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WWW www.habermas.org

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: November 19 2006
Latest Update: November 26, 2006
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Announcements:

Public Art Works for Community Building: CSUDH and UWP: I was so grateful to see this morning that Susan took over some of the moderation on transform_dom. Thanks, Susan. Because I believe that transparency is absolutely essential to good governance anywhere, including in the classroom, I have decided to share here that something untoward really slowed me down for the last two weeks. I haven't even turned on the computer for a few days. When Arnold, my husband, was to have all my attention with his hospital stay, I accidentally up-staged him. A day or two after he got home with his new hip, our doctor called to tell me I had diabetes. We spent the whole end of this last week in doctors' offices. And Arnold had to drive with his new hip. My goodness, when things happen, they all seem to happen at once.

This means I didn't get all your public art pieces up. I'll just finish the catalog slowly after Christmas, please. Yours, too, UWP. I meant to work with all of them, but I finally met something that can seriously slow me down. Those of you at CSUDH, Pat and I will be at school on Wednesday. Remember that we have no functional office this semester, so we'll be in the classroom in Welch Hall, right next door to the snack shop which finally re-opened. Please be sure, all of you at CSUDH, that your submissions reflect that you understand the themes of this Moot Court class, and especially the concepts of humility of knowledge. You must relate your work to what we have taught this semester. And you must get it in this week or next, at the latest.

I would normally call you, or check up on those for whom I do not have submissions, but I'm still unable to access Toro-Web. And the way the diabetes affected me was with low sugar confusion and fatigue. I don't have the energy to come looking for field mice, and Pat and I will not formally be on campus next semester. That means DO NOT EXPECT AN INCOMPLETE.

This message signals that I'm well enough now to get back to the computer. That's the best way to contact me. But you can leave a message at 323-876-1389. There are endocrinology and physical therapy and all sorts of other medical appointments my doctors arranged, once they realized I had diabetes. So I may not answer until the next day when we pick up messages. But I will answer. If you leave a message with a phone number, please speak clearly. If you don't get an answer, it may be because I couldn't make out the phone number.

If you're unclear on what to do, there are a zillion samples in the last three or four issues of Dear Habermas. See as many of you as can make it Wednesday in our Welch Hall Classroom. I had a wonderful time with you this semester, and we have lots public art that we'll share with this community after Christmas. I learned so much! Thank you, both CSUDH and UWP. love and peace, jeanne

Topic of the Week:

Beliefs Are Different from Facts and Logical Arguments

Sticker from this week's image:

What we've always taught in school, consciously, at least, is based on facts or evidence that we can all examine, and logical arguments that help us draw conclusions from the facts we can see. The facts come from either the real world we can look at and/or measure. For example, the earth looks flat, but scientific measurements give us conflicting facts that tell us the world is roundish. We used to say "round," but more recent facts tell us the earth is actually a little distorted from a perfect globe.

In school, we've been taught to accept the scientific "proof" over the fact that the earth still looks flat under my feet. The problem comes with the word "proof." A scientific theory can be "proved," only insofar as all evidence that comes from our measuring confirms the theory. Sometimes new evidence comes in, and then we have to reconsider our theory. We rarely throw the whole theory out. We just try to understand what's missing in the theory that could incorporate the new evidence we've discovered.

For example, when Einstein understood relativity, Newtonian mechanics no longer fit the new data on relativity.We ultimately understood that Newtonian physics fit the phenomena of our world, but we needed relativity to understand larger bodies and greater speeds than we could envision. We adjusted physics to fit both.

Facts and evidence can be determined in three ways:

• scientific method - facts you can see and collect and examine. Logical arguments.

• recognized authority - authority that the community will accept, be that community the family, or your church, or the law courts. Bear in mind, however, though, that not all authorities recognize each other. The U.S. is unlikely to accept Iran's authority, though many Iranians may accept it. Different sections of religions accept each other's authority to varying degrees. Muslims consider Jesus Christ a great prophet. But they do not accept that he was the son of God. We accept many of the teachings of the Dalai Lama, though we are not Buddhists.
• Religious authorities represent a gray area in which acceptance is generally taught as limited to those who beliefve in the religion's tenets. Thus, when one religion condemns all others to eternal damnation, that religion is condemning huge numbers of people to a social construct, eternal damnation, that holds no link to reality for those condemned. Those of us so condemned are likely to righteously howl that such condemnation has no existence in our reality. Since this is belief, not scientific fact, no one knows who's right, so the religious "I'm right; you're wrong" will have to wait for resolution until we make it to the afterlife.
• intuition

Our schools rely almost exclusively on the scientific method. In complex issues, on the authority of those who have studied and are considered experts, like scientists who can assure us that matter does change into energy, as in nuclear explosions. But try telling the teacher that you know that 2+2= 4 because you "just know," or that monsters do exist under your bed in the dark, because you "just know."

