film documentaries, or science journalism, or ...?)
*explore non-textual forms?
*read some internet-based examples of non-fictional prose?
*explore the "deep history" of the genre?
*read some classics: St. Augustine's Confessions, Thoreau's Walden....? 
*design the course around a theme (slave narratives? women's educational histories? ecological texts?)
*read some theory about the genre?

BY midnight Sunday, Oct. 3rd, post in our course forum a proposal for the remainder of the semester. If you were designing a 6-week independent study for yourself, as a continuation of the work we have already done together, what would it look like?  What would be the logic of your proposal? What might be its theoretical frame? What imaginative test cases would you choose to look @? What might you expect to learn? Make a pitch for the what--and how (any pedagogical innovations??) you want to learn more about...

On Tuesday, based on those individual proposals,
we'll work towards something more collaborative
(this is where it really gets to be fun: how to construct something
for brains that are as various as ours:
a maze, a web, a projection room, subterranean caverns,
two-zoned (not-so-orderly filing cabinets over no-gravity slow-motion zones), vs. one zone of very orderly filing cabinets,
a monkey swinging from branch to branch,
stars in the galaxy, labeled neurons, an amusement park, "a bunch of rooms with a lot of junk," Hogwarts, not representable, "a tree w/ roots and branches, but different from day to day," chaos organized

I need Monday to sort through the material generated by these various brains, so meet this deadline! you canNOT opt out of this process!
(besides, if you don't participate, you can't complain about where we end up....!)

As resource/inspiration, one list of
"100 Best Nonfiction Prose Works":

