Education and university

Interesting quote from
'Public Value of the Humanities' Bloomsbury Publishing.

The article argues the need and importance of humanities taught in universities. Sometimes, when money is an issue, humanities are one of the first departments to feel the financial pressure and significant cuts in financing. This article helps to see a bigger picture and opens our eyes towards humanitarian subject that hopefully will make others realize its importance in societal and global context.

p.21
"The idea of the university was promised upon a god: the university was a 'place of teaching universal knowledge' (Newman 1852:v)

p.22
University was to provide:
-Training in the art of argument
-The platonic university is a place where young people learn to think. Their starting point must be the art of thinking disinterestedly, not instrumentally.

p.26
Work in the humanities includes what Matthew Arnold called 'disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that has been known and thought in the world'. Are we to deprive future generations of that learning and propagation? But the humanities do not end there. They include understanding ourselves and other peoples through the language, literature, art, music history, religion, philosophy, sense of identity, politics, desires, fears and ambitions, all of which animate ourselves and others, whether these are the best or not. We are asked whether this understanding is a public good, deserving public support, or merely a private hobby. The answer is that if you believe knowledge is too expensive, try ignorance. The human world is one in which we move and act, just as much as the natural world, which is the object of science. Misunderstanding either is the road to catastrophe; understanding each of them is our only salvation".

Three Dilemmas of Virtue

[...] Each of the three older Pendawas are commonly held to display a different sort of emotional-moral dilemma, centering one or another of the central Javanese virtues. Yudistira, the eldest, is too compassionate. He is unable to rule his country effectively because when asks him for his land, his wealth, his food, he simply gives it out of pity, leaving himself powerless, poor, or starving. His enemies continually take advantage of his mercifulness to deceive him and escape his justice.

Bima, on the other hand, is single-minded, steadfast. Once he forms and intention, he follows it out straight to its conclusion; he doesn’t look aside, doesn’t turn off or idle along the way – “he goes north”. As a result, he is often rash, and blunders into difficulties he could as well have avoided.

Arjuna, the third brother, is perfectly just. His goodness comes from the fact that he opposes evil, that he shelters people from injustice, that he is coolly courageous in fighting for the right. But he lacks a sense of mercy, of sympathy for wrong-doers. He applies a divine moral code to human activity, and so he is often cold, cruel, or brutal in the name of justice.

The resolution of these three dilemmas of virtue is the same: mystical insight. With a genuine comprehension of the realities of the human situation, a true perception of the ultimate rasa, comes the ability to combine Yudistira’s compassion, Bima’s will to action, and Arjuna’s sense of justice into a truly moral outlook, an outlook which brings an emotional detachment and an inner peace in the midst of the world of flux, yet permits and demands a struggle for order and justice within such a world. And it is such a unification that unshakable solidarity among the Pendawas in the play, continually rescuing one another from the defects of their virtues, clearly demonstrates.

Book: The Interpretation of Cultures, 1973

Author: Clifford Geertz

Chapter: Ethos, World View, and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols p. 139.

Fundamentals of intercultural communication

“The many factors that divide us are actually much more superficial then those we share. Despite all of the things that differentiate us – race, language, religion, gender, wealth and so on – we are all equal concerning our fundamental humanity”. Dalai Lama

It is more important to concentrate on what unites humanity rather then divides. All of the imagined customs, religion, language, cultures, were all invented by us, humans, to differentiate ourselves from each other, but also to make it easier for ourselves to make sense of our complex world. They are all models, artificial paradigms that direct people through life.

By studying intercultural communication, we can help reduce xenophobia that exists across cultures. We also share inter-nationally and inter-culturally our love for beauty and love.  By using our existing international language of love and beauty (i.e. art, music) it can provide us with a common ground to establish an understanding across cultures. Humans are incredible creatures. They share similar values everywhere, but name them differently.

Xenophobia is defined as “an unreasonable Fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange. It comes from the Greek words ξένος (xenos), meaning “stranger,” “foreigner,” and φόβος (phobos), meaning “fear.”

Comments from Paulo Coelho’s blog:

“Life means adventure, change, things that not everybody has the courage to face and accept. When one sees someone who is unfamiliar, a subconscious fear springs up” (Ruth)

“Xenophobia isn’t just the fear of strangers, it’s being afraid of what happens between different generations. Most people are afraid of today, they prefer to live in the past. My country (Russia) is an excellent example of this”. (Dasha)

“Here in Denmark we have a festival that lasts about a week and attracts 100,000 strangers to celebrate life, share common interests and learn from the differences. People embrace for no reason except being on the same path, they sing and get drunk together. When the festival is over, a strange atmosphere takes over the town again, and strangers are once more seen as a threat”. (Warrior of Running Water)

“People in my country (Poland) lived through the tyranny of Hitler and the Soviet oppression, and they don’t seem to have learned anything. It terrifies me to see people who experienced the horrors of Nazism behaving the same way today, avoiding everything that is unknown or different. The worst of it all is that they use religion to justify their acts, arguing that all those who aren’t Christians should be banished from society. This blind faith is worse than having no faith at all”. (Radek)

The definition of home.

