Objective: To develop an approach for seeking informed consent to examine tissues retained from a previous study of sudden infant death syndrome as part of a study on asthma, and to document responses and participation rate.Design: Pilot open-ended approach to 10 volunteer SIDS parents, followed by staged approach to seek consent from the target SIDS families for the asthma study.Participants: Parents of SIDS infants known to SIDS and Kids Victoria and parents of SIDS infants from the 1991–2 SIDS in Victoria (...) case–control study.Main outcomes: Qualitative responses of the piloted parents and study parents, and participation rates.Results: The pilot group responses were used to refine the written material to be provided. Of the 72 families for which contact details were available, 45 gave verbal consent for contact by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine regarding the asthma study, three refused and 24 did not respond to two letters. Thirty-three completed consent forms, all positive for participation in the asthma study, giving a positive response rate of 73% .Conclusions: The use of postmortem tissue for research is acceptable to the next of kin when an approach is sensitive to their concerns and needs and is made by experienced counsellors from a familiar organisation. Despite the painful memories evoked by the approach of the research group, the acceptance rate among those who could be contacted was high. (shrink)

Compared to approach motivation, avoidance motivation evokes vigilance, attention to detail, systematic information processing, and the recruitment of cognitive resources. From a conservation of energy perspective it follows that people would be reluctant to engage in the kind of effortful cognitive processing evoked by avoidance motivation, unless the benefits of expending this energy outweigh the costs. We put forward three empirically testable propositions concerning approach and avoidance motivation, investment of energy, and the consequences of such investments. Specifically, we propose that (...) compared to approach-motivated people, avoidance-motivated people (a) carefully select situations in which they exert such cognitive effort, (b) only perform well in the absence of distracters that occupy cognitive resources, and (c) become depleted after exerting such cognitive effort. (shrink)

This important handbook provides a comprehensive, authoritative review of achievement motivation and establishes the concept of competence as an organizing ...

In this concluding piece, we identify and discuss various aspects of convergence and, to a lesser degree, divergence in the ideas expressed in the contributions to this special section. These contributions emphatically illustrate that approach–avoidance motivation is integral to the scientific study of emotion. It is our hope that the articles herein will facilitate cross-talk among researchers and research traditions, and will lead to a more thorough understanding of the role of approach–avoidance motivation in emotion.

We perceive color everywhere and on everything that we encounter in daily life. Color science has progressed to the point where a great deal is known about the mechanics, evolution, and development of color vision, but less is known about the relation between color vision and psychology. However, color psychology is now a burgeoning, exciting area and this Handbook provides comprehensive coverage of emerging theory and research. Top scholars in the field provide rigorous overviews of work on color categorization, color (...) symbolism and association, color preference, reciprocal relations between color perception and psychological functioning, and variations and deficiencies in color perception. The Handbook of Color Psychology seeks to facilitate cross-fertilization among researchers, both within and across disciplines and areas of research, and is an essential resource for anyone interested in color psychology in both theoretical and applied areas of study. (shrink)

Murayama and Jach offer a thoughtful and timely critique of motivation constructs. We largely concur with their basic premises, but offer additional input and clarification regarding the importance of carefully considering the energization and direction components of motivation, and fully attending to the hierarchical aspect of motivation rather than prioritizing particular levels of analysis.

Contents: Ethical principals for environmental protection / Robert Goodin -- Political representation for future generations / Gregory S. Kavka and Virginia L. Warren -- On the survival of humanity / Jan Narveson -- On deep versus shallow theories of environmental pollution / C.A. Hooker -- Preservation of wilderness and the good life / Janna L. Thompson -- The rights of the nonhuman world / Mary Anne Warren -- Are values in nature subjective or objective? / Holmes Rolston III - Duties (...) concerning islands / Mary Midgley -- Gaia and the forms of life / Stephen R.L. Clark -- Western traditions and environmental ethics / Robin Attfield -- Traditional American Indian and traditional western European attitudes toward nature / J. Baird Callicott -- Roles and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action / Richard Routley. [Book Synopsis]. (shrink)

