<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:taxo="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/taxonomy/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:cc="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns:syn="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:admin="http://webns.net/mvcb/">
  <channel rdf:about="http://pinboard.in">
    <title>Pinboard (robertogreco)</title>
    <link>https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/public/</link>
    <description>recent bookmarks from robertogreco</description>
    <items>
      <rdf:Seq>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://timothyburke.substack.com/p/the-news-history-against-the-social"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://www.dayofastranger.com/"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://x.com/petrogustavo/status/1883624818811236502"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gurdjieff"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://www.persuasion.community/p/deep-reading-will-save-your-soul"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/books/review/nick-offerman-by-the-book.html"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://vimeo.com/9010456"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="http://randallszott.org/2016/02/05/art-is-a-petty-conception/"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="http://biblioklept.org/2013/05/25/i-bristle-at-the-idea-that-the-only-thing-susan-sontag-or-david-foster-wallace-had-to-offer-is-advice-for-me/"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.listsofnote.com/2012/01/henry-millers-11-commandments.html"/>
      </rdf:Seq>
    </items>
  </channel><item rdf:about="https://timothyburke.substack.com/p/the-news-history-against-the-social">
    <title>The News: History Against the Social Engineers</title>
    <dc:date>2026-02-16T01:51:37+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>https://timothyburke.substack.com/p/the-news-history-against-the-social</link>
    <dc:creator>robertogreco</dc:creator><description><![CDATA["I don’t often pay attention to Ross Douthat’s column in the New York Times, but I do think his work there has a sort of intellectual and political authenticity to it, however drearily, that feels more like an actual perspective rather than the calculated manipulation that characterized David Brooks’ writing or that still wafts about everything Bret Stephens writes.

In any event, for some reason I dialed in on Douthat writing about vice in response to Matthew Yglesias. (Another writer who I think is just painfully calculating in how he positions his brand.) Douthat worked his usual beat of moral and religious discomfort with mainstream liberalism to argue that maybe allowing “atomized individuals” to decide for themselves whether to take drugs, watch porn, gamble on sports, and so on and thus effectively sanction vice as nothing more than a choice of leisure forms allows individuals to harm themselves in a way that amounts to collective harm to the whole society. That if we allow vice as a public fact, we essentially encourage individuals to acquire vices by normalization and then through addiction and habituation those individuals lose their ability to choose to give up those vices and harm others around them.

Douthat’s conservatism blocks off one possible reconception of the problem that concerns him, which is that the issue with these vices is not in the freedom of individuals to choose them but in the ways that capitalism and markets commodify vices and create infrastructures of addiction. E.g., having an office pool that bets on the Academy Awards is not particularly concerning, but having an app on your phone that lets you 24/7 bet on all sorts of future outcomes where that app is also repeatedly advertised by celebrities is what turns something into “vice”, and that the answer to vice is not the criminalization of individuals making choices but a strong regime of regulatory authority over markets.

I also have to wonder a bit at how to square a desire to control the capacity of individuals to sin with a Christian theology of free will. If God wanted to make it hard for humanity to sin, He wouldn’t have put the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. If you suppress sin by criminalizing sinners and making the offering of opportunities to sin illegal, then that feels like a shortcut to salvation. Or, depending on how a religious believer thinks about the propensity to sin, just challenging sinners to be more creative.

Since I’m not religious in that sense, I don’t worry too much about that theological challenge. But I do think in a more empirical sense as a historian that there is considerable evidence that strong legal and communitarian attempts to suppress vice do not in fact prevent vice. As Henry Miller says as one of the elders whose have their comments interspersed between the dramatic action in the film Reds, “I think there was just as much fucking going on then as now”. 

[embed: "Henry Miller on Sex & Politics REDS (1981)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXZwOQ2zmDE ]

There’s a methodological problem with this claim that historians take seriously that pundits and policy-makers often don’t, which is that it’s very hard to be certain about past practices that were by their nature private, secretive and censored from appearing in public materials. As a discipline, we’ve gotten developed a broad range of skills and approaches that help overcome the problem, but I don’t know that we’ll ever be able to confidently verify Miller’s working hypothesis. (Not the least because I suspect that Miller was in the midst of more fucking than was typical even for bohemian intellectuals in the early 20th Century.)

My intuition is that he is within some rough approximation completely right, however. That the public transcript around vice in the olden times that Douthat often seems to wish we could get back to did not match the private reality of it. The porn may have been more clandestine—and far less likely to survive for us to see it in an archive—but there is plenty of evidence that from the 18th Century onward, porn has been a major proportion of printed work, that from the first appearance of photography and cinema, pornographic work was a regular companion to the legally sanctioned public texts. That adultery and premarital sex were far more common than the public narrative acknowledged, that drugs and addiction were continuous regardless of the legal regimes permitting or prohibiting them, that placing a bet with a bookie or betting on the horses was almost as integral to urban life before the Internet as it is today. Genetic data revealed by broadly distributed testing entered into genealogical data bases shows that many people who thought they were the children of a married couple had at least one parent outside of the marriage—and that the incidence of incest within and between generations was far higher than most experts would have guessed.

Moreover, I think there’s a pretty fair argument that forcing vice into private and secret channels, as perhaps Douthat nostalgically would prefer, in some cases amplified its corruptions and intensified its potential cruelties. Or perhaps that’s just power, as the continuing unfolding of Epstein’s social network might suggest. A college senior with $500 in the bank can lose that money in a twinkling to DraftKings, but the 1% can push in millions and millions into bad investments and know that if the bubble bursts, they’ll likely be too big to fail, one way or the other. A middle-aged fentanyl addict might get picked up, shoved around, or incarcerated, but a billionaire can blow through Schedule III controlled drugs while hanging out in one of the most secured places in the United States and have no fear of the consequences. Presidents, professors, financiers, artists can be close friends with a sex trafficker who also stole money from wealthy associates and plausibly think that nothing but modest embarrassment, if that, will come their way should the association become public knowledge. In a world of reprivatized vice, maybe that would be true all the way down, at least for men.

The problem with most general arguments about the management of social problems is that they operate from diminished imaginations and impoverished data. If historians did withdraw from these kinds of “solutionist” conversations, as Jo Guldi and David Armitage argued in The History Manifesto, that’s for good reason. Things do change over time—what Douthat calls “vice” has been an incredibly active domain of transformation in practices, ideas, and consequences. But the causal drivers of those changes are profoundly complex and the scale or ubiquity of a domain like “vice” is profoundly difficult, if not impossible, to measure across the last 150 years.

