KateDec 7, 2016

Reading John Berger's collection of short essays of art criticism, I just came across this:

"What the painting by Bosch does is to remind us -- if prophecies can be called reminders -- that the first step towards building an alternative world must be a refusal of the world-picture implanted in our minds and all the false promises used everywhere to justify and idealise the delinquent and insatiable need to sell. Another space is vitally necessary.”

(John Berger, The Shape of a Pocket)

Show threadTania ShekoDec 7, 2016
@katebowles What a find! Do you have to take your world picture by force to reject and replace, I wonder, or can it be done gradually like a dawning?
Show threadKateDec 7, 2016

@taniasheko I think the tone in our times invite haste and breakage. There's just so much to be angry about, and people are searching for legitimate but violent gestures to reject with great force the bad.

But I sense a gradual unwinding may last longer, a disentangling from this world of the sell, and careful relocation to another space.

Show threadLaura Ritchie 🌸Dec 7, 2016
@katebowles @taniasheko I think it can also be done gently, but takes effort as it is neither easy nor readily accepted (socially). Someone I heard today said (about looking at an employability graph of all things) we don't have to accept this. These are perceptions, and if evidence/sense/gut tells us otherwise then there is no reason not to choose to redefine through another lens.
Show threadKateDec 7, 2016

@lauraritchie @taniasheko

"We don't have to accept this."

I want this embroidered, I want a t-shirt.

But I also want to think about "evidence/sense/gut" and the things that are really troubling to us about who believes what in the world.

Do we need, should there be, some reference points?

The academic colleague who works in the office next to mine genuinely believes climate variation is not the result of human action. He believes this.

What is faith?

Show threadTania ShekoDec 7, 2016
@katebowles @lauraritchie What is faith? What is truth? Can we answer these questions or define these? We can only explore.
Show threadKateDec 7, 2016
@taniasheko @lauraritchie This is the thing that troubles me about the present time. For a long time critical theorists said "We must be open to the radical possibility that facts are only the stories told by the powerful." Now we're not sure how to defend ourselves against the return of this logic in other hands.
Show threadKate
@lauraritchie @taniasheko I listened to the short clip on NPR of one of Trump's advisors saying "There are no facts", and everyone was horrified. But I thought quietly, wait, this is what we have been saying.
Dec 7, 2016 at 9:45pmWeb