Pinboard (robertogreco) https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/public/ recent bookmarks from robertogreco Mar de Dudas: Conversaciones para navegar el desconcierto con Carlos Bravo Regidor • The Ideas Letter Podcast: A project of the Open Society Foundations 2026-06-25T23:54:55+00:00 https://open.spotify.com/episode/1s4lZhoC8mA8mFYsp7L3ea robertogreco carlosbravoregidor 2026 2016 donaldtrump liberalism neoliberalism gatopardo mardedudas francisfukuyama nadiaurbinati danielinnerarity federicofinchelstein pablostefanoni rafaelrojas margaretmacmillan ivankrastev sofiarosenfeld rebeccasolnit lauragamboa marioarriagada endofhistory doubt intelligence 1990s paxamericana brasil brazil argentina elsalvador brankomilanović inequality mexico nafta democracy liberaldemocracy representation redistribution politics economics economy governance commonsense 2025 2020 2021 transparency perú chile spain españa italia italy silvioberlusconi hillaryclinton technocracy eattherich wealth populism culture culturalcapital eu europe elitism latinamerica javiermilei chavismo peronism peronismo right farright rightwing left posttruth socialmedia joséortegaygasset capitalism freetrade cristinakirchner albertofernández marinelepen giorgiameloni welfarestate libertarianism ideology friedrichhayek friedrichvonhayek jairbolsonaro nayibbukele https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:3ba467233a0a/ A Deeper Sense of Place is Like an Anchor in Turbulent Times | David Griesing | Work Life Reward Author | Philadelphia 2026-04-11T06:30:21+00:00 http://davidgriesing.com/2022/06/13/a-deeper-sense-of-place-is-like-an-anchor-in-turbulent-times/ robertogrecodavidgriesing rebeccasolnit 2022 wayfinding place orientation nature senses sensing memory richardpowers multispecies morethanhuman philadelphia animals whales humpbackwhales mro'connor indigeneity indigenous jamesgibson space time humans human navigation arctic aboriginal aboriginies australia technology gps brain cogntion maps mapping https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:b053ffc81b5d/ Thoreau’s laundry - Austin Kleon 2026-04-09T21:06:56+00:00 https://austinkleon.com/2019/08/30/thoreaus-laundry/ robertogreco“No other male American writer has been so discredited for enjoying a meal with loved ones or for not doing his own laundry.“ —Laura Dassow Walls, Henry David Thoreau: A Life “Thoreau” was trending on Twitter yesterday, not because anyone was actually reading him or grappling with his ideas, but because his “mom did his laundry” and “brought him sandwiches” at Walden. There have been many takedowns of Thoreau and many defenses of him. (I recommend this essay and Laura Walls’ wonderful bio.) But “over the question of the laundry,” Rebecca Solnit wrote an attempt to “exonerate” him in 2013. (The essay, much like this blog post, was provoked by getting mad at something someone said on social media. It was published in Orion under the title “Mysteries of Thoreau, Unsolved.” Poke around a little online and you’ll find it. It’s funny and good.) The essay begins:
There is one writer in all literature whose laundry arrangements have been excoriated again and again, and it is not Virginia Woolf, who almost certainly never did her own washing, or James Baldwin, or the rest of the global pantheon. The laundry of the poets remains a closed topic, from the tubercular John Keats (blood-spotted handkerchiefs) to Pablo Neruda (lots of rumpled sheets). Only Henry David Thoreau has been tried in the popular imagination and found wanting for his cleaning arrangements, though the true nature of those arrangements are not so clear.
She goes on to list “a long parade of people who pretended to care who did Thoreau’s laundry as a way of not having to care about Thoreau,” even though it is unclear, even amongst Thoreau scholars, who actually did do Thoreau’s laundry.
Do we care who did the chores in any other creative household on earth? Did Dante ever take out the slops? Do we love housework that much? Or do we hate it that much? This fixation on the laundry is related to the larger question of whether artists should be good people as well as good artists, and probably the short answer is that everyone should be a good person, but a lot of artists were only good artists (and quite a lot more were only bad artists). Whether or not they were good people, the good artists gave us something.
“None of us is pure,” she writes, “and purity is a dreary pursuit best left to Puritans.” Solnit points out that unlike other lit’ry men looking for a woman to look after them, Thoreau never married and “did little to make work for women.” In fact, though we obsess over his two years at Walden, Thoreau was an integral part of his household throughout his life, both supporting his family and gaining support from them. (Which is, you know, the whole damned point of a family.) It’s also the case that the abolitionist women in Thoreau’s life did a whole lot of influencing on him. “The Thoreau women took in the filthy laundry of the whole nation, stained with slavery, and pressured Thoreau and Emerson to hang it out in public, as they obediently did.” “This,” Solnit writes, “is the washing that really mattered.”"]]> 2019 thoreau austinkleon families laundry rebeccasolnit domesticlife domesticity lauradassowwalls purity ralphwaldoemerson https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:1f3e536c7a4a/ Place, Personhood, and the Hippocampus: The Fascinating Science of Magnetism, Autonoeic Consciousness, and What Makes Us Who We Are – The Marginalian 2026-03-24T19:54:17+00:00 https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/03/21/wayfinding-m-r-oconnor/ robertogreco via:javierarbona 2026 mariapopova wayfinding mro'connor place books magnetism senses consciousness identity personhood space selfhood science rebeccasolnit navigation clocks biology nature time animals multispecies morethanhuman migration timekeeping nonhuman birds insects human humans memory experience perception sleep brain hippocampus véroniquebohbot neurology being waysofbeing topophilia spatial canon indigenous indigeneity waysofsensing sensing land location knowledge neuroscience bodies embodiment language https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:8f4a83acebe5/ Rebecca Solnit Says Trump's Strongest Foil Has Been Here All Along | The Interview - YouTube 2026-03-09T19:15:32+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOJ_uaffG5s robertogreco rebeccasolnit davidmarchese 2026 donaldtrump resistance change democracy news media power feminism civilsociety society buddha buddhismn thichnhathanh sangha cheguevara care caring caregiving war community collectivism collective queer environment us cleanenergy climate climatechange globalwarming sustainability couternarratives narrative racism homophobia humanrights minneapolis mutualaid politeness truth progressive progressivism eadweardmuybridge climatecrisis storytelling whitesupremacy misogyny zohranmamdani gavinnewsom algore hillaryclinton joebiden kamalaharris politics elections 2028 2024 https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:8b1947624b36/ What technology takes from us – and how to take it back | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian 2026-02-08T07:56:42+00:00 https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/29/what-technology-takes-from-us-and-how-to-take-it-back robertogreco 2026 rebeccasolnit technology society externalities privacy attention communication ai artificialintelligence mentalhealth luddism neoluddism luddites neoluddites gathering connection disconnecting socialmedia internet web online efficiency productivity profits convenience friction slow democracy withdrawal discord human humanism karenhao love sherryturkle sociology psychology well-being wellbeing cluely meta google googleglass chatgpt openai edmondrostand cyranodebergerac relationships conviviality siliconvalley corporations corporatism tyranny embodiment social mollycrockett dalailama activism spirituality humans humanity capitalism togetherness carissavéliz ethics therapy maytaleyal loneliness consciousness deeptime scale nature dehumanization resistance eveyday https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:f76dae03ff20/ By All Measures - Longreads 2026-01-16T08:45:51+00:00 https://longreads.com/2026/01/13/scale-climate-doomsday-clock/ robertogreco scake scaling 2026 brcohen human zoomininandout life living time geology geologictime paulcrutzen hopelessness significance marciabjornerud anthropocene climate climatechange globalwarming humans robertsocolow doomsdayclock vastness proximity psychology peteseeger mariosavio johnmcphee edwardabbey plaestocene holocene stephenpacala algore environment climatepolicy policy measurement manhattanproject vietnamwar vietnam albertschweitzer augustine staugustine saintaugustine timothyclark escalation small slow tolstoy finitude infinity god camus albertcamus christianity theology sisyphus apollo8 williamanders earthrise earth environmentalism perspective clocks vulnerability rebeccasolnit place belonging derrangement einstein josephhenry emilydickinson anxiety emotions nikitakhrushchev https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:da7830b7fa3c/ Memories of overdevelopment 2025-12-23T05:52:11+00:00 https://sf.gazetteer.co/memories-of-overdevelopment robertogreco sanfrancisco 2025 rebeccasolnit susanschwartzenberg maxblue 1998 2010 2000 urbanism inequality place gentrification larryrinder tourism altmansiegel renabransten 2019 alphabet google meta facebook salesforce openai burningman sfai hollowcity blackpantherparty blackpanthers counterculture culture https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:9b58ddf118d6/ Fighting San Francisco's Manhattanization with Tim Redmond - YouTube 2025-10-08T20:56:00+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHMGb-dLfOU&t=1s robertogreco sanfrancisco timredomnd joelengardio daniellurie doomloop doomloopdispatch crime 2025 yimby yimbyism yimbys nimby nimbyism transit publictransit infrastructure housing scottwiener recalls politics policy displacement rentcontrol media urbanurbanism urbanplannign denisty elections inequality taxes taxation eisenhower richardnixon history dwightdeisenhower construction profit profits marhetrateghousing vancouver britishcolumbia zoning aiboom aibubble artificialintelligence ai affordability opeanai chatgpt kevinjones dscotmiller salesforce speculation displacment ronaldreagan homelessness homeless gentrification socialsafetynet sros redevelopment neoliberalism economics california us publichousing 1960s developers housingcrisis affrodability nyc latecapitalism latestagecapitalism billclinton joebiden barackobama race racism reaganism irs data coyotemedia soleilho planning vienna socialhousing donaldtrump taxrate stockholm cities finance socialism universityofcalifornia wealth socialservices publicgood productivi https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:cef0764ac7f4/ We want the document of ourselves - by M.G. Tucker 2025-10-01T02:47:36+00:00 https://miscellanea.substack.com/p/we-want-the-document-of-ourselves robertogreco mgtucker photography solipsism documentation 2025 cameras smartphones selfies selfiecameras fonrtfacingcameras individualism collectivism kareemrahma subwaytakes rebeccasolnit disaster mutualaid mediabubbles socialmedia community superficiality memory self https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:54f626bb075d/ Tracing the World: On Radhika Subramaniam’s Footprint – walk · listen · create 2025-09-30T20:24:31+00:00 https://walklistencreate.org/2025/09/11/tracing-the-world-on-radhika-subramaniams-footprint/ robertogreco radhikasubramaniam babakfakhamzadeh 2025 walking history metaphor footprints politics alinear non-linear markleakey colonialism imperialism resistance memory ecology precarity lucylippard rebeccasolnit guydebord occupation capture extraction ethics care impact himalayas arnhemland monuments sidewalks paintings cartography maps mapping surveying tracking greed curiosity suppression lightness persistence mobility via:javierarbona nonlinear