Take any given crime or non-criminal immoral act or way of talking and thinking and what Henry Miller says is plausibly true, that there was just as much of it “back then”, it’s just that it was kept successfully secret, that it was known by some other name, that nothing recorded even “virtuous” private life either. The materials which fetch up that reveal an individual talking of either of shame or delight in “vice” are in some cases fictions meant to affirm or challenge public preconceptions. You can’t study the anonymous author of Go Ask Alice because in fact she never existed. You can’t take the index of materials seized by Comstock and his spiritual successors as a metric of what was actually in circulation, both because maybe most people knew better than to send sexual material by mail but also because Anthony Comstock was a propagandist determined to affirm what he believed to be true by any means necessary. Everything we know about private behavior, about culture under the banner of “vice” or “immorality”, is tentative guesswork based on kaleidoscopic fragments.

[image: "Anthony Comstock in all his muttonchop glory"]

Which means that the kinds of causality favored by “solutionists” who want to allow, forbid or redirect some contemporary practice is always something of a myth. Contemporary social science, when it makes causal arguments, is often painfully reductionist and often involved in leaping vast gulfs of missing data with weird proxies and invented assumptions. It’s never as easy as “suppress vice” or “condemn vice” or “allow atomized individuals to do as they see fit”, as if there is some kind of control room where technocrats can push buttons and pull levers. It just doesn’t work that way. Which means also that you can’t argue moral and ethical cases as a consequentialist, most of the time, which is what Douthat and for that matter most pundits do. Or if you do, you’d better come loaded for conversations about complex systems and chuck your regressions. If you’re against “vice”, pick a better reason to be than what you think comes of it and whether you think regulating it is what leads to those outcomes."]]></description>
<dc:subject>timothyburke socialengineering morality vice vices virtue law legal rossdouthat mattyglesias davidbrooks moralizing society history addiction capitalism commodification christianity freewill salvation henrymiller sexuality privacy data corruption publicknowledge davidaemitage joguldi solutionism pundits policy regulation anthonycomstock solutionists consequentialism purity myth</dc:subject>
<dc:source>https://pinboard.in/</dc:source>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:eceaec7909c8/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:timothyburke"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:socialengineering"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:morality"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:vice"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:vices"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:virtue"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:law"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:legal"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:rossdouthat"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:mattyglesias"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:davidbrooks"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:moralizing"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:society"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:history"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:addiction"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:capitalism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:commodification"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:christianity"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:freewill"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:salvation"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:henrymiller"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:sexuality"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:privacy"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:data"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:corruption"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:publicknowledge"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:davidaemitage"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:joguldi"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:solutionism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:pundits"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:policy"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:regulation"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:anthonycomstock"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:solutionists"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:consequentialism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:purity"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:myth"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="https://www.dayofastranger.com/">
    <title>DAY OF A STRANGER</title>
    <dc:date>2025-06-28T05:09:43+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>https://www.dayofastranger.com/</link>
    <dc:creator>robertogreco</dc:creator><description><![CDATA["DAY OF A STRANGER is an intimate portrait of a world-renown mystic and author during his final years living in solitude from 1965 until his shocking death in 1968. As a Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton became a prolific writer and was in dialogue with some of the twentieth century’s most influential figures, luminaries such as D.T. Suzuki, Rachel Carson, Henry Miller, Thich Nhat Hanh, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Dorothy Day. Interweaving meditative images of his hermitage nestled deep in the woods of Kentucky and rare audio recordings he made in isolation; the film pieces together a glimpse into the consciousness of one of the twentieth century’s most brilliant minds."

[See also:

"[Teaser] Day of a Stranger (2021) - YouTube"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGbEGzy4P2M

"[Teaser #2] Day of a Stranger (2021) - YouTube"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3f6C4C1cUQ

"Purchase the film at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/dayofastranger

DAY OF A STRANGER is an intimate portrait of world-renowned Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, during his final years living as a hermit from 1965 to his untimely death in 1968. Interweaving meditative images of his hermitage nestled deep in the woods of Kentucky and rare audio recordings he made as a hermit, the film pieces together a first-person narrative of one of the twentieth century’s most brilliant minds.

In July of 2018, nearly 50 years after his death, the team traveled to the monastery and hermitage to capture scenes to begin creating the film. Currently, the team is raising support in order to travel back to the hermitage this winter. 

Directed by Cassidy Hall
Produced by Patrick Shen

dayofastranger.com
facebook.com/dayofastranger"]]]></description>
<dc:subject>thomasmerton sound film recording recordings dtsuzuki rachelcarson henrymiller tichnhathahn martinlutherkingjr mlk dorothyday consciousness kentucky audio isolation 2021 presence listening sounds documentation slow small towatch</dc:subject>
<dc:source>https://pinboard.in/</dc:source>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:9e2f54893575/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:thomasmerton"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:sound"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:film"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:recording"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:recordings"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:dtsuzuki"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:rachelcarson"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:henrymiller"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:tichnhathahn"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:martinlutherkingjr"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:mlk"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:dorothyday"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:consciousness"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:kentucky"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:audio"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:isolation"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:2021"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:presence"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:listening"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:sounds"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:documentation"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:slow"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:small"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:towatch"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="https://x.com/petrogustavo/status/1883624818811236502">
    <title>Gustavo Petro on X: &quot;Trump, a mi no me gusta mucho viajar a los EEUU, es un poco aburridor, pero confieso que hay cosas meritorias, me gusta ir a los barrios negros de Washington, allí ví una lucha entera en la capital de los EEUU entre negros y latinos</title>
    <dc:date>2025-01-27T18:12:09+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>https://x.com/petrogustavo/status/1883624818811236502</link>
    <dc:creator>robertogreco</dc:creator><description><![CDATA["Trump, a mi no me gusta mucho viajar a los EEUU, es un poco aburridor, pero confieso que hay cosas meritorias, me gusta ir a los barrios negros de Washington, allí ví una lucha entera en la capital de los EEUU entre negros y latinos con barricadas, que me pareció una pendejada, porque deberían unirse.

Confieso que me gusta Walt Withman y Paul Simon y Noam Chomsky y Miller

Confieso que Sacco y Vanzetti, que tienen mi sangre, en la historia de los EEUU, son memorables y les sigo. Los asesinaron por lideres obreros con la silla eléctrica, los fascistas qué están dentro de EEUU como dentro de mi país

No me gusta su petroleo, Trump, va a acabar con la especie humana por la codicia. Quizás algún día, junto a un trago de Whisky qué acepto, a pesar de mi  gastritis, podamos hablar francamente de esto, pero es difícil porque usted me considera una raza inferior y no lo soy, ni ningún colombiano.