   1. THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS by Henry Adams
   2. THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE by William James
   3. UP FROM SLAVERY by Booker T. Washington
   4. A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN by Virginia Woolf
   5. SILENT SPRING by Rachel Carson
   6. SELECTED ESSAYS, 1917-1932 by T. S. Eliot
   7. THE DOUBLE HELIX by James D. Watson
   8. SPEAK, MEMORY by Vladimir Nabokov
   9. THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE by H. L. Mencken
  10. THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT, INTEREST, AND MONEY by John Maynard Keynes
  11. THE LIVES OF A CELL by Lewis Thomas
  12. THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY by Frederick Jackson Turner
  13. BLACK BOY by Richard Wright
  14. ASPECTS OF THE NOVEL by E. M. Forster
  15. THE CIVIL WAR by Shelby Foote
  16. THE GUNS OF AUGUST by Barbara Tuchman
  17. THE PROPER STUDY OF MANKIND by Isaiah Berlin
  18. THE NATURE AND DESTINY OF MAN by Reinhold Niebuhr
  19. NOTES OF A NATIVE SON by James Baldwin
  20. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS by Gertrude Stein
  21. THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE by William Strunk and E. B. White
  22. AN AMERICAN DILEMMA by Gunnar Myrdal
  23. PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell
  24. THE MISMEASURE OF MAN by Stephen Jay Gould
  25. THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP by Meyer Howard Abrams
  26. THE ART OF THE SOLUBLE by Peter B. Medawar
  27. THE ANTS by Bert Hoelldobler and Edward O. Wilson
  28. A THEORY OF JUSTICE by John Rawls
  29. ART AND ILLUSION by Ernest H. Gombrich
  30. THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS by E. P. Thompson
  31. THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK by W.E.B. Du Bois
  32. PRINCIPIA ETHICA by G. E. Moore
  33. PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION by John Dewey
  34. ON GROWTH AND FORM by D'Arcy Thompson
  35. IDEAS AND OPINIONS by Albert Einstein
  36. THE AGE OF JACKSON, Arthur Schlesinger by Jr.
  37. THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB by Richard Rhodes
  38. BLACK LAMB and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West
  39. AUTOBIOGRAPHIES by W. B. Yeats
  40. SCIENCE AND CIVILIZATION IN CHINA by Joseph Needham
  41. GOODBYE TO ALL THAT by Robert Graves
  42. HOMAGE TO CATALONIA by George Orwell
  43. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN by Mark Twain
  44. CHILDREN OF CRISIS by Robert Coles
  45. A STUDY OF HISTORY by Arnold J. Toynbee
  46. THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY by John Kenneth Galbraith
  47. PRESENT AT THE CREATION by Dean Acheson
  48. THE GREAT BRIDGE by David McCullough
  49. PATRIOTIC GORE by Edmund Wilson
  50. SAMUEL JOHNSON by Walter Jackson Bate
  51. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X by Alex Haley and Malcolm X
  52. THE RIGHT STUFF by Tom Wolfe
  53. EMINENT VICTORIANS by Lytton Strachey
  54. WORKING by Studs Terkel
  55. DARKNESS VISIBLE by William Styron
  56. THE LIBERAL IMAGINATION by Lionel Trilling
  57. THE SECOND WORLD WAR by Winston Churchill
  58. OUT OF AFRICA by Isak Dinesen
  59. JEFFERSON AND HIS TIME by Dumas Malone
  60. IN THE AMERICAN GRAIN by William Carlos Williams
  61. CADILLAC DESERT by Marc Reisner
  62. THE HOUSE OF MORGAN by Ron Chernow
  63. THE SWEET SCIENCE by A. J. Liebling
  64. THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES by Karl Popper
  65. THE ART OF MEMORY by Frances A. Yates
  66. RELIGION AND THE RISE OF CAPITALISM by R. H. Tawney
  67. A PREFACE TO MORALS by Walter Lippmann
  68. THE GATE OF HEAVENLY PEACE by Jonathan D. Spence
  69. THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS by Thomas S. Kuhn
  70. THE STRANGE CAREER OF JIM CROW by C. Vann Woodward
  71. THE RISE OF THE WEST by William H. McNeill
  72. THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS by Elaine Pagels
  73. JAMES JOYCE by Richard Ellmann
  74. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE by Cecil Woodham-Smith
  75. THE GREAT WAR AND MODERN MEMORY by Paul Fussell
  76. THE CITY IN HISTORY by Lewis Mumford
  77. BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM by James M. McPherson
  78. WHY WE CAN'T WAIT by Martin Luther King by Jr.
  79. THE RISE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT by Edmund Morris
  80. STUDIES IN ICONOLOGY by Erwin Panofsky
  81. THE FACE OF BATTLE by John Keegan
  82. THE STRANGE DEATH OF LIBERAL ENGLAND by George Dangerfield
  83. VERMEER by Lawrence Gowing
  84. A BRIGHT SHINING LIE by Neil Sheehan
  85. WEST WITH THE NIGHT by Beryl Markham
  86. THIS BOY'S LIFE by Tobias Wolff
  87. A MATHEMATICIAN'S APOLOGY by G. H. Hardy
  88. SIX EASY PIECES by Richard P. Feynman
  89. PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK by Annie Dillard
  90. THE GOLDEN BOUGH by James George Frazer
  91. SHADOW AND ACT by Ralph Ellison
  92. THE POWER BROKER by Robert A. Caro
  93. THE AMERICAN POLITICAL TRADITION by Richard Hofstadter
  94. THE CONTOURS OF AMERICAN HISTORY by William Appleman Williams
  95. THE PROMISE OF AMERICAN LIFE by Herbert Croly
  96. IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote
  97. THE JOURNALIST AND THE MURDERER by Janet Malcolm
  98. THE TAMING OF CHANCE by Ian Hacking
  99. OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS by Anne Lamott
 100. MELBOURNE by Lord David Cecil