linearity https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:a3ecaed29000/ Non-State Societies and Deleuze and Guattari: A Discussion of 'Edges of the State' - YouTube 2025-09-20T14:18:16+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AET_NJJxCQ robertogreco acidhorizon 2021 johnprotevi perreclastres deleuze jamescscott anthropology state states felixguattari ideology anarchism anarchy foragers debt hunter-gatherers neoliberalism capitalism relationships competition contracts obligation transaction nietzsche society socialorder money melindacooper familyvalues families lisaadkins disasters haiti communityaction rebeccasolnit hurricanekatrina katrina thomashobbes socialbonding war egalitarianism individualism looting russelhonoré jasonstanley saraahmed davidgraeber selfishness behavior mutualaid power joy fascism fascists empowerment despotism elonmusk donaldtrump hobbes gillesdeleuze deleuze&guattari https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:6cc9b7b75a5d/ In Search of Distraction | The Poetry Foundation 2025-09-19T16:53:02+00:00 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/144656/in-search-of-distraction robertogreco 2017 matthewbevis distraction digressions daydreaming rebeccasolnit johnbeck thomasdavenport add adhd saulbellow thomasdequincey attention dianearbus creativity laurencesterne diderot society culture johnashbery gertrudestein maxnordau thoreau jeancocteau mariannemoore poetry peterstitt hamlet shakespeare janefreilicher jameslorenbach rbkitaj theodordreyer walterbenjamin film art richardhoward donaldwinnicott proust marcelproust paulnorth elizabethbishop kennethkoch thomashardy jamesschuyler looking seeing joriegraham henrimichaux rolandbarthes henrywordsworth denisdiderot https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:cd4515224aff/ I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025-08-29T19:16:46+00:00 https://2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/i-know-what-you-did-last-summer/ robertogrecoAl is the best learning technology invented to date, and I'm excited to see innovators like Alpha School co-founder MacKenzie Price leveraging it to reimagine K-12 education. Spoiler alert: That doesn't mean replacing teachers, but it does involve redefining their roles. If you haven't heard about MacKenzie's network of Al-powered K-12 private schools-or if you have but want to hear her respond to common criticisms-I'd encourage you to check out this week's Possible. You'll also hear from Alex Mathew, a high school senior from Austin, TX, about his experience at Alpha, where students learn core academic subjects through a personalized learning platform for two hours every morning, and then spend the rest of the day focused on passion projects and life skills. Alpha plans to open a dozen new schools across the U.S. this fall, and I believe there's a lot we can learn from what MacKenzie is doing. Curious to hear what you think in the comments.] *** Today marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. If you were to tell the story of the end of public education in the US, you might start here – I think I would. Start with the subsequent takeover of the New Orleans public school system by charter school operators and the jubilance with which this was enacted (and is still talked about today). The dismantling of democratically-controlled institutions – this didn't begin with Trump. The storm was the best thing that had happened to the education system in the city, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan would later pronounce, lauding the opportunities that "disaster capitalism" afforded. Almost 2000 people died in the storm, and education reformers like Duncan crowed because they could take leverage the tragedy and pursue their anti-union mission – "shock doctrine," as Naomi Klein put it. And plenty of folks are still cheering – in The Washington Post this week, we are told this was "a schools revolution unmatched anywhere for its radicalism and scale." [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/08/28/new-orleans-schools-hurricane-katrina/ ] The firing of New Orleans' educators also marked "one of the largest displacements of Black educators since Brown v. Board of Education." [https://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/default+domain/FC7C33GCVUNV5NRD9XXM/full ] The unemployment rate for Black women was 9.1% post-Katrina [https://www.npr.org/2005/12/20/5062687/katrinas-effect-on-jobs-for-black-women?ref=2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com ], incidentally. And with the firing of federal workers under Trump, unemployment for Black women has skyrocketed once again [https://19thnews.org/2025/07/black-women-unemployment-jobs-warning-sign/ ]. It's a bad signal for the economy, so we're told. But all this is a bad signal for democracy. The end of public schools. The end of democracy. They are intertwined. *** People love to tell the story about the end of B. F. Skinner, thaT behaviorism were defeated – chased out of the field of psychology, erased from scientific relevance, made a mockery, rejected, forgotten, whatever – when Noam Chomsky wrote a very mean book review [https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1971/12/30/the-case-against-bf-skinner/ ] of Beyond Freedom and Dignity. (In some versions of the story, it was an earlier book review, in which Chomsky lambasted Verbal Behavior, that set all this scorn in motion.) It's a weird story. I don't buy it, in part because I just don't believe that a book review (or Noam Chomsky, bless his heart) wields that much cultural power. But mostly I don't buy it because behaviorism is still absolutely fucking everywhere, despite all the talk of a "cognitive turn." And while the promoters of "AI" like to talk about themselves as creating machines that mimic the mind – something that Skinner would surely laugh himself – these technologists are utterly beholden to behaviorism, to conditioning, to reinforcement learning. In MIT Technology Review, Ben Crair makes the case for "Why we should thank pigeons for our AI breakthroughs." [https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/08/18/1121370/ai-pigeons-reinforcement-learning/ ] Poor birds. It's not their fault. *** I wrote a little bit in Wednesday's newsletter [https://2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/back-to-school-obligatory/ ] about the fallout from the underwhelming launch of ChatGPT5 – about a small shift (maybe) towards more skepticism about "AI," about how we'll see "AI" evangelists start to sell their services with slightly different messaging. But I think I'll leave the gloating and "I told you so" to Gary Marcus [https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/gpt-5-overdue-overhyped-and-underwhelming ], mostly because the harms from all this hype are ongoing, regardless of any proposed guardrails or policies or frameworks. Kashmir Hill's story in The New York Times this week – "A Teen Was Suicidal. ChatGPT Was the Friend He Confided In" [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/technology/chatgpt-openai-suicide.html ] – is a case in point. And the story is probably one of the most upsetting things I've read in a while. And I read about this stuff for an living. Adam Raine had started using ChatGPT for homework help; the technology offered him explicit guidance on how to take his life. [screenshot: "From the wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Raine's parents" https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26075676-raine-v-openai/ ] "Best learning technology invented to date," says one of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley. He's wrong. But it is, perhaps, the culmination of decades of behaviorial engineering and surveillance capitalism [https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/a-500-billion-tech-companys-core ], the latest technology designed to capture and hold our attention – to nudge us and to monitor us and to hook us. What are we doing?! What are we doing to children?! [all links] Professors, professing: "Reclaiming Conversation in the Age of AI" [https://www.afterbabel.com/p/reclaiming-conversation-age-of-ai ]by Sherry Turkle. "Human Literacy" by Eryk Salvaggio. "Shifting My Thinking about AI in the Classroom" [https://theimportantwork.substack.com/p/shifting-my-thinking-about-ai-in ] by Michael Burns. "Yes, It Is Our Job As Professors To Stop Our Students Using ChatGPT" [https://katemanne.substack.com/p/yes-it-is-our-job-as-professors-to ] by Kate Manne. "Why We're Not Using AI in This Course, Despite Its Obvious Benefits" [https://emergingethics.substack.com/p/why-were-not-using-ai-in-this-course ] by Patrick Lin. "What Happened When I Tried to Replace Myself with ChatGPT in My English Classroom" [https://lithub.com/what-happened-when-i-tried-to-replace-myself-with-chatgpt-in-my-english-classroom/ ] by Piers Gelly. "College Students Have Already Changed Forever" [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/08/ai-college-class-of-2026/683901/ ] by Ian Bogost. "Students Hate Them. Universities Need Them. The Only Real Solution to the A.I. Cheating Crisis" [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/opinion/culture/ai-chatgpt-college-cheating-medieval.html ] is the blue book, says Clay Shirky. I'm only a chapter or so into R. F. Kuang's new novel Katabasis – two grad students travel to Hell to rescue their dissertation advisor – but damn, I can't help but quote her here:
Success in this field demanded a forceful, single-minded capacity for self-delusion.
Elsewhere on campus: "This Is the Group That's Been Swatting US Universities," [https://www.wired.com/story/purgatory-gores-swatting-us-universities/ ] says Wired. "Inside the Rise of OnlyFans on College Campuses," [https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a65529930/onlyfans-college-side-hustle-trend-explained-interview-2025/ ] from Town and Country Magazine. Anthropic has released a report [https://www.anthropic.com/news/anthropic-education-report-how-educators-use-claude ] on how it says educators are using Claude, and the data will not surprise you. The New York Post boasts this "exclusive": "First lady Melania Trump will head effort to teach next generation about AI." Perfect. Honestly perfect. No notes. *** "I am an AI Hater," [https://anthonymoser.github.io/writing/ai/haterdom/2025/08/26/i-am-an-ai-hater.html ] writes Anthony Moser, "and I will not be polite. The machine is disgusting and we should break it. The people who build it are vapid shit-eating cannibals glorifying ignorance. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself." And from Ed Zitron, ever prolix: "How to Argue with an AI Booster." [https://www.wheresyoured.at/how-to-argue-with-an-ai-booster/ ] [screenshot of Stefan Edward Jones post: "1997. I-Con SF convention on the SUNY Stony Brook campus. We put Vernor Vinge and grey eminence of SF Frederik Pohl on a panel about the Singularity. Before it started, Pohl asked "What is hell is the Singularity?" I filled him in. Right there, in front of Vinge: "What a load of crap. Here's what's going to happen. We're going to burn through our resources, ruin the environment, civilization will collapse, and the survivors will despise us.""] And finally, Rebecca Solnit on "Circuses vs. Roses: Notes on Pleasure and Scold Culture." [https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/circuses-vs-roses-notes-on-pleasure-and-scold-culture/ ] That is to say, you can be absolutely enraged about the world, and you can be actively engaged in the struggle for human rights and climate justice, and you can spend some time looking at the pretty photos Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift posted to announce their engagement.
I have no strong feelings about these very wealthy and successful young people, but I do have strong feelings about people who tell us that flowers are bourgeois and we can't take pleasure in what we take pleasure in. Yes we can. And, I think, we must. As one of my favorite gospel songs puts it, "I won't let nobody steal my joy."