Así que si conoce alguien terco, ese soy yo, punto. Puede con su fuerza económica y su soberbia intentar dar un golpe de estado como hicieron con Allende. Pero yo muero en mi ley, resistí la tortura y lo resisto a usted. No quiero esclavistas al lado de Colombia, ya tuvimos muchos y nos liberamos. Lo que quiero al lado de Colombia, son amantes de la libertad. Si usted  no puede acompañarme yo voy a otros lados. Colombía es el corazón del mundo y usted no lo entendió, esta es la  tierra de las mariposas amarillas, de la belleza de Remedios, pero tambien de los coroneles Aurelianos Buendía, de los cuales soy uno de ellos, quizás el último

Me matarás, pero sobreviviré en mi pueblo que es antes del tuyo, en  las Américas. Somos pueblos de los vientos, las montañas, del mar Caribe y de la libertad

A usted no le gusta nuestra libertad, vale. Yo no estrecho mi mano con esclavistas blancos. Estrecho  las manos de los blancos libertarios herederos de Lincoln y de los muchachos campesinos negros y blancos de los EEUU,  ante cuyas tumbas llore y recé en un campo de batalla, al que llegue, después de caminar montañas de la toscana italiana y  después de salvarme del covid.

Ellos son EEUU y ante ellos me arrodillo, ante más nadie. 

Túmbeme presidente y le responderán las Américas y la humanidad.

Colombia ahora deja de mirar el norte, mira al mundo, nuestra sangre viene de la  sangre del califato de Córdoba, la civilización en ese entonces, de los latinos romanos del mediterraneo, la civilización de ese entonces, que fundaron la república, la democracia en Atenas; nuestra sangre tiene los resistentes negros convertidos en esclavos por ustedes. En Colombia está el primer territorio libre de América, antes de Washington, de toda la América, allí me cobijo en sus cantos africanos.

Mi tierra es de orfebrería existente en época de los faraones egipcios, y de los primeros artistas del mundo en Chiribiquete.

No nos dominarás nunca. Se opone el guerrero que cabalgaba  nuestras tierras, gritando libertad y que se llama Bolívar

Nuestros pueblos son algo temerosos, algo tímidos, son ingenuos y amables, amantes, pero sabrán ganar el canal de Panamá, que ustedes nos quitaron con violencia. Doscientos héroes de toda latinoamerica yacen en Bocas del Toro, actual Panamá, antes Colombia, que ustedes asesinaron.

Yo levanto una bandera y como dijera Gaitán, así quede solo, seguirá enarbolada con la dignidad latinoamericana que es la dignidad de América, que su bisabuelo no conoció, y el mio sí,  señor presidente inmigrante en los  EEUU,

Su bloqueo no me asusta; porque Colombia además de ser el país de la belleza, es el corazón del mundo. Se que ama la belleza como yo, no la irrespete y le brindará su dulzura.

COLOMBIA A PARTiR DE HOY SE ABRE A TODO EL MUNDO, CON LOS BRAZOS ABIERTOS, SOMOS CONSTRUCTORES DE LIBERTAD, VIDA Y HUMANIDAD.

Me informan que usted pone a nuestro fruto del trabajo humano 50% de arancel para entrar a EEUU, yo hago lo mismo.

Que nuestra gente siembre maíz que se descubrió en Colombia y alimente al mundo"]]></description>
<dc:subject>gustavopetro colombia donaldtrump latinamerica immigration humanrights 2025 us sovereignty humanity waltwhitman paulsimon noamchomsky henrymiller aurelianosbuendía nicolasacco bartolomeovanzetti saccoandvanzetti</dc:subject>
<dc:source>https://pinboard.in/</dc:source>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:8dd33c32a707/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:gustavopetro"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:colombia"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:donaldtrump"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:latinamerica"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:immigration"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:humanrights"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:2025"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:us"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:sovereignty"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:humanity"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:waltwhitman"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:paulsimon"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:noamchomsky"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:henrymiller"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:aurelianosbuendía"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:nicolasacco"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:bartolomeovanzetti"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:saccoandvanzetti"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gurdjieff">
    <title>George Gurdjieff - Wikipedia</title>
    <dc:date>2024-08-29T04:45:31+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gurdjieff</link>
    <dc:creator>robertogreco</dc:creator><description><![CDATA["Gurdjieff taught that people cannot perceive reality as they are, because they are not conscious of themselves, but rather live in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep" of constantly turning thoughts, worries and imagination. The title of one of his books is Life is Real, Only Then, when "I am".

"Man lives his life in sleep, and in sleep he dies."[51] As a result, a person perceives the world while in a state of dream. He asserted that people in their ordinary waking state function as unconscious automatons, but that a person can "wake up" and become what a human being ought to be.[52]

Some contemporary researchers claim that Gurdjieff's concept of self-remembering is "close to the Buddhist concept of awareness or a popular definition of 'mindfulness'. ... The Buddhist term translated into English as 'mindfulness' originates in the Pali term 'sati', which is identical to Sanskrit 'smṛti'. Both terms mean 'to remember'."[53] As Gurdjieff himself said at a meeting held in his Paris flat during the Second World War: "Our aim is to have constantly a sensation of oneself, of one's individuality: this sensation cannot be expressed intellectually, because it is organic. It is something which makes you independent, when you are with other people."[54]"

...


"Henry Miller approved of Gurdjieff not considering himself holy but, after writing a brief introduction to Fritz Peters' book Boyhood with Gurdjieff, Miller wrote that people are not meant to lead a "harmonious life" as Gurdjieff believed in naming his institute.[86]

Critics note that Gurdjieff gives no value to most of the elements that compose the life of an average person. According to Gurdjieff, everything an average person possesses, accomplishes, does, and feels is completely accidental and without any initiative. A common everyday ordinary person is born a machine and dies a machine without any chance of being anything else.[87] This belief seems to run counter to the Judeo-Christian tradition that man is a living soul. Gurdjieff believed that the possession of a soul (a state of psychological unity which he equated with being "awake") was a "luxury" that a disciple could attain only by the most painstaking work over a long period of time. The majority—in whom the true meaning of the gospel failed to take root[88]—went the "broad way" that "led to destruction."[89]

In Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, Gurdjieff expresses his reverence for the founders of the mainstream religions of East and West and his contempt for what successive generations of believers have made of those religious teachings. His discussions of "orthodoxhydooraki" and "heterodoxhydooraki"—orthodox fools and heterodox fools, from the Russian word durak (fool)—position him as a critic of religious distortion and, in turn, as a target for criticism from some within those traditions. Gurdjieff has been interpreted by some, Ouspensky among others, to have had a total disregard for the value of mainstream religion, philanthropic work and the value of doing right or wrong in general.[90]