What is home? For some it is a house, for others - people.  For others it is where them and their loved ones are. No mater where in the world, no matter what cultures they are endorsed into. As long as they have their close ones next to them, they are at home.

Home for us is where we feel free, where we feel needed, where we feel the belonging. Home can be anywhere where there is a feeling of warmth and genuinity from people who surround us. We want a place where we can be accepted the way we are and do not have to constantly prove ourselves. We want a place with occasional sad faces, we don’t want to be only surrounded by fake smiles. We want to be able to read into people’s minds, their worries, try to understand them, try to help them.

We want a place where we can have time to care about other people. We also want a decent level of life, we want some certainty in the future where we see a good future for our next generation. We want to be living in communities where there is a sharing of values, where people have a common goal to pursue. Decent life does not cost much, if we construct it in a clever way, it can cost nothing. Money were invented by us people anyway, as a product of exchange. It can be replaced by the sharing of knowledge and capabilities.

We can all feel home wherever we are.

The beauty of silence

Silence of the north teaches you that the eyes can see until there is nothing to see, and the ears can hear even there is nothing to listen to, and we can understand when we cease to understand at all.

One of the major reasons why I love Scandinavia is because of its peace and quite. But cold temperatures do not mean that people are. It is often noted by others outside Scandinavia that Northerners are more difficult to approach. This is not true, it just takes longer to get to know them. They take relationships much more seriously than many other nations an cultures.

Love for quietness is very common for northerners. It means that the tacit communication in the environment with the people or even in absence of the people has meanings and messages. An important point is to never lose your sense of humor – whatever happens we should not stop to laugh at ourselves. 

The importance of Art Education

Researching into Art and its importance of giving it a significant placement within our societies.

Personal perspective:

The more we travel the more capabilities we have to absorb and critically overlook our world with its people and surroundings. We grow, we learn, we get wiser, but it does not become easier, rather the opposite, to understand this world, humanity in general. Traveling the world and speaking several languages does not solve any problems and cannot contribute to the magic formula of gaining the control over the world structure. It raises even more questions instead, seeing all the complexities of human soul, you cannot but wonder about its similarities, as well is it predictabilities. You become overly self-critical as you recognize some of flaws in yourself, seeing yourself from many perspective sets you in a difficult position of occasional over analysis, which sometimes is critical to our happiness and careless existence. But as much as you would have wanted to turn the clocks backwards and go back to simplicity and childish view of the world, it is impossible. You want to climb more to fill in all the gaps, to get all your questions answered. The biggest challenge in this case is to start moving in the opposite direction: to learn how to stop, relax, embrace yourself in the moment and meditate. Another solution is to stop caring about your own fulfillment, which is very much propagandised by many western societies, but rather start caring about others, which might save yourself a soul and sanity. Such journey can be difficult and it easy to get lost among endless opportunities and ideas.

Here comes the importance of creativity and art. Vision of the world as something that is based on principles, grids and models is rather abstract and to be honest, rather depressing thought. Any creative act, be it traveling, attending an art exhibition, or having a stimulating and challenging conversation, let us start re-evaluating our personal ambitions, dreams, challenges acquired perspectives, values and principles. Art and ‘creative act’ keep our motivation on the high, without letting us to get bored by accepting our life routines. 

Art also challenges our materialistic values. The importance of family and love is evident and yet many people in the western world tend to forget this simple truth. What one might call ‘simple’ life, is one of the richest in reality. What can be more important that being in the company of people who you know care about you, love you in any way. What can be more valuable then a walk or a chat to a person whose words you know will stay with you and become part of your soul forever. All things material age, people die, but their souls, their love and their creations live on. So isn’t it the most valuable thing in the world? Art helps societies, communities and younger generations to find this spiritual connection through creative exercises. Some might argue that this is an overly simplistic, or maybe overly spiritualistic way of looking at things, that we need economic growth, we need stimuli to keep the humanity grow and develop and this is also very right. I believe that everyone chooses how to balance their lives, which consequently creates a balance on the bigger scale in this world between people of all kinds – sky walkers, dreamers, thinkers, painters, high climbers, money and power grabbers. In the ideal world everyone has this balance within one selves, where we have place for love, care, our children, our work, our passions and hobbies. But it is difficult to achieve in the society where arrogance and money serve as main stimuli. We need to rethink. We need to invest more in non-material things, such as education, art, sustainability and communities.  