"]]> audreywatters 2025 education schools schooling publicschools highered highereducation colleges universities academia ai artificialintelligence writing howwewrite teaching howweteach pedagogy rebeccasolnit edzitron rfkuang eryksalvaggio sherryturkle michaelburns katemanne patricklin chatgpt openai clayshirky ianbogost stefanedwardjones vernorvinge frederikpohl anthonymoser melaniatrump adamraine kashmirhill mentalhealth bencrair bfskinner behaviorism behavior noamchomsky katrina neworleans nola charterschools race racism donaldtrump maga rocketship altschool microschools reidhoffman technology edtech miltonfriedman markets economics jenniferberkeshire vouchers privatization juliablack hurricanekatrina https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:a6fa8ff09410/ Rebecca Solnit, Stories of the Imperceptible - YouTube 2025-06-12T19:23:53+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdaPLIxtMBM robertogreco rebeccasolnit 2025 eudaldespluga urgency violence vulnerability rights climatecrisis climatechange climate globalwarming slowness patience resistance silence change https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:4fcff3ce1b82/ in defense of san francisco's art scene - by Celine Nguyen 2025-05-14T15:31:22+00:00 https://www.personalcanon.com/p/in-defense-of-san-franciscos-art robertogrecocelinenguyen sanfrancisco 2025 culture history siliconvalley arts art edlee housing counterculture citylights tenantsrights rebeccasolnit jennyodell wendyliu ilwu angeladavis georgefloyd blacklivesmatter labor workers class classism institutions organizations safety perception us nyc london comparison homelessness homeless rightwing farright law legal chesaboudin mattocko boblee elonmusk crime criminalization downtown marketstreet soma tenderloin midmarket nathanhller whitecollarcrime sambankman-fried lawlessness pemoslowitz interner web online fooddelivery doordash ubereats socialmedia internet isolation food restaurants society social mindyseu victoriashen evicshen sfartbookfair thirdspaces socialisolation community participation participatory music film design georgefloydprotests georgefloyduprising vc venturacapital venturecapital https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:243dc1ed86cc/ The Art of Walking - JSTOR Daily 2025-03-26T19:50:15+00:00 https://daily.jstor.org/the-art-of-walking/ robertogreco walking art 2018 allisonmeier richardlong 1970s 1960s vitoacconci teresamurak bodies rebeccasolnit carmenpapalia roberleybell 2015 2017 1974 1967 baronhaussmann janetcardiff davidpinder 1999 cities urban urbanism psychogeography situationist andreaphillips nancyforgione https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:9eba9aa45521/ White Feminists Explain Things To Me, Part 1 2025-02-12T01:56:21+00:00 https://marincountyconfidential.substack.com/p/white-feminists-explain-things-to robertogreco rebeccasolnit 2024 palestine israel genocide ethniccleansing liberalism left marincounty whitefeminism feminism bertacaceres zionism settlercolonialism colonialism colonization occupation palestineexception evachrysanthe yippies solidarity theohenderson mikedavis jonwiener 2020s losangeles homeless homelessness elizabethcadystanton fayedudden whitesupremacy frederickdouglass clayfelker gloriasteinem cia bettyfriedan henrykissinger stanleypottinger richardnixon metoo mlk martinlutherkingjr fbi hillaryclinton 2016 elections middleeast latinamerica narendramodi ukraine russia manuelzelaya honduras #metoo marin https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:4cbd9f72ec75/ A life project, a simple conversation - by Alexis Madrigal 2025-01-02T05:15:08+00:00 https://oaklandgardenclub.substack.com/p/a-life-project-a-simple-conversation robertogreco alexismadrigal identity time origins howwethink thinking writing howwewrite hometowns childhood choldren adolescence youth bayarea age aging self personhood humanism humanity grace connection interestedness interested oliverburkeman relationships environment place michaellevin selflets gabrielcortez rebeccasolnit adalimón ta-nehisicoates mirandahuly mimitempestt richardpowers jennyodell valeriejune sclae cognition cognitivescience technology genotypes phenotypes machinelearning artificialintelligence ai mutations experience mtdiablo mountdiablo oakland fortmason georgesaunders rossgay pacificcircuit https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:4001b0abce6c/ against the dark forest 2024-11-22T17:34:07+00:00 https://www.wrecka.ge/against-the-dark-forest/ robertogreco erinkissane 2024 contextcollapse internet web online socialmedia liucixin yanceystrickler maggieappleton technology commons threebodyproblem darkforesttheory 2019 fermiparadox snapchat wechat instagram slack 2016 darkforest ervinggoffman joshuameyrowitz danahboyd place venkateshrao cozyweb 2020 facebook sophizhang myanmar us canada europe franceshaugen moderation 2018 tiktok 2021 mediamatters media platforms predators twitter truth networking networks social socialinternet civilization 2022 mikedavis loisbeckett love rebeccasolnit care caring collectivism nathanschneider governance infrastructure norms local collaboration forests yi-futuan https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:ec763e926766/ Dendrochronology – Robert Moor 2024-11-18T05:39:59+00:00 https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/dendrochronology/ robertogreco robertmoor 2024 trees temporality senses allthesenses haida walking forests presence time slow geraldvizenor jacquesderrida indigeneity indigenous joeweir memory morethanhuman multispecies vladimirnabokov johnvalliant cliffcrego conservation nature rebeccasolnit https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:d31b59620da2/ Tim Barker, Dealignment — Sidecar 2024-11-14T04:41:57+00:00 https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/dealignment robertogrecois currently near perfect. As we navigate the hardest political moment for dems in my lifetime, just a PSA to not forget that this Administration has delivered a new brand of economics. It is working wonders, and whatever happens, it shouldn’t go anywhere. At that point, ‘whatever happens’ referred to the question of whether Biden would be replaced by Harris. The words now have a more ultimate meaning, as two-thirds of voters told exit pollsters that the economy was ‘not good’ or ‘poor’, and voters who prioritized the economy broke overwhelmingly for Trump. In the aftermath of the election, Bernie Sanders noted that ‘It should come as no surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them’. Others denied that the Democrats had abandoned the working class, but agreed that the working class had abandoned the party, either because they positively desired fascism or, more charitably, because they had been subject to misinformation about the state of the economy. I don’t think it is possible to say with confidence that Harris lost because of the economy, much less that she or another Democrat could have won with different economic rhetoric. But it is simply not serious to claim that workers who rejected Harris were ignoring objective economic reality. As Biden’s own outgoing Council of Economic Advisers observed last month, ‘workers’ share of national income took a hit during the pandemic inflation’, with the result that the labour share – ‘an important indicator of how the economic pie is divided’ – was lower in 2024 than it had been under Trump. Perhaps the safest thing to say is that the working class, as a class, didn’t do anything. The vote is evidence of dealignment, not realignment: voters below $100,000 split basically down the middle. What has been the elite counterpart to the dealignment of working-class votes? Harris won voters with household incomes over $100,000, but that is a fairly large group equivalent to more than one-third of households. She prevailed by similar margins among those making over $200,000, a more select group equivalent to just over 10% of all households. This group is also roughly equivalent to the 10% of American households which own 93% of the stock market, which has been the clearest winner in the Biden boom. This same top decile, according to a study by Thomas Ferguson and Servaas Storm, captured 59% of the overall increase in household wealth created since 2019. In turn, this wealth explosion set the pattern for a highly inegalitarian consumption boom, with the top 10% of US households accounting for 36.6% of the overall increase in consumption between 2020 and 2023. If you add in the next richest decile, the top 20% of households accounted for over half of the increase. The distinctive Marxist position has been that class is a relationship, not an income percentile, much less the possession of a diploma. In this connection, it is relevant that Trump received the support of important sections of American capital, whose concerns have less to do with how much money they have (too much to count, no matter which party rules) and more to do with power and prerogative. Over the summer, the New York Times reported that ‘Nonunionized construction companies are furious about rules requiring agreements between contractors and unions on large federal projects’. The cryptocurrency lobby, working on behalf of an ‘industry’ whose very existence requires friendly politicians, spent nearly as much on federal elections in 2024 as all other corporate interests combined. More generally, some meaningful fraction of Silicon Valley has decided that the ‘techlash’ has gone far enough. These forces are more publicly associated with Trump, but they are well represented within the Democratic Party by figures such as David Shor, the pollster who once said that ‘it was smart for Obama to try to ingratiate himself to the tech sector . . . and Democrats have made an enormous error by backtracking’. According to the NYT, the Harris campaign gave Shor’s consulting firm, Blue Rose Research, ‘agenda-setting power’ over a $700 million budget, much of it raised from tech. Most crypto money went to Republicans, but enough went to Democrats to get Chuck Schumer to proclaim at a ‘Crypto4Harris’ event that ‘Crypto is here to stay no matter what . . . we all believe in the future of crypto’. For most of society, class dealignment means polarization. But at the commanding heights of the economy, those with enough money to hedge their bets set themselves up to succeed in any eventuality. That said, neither option is, from the standpoint of capital, ideal. Over the summer, the Business Roundtable (composed of 200 executives from large corporations) met with both campaigns. Trump told the group that ‘he would like to cut the corporate tax rate’ as well as further boosting oil production. Biden’s emissary, Jeff Zients, said that the Democrats’ ‘emphasis on global alliances’ and his respect for central bank independence ‘fostered the kind of trust worldwide that allowed US capitalism to thrive’. Antonio Gramsci himself could not have scripted a better example of the choice between capital’s narrow interest in maximizing returns and its broader ‘hegemonic’ interests. Paul Heideman, writing in 2021, observed along the same lines that the GOP’s ‘rightward peregrination has also produced quite a few negative externalities for capital, from needless uncertainty around the national debt to a devotion to minority rule that is threatening the legitimacy of a political system that has worked remarkably well for the corporate rich since the nineteenth century’. The most dramatic example of the latter was the January 6th incident, which briefly united the organized business community, aside from small business, in horror. From that perspective, the fact that Trump won a popular majority makes life simpler for American business. As for central bank independence, if the Business Roundtable is not especially worried about that right now, it may be because they remember 2019. Throughout that year, Trump complained about the chairman of the Federal Reserve, tweeting at one point: ‘Who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?’ But when he asked his inner circle whether he could legally fire Powell, they told him immediately and unequivocally that he could not. According to the Wall Street Journal’s Fed correspondent, even someone like Larry Kudlow – a television personality and ‘ingratiating loyalist’ – knew that firing Powell, or even the rumour of it, would ‘accelerate the markets’ tailspin’. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin – enough of a loyalist to remain in his position for Trump’s entire first term – texted regularly with the Fed chairman and ‘made clear he had Powell’s back’. When Trump appeared at the Business Roundtable in summer 2024, he brought along Kudlow – a reminder to the executives of the emergency brake they had pulled so easily last time Trump’s ‘economic populism’ had threatened to escape from the realm of rhetoric. Capitalists have been led astray by complacency before, including about Trump, and it is safe to assume that his unpredictable, personalist style will create new tensions with important sections of the business community. Wall Street’s euphoric response to the election suggests that ‘the market’ doesn’t think Trump is serious about mass deportations and punitive tariffs. But even if he doesn’t go as far as he promises, any serious steps in the direction of economic nationalism will have differential effects on business which could turn into political fractures. The same may develop with regards to the budget deficit, particularly if inflation returns. The biggest wild card is probably the Atlantic relationship. NATO, as one of its founders explained, did not originate from a ‘strictly military calculus’ but reflected broader concern about ‘whether our kind of society could continue with democracy destroyed in Europe and our opportunities for economic expansion narrowed’. Even in 1949, it was no simple matter for the Truman administration to convince the American business community that their prosperity depended on transcontinental security guarantees. It is possible that, if the debate were reopened, everyone would ultimately decide that the old corporate internationalist creed remains as compelling as ever. But however it is resolved, the mere reopening of the debate itself can be counted on to illuminate fractures within the capitalist class. NYT columnist Jamelle Bouie proclaimed that ‘Most of us will probably die living in the political order that will emerge out of this election’. Without giving any hostages to fortune, one can say that this is wrong. The idea of a political order, alluded to by Bouie, was introduced to the study of American politics by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr, whose first volume on the age of the New Deal was titled The Crisis of the Old Order. For volume two, The Coming of the New Deal, Schlesinger picked an epigraph from Machiavelli: ‘There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things’. Both the Age of Roosevelt and its predecessor had rested on durable class alignments. The System of 1896 was founded on the consolidation of corporate capital in a world-historical merger movement, and secured at the polls – not once, but repeatedly – with the support of industrial workers who believed they had an interest in tariff-protected industrial development. The New Deal order represented the incorporation of organized labour as a junior partner behind those businesses which would benefit from, or could at least tolerate, Roosevelt’s unprecedented combination of free trade, social welfare and trade union legality. Even the fractured age of neoliberalism was preceded, in the 1970s, by an unprecedented mobilization in which, as Thomas Edsall put it, ‘business refined its ability to act as a class, submerging competitive instincts in favour of joint, cooperative action in the legislative arena’. Hegemony is more than a vibe, and critical realignment is not just a fancy name for a dramatic election night. It may be that one day it will be possible to interpret 2024 as a stage in the casting of a new political order. But that will depend on what happens next: what Trump does with his victory, and how everyone else responds to the domestic and international forces unleashed by his second administration."]]> timbarker 2024 dealignment elections donaldtrump kamalaharris joebiden democrats politics class frontpopulaire fascism centrism georgemcgovern society us richardnixon history maga ronaldreagan rebeccasolnit ideology ideologues jingoism bidenomics economics economy workingclass inflation realignment unions labor work workers blueroseresearch cryptocurrencies crypto bitcoin web3 jeffzients antoniogramsci paulheideman 2020 2021 2022 2023 larrykudlow stevenmnuchin jaypowell capitalism capitalists nato jamellebouie arthurschlesinger machiavelli fdr thomasedsall roycohn patbuchanan franklindelanoroosevelt https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:fc2b5b8092c9/ ‘It does not have to be this way’: the radical optimism of David Graeber | Books | The Guardian 2024-11-13T18:28:56+00:00 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/nov/07/david-graeber-optimistic-anarchist-rebecca-solnit robertogreco davidgraeber 2024 rebeccasolnit anarchism change everyday ordinary ows occupywallstreet marcusrediker academia academics highered highereducation workingclass class struggle inequality 1999 1994 zapatistas battleofseattle wto 2011 astrataylor lyndseystonebridge hannaharendt activism anthropology marxism marxists sakalava madagascar cynicism despair despairfatigue outsiders joy hope liberation changemaking ideas debt writing howwewrite politics hierarchy hierarchies horizontality power us mutualaid voluntaryassociation selforganization humans humanity history engagement participation participatory hopelessness coercion bureaucracy mischief elitism unfreedom society civilization barbarism socialhierarchy abundance technology freedom egalitarianism creativity imagination possibility possibilities bullshitjobs socialconstructs narrative variety diversity gender 2020 money finance violence labor work zapatismo emilianozapata chiapas mexico autonomy indigenous indigeneity ezln https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:57be7509ae69/ The Walking Rebellion: Restoring the Mind at Three Miles an Hour 2024-10-24T01:28:26+00:00 https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/the-walking-rebellion-restoring-the robertogreco walking ruthgaskovski pecogaskovski howwething technology smartphones phones cellphones attention outdoors tedgioia aaronlong antoniamalchik staugustine saintaugustine augustine mentalhealth cognition walkingrebellion haddenturner anxiety body bodies wandering johnforster charlesdickens thoreau thinking howwethink health exercise chrisarnade cars place cities nature suburbs biophilia us uk rebeccasolnit urban urbanism beccaparsons shaneo'mara jeantwenge sherryturkle social socialwalking children parenting katherineerickson tradition history landscape pilgrimage spirituality routine stephenweller paulkingsnorth cspeirce josebriones lightphone punkt emilyharrison meaganfrancis strolling resistance rebellion relationships mind kierkegaard lmsacasas thomasbevan diamond-michaelscott ashutoshjoshi patrickwhalen rosiewhinray amhickman thescribelee elizabethyeoman freyaindia senses sensing jointattention companionship neuroscience meaganfrancisn screens augustineofhippo https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:79a307fd62ef/ Walking | 3rd Ritual 2024-09-27T23:32:24+00:00 https://3rdritual.com/spotlight/on-walking/ robertogrecowalking slow mindfulness observation nadishodhana senses allthesenses wandering rebeccasolnit frédéricgros robertmacfarlane buddhism hinduism circumambulation ritual body bodies rebeccahorn https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:37b8086925e1/ Rebecca Solnit: How to Comment on Social Media ‹ Literary Hub 2024-02-15T17:26:12+00:00 https://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-how-to-comment-on-social-media/ robertogreco 2024 socialmedia web online communication culture writing howwewrite reading howweread rebeccasolnit discourse humor internet twitter https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:87255ca7c764/ Rebecca Solnit · In the Shadow of Silicon Valley: Losing San Francisco 2024-02-02T03:46:27+00:00 https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n03/rebecca-solnit/in-the-shadow-of-silicon-valley robertogreco rebeccasolnit sanfrancisco 2024 siliconvalley inequality via:javierarbona technology waymo cruise avs autonomousvehicles history homeless homelessness economics civics laurenepowelljobs reidhoffman marcandreessen michaelmoritz solanocounty cities urban urbanism janejacobs johngaramendi flanneryassociates destruction social peterthiel libertarianism seasteading billgates larryellison california californianideology markzuckerberg hawaai elonmusk billionaires cambridgeanalytics technosolutionism capitalism palantir paypal gawker frankwilhoit conservation conservatism captainsofindustry democracy plutocracy oligarchy facebook meta apple venturecapital ronanfarrow twitter andrewcallaway gigeconomy uber doomloop schools education publicschools precarity shame employment automation luddites luddism boblee salesforce ronconway chesaboudin politics policy williamoberndorf davidsacks elections rightwing elizabethholmes paloalto sambankman-fried theranos bayarea finance gurbakshchahal nimamomeni crime drugs jeremyboivin https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:e965747fa73a/ Ave Maria/Sophia/Gaia: Katherine Bubel and Michelle Berry Lane on Illich and the Sacred Feminine (Conversation #4) - YouTube 2023-11-29T07:11:40+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19q4pWKPlj0 robertogreco ivanillich 2023 marcusrempel katherinebubel michelleberrylane conviviality suzannesimard davidblower religion myth prometheus sophia theology life living slow control modernity polarity francisbacon aliveness nature gender prometheanman technology diversity pandora thomasmerton erichfromm descartes climatechange humans capitalism extraction interconnectedness technosolutionism hubris complementarity renégirard charlestaylor catholicism relations relationships epimetheanman mary mastery measurement gaia ecology earth lynnmargulis forests trees environment epimetheus paulkingsnorth indigenous indigeneity listening johnmoriarty wisdom bees land property georgegrant colonization colonialism colonizers science domination homogeneity samemaking otherness terrencemalick presence rebeccasolnit rediscovery catastrophe mutualaid multispecies morethanhuman resilience mythology michellelane intuition spirituality deschooling unschooling hope convivialscience wonder symbiosis symbiogenesis jameslovelock microbiomes bio https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:9002d2ba9953/ Opinion | No, I Don’t Want to Go for a Walk With You - The New York Times 2023-09-20T22:56:52+00:00 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/20/opinion/walk-and-talk-meetings.html robertogreco lydiapolgreen walking 2023 companionship meetups intimacy aimplessness gettinglost solitude gettogethers rebeccasolnit tejucole colsonwhitehead conversation talking eyecontact meetings stevejobs nietzsche charlesdickens solviturambulando lcd virginiawoolf https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:6c911d3ab5b1/ How to wander | Psyche Guides 2023-04-28T16:52:10+00:00 https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-wander-in-a-world-that-values-purpose robertogrecowandering walking 2023 unschooling deschooling slow nature situationist drifting flaneur derive senses multisensory sensing compliance freedom memory place curiosity flâneurs flaneurs flâneur dérive wellbeing happiness attention thinking thoreau rousseau rebeccasolnit thichnhathanh wendellberry travel exploration exploring sensory walterbenjamin baudelaire surrealism dada ellenmueller art pragmatism well-being drift https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:032c5f8214bc/ Trust Kids! Stories on Youth Autonomy and Confronting Adult Supremacy, carla bergman (Editor); Matt Hern (Foreword) 2022-10-25T16:14:30+00:00 https://www.akpress.org/trust-kids.html robertogreco carlabergman matthern unschooling deschooling children youth adolescence teens 2022 books carlajoybergman curiousismcyphers nolecaradway helenhughes daniburlison enfyscraft uilliamjoybergman yasaminholland timholland idziedesmarais akilahrichards meghancarrico christimesteele antoniobuehler sarazacuto rebeccasolnit tasnimnathoo jonpawson mayamotoi wakaba joannamotoi cindywhite kittysipple chrismercogliano lilymercoglianoeaston staceypatton tobyrollo gustavoesteva madhuprakash danastuchul gabrielzacuto zachbergman chrisbergman anon tasnimmathoo granthoskins gadzooksbazooka monacaron activism adultsupremacy youthliberation liberation autonomy relationships oppression tomasmoniz elimeyerhoff https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:03571644dfb7/ Rebecca Solnit: Why climate despair is a