Gurdjieff's former students who have criticized him argue that, despite his seeming total lack of pretension to any kind of "guru holiness", in many anecdotes his behavior displays the unsavory and impure character of a man who was a cynical manipulator of his followers.[91] Gurdjieff's own pupils wrestled to understand him. For example, in a written exchange between Luc Dietrich and Henri Tracol dating to 1943: "L.D.: How do you know that Gurdjieff wishes you well? H.T.: I feel sometimes how little I interest him—and how strongly he takes an interest in me. By that I measure the strength of an intentional feeling."[92]

Louis Pauwels wrote Monsieur Gurdjieff (first edition published in Paris in 1954 by Editions du Seuil).[93] In an interview, Pauwels said of the Gurdjieff work: "After two years of exercises which both enlightened and burned me, I found myself in a hospital bed with a thrombosed central vein in my left eye and weighing ninety-nine pounds ... Horrible anguish and abysses opened up for me. But it was my fault."[94]

Pauwels believed that Karl Haushofer, the father of geopolitics whose protégée was Deputy Reich Führer Rudolf Hess, was one of the real "seekers after truth" described by Gurdjieff. According to Rom Landau, a journalist in the 1930s, Achmed Abdullah told him at the beginning of the 20th century that Gurdjieff was a Russian secret agent in Tibet[citation needed] who went by the name of "Hambro Akuan Dorzhieff" (i.e. Agvan Dorjiev), a tutor to the Dalai Lama.[95] However, the actual Dorzhieff went to live in the Buddhist temple erected in St. Petersburg and after the revolution was imprisoned by Stalin. James Webb conjectured that Gurdjieff might have been Dorzhieff's assistant Ushe Narzunoff (i.e. Ovshe Norzunov).[96]

Colin Wilson writes about "Gurdjieff's reputation for seducing his female students. (In Providence, Rhode Island, in 1960, a man was pointed out to me as one of Gurdjieff's illegitimate children. The professor who told me this also assured me that Gurdjieff had left many children around America.)"[97]"

[See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Way

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Students_of_George_Gurdjieff

"George Adie
Margaret C. Anderson
John G. Bennett
Peter Brook
René Daumal
James George (diplomat)
Gurdjieff Foundation
Thomas de Hartmann
Jane Heap
Kathryn Hulme
Olgivanna Lloyd Wright
Jean-Claude Lubtchansky
Sergey Merkurov
Ethel Merston
Bill Murray
Jacob Needleman
Maurice Nicoll
Charles Stanley Nott
Alfred Richard Orage
P. D. Ouspensky
Henry Sinclair, 2nd Baron Pentland
Helen Perkin
Paul Reynard
Laurence Rosenthal
Jeanne de Salzmann
Michel de Salzmann
Solita Solano
Terence Stamp
Jean Toomer
P. L. Travers"]]]></description>
<dc:subject>georgegurdjieff philosophy spirituality psychology reality consciousness mindfulness awakening conscience enlightenment sufi mysticism jeantoomer paulreynard janeheap thomasdehartman n georgeadie johnbennett fourthway slyman self-development wakingsleep presence observation self-observation essence personality jacobneedleman gigurdjieff pdouspensky esotericism occultism life living buddhism memory remembering movement music henrymiller religion belief pretension lucdietrich henritracol louispauwels karlhaushofer rudolfhess romlandau achmedabdullah colinwilson</dc:subject>
<dc:source>https://pinboard.in/</dc:source>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:2da46d762a80/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:georgegurdjieff"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:philosophy"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:spirituality"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:psychology"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:reality"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:consciousness"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:mindfulness"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:awakening"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:conscience"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:enlightenment"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:sufi"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:mysticism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:jeantoomer"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:paulreynard"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:janeheap"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:thomasdehartman"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:n"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:georgeadie"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:johnbennett"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:fourthway"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:slyman"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:self-development"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:wakingsleep"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:presence"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:observation"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:self-observation"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:essence"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:personality"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:jacobneedleman"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:gigurdjieff"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:pdouspensky"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:esotericism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:occultism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:life"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:living"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:buddhism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:memory"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:remembering"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:movement"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:music"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:henrymiller"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:religion"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:belief"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:pretension"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:lucdietrich"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:henritracol"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:louispauwels"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:karlhaushofer"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:rudolfhess"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:romlandau"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:achmedabdullah"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:colinwilson"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="https://www.persuasion.community/p/deep-reading-will-save-your-soul">
    <title>Deep Reading Will Save Your Soul - by William Deresiewicz</title>
    <dc:date>2024-05-30T16:21:54+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>https://www.persuasion.community/p/deep-reading-will-save-your-soul</link>
    <dc:creator>robertogreco</dc:creator><description><![CDATA["Real learning has become impossible in universities. DIY programs offer a better way."

...

"Higher ed is at an impasse. So much about it sucks, and nothing about it is likely to change. Colleges and universities do not seem inclined to reform themselves, and if they were, they wouldn’t know how, and if they did, they couldn’t. Between bureaucratic inertia, faculty resistance, and the conflicting agendas of a heterogenous array of stakeholders, concerted change appears to be impossible. Besides, business is good, at least at selective schools. The notion, floated now in certain quarters, that students and parents will turn from the Harvards and Yales in disgust is a fantasy. As long as elite institutions remain the principal pipeline to elite employers (and they will), the havers and strivers will crowd toward their gates. Everything else—the classes, the politics, the arts and sciences—is incidental.

Which is not to say that interesting things aren’t happening in post-secondary (and post-tertiary) education. They just aren’t happening, for the most part, on campus. People write to me about this: initiatives they’ve started or are starting or have taken part in. These come, as far as I can tell, in two broad types, corresponding to the two fundamental complaints that people voice about their undergraduate experience. The first complaint is that college did not prepare them for the real world: that the whole exercise—papers, busywork, pointless requirements; siloed disciplines and abstract theory—seemed remote from anything that they actually might want to do with their lives. 

Programs that address this discontent exhibit a remarkably consistent set of characteristics. They are interdisciplinary, integrating methods and perspectives—from, say, engineering and the social sciences—that are normally kept apart. They are informal, eschewing frontal instruction and traditional modes of evaluation. They are experiential, more about doing—creating, collaborating—than reading and writing. They are extramural, bringing students into the community for service projects, internships, artistic installations or performances. They are directed to specific purposes, usually to do with social amelioration or environmental rescue. Above all, they are student-centered. Participants are enabled (and expected) to direct their education by constructing bespoke curricula out of the resources the program gives them access to. In a word, these endeavors emphasize “engagement.”

