Meeting 17 • 05 March 2013 • Tuesday
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pictures of the week
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thought-bite of the week: "'I knew,' said the young Indian girl coolly, 'that the crododile would let go when I stuck my fingers in its eyes.'"(Humboldt, "Personal Narrative", from Jaguars and Electric Eels, ed. & trans. Wilson, p. 67) |
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mini-text of the week (start): "'…but the zambo would expect to be treated as an equal, and that I cannot do with a man of his colour.'"Humboldt, "Personal Narrative", from Jaguars and Electric Eels, ed. & trans. Wilson, pp. 47 (read more) |
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(10') Is everybody HAPPY? Initial check for later discussion Thought-bite of the week: The Indian girl - what other encounters with indigenous people, as individuals, are recorded in Jaguars and Electric Eels or in the Helferich biography? How does AvH portray the "non-indigenous" (but sometimes long-resident) people(s)? Followup on previous meeting's music (Gottschalk): link to NPR broadcast (5 March 2012, ca 7:45 am) about "zumba" exercise vs. "true" salsa, and "true" yoga vs. "phony" yoga: What does it mean when cultures borrow from each other? For now just the question - we'll get back to it during the rest of the course. (broadcast sound file and transcript) |
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(15') Comparative validity of sources of evidence about "VERY long ago": a) pre-1700 "science" (word didn't exist then in that sense); b) oral history and tradition, including folk knowledge; c) classical ("pagan") history & "science"; d) Bible. What issues of truth, validity, purpose are raised here? How fast does "signal loss" occur (ideas become obsolete; knowledge is distorted in transmission)? Some misconceptions about earlier worldviews and conflicts (science vs. technology; science vs. religion/myth): flat/round Earth (Columbus and before); rotating Earth; geocentric universe with "Man as center of universe"; age of the Earth / world, including the notorious 4004 BC dating (the "Ussher Chronology"). Small groups: Where do you get your citizen information, opinions, conclusions, solutions, and how do you check it out? If you are into "think globally, act locally", where do you get your local info? What "signs" are there that your sources are reliable? |
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(20') Initial discussion that will attempt to bring it all together: (re)interpreting the past and sustainable environmentalism. Small groups: define and distinguish happy/happiness, prosperity, wealth(y), rich(ness?), standard of living, equity, fortunate. A snapshot of happiness and standard of living in the past: the "turnspit" (the thing, the animal, the people), from Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat, by Bee WIlson (2012, pp. 87-7). Questionnaire: Your experience compared to the common experiences of the past. If your are comfortable with the idea you might do the questionnaire as a partner-interview. If time afterward: We generate a list of bad experiences that people in the Past did not have. First: Let's separate happiness from the other concepts so we don't get stuck in arguments about what it means to say "Your generation has it better now." The "Easterlin Paradox" (Wikipedia): above a certain level, self-reported personal happiness does not correlate closely with income –- above a certain level; below that level, in the realm of destitution, increase in income is paralleled by increase in happiness. See "Where money seems to talk," The Economist, July 12, 2007. (The Legatum Prosperity Index [Wikipedia] attempts to rank the happiness of countries as a whole, based on a range of factors: welath, economic growth, personal well-being, and quality of life.) Thesis: In the West (Europe, North America, related societies) material well-being (whatever the feeling of happiness) has increased greatly, starting around 1800 or, at the latest, 1850. In the lower middle class, this well-being reached a point where general lifestyle / standard of living shows a great difference between people born around 1900 and later, and people born any time earlier. The difference in well-being between people born around 2000 and people born around 1950 is not nearly as great; the difference between people born around 1950 and those born around 1900 is considerable, but not as great as the very big difference in material well-being between 1900-present and 1900 and before. |
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(15') Now a more systematic view: The world Now and in 1600 (-1900+): your probable individual fate, and what you, transported back to then, would find very different (very absent, very present); standards of living for the (decile) range of population; What caused the change, and what did the change cause? How does that relates to social responsibility (activism?) and sustainable environmentalism? See also handout from previous meeting: pictures from Lesy, Wisconsin Death Trip; article from The Economist, about malnutrition in the present. |
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(5') Still more advice about "educated citizen" reading; example (with free samples: New York Review of Books) |
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(5') Announcements, Checkups & Previews: 1) still more advice about "educated citizen" reading, with yet another example (NYRB); 2) one focus of "interpreting the past" to the present during the rest of the course: land and water allocation and use in the American West, including Oregon, and how Humboldt play an important role in that. One theme of next several weeks: Humboldt's influence on the development of systems of land and water measurement an |