luxury - New Statesman 2022-10-24T21:23:24+00:00 https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2022/10/rebecca-solnit-climate-despair-luxury robertogrecorebeccasolnit hope despair climatechange globalwarming 2022 climatedespair fatalism optimism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:183295d45ba5/ Thoreau in Good Faith | Public Books 2021-07-25T19:24:20+00:00 https://www.publicbooks.org/thoreau-in-good-faith/ robertogreco calebsmith thoreau 2021 via:javierarbona walden aldabalthrop-lewis nature morethanhuman urban urbanism life living ethics capitalism christianity belief communion relationships privilege attention asceticism simplicity slow small consumption joy pleasure delight quietism complacency oppression society advantage legacy religion canon rebeccasolnit sharoncameron janebennett brankaarsić lauradassowwalls hannaharendt multispecies cities commodification senses sensing ecoterrorism tedkaczynski radicalism vigilance vigilantes us politics activism morality moralism style beauty retreat antiimperialism antiracism abolitionism social sociality care caring compromise anti-imperialism antiiimperialism unabomber theodorekaczynski https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:da5887b728e0/ Why I Don't Read Rebecca Solnit | The Walrus 2020-04-28T06:35:56+00:00 https://thewalrus.ca/why-i-dont-read-rebecca-solnit/ robertogreco vivianefairbank rebeccasolnit feminism whitefeminism popfeminism 2019 sexism hope intersectionality silence https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:d7b4fc3d77eb/ No One Disagrees With Rebecca Solnit | The New Republic 2020-04-28T06:33:20+00:00 https://newrepublic.com/article/157136/no-one-disagrees-rebecca-solnit-memoir-feminism robertogreco rebeccasolnit jenniferwilson 2020 feminism vivianefairbank nonexistence politics policy whitefeminism resonance solidarity popfeminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:a527b52b3309/ The Uses of Disaster | Commune 2020-03-20T22:44:51+00:00 https://communemag.com/the-uses-of-disaster/ robertogreco 2018 climatechange disaster communism capitalism socialism additivism class outofthewoods inequality economics policy politics rebeccasolnit hurricanekatrina hurricaneharvey hurricaneirma disastercommunism fatalism disastercapitalism shockdoctrine climate globalwarming puertorico flint community communities mutualaid naomiklein toddmiller privatization militarization austerity borders policing hurricanemaria labor elonmusk survival revolution collectivism katrina https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:77b677af625d/ Jia Tolentino Wants You to Read Children’s Books - The New York Times 2019-08-20T08:09:47+00:00 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/books/review/by-the-book-jia-tolentino.html robertogreco jiatolentino howweread reading books 2019 internet susansontag web online digitalnatives attention yafiction genre malcolmharris adriannicoleleblanc tebeccastead liucixin oceanvuong jennyodell doreenstfélix vinsoncunningham bryanwashington tommyorange jennyzhang rossgay zadiesmith rebeccasolnit emilynussbaum rebeccatraister britbennett caityweaver rachelaviv kathrynschulz pamelacolloff gideonlewis-kraus patrickraddenkeefe patricialockwood smanthairby lesliejamison laurengoff johnjeremiahsullivan wesleymorris megwolitzer marlonjames tedchiang eulabiss bythebook georgesaunders matthewdesmond caseycep sherwoodanderson thewestinggame chriskraus lydiadavis madamebovary https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:62e9a8bc1963/ Teju Cole — Sitting Together in the Dark - The On Being Project 2019-05-13T03:42:59+00:00 https://onbeing.org/programs/teju-cole-sitting-together-in-the-dark-feb2019/ robertogreco tejucole stillness 2019 truth hope interconnected jamesbaldwin brahms place borders interstitial tomastranströmer smartness reading poetry wokeness kin family families hospitality photography art silence quietness listening donaldtrump barackobama howwewrite howweread writing tonimorrison socialmedia noise meaning seamusheaney fear future optimism johnberger rebeccasolnit virginiawoolf hopelessness kalamazoo pauléluard primolevi instagram twitter interconnectedness interconnectivity wokeism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:63ea3238e235/ Rebecca Solnit: When the Hero is the Problem | Literary Hub 2019-04-24T18:14:44+00:00 https://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-when-the-hero-is-the-problem/ robertogreco rebeccasolnit heroes change democracy collectivism multitudes 2019 robertmueller gretathunberg society movements murmurations relationships connection femininity masculinity leadership patience negotiation listening strategy planning storytelling bertoldbrecht violence attention ursulaleguin williamjames 1906 sanfrancisco loneliness comfort billdelaney jonathanjones art humans humanism scale activism action ursulakleguin https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:ea98e73ea227/ San Francisco; or, How to Destroy a City | Public Books 2019-03-31T22:55:52+00:00 https://www.publicbooks.org/san-francisco-or-how-to-destroy-a-city/ robertogreco cities shannonmattern 2019 sanfrancisco siliconvalley nyc washingtondc seattle amazon google apple facebook technology inequality governance libertarianism urban urbanism microsoft jenniferlight louisemozingo margareto'mara fredturner efficiency growth marginalization publicgood civics innovation rebeccasolnit gentrification privatization homogenization susanschwartzenberg carymcclelland economics policy politics richardwalker bayarea lisonisenberg janejacobs robertmoses diversity society inclusivity inclusion exclusion counterculture cybercultue culture progressive progressivism wealth corporatism labor alexkaufman imperialism colonization californianideology california neoliberalism privacy technosolutionism urbanization socialjustice environment history historiography redevelopment urbanplanning design activism landscape ruthasawa gender sexuality openspace publicspace searanch toronto larenceferlinghetti susanschartzenberg bobbiestauffacher careerose stuartrose ghirardellisqure marionconrad illustration a https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:19f8590c8991/ Rebecca Solnit: By the Book - The New York Times 2018-08-22T23:39:24+00:00 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/books/review/rebecca-solnit-by-the-book.html robertogreco howweread rebeccasolnit 2018 nonlinear reading books cv grazing roving alinear linearity https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:4795906e33f1/ Scratching the Surface — 88. Dan Hill 2018-08-15T17:01:09+00:00 http://scratchingthesurface.fm/post/177011550585/88-dan-hill robertogreco jarrettfuller danhill 2018 scratchingthesurface strategicdesign design helsinkidesignlab servicedesign strelka urban urbanism cities bryanboyer fabric sociology jonthanraban rebeccasolnit gilliantett stanleymcchrystal leonardkoren stewartbrand howbuildingslearn roryhyde arup designeducation education autodidacts writing architecture interactiondesign ui ux generalists learning howwelearn ideo designthinking howwethink cv careers certification context interdisciplinary transdisciplinary multidisciplinary scale systems fabrics autodidactism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:877705ee485e/ Rebecca Solnit: Not Caring is a Political Art Form | Literary Hub 2018-06-23T02:48:53+00:00 https://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-not-caring-is-a-political-art-form/ robertogreco rebeccasolnit 2018 immigration politics connection disconnection empathy compassion refugees donaldtrump race racism climatechange ideology care caring economics inequality poverty https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:5139338b43b6/ [Easy Chair] | Abolish High School, by Rebecca Solnit | Harper's Magazine 2018-06-10T19:18:41+00:00 https://harpers.org/archive/2015/04/abolish-high-school/ robertogrecoWhen I went to a dance competition I saw a girl there who was wearing a T-shirt she made. It read: matt 1, daisy 0. Matt’s family was very powerful in the state of Missouri and he was also a very popular football player in my town, but I still couldn’t believe it when I was told the charges were dropped. Everyone had told us how strong the case was — including a cell phone video of the rape which showed me incoherent. All records have been sealed in the case, and I was told the video wasn’t found. My brother told me it was passed around school. I wonder what pieces we’d have to pull away to demolish the system that worked so hard to destroy Coleman. But abolishing high school would not just benefit those who are at the bottom of its hierarchies. Part of the shared legacy of high school is bemused stories about people who were treated as demigods at seventeen and never recovered. A doctor I hang out with tells me that former classmates who were more socially successful in high school than he was seem baffled that he, a quiet youth who made little impression, could be more professionally successful, as though the qualities that made them popular should have effortlessly floated them through life. It’s easy to laugh, but there is a real human cost. What happens to people who are taught to believe in a teenage greatness that is based on achievements unlikely to matter in later life? Abolishing high school could mean many things. It could mean compressing the time teenagers have to sort out their hierarchies and pillory outsiders, by turning schools into minimalist places in which people only study and learn. All the elaborate rites of dances and games could take place under other auspices. (Many Europeans and Asians I’ve spoken to went to classes each day and then left school to do other things with other people, forgoing the elaborate excess of extracurricular activities that is found at American schools.) It could mean schools in which age segregation is not so strict, where a twelve-year-old might mentor a seven-year-old and be mentored by a seventeen-year-old; schools in which internships, apprenticeships, and other programs would let older students transition into the adult world before senior year. (Again, there are plenty of precedents from around the world.) Or it could mean something yet unimagined. I’ve learned from doctors that you don’t have to have a cure before you make a diagnosis. Talk of abolishing high school is just my way of wondering whether so many teenagers have to suffer so much. How much of that suffering is built into a system that is, however ubiquitous, not inevitable? “Every time I drive past a high school, I can feel the oppression. I can feel all those trapped souls who just want to be outside,” a woman recalling her own experience wrote to me recently. “I always say aloud, ‘You poor souls.’ ”"]]> rebeccasolnit 2015 highschool education schools schooling adolescence unschooling deschooling oppression teens youth hierarchy agesegregation internships apprenticeships mentoring mentors popularity jockocracies sports rapeculture us society peers hatecrime conformity values helenanorberg-hodge lcproject openstudioproject cooperation competition segregation bullying bullies splc persecution gender sexuality heteronormativity homophobia angst cruelty suicide dances prom misfits friendship learning howwelearn srg glvo edg https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:a901461abee5/ Rebecca Solnit: The Coup Has Already Happened | Literary Hub 2018-05-19T19:53:00+00:00 https://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-the-coup-has-already-happened/ robertogreco rebeccasolnit 2018 donaldtrump republicans coups politics resistance elections corruption collusion christophersteele elliottbroidy jamescomey johnmccain karenmcdougal marckasowitz michaelnova nastyarybka olegderipaska paulmanafort robertmueller russia sergeiprikhodko voktorvekselberg vladimirputin us columbusnova https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:29e8e29b60f4/ Rebecca Solnit on Skipping High School and California Culture | Literary Hub 2018-05-12T20:08:11+00:00 https://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-on-skipping-high-school-and-california-culture/ robertogreco rebeccasolnit unschooling deschooling 2018 interviews education california history culture nyc johnberger paulholdengraber values hierarchy teaching art arteducation pedagogy mikedavis journalism wallaceberman eastcoast angeladavis garysnyder conformity https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:c7fad4c2ee38/ Rebecca Solnit on a Childhood of Reading and Wandering | Literary Hub 2018-04-19T01:41:35+00:00 https://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-on-a-childhood-of-reading-and-wandering/ robertogreco rebeccasolnit 2017 children unschooling deschooling parenting education libraries wandering howwelearn freedom autonomy forests childhood novato california learning canon publicgood us egalitarianism democracy socialism thoreau walking cv unknowing uncertainty woods writing howwewrite books literature stories storytelling listening reading sanctuary vanishing nature plants wildlife multispecies morethanhuman society publicgoods https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:3fd7db51d4a7/ how to do nothing – Jenny Odell – Medium 2017-07-01T07:34:33+00:00 https://medium.com/@the_jennitaur/how-to-do-nothing-57e100f59bbb robertogreco…we’re riddled with pointless talk, insane quantities of words and images. Stupidity’s never blind or mute. So it’s not a problem of getting people to express themselves but of providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say. Repressive forces don’t stop people expressing themselves but rather force them to express themselves; what a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, and ever rarer, thing that might be worth saying. (emphasis mine) He wrote that in 1985, but the sentiment is something I think we can all identify with right now, almost to a degree that’s painful. The function of nothing here, of saying nothing, is that it’s a precursor to something, to having something to say. “Nothing” is neither a luxury nor a waste of time, but rather a necessary part of meaningful thought and speech." … "In The Bureau of Suspended Objects, a project I did while in residence at Recology SF (otherwise known as the dump), I spent three months photographing, cataloguing and researching the origins of 200 objects. I presented them as browsable archive in which people could scan the objects’ tags and learn about the manufacturing, material, and corporate histories of the objects. One woman at the Recology opening was very confused and said, “Wait… so did you actually make anything? Or did you just put things on shelves?” (Yes, I just put things on shelves.)" … "That’s an intellectual reason for making nothing, but I think that in my cases, it’s something simpler than that. Yes, the BYTE images speak in interesting and inadvertent ways about some of the more sinister aspects of technology, but I also just really love them. This love of one’s subject is something I’m provisionally calling the observational eros. The observational eros is an emotional fascination with one’s subject that is so strong it overpowers the desire to make anything new. It’s pretty well summed up in the introduction of Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, where he describes the patience and care involved in close observation of one’s specimens:
When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to capture whole, for they break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and then lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that might be the way to write this book — to open the page and let the stories crawl in by themselves.
The subject of observation is so precious and fragile that it risks breaking under even the weight of observation. As an artist, I fear the breaking and tattering of my specimens under my touch, and so with everything I’ve ever “made,” without even thinking about it, I’ve tried to keep a very light touch. It may not surprise you to know, then, that my favorite movies tend to be documentaries, and that one of my favorite public art pieces was done by the documentary filmmaker, Eleanor Coppola. In 1973, she carried out a public art project called Windows, which materially speaking consisted only of a map with a list of locations in San Francisco. The map reads, “Eleanor Coppola has designated a number of windows in all parts of San Francisco as visual landmarks. Her purpose in this project is to bring to the attention of the whole community, art that exists in its own context, where it is found, without being altered or removed to a gallery situation.” I like to consider this piece in contrast with how we normally experience public art, which is some giant steel thing that looks like it landed in a corporate plaza from outer space. Coppola instead casts a subtle frame over the whole of the city itself as a work of art, a light but meaningful touch that recognizes art that exists where it already is." … "What amazed me about birdwatching was the way it changed the granularity of my perception, which was pretty “low res” to begin with. At first, I just noticed birdsong more. Of course it had been there all along, but now that I was paying attention to it, I realized that it was almost everywhere, all day, all the time. In particular I can’t imagine how I went most of my life so far without noticing scrub jays, which are incredibly loud and sound like this: [video] And then, one by one, I started learning other songs and being able to associate each of them with a bird, so that now when I walk into the the rose garden, I inadvertently acknowledge them in my head as though they were people: hi raven, robin, song sparrow, chickadee, goldfinch, towhee, hawk, nuthatch, and so on. The diversification (in my attention) of what was previously “bird sounds” into discrete sounds that carry meaning is something I can only compare to the moment that I realized that my mom spoke three languages, not two. My mom has only ever spoken English to me, and for a very long time, I assumed that whenever my mom was speaking to another Filipino person, that she was speaking Tagalog. I didn’t really have a good reason for thinking this other than that I knew she did speak Tagalog and it sort of all sounded like Tagalog to me. But my mom was actually only sometimes speaking Tagalog, and other times speaking Ilonggo, which is a completely different language that is specific to where she’s from in the Philippines. The languages are not the same, i.e. one is not simply a dialect of the other; in fact, the Philippines is full of language groups that, according to my mom, have so little in common that speakers would not be able to understand each other, and Tagalog is only one. This type of embarrassing discovery, in which something you thought was one thing is actually two things, and each of those two things is actually ten things, seems not only naturally cumulative but also a simple function of the duration and quality of one’s attention. With effort, we can become attuned to things, able to pick up and then hopefully differentiate finer and finer frequencies each time. What these moments of stopping to listen have in common with those labyrinthine spaces is that they all initially enact some kind of removal from the sphere of familiarity. Even if brief or momentary, they are retreats, and like longer retreats, they affect the way we see everyday life when we do come back to it." … "Even the labyrinths I mentioned, by their very shape, collect our attention into these small circular spaces. When Rebecca Solnit, in her book Wanderlust, wrote about walking in the labyrinth inside the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, she said, “The circuit was so absorbing I lost sight of the people nearby and hardly heard the sound of the traffic and the bells for six o’clock.” In the case of Deep Listening, although in theory it can be practiced anywhere at any time, it’s telling that there have also been Deep Listening retreats. And Turrell’s Sky Pesher not only removes the context from around the sky, but removes you from your surroundings (and in some ways, from the context of your life — given its underground, tomblike quality)." … "My dad said that leaving the confined context of a job made him understand himself not in relation to that world, but just to the world, and forever after that, things that happened at work only seemed like one small part of something much larger. It reminds me of how John Muir described himself not as a naturalist but as a “poetico-trampo-geologist-botanist and ornithologist-naturalist etc. etc.”, or of how Pauline Oliveros described herself in 1974: “Pauline Oliveros is a two legged human being, female, lesbian, musician, and composer among other things which contribute to her identity. She is herself and lives with her partner, along with assorted poultry, dogs, cats, rabbits and tropical hermit crabs.” Incidentally, this has encouraged me to maybe change my bio to: “Jenny Odell is an artist, professor, thinker, walker, sleeper, eater, and amateur birdnoticer.” 3. the precarity of nothing There’s an obvious critique of all of this, and that’s that it comes from a place of privilege. I can go to the rose garden, or stare into trees all day, because I have a teaching job that only requires me to be somewhere two days a week, not to mention a whole set of other privileges. Part of the reason my dad could take that time off was that on some level, he had enough reason to think he could get another job. It’s possible to understand the practice of doing nothing solely as a self-indulgent luxury, the equivalent of taking a mental health day if you’re lucky enough to work at a place that has those. But here I come back to Deleuze’s “right to say nothing,” and although we can definitely say that this right is variously accessible or even inaccessible for some, I believe that it is indeed a right. For example, the push for an 8-hour workday in 1886 called for “8 hours of work, 8 hours of rest, and 8 hours of what we will.” I’m struck by the quality of things that associated with the category “What we Will”: rest, thought, flowers, sunshine. These are bodily, human things, and this bodily-ness is something I will come back to. When Samuel Gompers, who led the labor group that organized this particular iteration of the 8-hour movement, was asked, “What does labor want?” he responded, “It wants the earth and the fullness thereof.” And to me it seems significant that it’s not 8 hours of, say, “leisure” or “education,” but “8 hours of what we will.” Although leisure or education might be involved, what seems most humane is the refusal to define that period. That campaign was about a demarcation of time. So it’s interesting, and certainly troubling, to read the decline in labor unions in the last several decades alongside a similar decline in the demarcation of public space. True public spaces, the most obvious examples being parks and libraries, are places for — and thus the spatial underpinnings of — “what we will.”" … "The way that Berardi describes labor will sound as familiar to anyone concerned with their personal brand as it will to any Uber driver, content moderator, hard-up freelancer, aspiring YouTube star, or adjunct professor who drives to three campuses in one week:
In the global digital network, labor is transformed into small parcels of nervous energy picked up by the recombining machine. … The workers are deprived of every individual consistency. Strictly speaking, the workers no longer exist. Their time exists, their time is there, permanently available to connect, to produce in exchange for a temporary salary. (emphasis mine)