All this is fine, as far as it goes. It has analogues and precedents in higher ed (Evergreen, Bennington, Antioch, Hampshire) as well as in the practice of progressive education, especially at the secondary level. High schools will focus on “project-based learning,” with assessment conducted through portfolios and public exhibitions. A student will identify a problem (a human need, an injustice, an instance of underrepresentation), then devise and implement a response (a physical system, a community-facing program, an art project). 

Again, I see the logic, it is just what many students want, but what bothers me about this educational approach—the “problem” approach, the “STEAM” (STEM + arts) approach—is what it leaves out. It leaves out the humanities. It leaves out books. It leaves out literature and philosophy, history and art history and the history of religion. It leaves out any mode of inquiry—reflection, speculation, conversation with the past—that cannot be turned to immediate practical ends. Not everything in the world is a problem, and to see the world as a series of problems is to limit the potential of both world and self. What problem does a song address? What problem will reading Voltaire help you solve, in any predictable way? The “problem” approach—the “engagement” approach, the save-the-world approach—leaves out, finally, what I’d call learning.

And that is the second complaint that graduates tend to express: that they finished college without the feeling that they had learned anything, in this essential sense. That they hadn’t been touched. That they hadn’t been changed. That there is a treasure out there—call it the Great Books or just great books, the wisdom of the ages or the best that has been thought and said—that its purpose is to activate the treasure inside them, that they had come to one of these splendid institutions (whose architecture speaks of culture, whose age gives earnest of depth) to be initiated into it, but that they had been denied, deprived. For unclear reasons, cheated.

I had students like this at Columbia and Yale. There were never a lot of them, and to judge from what’s been happening to humanities enrollments, there are fewer and fewer. (From 2013 to 2022, the number of people graduating with bachelors degrees in English fell by 36%. As a share of all degrees, it fell by 42%, to less than 1 in 60.) They would tell me—these pilgrims, these intellectuals in embryo, these kindled souls—how hard they were finding it to get the kind of education they had come to college for. Professors were often preoccupied, with little patience for mentorship, the open-ended office-hours exploration. Classes, even in fields like philosophy, felt lifeless, impersonal, like engineering but with words instead of numbers. Worst of all were their fellow undergraduates, those climbers and careerists. “It’s hard to build your soul,” as one of my students once put it to me, “when everyone around you is trying to sell theirs.”

That student’s name was Matthew Strother. It was through Matthew—he was in his early thirties by this point, and still seeking—that I learned about perhaps the two most prominent initiatives to have sprung up off-campus of late in response to the hunger for serious study. The first is the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, which was founded in 2012 and now offers dozens of courses a year both in person and online. Its seminars meet three hours a week for four weeks. Recent offerings include classes on Melville’s The Confidence Man, Eric Auerbach’s Mimesis, fairy tales, and Mesopotamia. With its leftist commitments, BISR also runs courses in critical theory and the social sciences: Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze, “Racial Capitalism,” “The Politics of Pregnancy.”

The second initiative Matthew alerted me to is the Catherine Project, which launched in 2020. Its vibe is very different from BISR’s. BISR was founded by a group of Columbia doctoral students. The Catherine Project was founded by Zena Hitz, a teacher at the St. John’s great books college in Annapolis, a Catholic convert, and, for three years, a resident of Madonna House, a monastic community in eastern Ontario. BISR is named for the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, birthplace in the 1930s of the Frankfurt School of Marxist social thought. The Catherine Project is named for Catherine of Alexandria, an early Christian martyr, and Catherine Doherty, Madonna House’s founder.

BISR is explicitly political as well as educational; its Praxis program offers workshops and other resources to labor unions and nonprofits. The Catherine Project sees itself as being in the business of creating “communities of learning”; its principles include “conversation and hospitality, “simplicity [and] transparency.” Classes (called tutorials, in keeping with the practice at St. John’s) are free (BISR’s cost $335), are capped at four to six students (at BISR, the limit is 23), run for two hours a week for twelve weeks, and skew towards the canon: the Greeks and Romans, Pascal and Kierkegaard, Dante and Cervantes (the project also hosts a large number of reading groups, which address a wider range of texts). If BISR aspires to create a fairer market for academic labor—instructors keep the lion’s share of fees—the Catherine Project functions as a gift economy (though plans are to begin to offer tutors modest honoraria).

Add to these the Zephyr Institute, founded in 2014, which runs humanities-based programs in Silicon Valley. Add the Hertog Foundation’s humanities program, which since 2020 has conducted online seminars for mixed groups of undergraduates, graduate students, and young professionals. Add the reading groups and salons that have been proliferating both in-person and online. And many more initiatives, no doubt, that I have yet to learn of.

A number of factors play into this upsurge. One, of course, is the internet, as both a medium of study and a means to publicize offline opportunities. Another is the sense that academic humanities departments have long been inimical to humanistic inquiry—a major reason college students have felt cheated of it—as opposed to political tub-thumping. A former student who did an MFA in fiction at a major public university remarked that while the program’s writing instruction was only so-so, at least the workshops afforded the chance to really read, unlike what went on in what he called the institution’s “clownish” English department.

A third is less obvious. The long-term crisis in academic employment—the shift to adjunct labor, the glut of PhDs—has created a large pool of qualified instructors only loosely attached to, or entirely detached from, the academy. BISR’s faculty, almost all of whom have doctoral degrees, include not only adjuncts (and appointed professors), but book editors, full-time writers, a university librarian, an archaeologist, and a psychoanalyst-in-training. As Russell Jacoby has noted, the migration of intellectuals into universities in the decades after World War II, which he documented in The Last Intellectuals, has more recently reversed itself. The rise, or re-rise, of little magazines (Dissent, Commentary, Partisan Review then; n+1, The New Inquiry, The Point, The Drift, et al. now) is part of the same story. 

The Catherine Project’s faculty reflects a fourth factor. If there are students who despair at the condition of the humanities on campus, there are professors who do so as well. Many of her teachers, Hitz told me, have regular ladder appointments: “We draw academics—who attend our groups as well as leading them—because the life of the mind is dying or dead in conventional institutions.” Undergraduate teaching, she added, “is a particularly hard pull,” and the Catherine Project offers faculty the chance to teach people “who actually want to learn.”

And, I’d add, who can. Nine years ago, Stephen Greenblatt wrote: “Even the highly gifted students in my Shakespeare classes at Harvard are less likely to be touched by the subtle magic of his words than I was so many years ago or than my students were in the 1980s in Berkeley. … The problem is that their engagement with language … often seems surprisingly shallow or tepid.” By now, of course, the picture is far worse. Last year, in an article about the plunge in humanities enrollments, another Harvard English professor, Amanda Claybaugh, was quoted as follows: “The last time I taught The Scarlet Letter, I discovered that my students were really struggling to understand the sentences as sentences—like, having trouble identifying the subject and the verb.” And this is at Harvard. It’s no wonder faculty are thirsty for students with whom they can actually have a dialogue about the books they love.