In case they don't grab you, a second list:
   1. THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS by AYN RAND
   2. DIANETICS:THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH by L. RON HUBBARD
   3. OBJECTIVISM: THE PHILOSOPHY OF AYN RAND by LEONARD PEIKOFF
   4. 101 THINGS TO DO TIL THE REVOLUTION by CLAIRE WOLFE
   5. THE GOD OF THE MACHINE by ISABEL PATERSON
   6. AYN RAND: A SENSE OF LIFE by MICHAEL PAXTON
   7. THE ULTIMATE RESOURCE by JULIAN SIMON
   8. ECONOMICS IN ONE LESSON by HENRY HAZLITT
   9. SEND IN THE WACO KILLERS by VIN SUPRYNOWICZ
  10. MORE GUNS, LESS CRIME by JOHN R. LOTT
  11. PSYCHIATRY: THE ULTIMATE BETRAYAL by BRUCE WISEMAN
  12. FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS by G. HANCOCK
  13. CLASSICAL INDIVIDUALISM: THE SUPREME IMPORTANCE OF EACH HUMAN BEING by TIBOR MACHAN
  14. FREE TO CHOOSE by MILTON AND ROSE FRIEDMAN
  15. AIN'T NOBODY'S BUSINESS IF YOU DO by PETER MCWILLIAMS
  16. THE ROAD TO SERFDOM by F. A. HAYEK
  17. FREEDOM IN CHAINS by JAMES BOVARD
  18. AMERICA'S GREAT DEPRESSION by MURRAY N. ROTHBARD
  19. THE ROOSEVELT MYTH by JOHN T. FLYNN
  20. THE TRUE BELIEVER by ERIC HOFFER
  21. VINDICATING THE FOUNDERS by THOMAS WEST
  22. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE by CARL L. BECKER
  23. COGNITIVE THERAPY AND THE EMOTIONAL DISORDERS by AARON T. BECK
  24. DEATH by GOVERNMENT by R. J. RUMMEL
  25. A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN by VIRGINIA WOOLF
  26. LONGITUDE by DAVA SOBEL
  27. ORDINARILY SACRED by LYNDA SEXSON
  28. SPEAK, MEMORY by VLADIMIR NABOKOV
  29. THE ART OF MEMORY by FRANCES YATES
  30. DUMBING US DOWN by JOHN TAYLOR GATTO
  31. THE GOLDEN BOUGH by JAMES FRAZER
  32. UNDAUNTED COURAGE: MERIWETHER LEWIS, THOMAS JEFFERSON, AND THE OPENING OF THE AMERICAN WEST by STEPHEN E. AMBROSE
  33. A MODERN PROPHET by HAROLD KLEMP
  34. THE FLUTE OF GOD by PAUL TWITCHELL
  35. REAL PRESENCES by GEORGE STEINER
  36. OUT OF AFRICA by ISAK DINESEN
  37. WAYS OF SEEING by JOHN BERGER
  38. THE SHADOW UNIVERSITY: THE BETRAYAL OF LIBERTY ON AMERICA'S CAMPUSES by ALAN CHARLES KORS
  39. PROPERTY MATTERS: HOW PROPERTY RIGHTS ARE UNDER ASSAULT AND WHY YOU SHOULD CARE by JAMES V. DE LONG
  40. STORMING HEAVEN by JAY STEVENS
  41. THE TEXAN by C. S. BARRIOS
  42. HOMAGE TO CATALONIA by GEORGE ORWELL
  43. THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE by WILLIAM JAMES
  44. HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS by DARRELL HUFF
  45. BUT IS IT TRUE? by AARON WILDAVSKY
  46. A MATHEMATICIAN READS THE NEWSPAPER by JOHN ALLEN PAULOS
  47. ANATOMY OF CRITICISM by NORTHROP FRYE
  48. THE MAINSPRING OF HUMAN PROGRESS by HENRY GRADY WEAVER