Creative Engagements with Visual Culture, Communicative Knowing, Citizenship and

Contemporary Visual Art Education

Kathryn Grushka, University of Newcastle

Article discusses why it is important to develop students’ capacities to engage creatively with learning in environments that provide opportunities for thoughtful participatory understanding about self as a citizen of the world, or as a member of one’s national or local community.

Abstract

New learning in a global society gives attention to the need for learners to engage in constructive, meaningful and transformative processes which have communicative relevance to themselves. It acknowledges the need for cultural sustainability, and the vital role cultural engagement, particularly visual culture plays in development of values and the transferring of belief systems.

Visual art making acknowledges previous learning, personal meaningmaking, the real world and audience while providing authentic learning experiences. It presents as a platform for critical self-reflection and a space to facilitate the ongoing mediation of society, cultural values and citizenship. An examination of visual art curriculum, 5 years of Higher School Certificate art works in NSW and student reflections reveal a rich imagery of how student artists use their art making to affirm their consciousness about the world and self through creative engagement and communicative knowing and is presented as a legitimate site for the negotiation of ones subjectivities and life worlds

Plato on Internet and illusions

- Next then, I said… Picture people as dwelling in a cavernous underground chamber, with the entrance opening upward to the light, and a long passage-way running down the whole length of the cave. They have been there since childhood, legs and necks fettered so they cannot move: they see only what is in front of them, unable to turn their heads because of the bonds.

- A strange image, he said, and strange prisoners.

- Like ourselves, I replied.

Plato, The Republic, 514A

In plato’s cave, nobody sees what’s really happening. They think they do, but they don’t. Plato says we are like the cave dwellers. We think we see the Truth, but we don’t. The difference is that we can see the Truth is we know how. Plato knew how and wanted to show us. But Plato also knew that we – or at least most of us – are either incapable of or uninterested in coming to grips with the Truth. Philosophers have the way and the will, but the rest of humanity doesn’t. we are quite happy living in our pleasant illusions, far removed from the Truth. This is why we build the imaginary worlds – dramas – that Plato found so disturbing. For what are storytelling, literature, and theater but attempts to escape from reality into some fantasy? The storytellers, writers, and thespians all say we can learn something about ourselves from their productions. But what do we learn, really, if all that is depicted is fiction? Fiction cannot be the Truth, for it is the opposite of the Truth. And even those productions that claim to be something other than fiction – histories and the like – aren’t they simply poor reflections of a reality that is gone and cannot be revisited, and therefore really fictions themselves?

Perhaps they are, and perhaps they aren’t. In any case, Plato was on firm ground in asserting that we naturally see the comfort of illusions. 

The power of today's generation

As a follow up on my previous post on our generation (26.10.11) many coincidences occurred last week as if someone wanted to reassure me and show all the positives about today's world construction and its young generation. What happened had such a big impact on me that I have decided to dedicate more time for its research an write about it as part of my university project. 'Occupy' movement that is. These young boys and girls who went out on the streets on New York first, and then the movement spreading all across the globe makes me rethink about my previous rather spontaneous generalisations about 'hopeless' youth. I do not deny that we all build our assumptions and see the world based on personal experiences and occurrences but when surrounded by an uninspiring crowd it drags one down into pessimistic perspective. But to become overly pessimistic and sad is not a solution here and will not benefit anyone - we have to hold on and try see the best in this world. One has to be rather strong in order not to let the evil' win: ''For evil to flourish, all that is needed is for good people to do nothing'' (E.Burke).

For my future research I will be looking at some striking images and photography of 'Occupy" events and see how it affected media, people's perception of the problems and  most importantly, how it influenced the governmental actions. Will it influence future policies, will it influence the future of our societies? We all know that there is no perfect society, but we as the western humanity will always be reaching for perfection.

Here I would also like to highlight a theory that will probably be the basis of my project research. It reflects perfectly current 'Occupy' events and descibes its causes in a way. The theory of counter-productivity. From the book The Ecological Modernisation Reader (Mol, Sonnenfield, Spaargaren, 2009)

The theory of counter-productivity has many foundations and predecessors, and its central message is: stop growing, start shrinking. A scientific foundation for this was given by the 'thermo-dynamic school of economics' related to N.Georgescu-Roegen, with a transfer of the entropy paradigm from physics to society, which has become the eco-misers' most beloved reference. The idea is that whatever is done uses up energy and resources of a higher order, which unavoidably leads to increased entropy. Each unit of economic value added with each step in the human chain of production equals a step of ecological degradation and destruction of nature. The only conclusion can be : humanity must do away with the existing rationalist, materialist, and outer-wordily oriented pursuits of happiness. We would have to slow down, retire into more spiritual inner worlds, shrinking all the way.