I am involved in one of these off-campus ventures myself. My student Matthew, having spent many years searching for, then dreaming of, his ideal intellectual environment, decided to create it himself. It would marry rigorous group study of literary and philosophical texts with mindful living and abstention from technologies of communication. It would be a face-to-face community, a retreat from distraction, a school for adults. It would be small, self-governing, contemplative, and free of charge. He studied models: Deep Springs College, Plato’s Academy, Nietzsche’s experiences at Villa Rubinacci. He made copious notes. He outlined a set of principles. He purchased property in upstate New York.

But he did not live to see his plans take form. Matthew died last year, of cancer, at the age of 35, in the middle of his life’s way. But such was the beauty of his dream, and the love that he inspired, that some of us who knew him, led by his widow, Berta Willisch, determined to see it realized. Already this year, the Matthew Strother Center for the Examined Life is running three ten-day pilot programs for five participants each (plans are to expand to groups of ten and also offer longer sessions). The faculty include myself, Zena Hitz, and Len Nalencz, a friend of Matthew’s and a professor at the University of Mount Saint Vincent.

The response to the announcement of our pilot programs confirmed for me the existence of a large, unmet desire for text-based exploration, touching on the deepest questions, outside the confines of higher education. With limited publicity, a tight deadline, and a fairly demanding application process, we received nearly 160 submissions. Applicants ranged from graduating college seniors to people in their 70s. They included teachers, artists, scientists, and doctoral students from across the disciplines; a submarine officer, a rabbinical student, an accountant, and a venture capitalist; retirees, parents of small children, and twentysomethings at the crossroads. Forms came in from India, Jordan, Brazil, and nine other foreign countries. The applicants were, as a group, tremendously impressive. If it had been possible, we would have taken many more than fifteen.

When asked why they wanted to participate, a number of them spoke about the pathologies of formal education. “We have a really damaged relationship to learning,” said one. “It should be fun, not scary”—as in, you feel that you’re supposed to know the answer, which as a student, as she noted, makes no sense. “Study or attention,” said another, “has been lodged in an institution that has its own incentives,” like sorting for “merit.” “We need opportunities for reading and exploration that lie outside the credentialing system of the modern university,” he went on, because there’s so much in the latter that cuts against “the slow way that kind of learning unfolds.” A third, a dedicated autodidact who dropped out of a prestigious institution, used the architectural theorist Christopher Alexander’s notion of an “intimacy gradient” to describe his urge to enter into deeper contact with material than college courses typically allow. “For life’s significant questions,” he wrote, “like how one might choose to live, answers are to be found by moving along the gradient, not by ambling around the periphery.”

“How one might choose to live.” For many of our applicants—and this, of course, is what the program is about, what the humanities are about—learning has, or ought to have, an existential weight. Beneath their talk of education, of unplugging from technology, of having time for creativity and solitude, I detected a desire to be free of forces and agendas: the university’s agenda of “relevance,” the professoriate’s agenda of political mobilization, the market’s agenda of productivity, the internet’s agenda of surveillance and addiction. In short, the whole capitalistic algorithmic ideological hairball of coerced homogeneity. The desire is to not be recruited, to not be instrumentalized, to remain (or become) an individual, to resist regression toward the mean, or meme.

That is why it’s crucial that the Matthew Strother Center has no goal—and this is true of the Catherine Project and other off-campus humanities programs, as well—beyond the pursuit of learning for its own sake. Which means, for the sake of whatever students want to do with it, of whomever it might make them. This is freedom. When education isn’t pointed in particular directions, its possibilities are endless. After college, Matthew disappeared to Europe. I didn’t hear from him for five years. Finally, I got a letter—at some thirty pages, the longest I’ve ever received. It was a spiritual diary that doubled as a reading log. He referenced Joyce, Hesse, Bellow, Camus, Lawrence, Larkin, Miller, Maugham, Hemingway, Chesterton, Salinger, Durell, Ozick, Blake, Gorky, Chekhov, Geoff Dyer, Paul Goodman, Roberto Calasso, David Shields, Gregoire Bouillier, and George WS Trow. At the end, he wrote this: “The straight river of my narrative has opened onto the wide deltas of the present, and looking out to sea there’s nowhere to go but anywhere.” Exactly."]]></description>
<dc:subject>2024 colleges universities liberalarts academia reading howweread highered highereducation lcproject openstudioproject learning meaningmaking philosophy ivyleague elitism elites meritocracy interdisciplinary informal silos undergraduate bennington antiochcollege evergreenstatecollege hampshirecollege howwelearn slow attention internships steam stem literature history arthistory engagement matthewstrother brooklyninstituteforsocialresearch bisr jacqueslacan gillesdeleuze ericauerbach criticaltheory racialcapitalism catherineproject zenahitz catherinedoherty simplicity transparency greatbooks zephyrinstitute hertogfoundation humanities kierkegaard dante cervantes inquiry russelljacoby academics amandaclaybaugh thescarletletter nathanielhawthorne stephengreenblatt deepspringscollege platosacademy villarubinacci distraction lennalencz matthewstrothercenter formaleducation education ernesthemingway gkchesterton jdsalinger durell ozick williamblake gorky chekhov geoffdyer paulgoodman robertocalasso davidshields gre</dc:subject>
<dc:source>https://pinboard.in/</dc:source>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:e4d0a5816939/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:2024"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:colleges"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:universities"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:liberalarts"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:academia"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:reading"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:howweread"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:highered"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:highereducation"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:lcproject"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:openstudioproject"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:learning"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:meaningmaking"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:philosophy"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:ivyleague"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:elitism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:elites"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:meritocracy"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:interdisciplinary"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:informal"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:silos"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:undergraduate"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:bennington"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:antiochcollege"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:evergreenstatecollege"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:hampshirecollege"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:howwelearn"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:slow"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:attention"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:internships"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:steam"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:stem"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:literature"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:history"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:arthistory"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:engagement"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:matthewstrother"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:brooklyninstituteforsocialresearch"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:bisr"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:jacqueslacan"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:gillesdeleuze"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:ericauerbach"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:criticaltheory"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:racialcapitalism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:catherineproject"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:zenahitz"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:catherinedoherty"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:simplicity"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:transparency"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:greatbooks"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:zephyrinstitute"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:hertogfoundation"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:humanities"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:kierkegaard"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:dante"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:cervantes"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:inquiry"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:russelljacoby"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:academics"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:amandaclaybaugh"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:thescarletletter"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:nathanielhawthorne"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:stephengreenblatt"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:deepspringscollege"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:platosacademy"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:villarubinacci"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:distraction"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:lennalencz"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:matthewstrothercenter"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:formaleducation"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:education"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:ernesthemingway"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:gkchesterton"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:jdsalinger"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:durell"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:ozick"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:williamblake"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:gorky"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:chekhov"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:geoffdyer"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:paulgoodman"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:robertocalasso"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:davidshields"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:gre"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/books/review/nick-offerman-by-the-book.html">
    <title>Nick Offerman: By the Book - The New York Times</title>
    <dc:date>2023-08-15T05:02:53+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/books/review/nick-offerman-by-the-book.html</link>
    <dc:creator>robertogreco</dc:creator><description><![CDATA["If you had to name one book that made you who you are today, what would it be?