Though hippocampal volume reduction is a pathological hallmark of schizophrenia, the molecular pathway responsible for this degeneration remains unknown. Recent reports have suggested the potential role of impaired blood-brain barrier function in schizophrenia pathogenesis. However, direct evidence demonstrating an impaired BBB function is missing. In this preliminary study, we used immunohistochemistry and serum immunoglobulin G antibodies to investigate the state of BBB function in formalin-fixed postmortem samples from the hippocampus and surrounding temporal cortex of patients with schizophrenia and controls without (...) schizophrenia matched for age, sex, and race. Since a functional BBB prevents the extravasation of IgGs, detection of IgGs in the parenchyma is used as direct evidence of BBB breakdown. We also developed a semi-quantitative approach to quantify the extent of IgG leak and therein BBB breach. Analysis of our immunohistochemistry data demonstrated a significantly higher incidence of IgG leak in patients with schizophrenia compared to controls. Further, BBB permeability was significantly higher in advanced-age patients with schizophrenia than both advanced-age controls and middle-aged patients with schizophrenia. Male patients with schizophrenia also demonstrated a significant increase in IgG permeability compared to control males. Interestingly, the extravasated IgGs also demonstrated selective immunoreactivity for neurons. Based on these observations, we suggest that BBB dysfunction and IgG autoantibodies could be two key missing pathoetiological links underwriting schizophrenia hippocampal damage. (shrink)

Prompted by the development of the Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes (Jones et al, 2009), recent years has witnessed a considerable increase in research examining challenge and threat in sport. This manuscript provides a critical review of the literature examining challenge and threat in sport, tracing its historical development and some of the current empirical ambiguities. In an attempt to reconcile some of these ambiguities, and utilising neurobiological evidence associated with approach- and avoidance-motivation (cf. Elliot & (...) Covington, 2001), this paper draws upon the Evaluative Space Model (ESM: Cacioppo et al., 1997) and considers the implications for understanding challenge and threat in sport. For example, rather than see challenge and threat as opposite ends of a single bipolar continuum, the ESM implies that individuals could be (1) challenged, (2) threatened, (3) challenged and threatened, or (4) neither challenged or threatened by a particular stimulus. From this perspective it could be argued that the appraisal of some sport situations as both challenging and threatening could be advantageous, whereas the current literature seems to imply that the appraisal of stress as a threat is maladaptive for performance. In drawing upon the ESM, we outline the Evaluative Space Approach to Challenge and Threat and provide several testable hypotheses for advancing understanding of challenge and threat (in sport). We also outline a number of cardiovascular and experiential measures that can be used to examine these hypotheses. In sum, this paper provides a significant theoretical, empirical and practical contribution to our understanding of challenge and threat (in sport). (shrink)

Elliot Eisner has spent the last 40 years researching, thinking and writing about some of the key and enduring issues in Arts Education, Curriculum Studies and Qualitative Research. He has contributed over 20 books and 500 articles to the field. In this book, Professor Eisner has compiled a career-long collection of his finest pieces-extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings and major theoretical contributions-so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Starting with a specially written (...) Introduction, which gives an overview of Professor Eisner's career and contextualizes his selection, the chapters cover a wide range of issues, including: · Children and art · The use of educational connoisseurship · Aesthetic modes of knowing · Absolutism and relativism in curriculum theory · Education reform and the ecology of schooling · The future of education research This is a must-have book for anyone wishing to know more about the development of Arts Education, Curriculum Studies and Qualitative Research over the last four decades, and about Elliot Eisner's contribution to these exciting fields. This book is part of the World Library of Educationalists series, which celebrates the contributions made to education by leading figures. Each scholar has selected his or her own key writings from across numerous books and journal articles, and often spread across two or more decades to be presented in a single volume. Through these books, readers can chase up the themes and strands that have been lodged in a lifetime's work, and so follow the development of these scholars' contributions to the field, as well as the development of the fields themselves. Other scholars included in the series: Richard Aldrich, Stephen J. Ball, John Elliott, Howard Gardner, John Gilbert, Ivor F. Goodson, David Hargreaves, David Labaree, E.C. Wragg, John White. (shrink)

