This week we get to write about all the things many of us wanted to talk about for hours—maybe over beer: the faith-science wars; Christian Texas Patriots; bleeding mystics (and cute teenagers); indubitable 'selves,' reason (and faith), hypnotized away warts, and the entire mind-body split.
What we've been calling the 'Cartesian Moment' (Descartes' successfully elevating REASON to the center of all knowledge, and banishing the BODY and all its attributes) changed everything. Anne Fausto-Sterling starts her deeply political work on science, sex, bodies and lives by calling the 'Cartesian' split (a 'dualism') into question on many grounds.
We claimed that we were all 'Cartesians' even if we'd never read a word of his or even heard his name.
Fair enough. So now what?
Well, for starters, let's try to make 'common sense' of the idea that we're sort of trapped by the ways we see the world, and have trouble imagining things any other way. The idea that the world is 'framed' by certain 'paradigms' or 'world views'—ours being pretty 'Cartesian.'
Explain how Descartes 'inhabits' Steven Pinker (or Louis Menand), or the National Geographic producers, or Dr. George Buchanan, or people loving Blessed Teresa (or some of us thinking 'she faked it'), or sexologists who think there are 'six types of people' (…body, 11), or the guys writing the DSM, or the Founding Fathers, or, or, or. Find a good example to read closely—ours are fine; so are yours if you've got one. Whatever works.
Then suggest how this all plays out—theoretically, scientifically, ethically, historically, whatever. Work with our readings. How are we bamboozled and how might we get un-bamboozled? Alternatively: how does our 'reason,' rightly used, steer us right? How do we need to think in order to see more clearly? If you want a model, it's Anne Faust Sterling; her book is a passionate polemic about why seeing sex and gender wrongly (or confusedly) has made life harder for all of us.
Showing posts with label Descartes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Descartes. Show all posts
Friday, February 19, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Blog Posting #3 (due Sunday 2/14, 11:59 P.M.)
This week, we'll use the blog as a place to develop letters to the editor and improve each other's work. The required posting, thus, comes in two parts:
1) Identify, in a few sentences, the publication you're looking at (something local, in the Twin Cities area -- can be online or in print), the problem you see in the way science is being deployed there, and why you think it's a problem you think it's potentially dangerous or harmful enough to merit your time in addressing it. The point of writing this little meta-commentary, before writing the text of the letter itself, is to inform your colleagues about what you're trying to do, so they can best evaluate how well you did it.
2) Write a draft of your letter to the editor.
(For easy reference, here's the text from the assignment sheet: "Write a letter to the editor of that publication, in which you describe that problem, explain and analyze it, and propose a corrective. (Note: letters to the editor are, of course, for a general reading public. This is part of the challenge—how to communicate ideas such as semantic contagion, legitimation, biopolitics, and Cartesianism effectively, without using any jargon? And they are short—150-200 words maximum!)")
Finally, in your comments this week, offer some suggestions to help your colleague improve their letters -- what can be clearer? how could the arguments be strengthened? how might something be worded better? Let's make these as good as they can be!
1) Identify, in a few sentences, the publication you're looking at (something local, in the Twin Cities area -- can be online or in print), the problem you see in the way science is being deployed there, and why you think it's a problem you think it's potentially dangerous or harmful enough to merit your time in addressing it. The point of writing this little meta-commentary, before writing the text of the letter itself, is to inform your colleagues about what you're trying to do, so they can best evaluate how well you did it.
2) Write a draft of your letter to the editor.
(For easy reference, here's the text from the assignment sheet: "Write a letter to the editor of that publication, in which you describe that problem, explain and analyze it, and propose a corrective. (Note: letters to the editor are, of course, for a general reading public. This is part of the challenge—how to communicate ideas such as semantic contagion, legitimation, biopolitics, and Cartesianism effectively, without using any jargon? And they are short—150-200 words maximum!)")
Finally, in your comments this week, offer some suggestions to help your colleague improve their letters -- what can be clearer? how could the arguments be strengthened? how might something be worded better? Let's make these as good as they can be!
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