By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 22 Nov 20
The Institute for Cultural Evolution is growing and expanding. We’re bringing on new Board Members, new funding, and now we’re recruiting an Executive Director to help run our operations. The job description for this new Executive Director position can be found at this link. If the possibility of working with ICE sounds intriguing, we encourage you to review this opportunity. ShareThe post We’re recruiting an Executive Director appeared first on Institute for Cultural Evolution.
The Institute for Cultural Evolution is growing and expanding. We’re bringing on new Board Members, new funding, and now we’re recruiting an Executive Director to help run our operations. The job description for this new Executive Director position can be found at this link. If the possibility of working with ICE sounds intriguing, we encourage you to review this opportunity.
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 20 Nov 20
A metameme is a collection of interconnected, mutual dependent, non-arbitrary memes. “Metameme” is thus an overarching term for groups of other memes that helps us understanding the relation of one meme to another. (With “meme”, I’m not referring to the illustrated jokes kids pass around on social media these days, but rather the original idea proposed by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene from 1976.) One of my major theses in The 6 Hidden Patterns of History: A Metamodern Guide to World History is that memes come bundled in non-randomly ordered collections of developmentally determined “umbrella” memes constituting
A metameme is a collection of interconnected, mutual dependent, non-arbitrary memes. “Metameme” is thus an overarching term for groups of other memes that helps us understanding the relation of one meme to another. (With “meme”, I’m not referring to the illustrated jokes kids pass around on social media these days, but rather the original idea proposed by Richard Dawkins in
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 17 Nov 20
Is democracy a done deal? Is the form of governance prevailing in the West today the most democratic there is ever going to be? We normally think of democracy and dictatorship as a binary question: either a country is a democracy or it is not. Yet this black-and-white conception of democracy has been challenged, for instance by Freedom House’s graded scale or the 2014 Princeton study which argued the US is more accurately described as a civil oligarchy than a democracy per se.[i] To be, or not to be democratic—that isn’t really the question. No, the intelligent question is the
Is democracy a done deal? Is the form of governance prevailing in the West today the most democratic there is ever going to be? We normally think of democracy and dictatorship as a binary question: either a country is a democracy or it is not. Yet this black-and-white conception of democracy has been challenged, for instance by Freedom House’s graded
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 12 Nov 20
The main issue is that the classical delineations of class, as one’s relation to financial capital under the industrial mode of production, no longer act as a satisfying way to understand the stratifications of our current society. Rather, we should understand class as a complex amalgamate of different forms of capital: financial, cultural, social, emotional, physiological (including sexual) and informational. More on this new landscape of class in this endnote.[i] To this sketchy picture I would like to add one important detail: the interactions of “class” with spirituality and self-improvement. The following is a slightly edited extract from Hanzi Freinacht’s
The main issue is that the classical delineations of class, as one’s relation to financial capital under the industrial mode of production, no longer act as a satisfying way to understand the stratifications of our current society. Rather, we should understand class as a complex amalgamate of different forms of capital: financial, cultural, social, emotional, physiological (including sexual) and informational.
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 6 Nov 20
It looks like Joe Biden has won the election. Yet America remains bitterly divided. Biden has pledged to be a unifier, but restoring the minimum social solidarity necessary for a functional democracy will be a daunting challenge. It now seems as though there’s little common ground left. So rather than searching for common ground, Biden needs to help America find authentically higher ground. The higher ground we need can be found in an inclusive synthesis we’re calling “post-progressivism”—an emerging political perspective that transcends and includes progressivism with “something higher.” This post-progressive perspective is described at a “rational level” at this
It looks like Joe Biden has won the election. Yet America remains bitterly divided. Biden has pledged to be a unifier, but restoring the minimum social solidarity necessary for a functional democracy will be a daunting challenge. It now seems as though there’s little common ground left. So rather than searching for common ground, Biden needs to help America find
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 29 Oct 20
What are the farther reaches of equality? How can the overall “cymatics of equality” progress? What would a “deeper resonance” be like? The general idea would be that deeper equality is not only an issue of distribution, but also—and perhaps ultimately—a question of transformations of the eye of the beholder. Inequality is always caused by an act of measurement, by a beholder who judges the beheld as inferior, be it our “self” or one another. The deepest forms of equality must resonate not only in social structures, but also in the hearts and minds of all participant-observers. The following is
What are the farther reaches of equality? How can the overall “cymatics of equality” progress? What would a “deeper resonance” be like? The general idea would be that deeper equality is not only an issue of distribution, but also—and perhaps ultimately—a question of transformations of the eye of the beholder. Inequality is always caused by an act of measurement, by
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 26 Oct 20
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 24 Oct 20
The sixth and last form of inequality is one we cannot miss in the Internet Age: informational inequality, the divide between the haves and have-nots of information and knowledge. There has been much written about the “digital divide” which privileges younger generations over older ones, digitized economies with good broadband infrastructure over poor developing countries, and so forth. The following is a slightly edited extract from Hanzi Freinacht’s book ‘Nordic Ideology: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book Two’. This is the second book in a series on metamodern thought, a work of popular philosophy that investigates the nature of psychological
The sixth and last form of inequality is one we cannot miss in the Internet Age: informational inequality, the divide between the haves and have-nots of information and knowledge. There has been much written about the “digital divide” which privileges younger generations over older ones, digitized economies with good broadband infrastructure over poor developing countries, and so forth. The following
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 23 Oct 20
Reposted from the Institute for Cultural Evolution’s blog: The Institute for Cultural Evolution does not officially endorse candidates for public office. But as the president of this organization I feel obligated to express my personal political opinion on the upcoming election. While I acknowledge that there are many people of good sense and good faith who continue to support Donald Trump, I cannot assent to his leadership. My considered assessment is that Trump’s apparent disregard for the truth, coupled with his generally untrustworthy character, disqualify him for the office of the presidency. Even though I’m a registered Democrat, I still
Reposted from the Institute for Cultural Evolution’s blog: The Institute for Cultural Evolution does not officially endorse candidates for public office. But as the president of this organization I feel obligated to express my personal political opinion on the upcoming election. While I acknowledge that there are many people of good sense and good faith who continue to support Donald
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 23 Oct 20
The Institute for Cultural Evolution does not officially endorse candidates for public office. But as the president of this organization I feel obligated to express my personal political opinion on the upcoming election. While I acknowledge that there are many people of good sense and good faith who continue to support Donald Trump, I cannot assent to his leadership. My considered assessment is that Trump’s apparent disregard for the truth, coupled with his generally untrustworthy character, disqualify him for the office of the presidency. Even though I’m a registered Democrat, I still have doubts about Joe Biden and cannot wholeheartedly
The Institute for Cultural Evolution does not officially endorse candidates for public office. But as the president of this organization I feel obligated to express my personal political opinion on the upcoming election. While I acknowledge that there are many people of good sense and good faith who continue to support Donald Trump, I cannot assent to his leadership. My