I love all these quotes of yours. I should probably take Kahlil Gibran's advice here.
Where were you 30 years ago when I was in the marrying mood?
"First, quite simply, the ultraspecialization that sociology, and indeed all the other social sciences, has been suffering has been both inevitable and self-destructive." Ibid., 243
"Human arrogance has been humanity's greatest self-imposed limitation. This, it seems to me, is the message of the story of Adam in the Garden of Eden. We were arrogant in claiming to have received and understood the revelation of God, to know the intent of the gods. We were even more arrogant in asserting that we were capable at arriving at the eternal truth through the use of human reason, so fallible a tool. And we have been continuously arrogant in seeking to impose on each other, and with such violence and cruelty, our subjective images of the perfect society." Ibid., 250
"Solipsism is the greatest of all forms of hubris, greater even than objectivism." Wallerstein, Immanuel. The End of the World As We Know It. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999: 244
"If it is true that human beings make their own identities, they nonetheless do not make them in circumstances of their own choosing." (206) Gould, Roger V. Insurgent Identities. Chicago: The University Chicago Press, 1995.
Thanks. :) Yea, I think it's a Roborovski. I found the pic from google and it was one of the cutest ones I can find. :P
"Because a full consideration of all the meanings and technicalities of social environments that surround the self is difficult for an individual, a person is consequently not always able to choose the behavioral option that is best suited to his or her interests. It is only with regard to the imperfection of human cognitive possibilities of knowledge that the macro social-structural constraints can be translated into individual actions."
Ikegami, Eiko. The Taming of the Samurai. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995: 340
The pundits of knowledge establishment insist that this state of confusion is due to a shortage of studies. Soon there will be a seminar in the sky based on ten thousand new field trips. But we shall know less, not more, if these scholars have their way. Without a strategy aimed at bridging the gap between specialists and at organizing existing knowledge along theoretically coherent lines, additional research will not lead to a better understanding of the cause of lifestyles.
-Marvin Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: Riddles of Culture
Poverty protects against suicide because it is a restraint in itself. No matter how one acts, desires have to depend upon resources to some extent; actual possessions are party the criterion of those aspired to. So the less one has the less he is tempted to extend the range of his needs indefinitely. Lack of power, complelling moderation, accustoms men to it, while nothing excites envy if no one has superfluity. Wealth, on the other hand, by the power it bestows, deceives us into believing that we depend on ourselves only. Reducing the resistance we encounter from objects, it suggests the possibility of unlimited success against them. The less limited one feels, the more intolerable all limitation appears.
-Emile Durkheim, Suicide, p. 254, The Free Press, 1979
The contempt for commerce and manual labour, the lure of easy money from investment in censos and juros, the universal hunger for titles of nobility and social prestige -- all these, when combined with innumerable practical obstacles in the way of profitable economic enterprise, hadpersuaded the bourgeoisie to abandon its unequal struggle, and throw in its lot with the unproductive upper class of society. (311)
The Catholic kings were already passing into history -- symbols of a golden age to which Castile would for ever aspire to return. The rebels remembered Isabella's piety and wisdom, not her zealous concern to extend her royal powers. They remembered the 'secure liberty' she had given them, and forgot its authoritarian overtones. Measuring the present against an idealized past, when a Castile ruled by a truly Castilian soverign had wrought great things, they raised the banner of revolt in a gallant but hopeless attempt to prove to themselves that, although everything was different, it could still be the same. (153) -J.H. Elliot. Imperial Spain. 1963. Penguin Books, 2002
Everything which is a source of solidarity is moral, everything which forces man to take account of other men is moral, everything which forces him to regulate his conduct through something other than the striving of his ego is moral, and morality is as solid as these ties are numerous and strong... It rather consists in a state of dependence... We sometimes, it is true, come across people now without nobility who finds the idea of such dependence intolerable. But that is because they do not perceive the source from which their own morality flows, since these sources are very deep. Conscience is a bad judge of what goes on in the depths of a person, because it does not penetrate them. -Emile Durkeim, The Division of Labor in Society
Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. -Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Chatboard (13)
I love all these quotes of yours. I should probably take Kahlil Gibran's advice here.
Where were you 30 years ago when I was in the marrying mood?