The removal of economic security for working people — 8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, 8 hours for what we will — dissolves those boundaries so that we are left with 24 potentially monetizable hours that are sometimes not even restricted to our time zones or our sleep cycles." … "I also started noticing some crows in my neighborhood. At the time I had just read The Genius of Birds, and I’d learned the crows are incredibly intelligent and can recognize and remember human faces. They can in fact teach their children which are the good and the bad humans, good being ones who feed them and bad being ones who try to catch them or do something else weird. I have a balcony, so I started leaving a few peanuts out for the crows." … "This isn’t only about me watching birds. I think a lot about what these birds see when they look at me — and I’m sure anyone who has a pet is familiar with this feeling. I assume they just see a female human who for some reason seems to pay attention to them.⁵ They don’t know what my work is, they don’t see progress — they just see recurrence, day after day, week after week. And through them, I am able to inhabit that perspective, to see myself as the human animal that I am, and when they fly off, to some extent, I can inhabit that perspective too, noticing the shape of the hill that I live on and where all of the tall trees and good landing spots are. There are ravens that I noticed live half in and half out of the rose garden, until I realized that there is no “rose garden” to them. These alien animal perspectives on me and our shared world have provided me not only with an escape hatch from contemporary anxiety but also a reminder of my own animality and the animateness of the world I live in. Their flights enable my own literal flights of fancy, recalling a question that one of my favorite authors, David Abram, asks in Becoming Animal: “Do we really believe that the human imagination can sustain itself without being startled by other shapes of sentience?”⁶" … "But beyond strategic / activist self preservation, there’s something else to be gained here: Doing nothing teaches us how to listen. I’ve already mentioned literal listening, or Deep Listening, but this time I mean it in a broader sense. To do nothing is to hold yourself still so that you can perceive what is actually there. As Gordon Hempton, an acoustic ecologist who records natural soundscapes, put it: “Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything.” There are a lot of us, and I’m certainly not immune to this, who could stand to learn how to listen better, and I mean listen to other people. As a lover of weird internet things, I definitely do not want to write off the amazing culture and also activism that happens online. But even with the problem of the filter bubble aside, the platforms that we use to communicate with each other about very important things do not encourage listening. They encourage shouting, or having a “take” after having read a single headline. I alluded earlier to the problem of speed, but this is also a problem of listening, and of bodies. There is in fact a connection between listening in the Deep Listening, bodily sense, and listening, as in me understanding your perspective. Writing about the circulation of information, Berardi makes a helpful distinction between connectivity and sensitivity. Connectivity is the rapid circulation of information among compatible units — an example is something getting a bunch of shares very quickly and unthinkingly by likeminded people on Facebook. With connectivity, you either are or are not compatible. Red or blue; check the box. In this transmission of information, the units don’t change, nor does the information. Sensitivity, in contrast, involves a difficult, awkward, ambiguous encounter between two differently shaped bodies that are themselves ambiguous — and this meeting, this sensing, requires and takes place in time. Not only that, due to the effort of sensing, the two entities might come away from the encounter a bit differently than they went in. This always brings to mind a month-long artist residency I once attended with two other artists in an extremely remote location in the Sierra Nevada. There wasn’t much to do at night, so one of the artists and I would sometimes sit on the roof and watch the sunset. She was Catholic and from the Midwest; I’m sort of the quintessential California atheist. I have really fond memories of the languid, meandering conversations we had up there about science and religion. And what strikes me is that neither of us ever convinced the other — that wasn’t the point — but we listened to each other, and we did each come away differently, with a more nuanced understanding of the other person’s position." … "Ukeles’ interest in maintenance was partly occasioned by her becoming a mother in the 1960s. In an interview she explained, “Being a mother entails an enormous amount of repetitive tasks. I became a maintenance worker. I felt completely abandoned by my culture because it didn’t have a way to incorporate sustaining work.” Her 1969 Maintenance Manifesto is actually an exhibition proposal in which she considers her own maintenance work as the art. She says, “I will live in the museum and I customarily do at home with my husband and my baby, for the duration of the exhibition … My work is the work.”" … "I think of the hours and hours that I have now spent in the rose garden, putting off returning to my work on a glowing two-dimensional screen an arm’s length from my face; or the days on which I’ll leave just to get coffee and wind up almost involuntarily on top of a hill four hours later, regardless of the shoes I’m wearing; or the fact that the last five or six books I’ve read have had to do with animal intelligence and the importance of landscape in memory and cognition. I don’t know where any of this, where I, will end up."]]> jennyodell idleness nothing art eyeo2017 photoshop specimens care richardprince gillesdeleuze recology internetarchive sanfrancisco eleanorcoppola 2017 1973 maps mapping scottpolach jamesturrell architecture design structure labyrinths oakland juliamorgan chapelofthechimes paulineoliveros ucsd 1970s deeplisening listening birds birdwatching birding noticing classideas observation perception time gracecathedral deeplistening johncage gordonhempton silence maintenance conviviality technology bodies landscape ordinary everyday cyclicality cycles 1969 mierleladermanukeles sensitivity senses multispecies canon productivity presence connectivity conversation audrelorde gabriellemoss fomo nomo nosmo davidabram becominganimal animals nature ravens corvids crows bluejays pets human-animalrelations human-animalelationships herons dissent rowe caliressler jodythompson francoberardi fiverr popos publicspace blackmirror anthonyantonellis facebook socialmedia email wpa history bayarea crowdcontrol mikedavis cityofquartz er https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:eb75f2831428/ Rebecca Solnit: The Loneliness of Donald Trump | Literary Hub 2017-06-03T20:42:26+00:00 http://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-the-loneliness-of-donald-trump/ robertogreco politics donaldtrump rebeccasolnit 2017 equality inequality delusion power corruption kistatippet lyndseystonebridge hannaharendt occupywallstreet ows fscottfitzgerald tyrants loneliness resistance russia parables privilege vldimirputin pushkin greed overreach democracy society collectivism evil morality https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:331511389706/ John Berger | The Essay Prize 2017-01-02T20:52:57+00:00 http://essayprize.org/ten-greatest-essays-ever/john-berger/ robertogreco lists readinglists toread johnberger italocalvino rebeccasolnit canon simoneweil arundhatiroy ionaheath mauricemerleau-ponty dhlawrence georgeorwell kierkegaard nilanjanaroy tejucole walterbenjamin https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:456cf90b7b13/ TILTY #21 - Selected Annotated Bibliography for the Librarian Resistance 2016-11-19T21:01:04+00:00 https://tinyletter.com/jessamyn/letters/tilty-21-selected-annotated-bibliography-for-the-librarian-resistance robertogreco jessamynwest libraries politics resistance donaldtrump 2016 wendellberry tonimorrison poetry librarians inclusivity protection rebeccasolnit eff security privacy refuge https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:03216fdcf216/ Due North | VQR Online 2016-07-11T00:26:10+00:00 http://www.vqronline.org/essays-articles/2014/09/due-north robertogreco walking serendipity 2014 garnettecadogan nyc inequality discovery wonder possibility ebwhite wealth waltwhitman rebeccasolnit micheldecerteau observation flaneur flâneurs flaneurs flâneur https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:399713286e63/ In Praise of Walks and Wilderness | Alpine Modern Editorial 2016-06-30T19:12:34+00:00 http://www.alpinemodern.com/editorial/in-praise-of-walks-and-wilderness/ robertogreco nature walking wilderness body fragility power control memory luddism decisionmaking risk freedom technology attention brianteare thinking 2016 hiking robertmacfarlane essence feeling feelings vulnerability gerardmanleyhopkins nonplaces urban urbanism escape richardsennett mind spirit life living mindbodyspirit haleylittleton andygoldsworthy place rebeccasolnit wendellberry walterbenjamin outdoors edwardabbey ecology environment bodies luddites non-places https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:146749aefb49/ [Easy Chair] | The Habits of Highly Cynical People, by Rebecca Solnit | Harper's Magazine 2016-05-01T22:58:47+00:00 http://harpers.org/archive/2016/05/the-habits-of-highly-cynical-people/?single=1 robertogreco rebeccasolnit 2016 cynicism change time occupywallstreet ows hope optimism idealism perfectionism obstructionism simplification oversimplification possibility economics justice climatechange keystonepipeline patience longview blacklivesmatter civilrightsmovement politics policy conversation easterrising power community systemsthinking standards metrics measurement success failure dissent discourse uncertainty opportunity https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:73d654a9b8d7/ - Wonderful passage on NYC #centralpark designer,... 2015-12-30T03:08:07+00:00 http://blog.triciawang.com/post/136185369956/wonderful-passage-on-nyc-centralpark-designer robertogreco triciawand rebeccasolnit thoreau fredericklawolmstead johnmuir landscape naure society purity socialengineering space openspace publicspace cities urban urbanism centralpark nyc manhattan culture experience earthmoving refuge solitude https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:5862532f5123/ Men Explain Lolita to Me | Literary Hub 2015-12-21T06:03:34+00:00 http://lithub.com/men-explain-lolita-to-me/ robertogreco rebeccasolnit feminism books literature mansplaining anitifeminism lolita vladimirnabokov 2015 art worldmaking https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:22f145e47612/ BOMB Magazine — Rebecca Solnit by Astra Taylor 2015-06-23T06:34:55+00:00 http://bombmagazine.org/article/3327/ robertogreco rebeccasolnit atrataylor elites elitism humans humannature power 2009 insurrection resistance caronchess leeclarke charlesfritz enricoquarantelli kathleentierney timothygartonash maureendowd fear neworleans katrina disasters solidarity grassroots activism charity authoruty patriarchy control writing howwewrite nola charities philanthropy hurricanekatrina https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:26c4befb0ab9/ [Easy Chair] | Abolish High School, by Rebecca Solnit | Harper's Magazine 2015-03-13T00:38:33+00:00 http://harpers.org/archive/2015/04/abolish-high-school/ robertogrecoplaceholder as reminder to track down this article Update: Got to read this article thanks to Selin.] "I skipped my last year of traditional junior high school, detouring for ninth and tenth grade into a newly created alternative junior high. (The existing alternative high school only took eleventh and twelfth graders.) The district used this new school as a dumping ground for its most insubordinate kids, so I shared two adjoin- ing classrooms with hard-partying teenage girls who dated adult drug dealers, boys who reeked of pot smoke, and other misfits like me. The wild kids impressed me because, unlike the timorous high achievers I’d often been grouped with at the mainstream school, they seemed fearless and free, skeptical about the systems around them. There were only a few dozen students, and the adults treated us like colleagues. There was friendship and mild scorn but little cruelty, nothing that pitted us against one another or humiliated us, no violence, no clearly inculcated hierarchy. I didn’t gain much conventional knowledge, but I read voraciously and had good conversations. You can learn a lot that way. Besides, I hadn’t been gaining much in regular school either. I was ravenous to learn. I’d waited for years for a proper chance at it, and the high school in my town didn’t seem like a place where I was going to get it. I passed the G.E.D. test at fifteen, started community college the following fall, and transferred after two semesters to a four-year college, where I began, at last, to get an education commensurate with my appetite. What was it, I sometimes wonder, that I was supposed to have learned in the years of high school that I avoided? High school is often considered a definitive American experience, in two senses: an experience that nearly everyone shares, and one that can define who you are, for better or worse, for the rest of your life. I’m grateful I escaped the particular definition that high school would have imposed on me, and I wish everyone else who suffered could have escaped it, too. For a long time I’ve thought that high school should