Creativity pervades human life. It is the mark of individuality, the vehicle of self-expression, and the engine of progress in every human endeavor. It also raises a wealth of neglected and yet evocative philosophical questions: What is the role of consciousness in the creative process? How does the audience for a work for art influence its creation? How can creativity emerge through childhood pretending? Do great works of literature give us insight into human nature? Can a computer program really be (...) creative? How do we define creativity in the first place? Is it a virtue? What is the difference between creativity in science and art? Can creativity be taught? The new essays that comprise The Philosophy of Creativity take up these and other key questions and, in doing so, illustrate the value of interdisciplinary exchange. Written by leading philosophers and psychologists involved in studying creativity, the essays integrate philosophical insights with empirical research. CONTENTS I. Introduction Introducing The Philosophy of Creativity Elliot Samuel Paul and Scott Barry Kaufman II. The Concept of Creativity 1. An Experiential Account of Creativity Bence Nanay III. Aesthetics & Philosophy of Art 2. Creativity and Insight Gregory Currie 3. The Creative Audience: Some Ways in which Readers, Viewers and/or Listeners Use their Imaginations to Engage Fictional Artworks Noël Carroll 4. The Products of Musical Creativity Christopher Peacocke IV. Ethics & Value Theory 5. Performing Oneself Owen Flanagan 6. Creativity as a Virtue of Character Matthew Kieran V. Philosophy of Mind & Cognitive Science 7. Creativity and Not So Dumb Luck Simon Blackburn 8. The Role of Imagination in Creativity Dustin Stokes 9. Creativity, Consciousness, and Free Will: Evidence from Psychology Experiments Roy F. Baumeister, Brandon J. Schmeichel, and C. Nathan DeWall 10. The Origins of Creativity Elizabeth Picciuto and Peter Carruthers 11. Creativity and Artificial Intelligence: a Contradiction in Terms? Margaret Boden VI. Philosophy of Science 12. Hierarchies of Creative Domains: Disciplinary Constraints on Blind-Variation and Selective-Retention Dean Keith Simonton VII. Philosophy of Education (& Education of Philosophy) 13. Educating for Creativity Berys Gaut 14. Philosophical Heuristics Alan Hájek. (shrink)

HERMENEUTICS AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE by Susan J. Hekman Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986. 224 pp., $29.95 HERMENEUTICS AND PRAXIS edited by Robert Hollinger Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985. 296 pp., $29.95, $12.95 HERMENEUTICS AND MODERN PHILOSOPHY edited by Brice R. Wachterhauser Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986. 506 pp., $49.50. $16.95 RADICAL HERMENEUTICS: REPETITION, DECONSTRUCTION AND THE HERMENEUTIC PROJECT by John D. Caputo Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. 319 pp., $37?50, (...) $17.50 HERMENEUTICS AS POLITICS by Stanley Rosen New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. 256 pp., $24.95. (shrink)

Time is of increasing concern in Black studies, with scholars studying the ways in which standardized narratives of time are historically imposed on racialized populations. This essay reads Safiya Sinclair’s 2016 poetry collection Cannibal as offering a fugitive temporality that ruptures the stability of the racializing present. In Cannibal, Sinclair’s speaker does not attempt to release herself from the racializing condemnation of the past. Rather, she summons a fugitive social past in the present, antagonizing the homogeneity of the present by (...) exposing it to the repressed and relegated wounds that haunt the foundations of modernity’s racializing program. In Cannibal, this summoning is occasioned through a practice of faith. Following J. Kameron Carter and Fred Moten, among others, this essay studies the ways in which this fugitive poetic temporality of faith builds on contemporary developments in the critique of time, religion, and whiteness in Black studies. (shrink)

Bringing together major writings on a wide range of conceptual issues underlying the theory and practice of journalism, this unique anthology covers topics such as what makes a story newsworthy, journalism and professional ethics, the right of free speech, privacy and news sources, politicsand the power of the press, objectivity and bias, and the education of journalists. Including papers by key contemporary and classical authors such as Walter Lippmann, Joshua Halberstam, Tom L. Beauchamp, Fred Smoller, Edward J. Epstein, Herbert Gans, (...) John Stuart Mill, Philip Meyer, and Theodore L.Glasser, this book introduces provocative issues in press ethics and philosophy that color or determine much of what we see and hear in today's media. (shrink)

In July 1787, Dr John Elliot, apothecary and scientist, assaulted Miss Mary Boydell in the streets of London. Elliotś defenders sought his acquittal on the grounds of insanity, and cited as proof a paper in which he alleged the existence of intelligent life on the surface of the sun. He has since become a stock character in the history of astronomy, routinely cited as a pathetic example of the ignorance of his age. His reputation is undeserved since his claims (...) were well within the canon of the era, and since his anti-social behaviour may well be explained by considering the hazards of his profession. Rather than serving as an exemplar of science gone awry, Elliot's dilemma can provide an opportunity for fresh analysis of late eighteenth-century thought on solar structure and on the processes that sustain it. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of essays by various contributors in honor of the late Laurence Berns, Richard Hammond Elliot Tutor Emeritus at St. John's College, Annapolis. The essays address the literary, political, theological, and philosophical themes of his life's work as a scholar, teacher, and constant companion of the "great books.".

In 2001, the algebraico-tree-theoretic simplicity hierarchical structure of J. H. Conway’s ordered field${\mathbf {No}}$of surreal numbers was brought to the fore by the first author and employed to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for an ordered field (ordered$K$-vector space) to be isomorphic to an initial subfield ($K$-subspace) of${\mathbf {No}}$, i.e. a subfield ($K$-subspace) of${\mathbf {No}}$that is an initial subtree of${\mathbf {No}}$. In this sequel, analogous results are established forordered exponential fields, making use of a slight generalization of Schmeling’s conception of (...) atransseries field. It is further shown that a wide range of ordered exponential fields are isomorphic to initial exponential subfields of$({\mathbf {No}}, \exp )$. These include all models of$T({\mathbb R}_W, e^x)$, where${\mathbb R}_W$is the reals expanded by aconvergent Weierstrass system W. Of these, those we calltrigonometric-exponential fieldsare given particular attention. It is shown that the exponential functions on the initial trigonometric-exponential subfields of${\mathbf {No}}$, which includes${\mathbf {No}}$itself, extend tocanonicalexponential functions on theirsurcomplexcounterparts. The image of the canonical map of the ordered exponential field${\mathbb T}^{LE}$oflogarithmic-exponentialtransseries into${\mathbf {No}}$is shown to be initial, as are the ordered exponential fields${\mathbb R}((\omega ))^{EL}$and${\mathbb R}\langle \langle \omega \rangle \rangle $. (shrink)

Despite hundreds of definitions, no consensus exists on a definition of life or on the closely related and problematic definitions of the organism and death. These problems retard practical and theoretical development in, for example, exobiology, artificial life, biology and evolution. This paper suggests improving this situation by basing definitions on a theory of a generalized particle hierarchy. This theory uses the common denominator of the “operator” for a unified ranking of both particles and organisms, from elementary particles to animals (...) with brains. Accordingly, this ranking is called “the operator hierarchy”. This hierarchy allows life to be defined as: matter with the configuration of an operator, and that possesses a complexity equal to, or even higher than the cellular operator. Living is then synonymous with the dynamics of such operators and the word organism refers to a select group of operators that fit the definition of life. The minimum condition defining an organism is its existence as an operator, construction thus being more essential than metabolism, growth or reproduction. In the operator hierarchy, every organism is associated with a specific closure, for example, the nucleus in eukaryotes. This allows death to be defined as: the state in which an organism has lost its closure following irreversible deterioration of its organization. The generality of the operator hierarchy also offers a context to discuss “life as we do not know it”. The paper ends with testing the definition’s practical value with a range of examples. (shrink)