  49. MODERN TIMES by PAUL JOHNSON
  50. MEN TO MATCH MY MOUNTAINS by IRVING STONE
  51. THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS by HENRY ADAMS
  52. THE GREAT BRIDGE by DAVID MCCULLOUGH
  53. AMERICAN GAY by STEPHEN O. MURRAY
  54. THE DOUBLE HELIX by JAMES D. WATSON
  55. THE SENSE OF AN ENDING by FRANK KERMODE
  56. THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS by ELAINE PAGELS
  57. EROS THE BITTERSWEET by ANNE CARSON
  58. THE WESTERN CANON by HAROLD BLOOM
  59. THE WHITE GODDESS by ROBERT GRAVES
  60. HEALING OUR WORLD by MARY RUWART
  61. SILENT SPRING by RACHEL CARSON
  62. PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK by ANNIE DILLARD
  63. SEXUAL PERSONAE by CAMILLE PAGLIA
  64. THINK AND GROW RICH by NAPOLEON HILL
  65. A LIFE OF ONE'S OWN by DAVID KELLEY
  66. DOORS OF PERCEPTION by ALDOUS HUXLEY
  67. THE DISCOVERY OF FREEDOM by ROSE WILDER LANE
  68. MORE LIBERTY MEANS LESS GOVERNMENT by WALTER WILLIAMS
  69. LIBERTARIANISM: A PRIMER by DAVID BOAZ
  70. BEYOND LIBERAL AND CONSERVATIVE by WILLIAM MADDOX AND STUART LILIE
  71. A CONFLICT OF VISIONS: IDEOLOGICAL ORIGINS OF POLITICAL STRUGGLES by THOMAS SOWELL
  72. PARLIAMENT OF WHORES by P. J. O'ROURKE
  73. SEPARATING SCHOOL AND STATE: HOW TO LIBERATE AMERICA'S FAMILIES by SHELDON RICHMAN
  74. THE FUTURE AND ITS ENEMIES by VIRGINIA POSTREL
  75. THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE by WILLIAM STRUNK AND E. B. WHITE
  76. ORIENTALISM by EDWARD SAID
  77. ECOTERROR by RON ARNOLD
  78. WHY GOVERNMENT DOESN'T WORK by HARRY BROWNE
  79. OUT OF THE CRISIS by W. EDWARDS DEMING
  80. NOT OUT OF AFRICA by MARY LEFKOWITZ
  81. THE END OF RACISM by DINESH D'SOUZA
  82. BEHIND THE MASK by IAN BURUMA
  83. IN A DARK WOOD by ALSTON CHASE
  84. PRIVATE PARTS by HOWARD STERN
  85. THE TELEPHONE BOOK by AVITAL RONELL
  86. THE MINUTEMAN: RESTORING AN ARMY OF THE PEOPLE by GARY HART
  87. WAKING AND DREAMING by JOSEPH HART
  88. THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD by LANA CANTRELL
  89. RADICAL SON by DAVID HOROWITZ
  90. UNDER THE SIGN OF SATURN by SUSAN SONTAG
  91. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X by ALEX HALEY AND MALCOLM X
  92. A FEELING FOR BOOKS by JANICE RADWAY
  93. THE HERO OF A THOUSAND FACES by JOSEPH CAMPBELL
  94. THE JOB by WILLIAM BURROUGHS
  95. SILENT INTERVIEWS by SAMUEL R. DELANY
  96. SLATS GROBNIK AND SOME OTHER FRIENDS by MIKE ROYKO
  97. RISE OF THE UNMELTABLE ETHNICS by MICHAEL NOVACK
  98. REVERSE ANGLE by JOHN SIMON
  99. PLACING MOVIES by JONATHON ROSENBAUM
 100. RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING by PATRICK J BUCHANAN

