Monthly Archives: January 2022

Commentary: The myths of the past no longer represent our world view – Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel

Posted: January 30, 2022 at 12:06 am

We live in an age of discord and distrust, much of it fueled by the splintering of our media landscape and the sheer volume of circulating information and misinformation. But there is also a deeper fracturing of what we used to think of as national historical truths.

Over the past several years, significant reappraisals of our collective past have exploded in number. Reconstruction, which was always an inconvenient blemish on our redemptive Civil War saga, is now rightly seen as the systemic continuation of oppression that is was, for example. And the perceived unity of purpose of the Greatest Generation is now counterbalanced by a more rounded view of the ambivalence felt by many at home and the brutality felt on the battlefield.

In an era of falling statues and other icons, some Americans despair that we have lost our collective American narrative to cynical and/or negative portrayals that disconnect us from a healthy patriotism and one another. Others respond that we need such accounts to acknowledge past injustices and better legitimize our present society and government.

One thing is clear: Our revised annals are richer and more complex. As Diane Turner, curator of an Afro-American history collection at Temple University said recently, by being able to tell everybodys story, its good for the society as a whole Lets have these stories, because the more truth we have, the better it is. But with this ever-growing number of stories, might something also be lost?

One prominent American historian worried about this years ago. In a 1982 essay in Foreign Affairs appropriately titled The Care and Repair of Public Myth, William McNeill (author of sweeping histories such as The Rise of the West and Plagues and Peoples) feared discrediting old myths without finding new ones to replace them. He understood such myths not in a negative sense as imaginary or unverifiable, but as a peoples rendering of historical events that illuminates their worldview. To McNeill, a people without a full quiver of relevant agreed-upon statements, accepted in advance through education or less formalized acculturation, soon finds itself in deep trouble, for in the absence of believable myths, coherent public action becomes very difficult to improvise or sustain. In what he saw even then as an increasingly atomized environment that might cause societies to retreat to more narrow in-groups, McNeill beseeched thoughtful men of letters to create new, more inclusive forms of myth. We must do the best we can, he said, to survive in a world full of conflict by creating and sustaining the most effective public identities of which we are capable.

What narratives can contribute those broader identities today? They cannot simply be those of yesteryear, no matter how nostalgically (or misguidedly) some citizens may yearn for them. Nor can they be manufactured overnight. Their appeal must be expansive and inspirational, and their credibility strong. They must reflect not a yes, but orientation that effectively seeks to erase narrower identities, but a yes, and approach that affirms both larger affinities and more localized loyalties.

One starting point might be the continuing significance of our Declaration of Independence, with its twin themes of liberty and equality tracing a common ongoing quest of various American communities religious, racial, ethnic, disabled, and those of different sexual orientations to gain greater freedom and status. Another is our reputation for both commercial and social entrepreneurship: While this is often touted as emblematic of our communal freedom from the state, we are also blessed with a history of innovative government-funded research and development, infrastructure, public health and environmental programs that have generated freedom for improved societal well-being. And of course, there is our voluntarism and activism, which continues to inspire people around the world nearly 200 years after de Tocqueville commented on them.

Perhaps our apex narrative needs to be one of economic and social progress that admits flaws and tragedies, but traces a hopeful and persistent, if jagged, story of growth and learning. Such an account, informed by more humility (and maturity) than those trumpeting our purported New World innocence and self-righteousness, can help inoculate us not only against hubris and global overreach, but exceptionalism and ignorance of other countries histories. It might even make us more compassionate toward our forebears, whose transgressions, we tend to forget, were not informed by later knowledge and insights.

Our rejuvenated, more expansive public myths fewer in number, but also more modest and congruent with our current understanding of the world will require many different contributors (not simply men of letters), who are all part of our national mosaic. These myths will not, by themselves, dissipate the rancor that has swelled in the past decade. But they may be one way to help keep our conversations more constructive.