Jason Stanley argues in his new book that propaganda is more prevalent within liberal democracies - and is of far greater concern - than is typically assumed. Indeed, Stanley suggests that the very idea that propaganda only proliferates within authoritarian regimes, which have ministries set aside for its production, is a central tenet of the propaganda of the West. Stanley's aim in this book is to outline the distinctive features of propaganda within a liberal democracy. On his account, the 'flawed (...) ideology' of vested and powerful interest groups undermines the genuinely valuable ideals at the heart of the democratic project; this is what he refers to as 'demagogic propaganda'. Although I am highly sceptical of the argumentative strategies Stanley employs, the book raises significant issues about the extent to which public debates in countries like the United States and Australia involve distorted conceptions of what democratic principles properly entail. Criticisms of the undemocratic and illiberal nature of political processes within liberal democracies are of course common on the left. Two key features set Stanley's work apart from much of that literature. First, he regards democratic principles as genuinely valuable and does not dismiss them as 'mere reactionary claptrap', as many in the New Left did forty years ago. Second, and more significantly, his intellectual background is highly unusual. Stanley is an analytic philosopher whose training was primarily in epistemology and formal semantics rather than in social theory or political philosophy. This is uncommon, since most analytic philosophers who are focused on epistemology and similar issues avoid political questions, a reticence of which Stanley does not approve. Indeed, the book is driven, as he says, by a profound sense of regret that analytic philosophy has surrendered many of its central questions to sociology and social theory. (shrink)

Over the past 50 years, we have witnessed a revolution in the organisation and social understanding of elite sport. Elite sport has been commercialised. Top-level athletes have become professionals who often receive remarkable levels of income and sporting events, such as the World Cup, are multi-billion dollar exercises that attract enormous levels of sponsorship. Many sports, such as cricket, have been substantially revamped in order to make them more appealing to mass audiences and, accordingly, more beneficial to sponsors and many (...) clubs, such as Manchester United, have become corporations in their own right. (shrink)

Lifelines discusses two approaches to biology, “ultra-Darwinism” which Rose criticises, and the “homeodynamic perspective,” which he offers as an alternative. This review suggests that ultra-Darwinism is a caricature of the theoretical positions Rose wishes to oppose and that the homeodynamic perspective is not an alternative, but is complementary to so-called ultra-Darwinism.

Working in an o-minimal expansion of the real field, we investigate when a germ of a complex analytic function has a definable analytic continuation to its Mittag–Leffler star. As an application we show that any algebro-logarithmic function that is complex analytic in a neighborhood of the origin in $\mathbb {C}$ has an analytic continuation to all but finitely many points in $\mathbb {C}$.