A third list:

Normal.dotm 0 0 1 158 903 Bryn Mawr College 7 1 1108 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false
Draw on other sources, thinking
about what you HAVE NOT (YET)
READ (and would like to....)

III. Back to Arne Naess 
(trying to integrate the many different Arne Naess's
we met on Tuesday? or acknowledge that we can't?)
--w/ a hand up from Albert Einstein:

A human being is part of the whole called by us universe .... We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.

cf. also quotation on p. 61, re: the
"impersonal" quality of the natural world

to save ourselves: we have to free ourselves from ourselves...?
what's the program for doing that?
anyone want to sign up? (why/why not?)

related to some particular points I
flagged from Tuesday & want to revisit:
Aya re: Naess retreating from "reality" (=degrees, jobs, etc.)
smacholdt: Is there really one reality?
Anne's "bullet point": "Reality is all possibilities."
Naess, p. 72: Essential to ecological thinking, and to thinking in quantum physics, is the insistence that things cannot be separated from what surrounds them without smaller or greater arbitrariness.

p. 77: one of the first things to do might be to get rid of the belief that humankind is something placed in an environment [i.e. think about the constructedness of the distinction between an organism and its environment]

cf. p. 310: the word environmentalism smacks of the old metaphor suggesting humanity surrounded by something outside, the so-called environment of humans; it does not start with ecological concepts.

p. 90: The rock-bottom foundation of the technique for achieving the power of non-violence is belief in the essential oneness of all life.

and yet, see Aya, "Are we told what to think"?

see also Stephen Hawking's October 2010 Scientific
American article, "The Elusive Theory of Everything":

A few years ago the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved fishbowls. The sponsors of the measure explained that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl because the curved sides give the fish a distorted view of reality. Aside from the measure’s significance to the poor goldfish, the story raises an interesting philosophical question: How do we know that the reality we perceive is true?

The goldfish is seeing a version of reality that is different from ours, but can we be sure it is any less real? For all we know, we, too, may spend our entire lives staring out at the world through a distorting lens....

Every scientific theory ... comes with its own model of reality, and it may not make sense to talk of what reality actually is.

Cf. Arne Naess, p. 182: Pluralism is inescapable and nothing to lament. Reality is one, but if accounts of it are identical, this only reveals cultural poverty. Excessive belief in "science" favors acceptance of poverty as a sign of truth.

IV. what's the role of "Ghandian nonviolent
verbal communication" (pp. 219f) in this
process of (re)defining reality?

The combination of humility and militancy ... is essential.

Gandhi's work for freedom ... has to do with freeing oneself from the fetters of disruptive emotions and narrowness of scope .... "Distorted description ..reduces the change to reach your goal."

Exclamation marks are used ... to indicate the normative or rule-giving character of a sentence .... more precise formulations ... will never be definitive. We always have to return to the more vague and ambiguous, trying new avenues of clarification.

FIRST PRINCIPLE: AVOID EVASION!
SECOND PRINCIPLE:  AVOID TENDENTIOUS RENDERINGS OF OTHER PEOPLE'S VIEWS!
THIRD PRINCIPLE: AVOID TENDENTIOUS AMBIGUITY!
FOURTH PRINCIPLE: AVOID TENDENTIOUS ARGUMENT FROM ALLEGED IMPLICATION!
FIFTH PRINCIPLE: AVOID TENDENTIOUS FIRSTHAND REPORTS!
SIXTH PRINCIPLE: AVOID TENDENTIOUS USE OF CONTEXTS!

[tendentious: showing a "tendency," a bias]

APPLICATIONS WITHIN THE ECOLOGY MOVEMENT
Suppose somebody says,
"We must take more care of the non-human environment."
(does this mean we must
re-distribute our present total care? enlarge our total care?)
Sentences are never unambiguous...

I am convinced that power obtained through violent means tends to corrupt more than power obtained without, and in the very long run, that is the only way to go.

V. what's the relation of this process to non-fiction?
to Naess's non-fictional prose style in particular?



Violent Signs: Immanence, Art and Ecology

The free human being is  wise human being permanently and with increasing momentum on the road to still higher levels of freedom....The obstacle to individualistic freedom is deep-seated solidarity. It rests of identification with all beings....the highest freedom cannot be a lonely freedom (pp. 272-273)

We cannot give good reasons for everything. We stop somewhere, normally outside science, and doing this, we may ... quote Aristotle. We can say that belief in the possibility of proving everything shows a lack of education and that we like to be considered educated (p. 300).

Discussion notes by veritatemdilexi