Malcolm Russell-Einhorn teaches in the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University.___2022 The Baltimore Sun. Visit at baltimoresun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Commentary: The myths of the past no longer represent our world view - Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel

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IYC protests against BJP led Central govt over RRB-NTPC examination – The Statesman

Posted: at 12:06 am

Indian Youth Congress (IYC) today protested against the Central Government over RRB-NTPC examinations. The National President of IYC Srinivas BV alleged that the weapons of the BJP government are atrocities and crime.

Today, where there is a BJP government, there are atrocities against the youth. The double-engine government of Bihar is betraying the aspirations and hopes of the students. Police brutality on students protesting against malpractices in examination results exposes the authoritarian character of the government, said Srinivas.

He said, The Constitution of the country has given every citizen the right to protest, but the police personnel is beating up the students by entering hostels and lodges. On the eve of Republic Day, the police of Dictator Ajay Bisht has given a message to the youth of Uttar Pradesh that the right to protest has now been taken away in this republic, which is very condemnable.

Coming down heavily upon the BJP government, the IYC president said that the rights of the youth cannot be snatched away on the basis of sticks and bullets. Congress is with youth power, justice will be done. The dictatorship BJP government will not be able to win in the republic in front of this power of youth.

Srinivas demanded that the fake FIRs registered against students and teachers should be withdrawn immediately and Policemen who ruthlessly wield sticks should be suspended immediately.

There will be revolution across the country against the oppression of youth and the arrogance of BJP will be shattered. The youth will take their right to employment and the Indian Youth Congress is standing with them in their struggle, said IYC National Media In-charge Rahul Rao.

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IYC protests against BJP led Central govt over RRB-NTPC examination - The Statesman

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Can Science Fiction Wake Us Up to Our Climate Reality? – The New Yorker

Posted: at 12:05 am

Its possible it could work, he said. Worst case, you have to descend with headlamps.

They conferred with each other, and Robinson turned to Biagioli, resuming the conversation about Galileo. A little while later, I saw the hikers waving to us from a distance. They had started their traverse.

What I wanted was reassurance. As we picked our way through the Sierras, I asked Robinson lots of questions; one loomed behind them: Will it be all right? Of course, Robinson has no idea how the future will really go. He does believe that there is a futurean unknown place yet to be explored. He thinks that attitudes shift, that progress exists, that necessity drives invention; but also that progress is slow and easily reversed, that money talks, and that disorder is the norm. In 2002, he published The Years of Rice and Salt, a novel imagining what might have happened if the Black Death had killed all the Europeans instead of a third of them. (Jameson has taught it to his students in a class on historiography.) In a fanciful conceit, the same characters take us from the fourteenth century to the present by means of reincarnation. During every epoch, they engage in theceaseless work of improving civilization. Toward the end of the book, a feminist scholar attends an archeological conference in Iran. As she listens to the presentations, shes struck by an impression of peoples endless struggle and effort. A sense of endless experimentation, of humans thrashing about trying to find a way to live together, deepens in her. In a subsequent incarnation, she works for the international Agency for Harmony with Natureher worlds version of the Ministry for the Future.

Climate work will be the main business of this century. Its basic outlines are already clear. Build wind farms, solar farms, and other sources of clean energy. Start an Operation Warp Speed for clean power: improve energy storage, and make small, cheap power systems for rural places. Tax carbon, reform agriculture, and eat less meat. Rethink construction, transportation, and manufacturing. Study the glaciers, the permafrost, the atmosphere, the oceans. Pilot some geoengineering schemes, in case we need them. Rewild large parts of the Earth. And so on, and so on, and so on. How will all this happen? In The Ministry for the Future, societies start to make good choices, in part because citizens revolt against the monied interests that preserve the status quo. But people also thrash about. They grow frustrated, angry, and violent. Some survivors of the Indian heat wave become ecoterrorists and use swarms of drones to crash passenger planes; no one can figure out how to stop the drones, and everyone gets scared. People fly less. They teleconference, or take long-distance trains, or even sail. They work remotely on transatlantic crossings. Its not how we want change to happen. But, in the end, the jet age turns out to have been just thatan age.