We confuse intuition with superstition and magic, and it scares us. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just means that we can't "prove" it, and we're wary of what we can't prove. Sometimes it's easier to call it witchcraft or evil.

That's the problem with beliefs. We believe them. We somehow "know" they're true. But once we knew also that Newtonian mechanics answered all our physics questions. We need to talk about this "need to know" and recognize that it's OK "not to know." What's Not Ok is shouting at each other without listening in good faith so that we can grow as humans as our understanding grows. Gee, I wonder if that's why religions have always taught "humility."

Catalog for Fall 2006 Naked Space Exhibit
Presented at the American Society of Criminology National Meetings in Los Angeles in November 2006.

The catalog is separated into sections to keep the files at least relatively short. jeanne

• Catalog Cover for Believe It. Own It. Series 1. Fall 2006.
• Section 1: Our Flag and Its Meaning to This Nation-State
• Section 2: Using Unit Shapes for Image Creation
• Section 3: Models and Instructions

References:

• up soon

Current Issues

• Proposed Sticker on Closed Minds
  

  Closed Minds Lock Out Important Information

  Unfortunately we find closed minds everywhere, even in schools and institutions of higher learning. Talk to people. Help us all open our minds to the ideas of Others. Only the supreme Being, if there is one, and some say there is not, knows everything. We are human. Isn't that wonderful. By the way, I was thinking of Braveheart when I drew that NO . . . .

• Speech Act Theory and Changing the Dominant Discourse

  How Do We Manage to Get Things Done by Words? And Could We Get Them Done by Art?

Visual Sociology

• Agitated Crowds
  
  AFP/Getty Image

  AFP/Getty Image of Crowd in Lebanon at Funeral Procession of
  Cabinet Minister Pierre Gemayel

  Photo scanned in from the nespaper, the Los Angeles Times, Friday, Nov. 24, 2006. Notice how the profusion of flags, like a mass of sticks playing at pick-up sticks, creates the image of movement and agitation. Only the title, which assures us this is a funeral, suggests the agitatin of mourning. Notice that there's more than just lines. There're lines, topped by the angular tip of flags. Or maybe umbrellas for a different concept?

  Compare the funeral photograph to the James Ensor painting, Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889, at the Getty Museum, in Los Angeles:

  
  Getty Museum, Los Angeles

  Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889
  by James Ensor

• Industrialization
  
  Didier Mallac/REA

  New Peugeot Factory in Slovakia

  Another photo, scanned in from the newspaper, the NY Times this time. Saturday, Nov. 25, 2006. Notice what an effective image you can make with yellow and orange against this background of grays. Notice the forms. Consider letting this image inspire you to do a collage or a drawing to make a sticker that has something our community needs to discuss about industrializatioon. Like the movement of labor out of the country to avoid living wages?

References

• Steven's Portal "A NEW GATEWAY to the common good. It is based on the efforts of real people who are helping and healing the world every day." Nice way to gain a sense of how others are trying to make this a more caring, gentler world. I didn't have time to go through the whole site, but I did discover the I-Wish Project there. November 26, 2006. jeanne

• I-Wish Project Story of a project that has a mission similar to ours. Differences: it's not asking for learning; it's not on current events; but it is trying to hear what people consider focal points and gains some illocutionary understanding from that speech act. November 26, 2006. jeanne

A Range of Sources on Global Info

Left/Right Perspectives - Cursor - New York Times - The National Review
Arts and Letters Daily - The Economist - The Sierra Club - The Guardian
Wall Street Journal - The Weekly Standard - The Nation - The Cato Institute (Libertarian)
BBC NEWS | Americas - truthout - Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles
Los Angeles Times - Chicago Tribune - La Opinion - The Washington Post
Cursor's Al Jazeera Archive - Ha'aretz - Palestine Monitor - Palestine Report

 

 

 

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