My best friends in college turned me on to lots of counterculture materials of which my childhood had been deprived. Among the writers were William S. Burroughs, Robert Anton Wilson, Margaret Atwood, Jim Thompson, Umberto Eco, Ken Kesey, Milan Kundera and plenty more. “Steal This Book,” by Abbie Hoffman; “The Anarchist Cookbook”; Henry Miller; Bukowski — all this stuff blew my small-town Illinois mind, but the book that really spoke to me like a personal set of instructions was “The Book of the SubGenius: The Sacred Teachings of J. R. ‘Bob’ Dobbs,” by J. R. Dobbs and Rev. Ivan Stang. This book is the bible of the Church of the SubGenius, a satirical religion that was started in Dallas in the late 1970s or early ’80s. As a young, aspiring artist seeking to free myself from the oppressive conservative (racist, homophobic, sexist) values in my small Midwestern town, the path of enlightenment became crystal clear when I read this hilarious and inspiring sendup of religion and capitalism. The church takes the greed and hypocrisy of American society quite strongly to task while celebrating those of us who are considered “weird” and outside the conformity practiced by the “normals.” Identifying with this tome certainly awakened my confidence to choose projects that appealed to my own gut rather than what I thought the population would like, choosing the Guinness stouts of the world over the Coca-Colas, as it were.

Whom would you want to write your life story?

Jeez. George Saunders springs to mind as a writer who is able to wring great humor, pathos and interest out of the seemingly mundane peccadilloes in the life of a human male with foibles galore. I dislike trying to write about George’s writing, because I can’t help but feel clumsy myself when I think of his work. His ability to satirize people while simultaneously hugging them with gentle sincerity would give me confidence. I think he would embarrass me by telling the justifiable truth, but with such élan that I would have to shrug and say, “It was worth it.” If anybody could pull it off, I believe Mr. Saunders would have the tools and talent necessary to render the woodshop traumas of sandpaper and spokeshave, the roller coaster dynamics of a character actor’s life in showbiz, and my relentless penchant for filling a room with noxious gases into a palatable narrative. George — if you’re reading this and you’re up for it — before you dive in, I would just like to say that I think you’re very handsome."]]></description>
<dc:subject>2016 nickofferman books booklists georgesaunders wendellberry ivanstang jrdobbs subgenius abbiehoffman umbertoeco kenkesey milankundera margaretatwood jimthompson williamsburroughs robertantonwilson henrymiller charlesbukowski cslewis madeleinel'engle eames chaleseames rayeames woodworking literature christopherschwartz davidpye edwardabbey nature wildlife outdoors making homesteading billbryson elizabethgilbert michaelpollan lianemoriarty jareddiamond paulahawkins sarahvowell donnatartt martinamis nickjones anniebaker robertaskins sharrwhite wallacestegner witoldrybczynski kentharuf cormacmccarthy patricko'brian robertshea georgemacdonaldfraser jrrtolkien</dc:subject>
<dc:source>https://pinboard.in/</dc:source>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:6971bed78b69/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:2016"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:nickofferman"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:books"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:booklists"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:georgesaunders"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:wendellberry"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:ivanstang"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:jrdobbs"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:subgenius"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:abbiehoffman"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:umbertoeco"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:kenkesey"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:milankundera"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:margaretatwood"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:jimthompson"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:williamsburroughs"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:robertantonwilson"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:henrymiller"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:charlesbukowski"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:cslewis"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:madeleinel'engle"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:eames"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:chaleseames"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:rayeames"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:woodworking"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:literature"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:christopherschwartz"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:davidpye"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:edwardabbey"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:nature"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:wildlife"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:outdoors"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:making"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:homesteading"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:billbryson"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:elizabethgilbert"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:michaelpollan"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:lianemoriarty"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:jareddiamond"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:paulahawkins"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:sarahvowell"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:donnatartt"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:martinamis"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:nickjones"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:anniebaker"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:robertaskins"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:sharrwhite"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:wallacestegner"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:witoldrybczynski"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:kentharuf"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:cormacmccarthy"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:patricko'brian"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:robertshea"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:georgemacdonaldfraser"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:jrrtolkien"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="https://vimeo.com/9010456">
    <title>Ursula K. Le Guin and Margaret Killjoy - Mythmakers &amp; Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers On Fiction on Vimeo</title>
    <dc:date>2021-10-23T15:18:19+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>https://vimeo.com/9010456</link>
    <dc:creator>robertogreco</dc:creator><dc:subject>ursulaleguin margaretkilljoy anarchism fiction writing howwewrite politics jamesjoyce alldoushuxley 2010 video storytelling mythmaking messiness peterkropotkin anarchy responsibility oscarwilde socialism freedom henrymiller unschooling deschooling anthonyburgess kurtvonnegut tolstoy kafka hgwells albertcamus camus history dambudzomarechera sergiusstepniak sergeistepniak stepniak sergeystepnyak-kravchinsky louisemichel sciencefiction speculativefiction libertarianism states utopia dystopia emotions sadness happiness joy individualism collectivism communism left leftists collectives napa napavalley california alwayscominghome land place canon statism sexism hierarchy horizontality justice socialjustice radicalism democracy gender literature fictions queer scifi thedispossessed normanspinrad society capitalism polyamory monogamy relationships patriarchy anti-authoritarianism vonnegut jrrtolkien ursulakleguin</dc:subject>
<dc:source>https://pinboard.in/</dc:source>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:3956ca50f8b4/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:ursulaleguin"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:margaretkilljoy"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:anarchism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:fiction"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:writing"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:howwewrite"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:politics"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:jamesjoyce"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:alldoushuxley"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:2010"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:video"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:storytelling"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:mythmaking"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:messiness"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:peterkropotkin"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:anarchy"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:responsibility"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:oscarwilde"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:socialism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:freedom"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:henrymiller"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:unschooling"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:deschooling"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:anthonyburgess"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:kurtvonnegut"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:tolstoy"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:kafka"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:hgwells"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:albertcamus"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:camus"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:history"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:dambudzomarechera"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:sergiusstepniak"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:sergeistepniak"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:stepniak"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:sergeystepnyak-kravchinsky"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:louisemichel"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:sciencefiction"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:speculativefiction"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:libertarianism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:states"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:utopia"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:dystopia"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:emotions"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:sadness"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:happiness"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:joy"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:individualism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:collectivism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:communism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:left"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:leftists"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:collectives"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:napa"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:napavalley"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:california"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:alwayscominghome"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:land"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:place"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:canon"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:statism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:sexism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:hierarchy"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:horizontality"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:justice"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:socialjustice"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:radicalism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:democracy"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:gender"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:literature"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:fictions"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:queer"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:scifi"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:thedispossessed"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:normanspinrad"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:society"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:capitalism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:polyamory"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:monogamy"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:relationships"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:patriarchy"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:anti-authoritarianism"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:vonnegut"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:jrrtolkien"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:ursulakleguin"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://randallszott.org/2016/02/05/art-is-a-petty-conception/">
    <title>Art is a petty conception | Lebenskünstler</title>
    <dc:date>2016-02-29T07:53:05+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://randallszott.org/2016/02/05/art-is-a-petty-conception/</link>
    <dc:creator>robertogreco</dc:creator><description><![CDATA["Myself I cannot see the persistence of the artist type. I see no need for the individual man of genius in such an order. I see no need for martyrs. I see no need for vicarious atonement. I see no need for the fierce preservation of beauty on the part of a few. Beauty and Truth do not need defenders, nor even expounders. No one will ever have a lien on Beauty and Truth; they are creations in which all participate. They need only to be apprehended; they exist externally. Certainly, when we think of the conflicts and schisms which occur in the realm of art, we know that they do not proceed out of love of Beauty or Truth. Ego worship is the one and only cause of dissension, in art as in other realms. The artist is never defending art, but simply his own petty conception of art. Art is as deep and high and wide as the universe. There is nothing but art, if you look at it properly. It is almost banal to say so yet it needs to be stressed continually: all is creation, all is change, all is flux, all is metamorphosis."