We made our camp near a shallow, glassy lake in a hollow, where a single shelf of granite tilted into the water, like a hard beach. While we built our rock stove, Robinson and Biagioli talked about sailing. Biagioli had crossed the Atlantic twice, once with his wife and once with friends; Robinson was an amateur freshwater sailor of long standing.

Robinson said that when he was invited to COP26, the climate-change conference, he thought, Well, I gotta do it like Greta Thunberg. (The summer before, Thunberg had sailed across the Atlantic instead of flying.) Hed been surprised to learn that there was no way of signing up in New York to sail, as a passenger, to the U.K. My books have convinced me that its so obviousI thought, its surely gonna come. Its low carbon, and youre still doing world travel!

Except, what Greta didshe sailed in a super-fancy, sixty-foot carbon-fibre monster, Biagioli said. It can do thirty-five knots. She needed to go fast, otherwise it wouldve taken a month.

But why arent there lots of those boats? Robinson asked.

I think theyre incredibly uncomfortable, Biagioli said. They bounce. I mean, people wear helmets inside the boat.

But what if they were bigger? Robinson persisted. What if they were like clipper ships?

Well, then, that would be fantastic, Biagioli said. He shared some cubes of Parmesan from a small container. And they would be stable, and you could have sailing ships that blow by diesel ships.

Club Medtheyve been putting sails on their cruise ships, Robinson noted. And the whole technology of sails, per se, is rapidly shifting, because of computer modelling.

The problem is the weight, Biagioli said. People cross the Atlantic in five days, but thats predicated on a boat not weighing anything. So its like here. He gestured to his ultralight pack.

Hmm, Robinson said. He smiled, enjoying the conversation. Well, but if you go back tolook, my Atlantic crossing is gonna take me two weeks, and Im gonna be Internet-connected the whole time. And say you have a big boat, a passenger boat.

Then that would be no problem, Biagioli said. I even think you could do something really comfortable in not even two weeks. It could be ten days. The people who have a lock on the technology are the French.

Robinson laughed. What are our billionaires doing? he said. We talked a bit more about the idea, and about the prospects for dirigibles, which might replace short-hop jet flights, then went to sleep.

In the morning, we set out for Thunderbolt Pass. The climb began immediately. We ascended a series of steep slopes to the vast, mirrorlike Barrett Lakes, navigating around their rocky shores. The pass looked serious: it was about twelve thousand feet high, and made entirely of rock and sand. We started climbing, sometimes pulling ourselves up with our hands, sometimes slipping between narrow gaps. I looked back to find the lake where wed camped the night before; it was like peering from an airplane and trying to spot my house.

Eventually, we reached a rock shelf about a hundred feet wide, where hulking boulders had been deposited by some vanished glacier. We passed a lone climber with a tent hanging from the sheer rock wall. The sun seemed to radiate more strongly. It was a long, challenging climb to the very top, where we rested in a small sandy spot, closed in by rock on two sides, like a little room.

Now, this descent, Robinson said, while we drank water. Its the most technical, meticulous part of our trip. Theres nothing you wont be able to do. But youll have to go slowly, and be careful.

I looked out over the other side of the pass, which led back to Dusy Basin. The landscape yawned downward over a couple of thousand feet. A field of boulders came first; beyond it was a rib of rock, which we could use to descend part of the way. The rib ended in a broad slope of fine-grained talus. We could navigate this by glissadinga kind of sliding, as though we were on snowshoes. That, in turn, would bring us to an ocean of smaller rocks. The first step was to traverse sideways across the mountain, over the boulders. I was nervous.

Just go slow, Robinson said.

