Bbenzon
Description
Humankind got its start on the African savannas some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. At various times in our cultural history we’ve moved to distinctly new cultural ground, as it were. And so we are moving now, and have been for the past half century. This blog is how I see that move. Intellectually, I'm broadly interested in culture and the brain. Within that compass, anything could show up here. Literature and films (including animation), certainly, music as well, and graffiti. But, other things may show up as well. It's a blog, don't you know, it moves.
MY BLOGS
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New Savanna
http://new-savanna.blogspot.com/
Humankind got its start on the African savannas some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. At various times in our cultural history we’ve moved to distinctly new cultural ground, as it were. And so we are moving now, and have been for the past half century. This blog is how I see that move. I'm broadly interested in culture and the brain. Within that compass, anything could show up here. Literature and films (including animation), certainly, music as well, and graffiti. But, other things may show up as well. It's a blog, don't you know, it moves.
LATEST ARTICLES ( 7356 )
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Kenan Malik Defends "cultural Appropriation"
Writing in the NYTimes: Campaigns against cultural appropriation reveal the changing meaning of what it is to challenge racism. Once, it was a demand for equal... Read more
Posted on 14 June 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How Long Before We See the Cabinet Members Kissing the Presidential Ring?
Trump went around table listening to his Cabinet praise him Reince: “We thank you for the opportunity the blessing…to serve your agenda” pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 12 June 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Let's Further Blur the Line Between the Presidency and DJT
Brilliant. There's a new Twitter bot that turns Trump's tweets into official White House statements. https://t.co/1wV6McVqZW — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1)... Read more
Posted on 05 June 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Trump, the Person (DJT) Versus the Role (POTUS)
Lawfare’s Quinta Jurecic has a new post up, A New Jurisprudence for an Oathless Presidency, in which she considers, as she has in earlier posts, the judicial... Read more
Posted on 03 June 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Synchronization Through Coupled Oscillation
I've put coupled oscillation at the center of my thinking about music, mind, and human sociality. One reason for that is that it is a phenomenon that can... Read more
Posted on 31 May 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Nation State as an Agent of War
Tyler Cowen has a recent post consisting of the abstract to a working paper by Alberto Alesina, Bryony Reich, Alessandro Riboni, "Nation-Building, Nationalism... Read more
Posted on 29 May 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Five Epochs of Energy and Evolution
Olivia P. Judson, The energy expansions of evolution, Nature Ecology Evolution 1, Article number: 0138 (2017)doi:10.1038/s41559-017-0138Abstract: The history... Read more
Posted on 25 May 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sapolsky on Good and Evil (sorta’)
Robert Sapolsky is a Stanford biologist who’s just published an 800-page book, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. Sean Illing interviews him i... Read more
Posted on 25 May 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The True Nature of Reality is Strange
I’m a regular reader of Tyler Cowen’s blog, Marginal Revolution (which he runs along with Alex Tabarrok). As some of you know, Cowen is a libertarian economist... Read more
Posted on 25 May 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Can't We All Get Along? Russia and the USofA
Bottom Line: Perhaps we should reset our relationship with Russia. Alas, 45 and company are more interested in oil money than peace and they're incompetent at... Read more
Posted on 18 May 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A History of the World in 20 Entertaining Minutes
H/t Vox: Thankfully, you don’t have to be around for billions of years to understand how that happened and how you got here. In a new video, YouTube creator Bil... Read more
Posted on 17 May 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is Trump Out of Control?
I don’t know. I simply don’t know what to make of events for the last week so. The Comey firing was a debacle. While I have no love for the man, it seemed prett... Read more
Posted on 16 May 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
David Ferrucci on AI and Natural Language
Ben Lorica of O'Reilly interviews David Ferrucci. These days Ferrucci is working on a natural language understanding at a Elemental Cognition, a company he's... Read more
Posted on 12 May 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Fourth Constitutional Crisis?
Over at Down with Tyranny Gaius Publius argues that we're having a fourth constitutional crisis. He sets things up by arguing that Trump will not be impeached:... Read more
Posted on 12 May 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
3 Notes on Miyazaki: Becoming
From late 2010. I’ve been thinking about Hayao Miyazaki a lot. Here are three notes about his films. There’s a connection between them, but not an argument. Read more
Posted on 11 May 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cartoon Metaphysics: OOO and Animation
More cartoons on the mind – bumping this post from 2011 to the top of the queue. [Some time ago] ago when I blogged about Animation and the Sentient Text I... Read more
Posted on 11 May 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sacred Things
From six years ago.... … that still roaring dell, of which I told; The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep, And only speckled by the mid-day sun; Where its... Read more
Posted on 05 May 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Disney and Tezuka at 3 Quarks Daily
My most recent posts at 3 Quarks Daily are about two pop culture figures, Osamu Tezuka and Walt Disney: Tezuka's Mighty Atom (Astro Boy) and the Japanese Take o... Read more
Posted on 03 May 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Desire and Causality in Road Runner Cartoons
An old one from 2011 that I'm bumping to the top in general principle. What’s the Road Runner series about? The cartoons adhere to a formula: They’re set in a... Read more
Posted on 03 May 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The State is in Question: What's Happening to the Idea of State Sovereignty?
J. Dana Stuster, writing at Lawfare: In these polarized times, it came as a surprise to me that the authors of three of the most interesting books on... Read more
Posted on 01 May 2017 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