be abolished. I don’t mean that people in their teens should not be educated at public expense. The question is what they are educated in. An abolitionist proposal should begin by acknowledging all the excellent schools and teachers and educations out there; the people who have a pleasant, useful time in high school; and the changes being wrought in the nature of secondary education today. It should also recognize the tremendous variety of schools, including charter and magnet schools in the public system and the private schools—religious, single-sex, military, and prep—that about 10 percent of American students attend, in which the values and pedagogical systems may be radically different. But despite the caveats and anomalies, the good schools and the students who thrive (or at least survive), high school is hell for too many Americans. If this is so, I wonder why people should be automatically consigned to it." … "…As Catherine A. Lugg, an education scholar specializing in public school issues, later wrote, “The Nabozny case clearly illustrates the public school’s historic power as the enforcer of expected norms regarding gender, heteronormativity, and homophobia.” I once heard Helena Norberg-Hodge, an economic analyst and linguist who studies the impact of globalization on nonindustrialized societies, say that generational segregation was one of the worst kinds of segregation in the United States. The remark made a lasting impression: that segregation was what I escaped all those years ago. My first friends were much older than I was, and then a little older; these days they are all ages. We think it’s natural to sort children into single-year age cohorts and then process them like Fords on an assembly line, but that may be a reflection of the industrialization that long ago sent parents to work away from their children for several hours every day. Since the 1970s, Norberg-Hodge has been visiting the northern Indian region of Ladakh. When she first arrived such age segregation was un- known there. “Now children are split into different age groups at school,” Norberg-Hodge has written. “This sort of leveling has a very destructive effect. By artificially creating social units in which everyone is the same age, the ability of children to help and to learn from each other is greatly reduced.” Such units automatically create the conditions for competition, pressuring children to be as good as their peers. “In a group of ten children of quite different ages,” Norberg-Hodge argues, “there will naturally be much more cooperation than in a group of ten twelve-year-olds.” When you are a teenager, your peers judge you by exacting and narrow criteria. But those going through the same life experiences at the same time often have little to teach one another about life. Most of us are safer in our youth in mixed-age groups, and the more time we spend outside our age cohort, the broader our sense of self. It’s not just that adults and children are good for adolescents. The reverse is also true. The freshness, inquisitiveness, and fierce idealism of a wide-awake teenager can be exhilarating, just as the stony apathy of a shut-down teenager can be dismal. A teenager can act very differently outside his or her peer group than inside it. A large majority of hate crimes and gang rapes are committed by groups of boys and young men, and studies suggest that the perpetrators are more concerned with impressing one another and conforming to their group’s codes than with actual hatred toward outsiders. Attempts to address this issue usually focus on changing the social values to which such groups adhere, but dispersing or diluting these groups seems worth consideration, too. High school in America is too often a place where one learns to conform or take punishment—and conformity is itself a kind of punishment, one that can flatten out your soul or estrange you from it." … "Abolishing high school could mean many things. It could mean compressing the time teenagers have to sort out their hierarchies and pillory outsiders, by turning schools into minimalist places in which people only study and learn. All the elaborate rites of dances and games could take place under other auspices. (Many Europeans and Asians I’ve spoken to went to classes each day and then left school to do other things with other people, forgoing the elaborate excess of extracurricular activities that is found at American schools.) It could mean schools in which age segregation is not so strict, where a twelve-year-old might mentor a seven-year-old and be mentored by a seventeen-year-old; schools in which internships, apprenticeships, and other programs would let older students transition into the adult world before senior year. (Again, there are plenty of precedents from around the world.) Or it could mean something yet unimagined. I’ve learned from doctors that you don’t have to have a cure before you make a diagnosis. Talk of abolishing high school is just my way of wondering whether so many teen- agers have to suffer so much. How much of that suffering is built into a system that is, however ubiquitous, not inevitable? “Every time I drive past a high school, I can feel the oppression. I can feel all those trapped souls who just want to be outside,” a woman recalling her own experience wrote to me recently. “I always say aloud, ‘You poor souls.’”"]]> rebeccasolnit 2015 highschool education society toread adolescence psychology behavior bullying agesegregation sexuality extracurriculars sports competition schooliness schools us helenanorberg-hodge conformity apprenticeships alternative horizontality hierarchy catherlinelugg homophobia heteronormativity https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:4163db9dddbb/ Issue Five: On Slowness | vestoj 2015-01-09T07:32:04+00:00 http://vestoj.com/issues/issue-five-on-slowness/ robertogreco slow slowness magazines vestoj fashion rebeccasolnit milankundera krzysztofpomian norbertelias michelfoucault aurélievandepeer elizabethwilson hartmutrosa paulvirilio idleness time speed process foucault https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:f62d0d0ccc90/ Tomgram: Rebecca Solnit, What to Do When You're Running Out of Time | TomDispatch 2014-09-21T18:48:04+00:00 http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175896/tomgram:_rebecca_solnit,_what_to_do_when_you're_running_out_of_time/ robertogreco rebeccasolnit 2014 climatechange activism coldwar change collectivism collectiveaction https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:3fd957075343/ Whyfinding: what pervasive gaming has taught me about 3D videogame design | Christy's Corner of the Universe 2014-08-04T22:34:01+00:00 http://www.christydena.com/2014/08/whyfinding-making-3d-videogames-more-immersive-and-inclusive-of-more-play-styles/ robertogreco videogames situationist worldofwarcraft digital sandboxgames freedom exploration flaneur derive 2014 johnstilgoe larp larping gastonbachelard micheldecerteau walterbenjamin rebeccasolnit wandering whyfinding pervasivegames gaming games play maps mapping landscapes landscape gamedesign motivation visualattention attention christydena experience dérive flâneurs flaneurs flâneur https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:bc40ded32bcb/ Against "Innovation" #CNIE2014 2014-05-16T17:49:16+00:00 https://hackeducation.com/2014/05/14/innovation-cnie-2014 robertogreco audreywatters 2014 edtech culture technology californianideology innovation disruption highered highereducation individualism google googleglass education schools learning ds106 siliconvalley meritocracy rebeccasolnit class society poverty ideology capitalism novelty change transformation invention language salvation entrepreneurship revolution business karlmarx josephschumpeter johnpatrickleary claytonchristensen sustainability mooc moocs markets destruction creativedestruction publiceducation progress justice collectivism libertarianism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:56ab28a1a5e2/ BBC News - The slow death of purposeless walking 2014-05-07T23:41:54+00:00 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27186709 robertogreco walking thinking 2014 flaneur wandering charlesdickens georgeorwell patrickleigh constantinbrancusi thoreau thomasdequincey nassimtaleb nietzsche brucechatwin wgebald johnfrancis fredericgros geoffnicholson merlincoverley observation attention mindfulness rebeccasolnit finlorohrer vladimirnabokov flâneurs flaneurs flâneur https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:480b38f3f9e5/ 18. Webstock 2014 Talk Notes and References - postarchitectural 2014-04-24T04:19:25+00:00 http://blog.postarchitectural.com/18-Webstock-2014-Talk-Notes-and-References robertogreco shahwang 2014 webstock donellameadows jamescscott seeinglikeastate davidgraeber debt economics barrylopez trevorpaglen google technology prism robotics robots surveillance systemsthinking growth finance venturecapital maciejceglowski millsbaker mandybrown danhon advertising meritocracy democracy snapchat capitalism infrastructure internet web future irrationalexuberance github geopffmanaugh corproratism shareholders oligopoly oligarchy fredscharmen kenmcleod ianbanks eleanorsaitta quinnorton adamgreenfield marshallbrain politics edwardsnowden davidsimon georgepacker nicolefenton power responsibility davidfosterwallace christinaxu money adamcurtis dmytrikleiner charlieloyd wealth risk sarahkendxior markjacobson anildash rebeccasolnit russellbrand louisck caseygollan alexpayne judsontrue jamesdarling jenlowe wilsonminer kierkegaard readinglist startups kiev systems control data resistance obligation care cynicism snark change changetheory neoliberalism intervention leveragepoints engagement nonprofit changemaki https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:6db34f8de043/ Call climate change what it is: violence | Rebecca Solnit | Comment is free | theguardian.com 2014-04-08T18:45:10+00:00 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/07/climate-change-violence-occupy-earth robertogreco rebeccasolnit climatechange 2014 violence carbon fossilfuels peakoil https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:7171c88f77a7/ Orion Magazine | Live Event: Robert Macfarlane and Rebecca Solnit on Nature Writing 2014-01-10T02:46:21+00:00 http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/audio-video/item/live_event_robert_macfarlane_and_rebecca_solnit_on_nature_writing/ robertogreco rebeccasolnit robertmacfarlane 2014 jennifersahn writing nature booklists environment landscape place erikhoffner jabaker theperegrine https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:19809b735ca7/ The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit - Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics 2013-07-07T22:20:42+00:00 http://www.guernicamag.com/features/the-faraway-nearby/ robertogreco literature writing reading howweread howwewrite rebeccasolnit 2013 books communication conversation storytelling time memory libraries atemporality easterisland rapanui isladepascua dreams birds https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:1100b7e3a48f/ Spring 2011 | The Walk Exchange 2013-06-28T04:08:05+00:00 http://walkstudytrainingcourse.wordpress.com/spring2011/ robertogreco walking nyc walkexchange 2011 thoreau francisalÿs rebeccasolnit richardlong hamishfulton micheldecertau guydebord alexvillar vitoacconci lucylippard barnetschecter brucechatwin lygiaclark jameswalsh fredricklawolmstead robertsmithson janetcardiff readinglists toread urban urbanism rural theory derive simonsheikh songlines dérive https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:51fd38e8dbe6/ Orion - May/June 2013 - Page 18-19 2013-06-27T20:06:23+00:00 http://www.orionmagazine-digital.com/orionmagazine/may_june_2013?pg=20#pg20 robertogreco rebeccasolnit sisters siblings thoreau activism importance 2013 purpose labor work writing laundry martinlutherkingjr walden abolitionists history picasso michaelbranch michaelsims chores purity liberation freedom prison mlk pablopicasso https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:88fa1aac7d92/ Rebecca Solnit · Diary: Google Invades · LRB 7 February 2013 2013-02-01T16:05:39+00:00 http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n03/rebecca-solnit/diary robertogreco rebeccasolnit 2013 siliconvalley culture technology colonialism gentrification cities class via:Preoccupations sanfrancisco techsector invasion frontier californianideology https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:d391cc91bea7/