We started to cross the boulder field. The rocks were huge, with big gaps between them. Sometimes we clambered forward over empty space, touching four boulders at once. Then the rocks got smaller. I turned to face the mountain, my back to the sun. I moved laterally to my left, wondering how far it was to solid ground; I stepped carefully onto a funny-shaped rock that moved beneath me.

Uh-oh, I said, louder than I meant to. I dont like that.

All four of the rocks I was touching were moving.

Dont look up! Biagioli called.

I looked up. An apparent infinity of similar rocks was stacked above me on the hillside. By a trick of perspective, they seemed ready to fall.

I moved along. We reached the rock rib and crossed it to the long slope of talus. We glissaded down in zigzags through the lunar powder. At the bottom lay the ocean of rocks, small and sharp. They cast harsh shadows, creating pockets of darkness, and crossingthem required intense attention. I had to remember to breathe, and to blink. Hours passed. I stopped to finish my water and looked ahead to see our destination, a lake glittering in the far distance. Almost all Robinsons novels involve an experience of this kinda long, difficult, rocky journey through a mountain landscape, on Earth or elsewhere, accomplished through sustained concentration that lifts one out of time. The main thing is to start, then to keep going, finding your way one step at a time. It never occurs to you to stop. Even if the path isnt set, the job before you is clear: you have to get down the mountain before dark.

Robinson had been right. The descent had been difficult and doablean ideal combination. Back in Dusy Basin, we watched the sun set from atop a high rocky outcropping. The lakes far below us glowed silver in the light.

What a planet! Robinson said.

The next day, we hiked out. It was a long, easy walk, over Bishop Pass and through the picture-postcard forest. Robinson was sad to leave, and worried about the wildfires.

What do you think? I asked, finally, as we made our way down an ordinary rocky slope. Will we be all right?

Well have to make some big changes, he said. I just hope that we wont have to make them so quickly that we break everything.

I wondered what he meant by everything. Jobs? Currencies? Supply chains? Coastal cities? Beaches? Food? Ecologies? Societies? I looked around at the Sierras. Water stretched wide to my left, and pines framed a blue sky overhead. Songbirds were in the trees. It occurred to me that he meant everything. The whole world. All of it could break. Then, lost in thought, I slipped.

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Can Science Fiction Wake Us Up to Our Climate Reality? - The New Yorker

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Jordan Peterson Biography – Facts, Childhood, Family Life …

Posted: at 12:04 am

Childhood & Early Life

He was born on June 12, 1962 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to Walter Peterson and Beverley as the eldest of three children and was raised in Fairview, Alberta. His father was a schoolteacher and his mother a librarian at the Fairview campus of Grande Prairie Regional College.

The librarian of his school Sandy Notley (mother of Canadian politician and Alberta New Democratic Party leader Rachel Notley, the 17th and present Premier of Alberta) introduced Peterson to literary works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Aldous Huxley, Ayn Rand and George Orwell.

In 1979 he graduated from Fairview High School and started attending Grande Prairie Regional College to study English literature and political science. All through his teens Peterson worked for the New Democratic Party (NDP) but later got disenchanted and quit the party at age 18.

He left Grande Prairie Regional College in-between and took transfer to the University of Alberta, from where he obtained his B.A. in Political science in 1982. He then visited Europe and became interested in psychological origins of the Cold War, especially on European totalitarianism of the 20th century.

The ability and scope of mankind for doing evil and destruction gradually started bothering him leading him to go through works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Friedrich Nietzsche and Carl Jung. He went back to the University of Alberta and studied psychology eventually earning a B.A. degree on the subject in 1984.

He relocated to Montreal in 1985 and furthered his studies at the McGill University from where he obtained Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 1991 under supervision of Robert O. Pihl. His thesis was titled Potential psychological markers for the predisposition to alcoholism. Thereafter he worked with Pihl and Maurice Dongier till June 1993 as a post-doctoral researcher at McGill's Douglas Hospital.

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