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Showing posts from February, 2017

Revolution Books

Friday night GH and I walked into Revolution Books and whom did I see? Ngugi wa Thiong'o! Waiyaki, Nyambura, and Muthoni all flashed back like daffodils. We had dinner at Yatenga and then I went back to the bookstore to hear Ngugi read from the third volume of his memoir Birth of a Dream Weaver . His son Mukoma wa Ngugi, who is Assistant Professor of English at Cornell University, read from his latest poetry collection Logotherapy. The third Kenyan author Peter Kimani read from his novel Dance of the Jakaranda . The train, called "the iron snake" in Kenya, was a powerful symbol of colonial and neo-colonial exploitation.

Social Maternalism

TLS January 27, 2017. From the article "The New Pragmatism: How to save capitalism from itself, by cutting across traditional political divides and making the state active in the right areas" by Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford: Social democracy can justly be accused of social paternalism: the state is assumed to know best, but unfortunately it didn't. For want of a better term, I think of the pragmatic policies I have suggested as social maternalism . In this model the state would be active in both the economic and social spheres, but it would not overtly empower itself. Its tax policies would restrain the powerful from appropriating rents, rather than stripping income from the rich to help the poor. Its regulations would empower those who suffer from creative destruction to claim compensation, rather than attempting to frustrate the very process that gives capitalism its astonishing d

Reading Richard Rorty

I've always wondered how to reconcile Nietzschean self-creation with liberal politics, and so it is with a tremendous sense of excitement, and relief, that I learn from Richard Rorty that it is not necessary to reconcile the two, that in fact it is a mistake to try for some kind of synthesis. One has to be contented with their separation, to be a liberal ironist, as Rorty calls it. The irony is directed at all final vocabularies, one's own as well as others', understanding that there is no final vocabulary that is not contingent and not formed by one's historical and social contingencies. Discourse and socialization goes all the way down, and the best one can hope for is to re-write a small part of one's inherited script. The geniuses among us re-write a bigger part. That is the self-creation advocated by Nietzsche. It retains his perspectivism but relinquishes his essentializing move of making "the will to power" a commonality in all human beings. "T

To be an ironic liberal

To be inscribed on my forehead and in my heart: "If we are ironic enough about our final vocabularies, and curious enough about everyone else's, we do not have to worry about whether we are in direct contact with moral reality, or whether we are blinded by ideology, or whether we are being weakly "relativistic"." - Richard Rorty in "Orwell on Cruelty" in his book CONTINGENCY, IRONY, AND SOLIDARITY.

Judo vs Jujitsu

Sanshiro Sugata (a.k.a. Judo Saga) is Akira Kurosawa's first film (1943), based on the novel by Tsuneo Tomita. Sanshiro (Susumu Fujita) learns judo from master Yano (Denjirô Ôkôchi) but also learns to grow up. The moment of enlightenment comes while he is hanging to a stake in a muddy pond. He sees a glowing lotus rising from the mud. What does it mean? A calm acceptance of Nature's law? A awakening to the shitty roots of life? Later he almost fails to vanquish an old master from the jujitsu school because the master's daughter is praying with a pure devotion for her father to win. To overcome his inner doublts, Sanshiro remembers the lotus again, so the flower could also represent a kind of selfless innocence. Not surprisingly, he defeats the implacable jujitsu master Gennosuke Higaki (Ryûnosuke Tsukigata) in the end. Not a terribly profound film, but well-paced and shot. It is very much a young man's film.

Organize, Organize, Organize

Feb 7, 2017: An informative and inspiring meeting organized by the Asian American Federation. Panel speakers representing different civic organizations spoke about making Asian Americans visible and their voices heard; the need for language access in govt proclamations; organizing protests and call-ins (New York Immigration Coalition); the impact of Trumpism on social policies (Coalition for Asian American Children & Families) and on-the-ground social services, especially elderly and mental services (Hamilton-Madison House); teaching students to stand up for one another in schools against bullying (Sikh Coalition); the building of alliances between mainstream Asian America and marginalized communities such as the LGBTQAPI (National Queer API Alliance). Participate. Support. Donate. Above all, organize, organize, organize.