The capacity to endure

The masters' thesis has been started and from now on I will be posting interesting facts/extracts from researched material related to Russian character, Russian history etc. My dissertation will be trying to identify the reasons for many occasions of miscommunication between western and Russian businesses and trying to find ways for its resolutions. i believe that much of Russian character is shaped by its intense and unique, extremely violent and unstable history (which is supported by many scholar's observations and studies). I believe that any behaviour, no matter how strange it might seem to us, has an explanation. Therefore I will try and explain the current lack of trust in the west among Russians.

It has been known for centuries about the Russian ability to survive under inhuman conditions, which has been trained for centuries.

An extract from Kets de Vers, M.F.R. The Anarchist Within: Clnical Reflections on Russian Character, Leadership Style, and organizational Practices 98/96/ENT describes it perfectly.

The Capacity to endure

In spite of (or perhaps because of) the harsh circumstances under which the Russians have lived – predominantly on vast, empty plains or on the Siberian taiga-Russians also come across as a people of enormous endurance and stamina. Their history is illustrative. The creation of their nation, a process marked by hardship, was preceded by centuries of social unrest. People in what is now Russia had to deal with Viking raiders from the north, the Tatar-Mongol domination, the Teutonic invasion, the Don Cossacks, and the Turks. Indeed, unrest has been Russia’s constant companion. Not surprisingly, then, the “Times of Troubles” (1598-1613) – a period of social and political upheaval during and after the reign of Boris Godunov, a period of great suffering caused by famine, epidemics, and incursions by Cossack soldiers and Polish adventures – continues to resonate with the Russian collective memory. Nor has Napoleon’s invasion or Hitler’s military campaign been forgotten. But the Russians, with their indomitable stamina, have risen above the many evil forces around them- the irrational authority, the violent changes of regime, the civil wars, the social disorder, the foreign intervention.

This ability to endure, this capacity for survival, has prompted some observers to offer ice fishing – an activity pursued by many Russians – as a metaphor of their character, of the hardiness and mysticism of the Russian soul. Standing for hours in front of a hole on a frozen lake in Siberia under arctic conditions in the hope of catching a fish is an unattractive proposition to most people. It looks like an open invitation for frostbite or even death. But in spite of its predictable discomforts, a large number of Russians find pleasure in this pursuit. Their pleasure could be seen as an expression of the love of suffering – even the assertion of a death wish; at the very least it could be seen as passive consent to a miserable situation. Yet it also illustrates the desire for solitude and the need for mystical unity with nature – traits that exemplify the deep spiritual character of the Russians.

Human Rights & Visual Culture

Birbeck College
University of London
11th June 2010

How are human rights represented and disseminated through visual culture? What is the role of visual culture in the formation of human rights politics and practices? How radical is the use of visual, online and web based media by human rights activists? Is there a visual politics of human rights?
This colloquium will bring scholars, campaigners and practitioners together to show examples of human rights in film, television, digital media and photography and discuss ways in which we can conceptualise and understand the emergence of visual culture in the human rights political arena.
The review will be coming soon.
SPEAKERS include
Costas Douzinas (Birkbeck) a regular contributor to The Guardian on human rights, and author of Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism and The End of Human Rights;
Oscar Guardiola- Rivera (Birkbeck) author of What If Latin America Ruled the World? How the Second World Will Take the First into the 22nd Centuryand Being Against the World, Rebellion and Constitution;
Roger Hallas (Syracuse)author of Reframing Bodies: AIDS, Bearing Witness, and the Queer Moving Image and co-editor of Image and the Witness: Trauma, Memory and Visual Culture;
Jacqueline Maingard (Bristol) author of South African National Cinema and engaged in scholarship on visual culture on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC);
Les Moran (Birkbeck) author of Sexuality and the Politics of Violence and Safety and co- editor of Law’s Moving Image;
Gita Sahgal filmmaker and journalist, and former Head of the Gender Unit for Amnesty International; credits include Love Snatched and The War Crimes File, co-editor of Refusing Holy Orders, Women and Fundamentalism in Britain;
Emma Sandon (Birkbeck) co-editor of Law’s Moving Image, has taught on the EIUC summer school on Cinema and Human Rights.
Michael Uwemedimo (Roehampton)curator, filmmaker and member of Vision Machine Film Project which produced The Globalisation Tapes and currently working on the Niger Delta advocacy project

KORAKOR

Keveen, the founder of Korakor, is an amazing, inspirational individual, who have great ideas of helping, loving and caring. Everyone should consider helping him out. You can donate him using a link on his site, or you can get involved and join him in his adventures. He welcomes everyone who is willing to give a piece of themselves by teaching children in disadvantaged communities, and spreading the knowledge around. Great ideas!