The primary aim of this study was to investigate the relation between self-perceived executive functions and the school achievement of young adolescents, while controlling for parental education and sex. We specifically focused on executive aspects of daily life behavior and the higher-order EFs, as measured with self-report, rather than on the more basic EFs which have been the primary focus of prior investigations. In two independent samples of sixth graders, students evaluated their EFs on a self-report questionnaire, the Amsterdam Executive (...) Functioning Inventory. School achievement in the domains of mathematics and reading comprehension were evaluated with nationally used, norm-based achievement tests. Results revealed that the self-perceived EFs of young adolescents were significantly correlated with their school achievement in both study samples. School achievement was also correlated with the level of parental education, but the factor sex did not have such influence. In study 1, self-perceived EFs explained additional variance in school achievement, while controlling for parental education and sex. In study 2, this was only the case for the most robust measure of school achievement, i.e., the end-of-primary-school final achievement test. Furthermore, besides the relation with achievement tests, we also found a relation between self-perceived EFs and teacher ratings behavioral problems in the classroom. Together, our findings imply that young students can properly reflect on the effectiveness and appropriateness of their EFs in a way that is relevant to their academic achievement and classroom behavior. The findings underscore the importance of considering the development of EFs and parental education in the evaluation of academic achievements in early adolescence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Living Organ Donors’ Stories: (Unmet) Expectations about Informed Consent, Outcomes, and CareElisa J. Gordon, Symposium EditorKeywordsEthics, informed consent, kidney, liver, living donor, narrative, transplantationLiving donor organ transplantation has become standard treatment for patients with end-stage kidney or end-stage liver disease. Live donors comprised approximately 5,769 (34%) and 247 (4%) of all kidney and liver transplants in 2011, respectively (OPTN/UNOS). The reasons why people donate, the perception that donating does (...) not entail a decision per se, and the attendant fears and anxieties living donors feel about donating, have all been previously well investigated (Lennerling, Forsberg, Meyer, & Nyberg, 2004; Papachristou, Walter, Frommer, & Klapp, 2010). But much less is known about how donors experienced the overall donation process including the donor evaluation, preparation, appreciation of risks, decision-making, informed consent, post-operative, recovery processes, and the impact of donating on all aspects of their life, from their point of view. Thus, a narrative approach is essential for gaining insights into these less well known phenomena.There is good reason to remain concerned about the safety and ethical basis of living donation considering that living donors undergo serious health risks for no direct medical benefit to themselves (Ethics Committee of the Transplantation Society, 2004; Laird, 2012; Neergaard, 2011; Ratner & Sandoval, 2010; Shelton, 2011). The situation raises serious ethical questions specifically about nonmaleficence and informed consent, and more broadly about using people as a means to an end. The absence of long-term information may not undermine a willing donor’s commitment to save a loved one’s life, but is certainly cause for concern among transplant clinicians who want to be sure to disclose information that may be material for donors in order to provide adequate informed consent. In other words, the disjuncture between what transplant clinicians find important to disclose to donors and what prospective donors need to know—which follows along the lines of what Elliot Mishler referred to as the ‘voice of medicine’ versus the ‘voice of the lifeworld’(1984)—seems to complicate donors’ preparation for donation. Donors’ stories are important for addressing these concerns by identifying risks that typically do not get reported in the scientific literature—perhaps owing to a different [End Page 1] conceptualization of what should be construed as noteworthy risks—as well as by demonstrating how personal situations can enhance or detract from the experience overall.This issue of Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics (NIB) affords a unique entrée into both the often heard and unheard stories of living organ donors. A set of topical areas were presented for the authors’ consideration that relate to the donation process in general and the informed consent process more specifically: whether donors were prepared to donate; comprehended what they were told; could have understood the process better, as well as, the impact of donation on health, employment, finances, and personal relationships (Table 1). When soliciting donors’ stories, every effort was made to include a full range of experiences—both good and bad—from a variety of donors: kidney donation, liver donation, adult-to-adult and adult-to-child donation, related, unrelated, directed and anonymous (also known as ‘altruistic’ or ‘good Samaritan’ donors), paired chain exchange, and list exchange (Table 2)—in order to present a balanced perspective on live donation. Additionally, this issue includes a full breadth of stories about the donor experience, ranging from positive to mixed to negative (Table 3). While donors were given tremendous leeway in what stories they told, they were asked to focus their narratives on the lesser known dimensions of donation—the experience of it. While additional stories from liver donors would have helped to underscore common concerns among liver donors, we only received a few. Some of the donors are themselves health care professionals, active in the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) or their local OPO, or have leveraged their experiences to help others by becoming a donor buddy or donor advocate. Given that we received more stories than Click for larger view View full resolutionTable 1.Topical areas to address[End Page 2] Click for larger view View full resolutionTable 2.Forms of Living Donation Click for larger view View... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 8.2 (2003) 31-41 [Access article in PDF] Threescore and TenFire, Place, and Loss in the West David Strohmaier The only conclusion I have ever reached about trees is that I love all trees, but I am in love with pines. —Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac 1He died protecting his pines. It was spring, 1948, and Aldo Leopold was spending time with his family at (...) their beloved cabin they called "the Shack." Over the years, he had planted close to 30,000 trees and shrubs on the property, trying to resuscitate a tired Wisconsin sand farm into some semblance of ecological health. 2 Leopold was keenly aware of fire's natural role in ecosystems, but sometimes there's more to fire and living with fire than energy flow, nutrient flush, and plant physiology. 3During the Leopolds' stay at the Shack, a neighbor's trash fire, fanned by a west wind, escaped its bounds and threatened to overtake the pines. Alone, along one flank of the fire, Aldo suffered a heart attack and was later found dead, lying on his back in the smoldering grass. 4 For the love of pines.In A Sand County Almanac (accepted for publication just one week before his death), Leopold explores several possible reasons for his bias [End Page 31] towards pines: maybe it's because he planted the pines, or pines are rare where he lives, or pines have a longer life expectancy than other trees, or pines are evergreens, or because his neighbors don't have many pines on their land, or pines are worth more to the lumberman than other species, or pines engender more plant diversity than other species. In the end, he concludes that our plant biases reflect not only vocations but avocations, with a delicate allocation of priority as between industry and indolence. The farmer who would rather hunt grouse than milk cows will not dislike hawthorn, no matter if it does invade his pasture. The coon-hunter will not dislike basswood, and I know of quail hunters who bear no grudge against ragweed, despite their annual bout with hayfever. Our biases are indeed a sensitive index to our affections, our tastes, our loyalties, our generosities, and our manner of wasting weekends. 5Leopold's last act in life—fighting a fire endangering something he valued—testifies to the tension between Leopold's concept of thinking like a mountain and our reality of living in the present, between mountain time and human time. It's doubtful that the landscape around the Shack would have suffered permanent damage even if the fire overran his pines. Some trees would have burned and died, but, eventually, the land would revegetate and more pines could be planted. But for humans who, according to the psalmist, live but "[t]hreescore and ten, or even by reason of strength fourscore," 6 we may never see our pines, or any other part of the landscape, fully healed, assuming it even can be. One tree, or grove of trees, is not necessarily interchangeable with another. Places can be lost and never replaced. This is one reason why philosopher Robert Elliot is so skeptical of ecological restoration. Like a work of art, simply replacing it with the most exacting replica will never fully replace the original, for part of an object's value derives from its history: who painted or sculpted it, when it was crafted, the reason behind its contours and colors. 7 Not only are exact replicas in nature hard to come by (even though our science and technology of restoration is improving), but some values can never be restored.Some things are worth protecting from fire simply because they're important to us—even a part of us—and not necessarily because they're resources on their way to becoming beef, venison, or two-by-fours. What's critical, though, as we struggle to live in a land that burns, is getting clear about how we want that land to look and why. I fear that we... (shrink)

Besides being the title of an EP by The (International) Noise Conspiracy, “Bigger cages, longer chains!” is an anarchist rallying cry. It’s meant to ridicule those political activists who compromise their ideals, make demands and then settle for partial concessions or, to put it bluntly, bargain with the Man. In the T.V. series Mr. Robot, Christian Slater plays the anarchist leader of a hacktivist group known as fsociety. Mr. Robot won’t negotiate with the FBI and E(vil) Corp for bigger cages (...) and longer chains. He tells Elliot Anderson, the young cybersecurity expert and hacker, “We live in a kingdom of bullshit!” Victory over the tyranny of corporations and states requires radical means to achieve radical ends. Mr. Robot wants freedom without limits, total liberation from corporate and statist control, and the opportunity to live in a world without bullshit. Mr. Robot’s objective is to free citizens of first-world nations from the cages of consumer debt and citizens of third-world nations from the shackles of extreme poverty. Meeting half-way will not do. So what are the inspirations for Mr. Robot’s hacktivist philosophy? The most proximate sources are David Graeber’s anarchism, which also influenced the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the hacktivist group Anonymous’s moralfaggery, that is, the policy of some of its members to use collective computer hacking to serve the greater good. Candidates for more remote sources are Marxism and pragmatism; the former, a blueprint for freeing the working class from their bourgeois oppressors; the latter, a philosophy of action, intelligent inquiry and democratic reform. Some might object that pragmatism is too conventional to be compatible with the radical ideas that motivate Mr. Robot’s worldview. Hacktivism demands action, not mere thinking! But any organized social-political movement requires a well-thought-out plan as well as a vision of what its participants hope to achieve. Since pragmatism is a philosophy of action and reform, it’s possible that Mr. Robot is a closet pragmatist! (shrink)

In this volume C.A. (Chet) Bowers, whose pioneering work on education and environmental and sustainability issues is widely recognized and respected around the world, brings together a carefully curated selection of his seminal work on the ideological, cultural, and linguistic roots of the ecological crisis; misconceptions underlying modern consciousness; the cultural commons; a critique of technology; and educational reforms to address these pressing concerns. In the World Library of Educationalists, international scholars themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to (...) be their finest pieces - extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and/practical contributions - so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers will be able to follow the themes and strands of their work and see their contribution to the development of a field, as well as the development of the field itself. Contributors to the series include : Michael Apple, James A. Banks, Joel Spring, William F. Pinar, Stephen J. Ball, Elliot Eisner, Howard Gardner, John Gilbert, Ivor F. Goodson, Peter Jarvis. (shrink)