"First, quite simply, the ultraspecialization that sociology, and indeed all the other social sciences, has been suffering has been both inevitable and self-destructive."
Ibid., 243
"Human arrogance has been humanity's greatest self-imposed limitation. This, it seems to me, is the message of the story of Adam in the Garden of Eden. We were arrogant in claiming to have received and understood the revelation of God, to know the intent of the gods. We were even more arrogant in asserting that we were capable at arriving at the eternal truth through the use of human reason, so fallible a tool. And we have been continuously arrogant in seeking to impose on each other, and with such violence and cruelty, our subjective images of the perfect society."
Ibid., 250
"Solipsism is the greatest of all forms of hubris, greater even than objectivism."
Wallerstein, Immanuel. The End of the World As We Know It. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999: 244
"If it is true that human beings make their own identities, they nonetheless do not make them in circumstances of their own choosing." (206)
Gould, Roger V. Insurgent Identities. Chicago: The University Chicago Press, 1995.
Thanks. :) Yea, I think it's a Roborovski. I found the pic from google and it was one of the cutest ones I can find. :P
"Because a full consideration of all the meanings and technicalities of social environments that surround the self is difficult for an individual, a person is consequently not always able to choose the behavioral option that is best suited to his or her interests. It is only with regard to the imperfection of human cognitive possibilities of knowledge that the macro social-structural constraints can be translated into individual actions."
Ikegami, Eiko. The Taming of the Samurai. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995: 340
The Financial Crisis and the Systemic Failure of Academic Economics
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/papers/Dahlem_Report_EconCrisis021809.pdf
The pundits of knowledge establishment insist that this state of confusion is due to a shortage of studies. Soon there will be a seminar in the sky based on ten thousand new field trips. But we shall know less, not more, if these scholars have their way. Without a strategy aimed at bridging the gap between specialists and at organizing existing knowledge along theoretically coherent lines, additional research will not lead to a better understanding of the cause of lifestyles.
-Marvin Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: Riddles of Culture
Poverty protects against suicide because it is a restraint in itself. No matter how one acts, desires have to depend upon resources to some extent; actual possessions are party the criterion of those aspired to. So the less one has the less he is tempted to extend the range of his needs indefinitely. Lack of power, complelling moderation, accustoms men to it, while nothing excites envy if no one has superfluity. Wealth, on the other hand, by the power it bestows, deceives us into believing that we depend on ourselves only. Reducing the resistance we encounter from objects, it suggests the possibility of unlimited success against them. The less limited one feels, the more intolerable all limitation appears.
-Emile Durkheim, Suicide, p. 254, The Free Press, 1979
The contempt for commerce and manual labour, the lure of easy money from investment in censos and juros, the universal hunger for titles of nobility and social prestige -- all these, when combined with innumerable practical obstacles in the way of profitable economic enterprise, hadpersuaded the bourgeoisie to abandon its unequal struggle, and throw in its lot with the unproductive upper class of society. (311)
-J.H. Elliot. Imperial Spain. 1963. Penguin Books, 2002
The Catholic kings were already passing into history -- symbols of a golden age to which Castile would for ever aspire to return. The rebels remembered Isabella's piety and wisdom, not her zealous concern to extend her royal powers. They remembered the 'secure liberty' she had given them, and forgot its authoritarian overtones. Measuring the present against an idealized past, when a Castile ruled by a truly Castilian soverign had wrought great things, they raised the banner of revolt in a gallant but hopeless attempt to prove to themselves that, although everything was different, it could still be the same. (153)
-J.H. Elliot. Imperial Spain. 1963. Penguin Books, 2002
Everything which is a source of solidarity is moral, everything which forces man to take account of other men is moral, everything which forces him to regulate his conduct through something other than the striving of his ego is moral, and morality is as solid as these ties are numerous and strong... It rather consists in a state of dependence... We sometimes, it is true, come across people now without nobility who finds the idea of such dependence intolerable. But that is because they do not perceive the source from which their own morality flows, since these sources are very deep. Conscience is a bad judge of what goes on in the depths of a person, because it does not penetrate them.
-Emile Durkeim, The Division of Labor in Society
Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work
with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave
your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who
work with joy.
-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet