MITPressLog

Sahlins on Friedman Institute: Just Say No

Marshall Sahlins -- emeritus professor of anthropolgy and the social sciences at the University of Chicago and the author of the Zone title Culture in Practice -- has written an angry essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the university's plans to establish a Milton Friedman Institute. Friedman, of course, was one of the twentieth century's most influential and controversial economists, an extoller of free market power and a hater of governmental regulation. Fittingly, the university plans to underwrite the institute's cost with donations from the private sphere; perhaps less fittingly, those who contribute more than one million dollars will have the right to participate in the institute's academic deliberations.

Sahlins - who earlier this year signed an open letter to university president Robert Zimmer expressing deep reservations at the idea - thinks that an institute with Friedman's name on it funded by private dollars "will brand the University of Chicago as an academic instrument of a certain ideology." Here is the nub of his argument:

The Milton Friedman Institute will provide the rich and powerful with the best self-promoting ideas their money can buy. For its part, the university will be compromised by this commodification of knowledge in which a certain orthodoxy about free markets and self-serving individualism easily proves to be the highest bidder...If we allow the university to be outsourced to extra-academic, partisan interests, it will become a money-based political economy of truth values.

Read the whole essay here. Hat tip to Christopher Shea, who has some additional thoughts about Sahlins's essay at the Boston Globe's Brainiac blog.

"The long and curious history of arousal"

It's Sex Week over at at Slate: The online magazine is featuring two days worth of articles on "the unavoidable presence of sex in science and culture." Included in the mashup is a review of In Praise of the Whip, a recent Zone title by Niklaus Largier. The review is by Thomas Laqueur, himself the author of the Zone title Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation.

Laqueur's review focuses on Largier's contention that the history of flagellation is a story not only of religious or erotic arousal, but of human subjectivity more broadly:

Largier's central insight is that both before and after 1700, the purpose of the lash, and of reading about the experiences of others being beaten, has been to excite passion, desire, and fantasy—to arouse the imagination. It is a challenge to the confines of flesh, a mobilization of the body in the interests of transcending ordinary space and time, whether it is God or a more sensual self that the flagellant finds there. After Largier, the lash can no longer be identified as merely a tool of either piety or pornography.

Read the whole of "The Allure of the Whip" here.

Remembering Ingmar Bergman (1918 - 2007)

Pioneer filmmaker Ingmar Bergman died today at the age of 89. Known for such groundbreaking films as The Seventh Seal, Fanny and Alexander, Wild Strawberries, and Winter Light, Bergman made some 50 movies over a career spanning more than 40 years. He was almost single-handedly responsible for introducing metaphysics to cinema, but he never considered himself a practitioner of high art or a purveyor of heady symbolism. In his forthcoming book, Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher: Reflections on His Creativity, Irving Singer articulates the singular director's humble vision of his work—and his ability to transcend the distinction between what Bergman defined as his craft and what film lovers perceive as art at its most profound:

In several interviews, Bergman spoke of himself as a craftsman, a maker of objects that people could use to satisfy some daily need. Like any carpenter or other workman, he denied that his productions were designed for eternity or some idealistic goal related to art-for-art’s-sake. If his efforts are not of interest to anyone, he said, they can and should be discarded, totally ignored by prospective audiences. Authentic as this disclaimer may be, Bergman’s work transcends any arbitrary separation between art and craft. This may apply as well to many products of carpentry or other handiwork, but the deliberate and delving thoughtfulness in Bergman movies gives them a further dimension that only the greatest creativity attains. And in his case, as I have been suggesting, it partly results from the fact that his temporal being so completely and so obviously permeates his endeavors as a filmmaker.

Professor Singer adds: "There will never be another like Ingmar Bergman—he has changed the world of film that much. But he will always be an inspiration for those who seek to emulate his great and many achievements as a screen and stage director, as a writer, and as a perceptive witness to the era in which he lived."

Take a Hike for the Holidays

Looking for a last minute gift?  Or a fun and educational way to shed those holiday pounds?  In a recent article in the Boston Globe, Michael Kenney highlights a few Boston guidebooks that might just accomplish both.  One of the books he mentions is Nancy Seasholes latest, Walking Tours of Boston’s Made Land, twelve walks that trace where and why Boston's man-made land was created, and, along the way, Seasholes uncovers fascinating and little-known pieces of Boston history. The walks grew out of a course she teaches on the subject at the Harvard Extension School and they provide a new and different way of looking at this historic city. 

And for the armchair travelers on your list, Adam Sharr’s Heidegger’s Hut provides an intense look at the relationship between Martin Heidegger and his cabin in the Black Forest.  In her gift book round up in the New York Times, Penelope Green calls it:

A straight-faced look -- with photos, floor plans and even architectural models -- at the four-room mountain cottage that was the philosopher's Walden Pond. Photographs of Heidegger at the well, at his desk (with mysteriously empty shelves) and with a walking stick give this little book the feel of a family album. Was Die Hütte, as Heidegger called it, ''the site of a heroic confrontation between philosopher and existence''? A weekend getaway for a suburban romantic? Or an incubator of fascism?

Probably a little bit of each, implies Mr. Sharr, an architect and a professor at Cardiff University in Wales, who wrestles with Heidegger's role as a Nazi apologist (as well as his role as a suburban householder) but is mostly reverent in this examination of the phenomena (a hut, an outhouse, a well) that inspired the phenomenologist.

Also, remember that our holiday book sale—with lots of great last minute gift ideas—runs through December 31st.

What are you waiting for?

If you've ever wondered what keeps you listening to music, you may have the answers in the book Sweet Anticipation by David Huron.  Huron proposes that your sense of expectation plays a large role in music, and he outlines a range of aesthetic responses that are created by expectation.  If you'd like to hear a bit more about this interesting theory, it is discusssed in a podcast on a new website devoted to music cognition (Sound and Mind).  To listen, click here.  You can also read more new ideas about our brain's appreciation for music in this Boston Globe article.

AAA&S Honors Gupta

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has announced their 2006 Class of Fellows today.  This is a prestigious honor to say the least - founded in 1780 by scholar patriots such as, John Adams, James Bowdoin, and John Hancock, the Academy has elected as Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members the finest minds and most influential leaders from each generation. Ben Franklin, Daniel Webster, Winston Churchill, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Albert Einstein were all AAA&S Fellows.  An independent policy research center, the academy undertakes studies of complex and emerging problems.  Current Academy research focuses on science and global security, social policy, the humanities and culture, and education.

University of Pittsburgh Philosophy Professor Anil K. Gupta has made the list of 195 scholars, scientists, artists and civic, corporate, and philanthropic leaders. Gupta, who has been at Pitt since 2001, focuses on definitions, truth, meaning, and perception.  He is the author, with Nuel Belnap, of The Revision Theory of Truth.

Others on the AAA&S list include Bill Clinton, The New Yorker's David Remnick, Rita Dove, Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, Lawrence Lessig, and Martin Scorsese.  A prestigious lot, indeed.  Read the complete list here. 

Voices of the Rwandan Genocide

How could it happen that the western world stood by and did nothing to stop the slaughter of over 800,000 human beings over 100 days?  Even for a country with Rwanda's turbulent history, the scale and speed of the slaughter is unimaginable. It's even more difficult to understand because Rwanda's two main ethnic groups, the Hutus and Tutsis, are very similar.  They spoke the same language, lived in the same areas, and held the same traditions.  Today, twelve years after the start of the Rwandan genocide,it is important to look back at this horrific event in order to try and understand how something this violent and of this magnitude could have happened in the 20th century.

This excerpt gives the testimony of a farmer from Byumba Prefecture, in northern Rwanda.  During the genocide, he was thirty-two and the father of one child, and he had had three years of primary school education.  he confessed to participating in several attacks but not to killing anyone himself.  He was sentenced to eleven years in prison.  Here he describes how the violence started where he lived. 

The massacres began after the crash of the head of state’s plane.  HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?  I was with my wife and a girl who had spent the night at my place.  We were going to weed beans.  It was morning.  The head of state had died the day before, but I did not know that.  Some youths arrived, where I was weeding.  Thieves had stolen bananas during the night, in our cellule.  They told me, “You will help us find the bananas that were stolen in our cellule.”  I left with them.   I left my wife in the field with the girl.  We went to look for the bananas.  We looked in our cellule.  We didn’t find them.  We entered a neighboring cellule.  While we were looking, the president of the commune internahamwe came.  He found us there, at the home of [name withheld], which was very close to the road.  He was accompanied by a soldier people called “Colonel.”  They were in a vehicle.  The head of the interahamwe had a gun.  He asked us all to come with him.  He said, “The head of state is dead, and you, you're looking for bananas?”  He told us, “We must look for the Tutsis no matter where they are.  The others have already begun to work.”  Among the people we were with were some Tutsis.  We were with them when looking for the bananas.  Then a group of attackers arrived.  And a young refugee among them killed a Tutsi who was with us.  When we saw he had just killed him, we were afraid.  For me, it was the first time I had seen someone die.  We wanted to run.  The head of the interahamwe said that anyone who ran would be shot immediately.  He put us in a line, and he marched us on the road.  He put us in front; he was behing.  He said, “Anyone who leaves this line will be shot.”  Before we had gone a kilometer, [name withheld] left the line and ran.  The head of the interahamwe shot twice, then he said, “Let’s continue.”  We arrived at another house.  When we got there, a man in our group said he was not Tutsi.  So the head of the interahamwe said, “If you are not a Tutsi, you have to kill this person [indicating a man who was detained at the house].  The man from our group took a club and hit him several times. 

- From Intimate Enemy: Images and Voices of the Rwandan Genocide, photographs by Robert Lyons and introduction and interviews by Scott Straus

 

Or Not So Happy

And just in case you're in a non-Romantic mood, inclined to sneer at this most Hallmarkish of holidays, may we suggest some anti-Valentine's Day literature?

Frampton Comes Alive (sort of)

Fans of the American artist and filmmaker Hollis Frampton are no doubt champing at the bit waiting for the March publication of Rachel Moore's book on his 1971 film (nostalgia), part of our new series with London-based Afterall Books . But if you're in or near Boston and looking to get a Frampton fix before then, you can head to the Harvard Film Archive this Monday, January 16. HFA will be showing sets of Frampton films at 6:30 and 9. Each showing will include Magellan, one of his longest and most ambitious films, and a selection of shorter works.

Details are available here.

The Beauty Theory

In our final look at the 50th Anniversary of Daedalus, Susan Sontag contemplates beauty.  Originally published in 2002, "An Argument about Beauty" looks at the history of beauty—finding that there is no real definition of “beauty” in a strict sense.  Sontag tackes physical beauty, beauty in art (Gertrude Stein said that “to call a work of art beautiful means that it is dead.”), beauty-lovers in literature like Oscar Wilde and Shakespeare, Pope John Paul II’s use of the work beauty in his comments on the abuse scandals in the Catholic church, the politics of beauty, the debate between that which is beautiful and that which is interesting, and even a look at the un-beautiful.  Sontag ultimately finds that we look to what we think is beautiful to remind us of the vast world around us—and our place within that world:

Responding at last, in April of 2002, to the scandal created by the revelation of innumerable cover-ups of sexually predatory priests, Pope John Paul II told the American cardinals summoned to the Vatican, “A great work of art may be blemished, but its beauty remains; and this is a truth which any intellectually honest critic will recognize.” Is it too odd that the Pope likens the Catholic Church to a great–that is, beautiful–work of art? Perhaps not, since the inane comparison allows him to turn abhorrent misdeeds into something like the scratches in the print of a silent film or craquelure covering the surface of an Old Master painting, blemishes that we reflexively screen out or see past. The Pope likes venerable ideas. And beauty, as a term signifying (like health) an indisputable excellence, has been a perennial resource in the issuing of peremptory evaluations. Permanence, however, is not one of beauty’s more obvious attributes; and the contemplation of beauty, when it is expert, may be wreathed in pathos, the drama on which Shakespeare elaborates in many of the Sonnets. Traditional celebrations of beauty in Japan, like the annual rite of cherry-blossom viewing, are keenly elegiac; the most stirring beauty is the most evanescent. To make beauty in some sense imperishable required a lot of conceptual tinkering and transposing, but the idea was simply too alluring, too potent, to be squandered on the praise of superior embodiments. The aim was to multiply the notion, to allow for kinds of beauty, beauty with adjectives, arranged on a scale of ascending value and incorruptibility, with the metaphorized uses (‘intellectual beauty,’ ‘spiritual beauty’) taking precedence over what ordinary language extols as beautiful–a gladness to the senses.

More information about the 50th Anniversary issue of Daedalus can be found here.