Studying the Social World

I don’t get it. There is so much I want to figure out. 

Why do wars happen? Where in the world are there wars? Who are all of the groups of humans and what are their relationships? Maybe thinking about groups of groups of humans would be an easier way in. -Radical groups -Intergovernmental bodies? What about comparing the relative sizes of militaries in different countries? What about tracing the histories of different ideologies? What about tracing the histories of different social institutions?

The questions can only unfold on top of the structures. Trusting that I am in fact doing both, what are the questions that are now unfolding?  -What the most dominant and insidious ideologies of our time?  -What is social change? What is it really? What does my whole body-mind believe about change? What role does the human society play in shaping itself? Maybe that’s all it is. Shaping the transformation. Knowing that there will be one either way. But/and shaping is a collective thing. And so one person does not shape the transformation alone. And we do not all play the role in shaping. 

It’s hard to keep building the structure when all I want to do is be able to ask the questions. But it is a lack of knowing the structure that has held me back all of these years, that has led to questions sprouting in the air and having nowhere to root themselves. And then remaining like that, until they went dormant. And just waited for years. And now there is soil being placed here for them. 

I watched this episode with Saumya. It’s helpful because it provides a really simple overview of the immigration system. What are the main categories that allow people to immigrate here legally, how long are the waits, what are the obstacles, what narratives are we hearing?

By this dude named Eric Liu

This video was quite interesting and I’d recommend listening/watching again. It’s all about different forms of civic power and really how to be an engaged citizen. Or really accessing your power in the social world.

I listened to the podcast on Philosophize This! I am not going to link it here. It’s findable in the internet somewhere.

A few things that stood out.

Okay she’s from England in the late 1700s. 1759-1797. SO during this time of all of these “Enlightenment” thinkers. And she had a hard upbringing. Watching her father abuse her mother. And trying to protect her mother. And then later protecting her sister in an abusive marriage. And at some point she tried to kill herself, and the reason why she was saved was that two dudes were doing a study on resuscitation and they had put a bounty out for almost-drowned bodies found in the river. Maybe it was the Thames? I think that’s in London. 

She writes about the French Revolution, and I think she is responding to the ideas of this dude Edmund Burke. 

My main takeaways here. 

Being part of a learning community. What’s up with that? What would that be like? What would it mean to be a community learner?

The idea of learning as cartography. 

All of these learning communities on the internet.

Ze Frank is a public intellectual and a community builder. 

Spinoza’s name was invoked in a Star Trek episode and so I got curious.

This video provides a nice overview.

17th century Dutch philosopher. Influenced by the Stoics from longer ago. From a Jewish community. Was eventually cut off from the religious community because the leaders didn’t like what he was writing. He was all about God being less like a human-like being and more like God is everywhere and you can access it through reason.

I'm going to want to find this article later.

Interview with Brene Brown and Krista Tippett

https://onbeing.org/programs/brene-brown-strong-back-soft-front-wild-heart-feb2018/

“Your level of true belonging can never be greater than your willingness to be brave and stand by yourself.”

BB also talks about the difference between standing alone and loneliness. She says it is actually in those moments of having the courage to stand alone when she in fact doesn't feel lonely, she feels deeply connected to everyone else who has come before her to stand in their convictions.

“One of the greatest casualties of trauma is the loss of the ability to be vulnerable.” In other words some people are on the front lines of danger. And we are not all called equally to have a “soft heart.” But then think about Basim and how he continues to choose this. So my way of reconciling these things is that nobody can tell anyone else the right way for them to respond to the conditions of their world around them. 

“I tell teachers, you may be creating the only space in a child’s day where they can walk in and hang up their backpack and hang up their armor.”

What are the consequences of bravery without vulnerability? No real courage.

Brene Brown says what is true between humans is our fundamental belonging to one another. Is this ideology (culture) or biology? 

“He or she who chooses comfort over courage and facilitating real conversations in towns, in cities, in synagogues, in areas who need it--when you choose your own comfort over trying to bring people together, and you’re a leader, a faith leader, a civic leader, your days of relevance are numbered.

When Krista asks Brene where she sees despair and where she finds hope, Brene says she can see fear in people. And her despair is that people opt for causing pain rather than feeling it.

“We have to stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that we don’t belong, because we will find it.”

Collective pain, collective struggle, and collective joy. 

Durkheim was studying this, trying to understand what people are getting out of church. I think he used this term “collective effervescence.” 

Note: where does Durkheim fit on my timeline? Is there something I should understand about HIS life and work?

BTW wikipedia just told me that Durkheim was, along with KARL MARX, W.E.B. DU BOIS, AND MAX WEBER, the principal architect of modern social science. Whoa, what does this mean? And what would Foucault say about that? 

Essay about the painting “Las Meninas”, painted in 1656 by Diego Velazquez. Velazquez was the “court painter” of the Spanish royal family under Philip IV. 

This essay is cool because it has me really considering what’s possible and how a lot of time we can’t see outcomes. Change is not linear. Impacts are not always intended.

Reflection questions to carry forward: how are my own implicit narratives of “the hero” being restructured? What does it mean to stop being an individual? What do I think about when I think about an infinite number of tiny actions?

7 hour boat ride to the market.

Both groups of sellers are probably just trying to survive.

But being Haitian comes with costs.

Being Black comes with costs.

I watched a moment where a woman was explaining how her children are Dominican citizens, and what they see is her dark skin.

This video gives an overview of the history. How Spanish colonization and French colonization were so different in the DR and in Haiti. And how that led to such different countries, with depleted soil and poverty on one side and a relatively stable country on the other. 

When Haiti became independent it got shut out globally.

There are markets set up in border towns in DR and the idea is for both sides to be able to buy and sell. But the Dominicans get there and get set up first.

In 2010 DR changed their CONSTITUTION. You have to be born to a legal resident in order to be a citizen of the DR (instead of just being born in the DR.) And in 2013 the high court rules that this decision would be applied retroactively (all the way back to 1929). More than 200,000 Dominican citizens were suddenly “stateless.”

In the video Bill DeBlasio speaks again this.

There are camps where people are living--safer than when they were living in the DR, where maybe their homes would be burned.

I just keep thinking about the dark skin and what it means in this world. Dark skin means shame. Dark skin means there’s something wrong with you. I have this idea that maybe hatred of dark skin has to continue to exist, because it’s the psychological strategy for not knowing what to do with the history. In other words I can’t reckon with how my people have benefited while yours have been exploited, so the problem must be with you. It’s with your skin. 

Who is this Vox guy, by the way? A few years ago I would have hated him for his white man-ness. 

“We have no other choice. We have to keep coming back. We have no choice but to continue accepting mistreatment. We’re shameless.”