– Henry Miller]]></description>
<dc:subject>art artists beauty truth randallszott henrymiller unart</dc:subject>
<dc:source>https://pinboard.in/</dc:source>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:31cd498c4d2c/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:art"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:artists"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:beauty"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:truth"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:randallszott"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:henrymiller"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:unart"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://biblioklept.org/2013/05/25/i-bristle-at-the-idea-that-the-only-thing-susan-sontag-or-david-foster-wallace-had-to-offer-is-advice-for-me/">
    <title>“I bristle at the idea that the only thing Susan Sontag or David Foster Wallace had to offer is advice for me.” | biblioklept</title>
    <dc:date>2013-07-03T23:08:31+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://biblioklept.org/2013/05/25/i-bristle-at-the-idea-that-the-only-thing-susan-sontag-or-david-foster-wallace-had-to-offer-is-advice-for-me/</link>
    <dc:creator>robertogreco</dc:creator><description><![CDATA["“I bristle at the idea that the only thing Susan Sontag or David Foster Wallace had to offer is advice for me.”
BY BIBLIOKLEPT

"If I had first encountered Anaïs Nin by reading a quote of hers about love or dreams or fulfilling your potential or massaging your inner child superimposed on an insufferably twee image, I would never have picked up her wonderful remarkably-transgressive books. Perhaps this shows the shortsightedness of my own prejudices but it’s still not a fair or substantial representation of her work. What I want when I encounter Anaïs Nin is Anaïs Nin, not a therapist or a motivational speaker. The same goes for Susan Sontag or Henry Miller or David Foster Wallace or any of the other incandescently brilliant writers whose writing has recently been cherry-picked and repackaged as glorified self-help tracts. The quotes are certainly theirs, being culled from diaries, journals, speeches and interviews (with the double meaning of culled being entirely apt). The sentiments may well be true. Yet it seems to me duplicitous because the quotes have been carefully selected to fit a pre-existing agenda – us. I am a ludicrously solipsistic and selfish person but even I bristle at the idea that the only thing Susan Sontag or David Foster Wallace had to offer is advice for me. At the risk of impertinence, if I chance upon someone using the currently virulent “there is actually no such thing as atheism” quote by Foster Wallace out of context to bash atheists (ignoring its implicit ‘worship God precisely because He is so ineffectual He can’t harm you’ angle) with no further interest in his writing or life, I’m going to nail a copy of Infinite Jest to their collective forehead."

—From an essay that had me enthusiastically mumbling yes the whole way, “Albert Camus and the ventriloquists” by Darran Anderson. Read it."]]></description>
<dc:subject>davidfosterwallace susansontag advice anaïsnin infinitejest henrymiller albertcamus darrananderson via:selinjessa camus anaisnin</dc:subject>
<dc:source>https://pinboard.in/</dc:source>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:dbfbbd175d7f/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:davidfosterwallace"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:susansontag"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:advice"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:anaïsnin"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:infinitejest"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:henrymiller"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:albertcamus"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:darrananderson"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:via:selinjessa"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:camus"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:anaisnin"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
<item rdf:about="http://www.listsofnote.com/2012/01/henry-millers-11-commandments.html">
    <title>Lists of Note: Henry Miller's 11 Commandments</title>
    <dc:date>2012-02-13T06:41:00+00:00</dc:date>
    <link>http://www.listsofnote.com/2012/01/henry-millers-11-commandments.html</link>
    <dc:creator>robertogreco</dc:creator><description><![CDATA["COMMANDMENTS

1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to "Black Spring."
3. Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
5. When you can't create you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
8. Don't be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
9. Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards."

[via @robinsloan: "1, 3, 7, 9, & 10 on Henry Miller's list here are so simple & powerful, & not just for writers:" http://twitter.com/robinsloan/status/168794527241482240 ]
]]></description>
<dc:subject>purpose concentration focus attention making writing glvo henrymiller</dc:subject>
<dc:identifier>https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:dad7929e12f9/</dc:identifier>
<taxo:topics><rdf:Bag>	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:purpose"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:concentration"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:focus"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:attention"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:making"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:writing"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:glvo"/>
	<rdf:li rdf:resource="https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/t:henrymiller"/>
</rdf:Bag></taxo:topics>
</item>
</rdf:RDF>