Is It Eeasier to Lie Now than in the Past?

Words fail us: The crisis of language

Modernity has ushered in an increasing detachment from life; a divorce of sorts is taking place between the individual and the cultural context. Given certain thoughts and feelings, words fail us. It seems that we fail to communicate, to understand, to carve significance beyond the text. I write this manuscript as a feature of contemporary Zeitgeist, as a response to modern uncertainties about humanity. My belief is that the contract between language and reality is broken; thus, we lost our only hope to make contact with reality.

What's a Homonormative to Do? Notes from the Institutionally Compromised

Abstract:Queering a disciplinary formation like the field of public address is a queerly normative thing to do. Pulling strands from queer rhetorics, abolitionist theory and practice, and Latin American political theory, this essay muddles about in the implications, difficulties, and promise of that project, ultimatley approaching both 'queer' and 'public address' sidelong and askance.

Subjective selection, super-attractors, and the origins of the cultural manifold

Short abstract Human societies consistently develop complex, near-universal traditions that exhibit striking similarities. These “super-attractors” span magic and religion (e.g., shamanism, supernatural punishment beliefs), esthetics (e.g., heroic tales, dance songs), and social institutions (e.g., justice, corporate groups), and collectively constitute the “cultural manifold.” Here, I argue that the components of the cultural manifold develop primarily through “subjective selection,” or the production and selective retention of variants evaluated as useful for satisfying goals. Whereas previous explanations emphasize objective individual or group-level benefits, I highlight how subjective selection drives complex cultural convergences worldwide, attesting to the importance of subjective selection in shaping human culture. Long abstract Human societies reliably develop complex cultural traditions with striking similarities. These “super-attractors” span the domains of magic and religion (e.g., shamanism, supernatural punishment beliefs), esthetics (e.g., heroic tales, dance songs), and social institutions (e.g., justice, corporate groups) and collectively constitute what I call the “cultural manifold.” The cultural manifold represents a set of equilibrium states of social and cultural evolution: hypothetically cultureless humans placed in a novel and empty habitat will eventually produce most or all of these complex traditions. Although the study of the super-attractors has been characterized by explanatory pluralism, particularly an emphasis on processes that favor individual- or group-level benefits, I here argue that their development is primarily underlain by a process I call “subjective selection,” or the production and selective retention of variants that are evaluated as instrumentally useful for satisfying goals. Humans around the world are motivated toward similar ends, such as healing illness, explaining misfortune, calming infants, and inducing others to cooperate. As we shape, tweak, and preferentially adopt culture that appears most effective for achieving these ends, we drive the convergence of complex traditions worldwide. The predictable development of the cultural manifold reflects the capacity of humans to sculpt traditions that apparently provide them with what they want, attesting to the importance of subjective selection in shaping human culture.

does Marx turn to Epicurus at this point in his intellectual development?

CENTRAL ASIAN

Against Theological Obsequiousness

In response to the essay by members of the KU Leuven project “Dissenting Church,” I argue that they overlook the metaphysics underlying much of the church’s twentieth-century thought on tradition, leading to unnecessary dichotomies, such as whether tradition changes or is unchanging.