MooWorld... thoughts on the go

Artificial Humanity

Human societies are shaped through social construction. But artificial intelligence forebodes a spectre of digital construction, and a human sociality increasingly less human.

Defining Art

Art is an acronym: A Response To…

Want and need on a plate

Eat half as much as you want because it’s probably all that you need

The Big Top in The Big Apple

Protagonists and observers opined the prospect of trumps court appearance degenerating into a circus. But one can’t have a circus without a clown. Although this clown dropped the usual face painted smile in favour of a frown.

Liquid Histories

Historic precedents are inherently spurious. They are set at points in time, the selection of which both define and limit their validity. If one goes far enough back in time then all precedent is lost. All the empires of recorded history are but dust because they have not yet existed. All claims to particular states of affairs erroneous.

This social construction of rights is particularly relevant in the current era of cultural claims over land and peoples - Putin’s perverted claims to cultural provenance in the context of Ukraine being a most deadly example.

One might try to argue for a fundamental delineation of belonging at the genetic level. But this too, we now know, is not discrete but mixed in its make up and ultimately singular in its origins. If the likes of Putin are serious about the purity of human provenance then they should accept that their ‘peoples’ - like all of us - are ‘out of Africa’ - not some erstwhile empire.

Fleeting Beauty

Why are the most beautiful moments in nature often so fleeting? Cherry blossom, magnolias, the short lives of the dragon fly and the butterfly.

The Weakness of Vanity

Evident in the behaviour of Putin and Trump - and vicariously in their duped followers who bath in its spurious glow.

Cancel Culture

Morality is fickle. Shapeshifting across time and place, the dialectic of equity renders morality largely uncertain and particular. As with all things, morality is a process not a state; thesis and antithesis a necessary and productive perpetual process. Moral certainty is as unrealistic as it is dangerous.


Sunak the Pugalist

If Sunak is up for a fight then let him fight the criminals driving the process not the victims

Paradox of assumption

On the one hand, politicians are assumed to be universally lacking in common sense and any genuine connection to the real world that the rest of us live in. Whilst at the same time, we assume - through expectation - that they will, or at least we expect that they should, get on with running the country. This paradox of assumption leaves us in a perpetual state of frustration that is of our own making. By and large we enjoy a peaceful existence in this country compared to many others, the UK is relatively stable, but it seems that the price of stability is complacency.

Nice man - no plan

As Boris Johnson continues to progress the normalisation of lying to effect conservative policies, the frustration is that the socialist alternative is no alternative at all, Keir Starmer is a nice man but with no discernible plan.

Power

Power without humility is ugly - and dangerous

Educating the educators

Nietzsche identified two kinds of people in this world, those who want to know and those who want to believe. It follows, then, that educators should teach students how to think not what to think.

Voice

The human world is socially constructed through discourse, The most important thing is voice.

To laugh or to cry

The denials of reality that characterise political discourses such as those promulgated by the Chinese communist party are comical in their transparency. But the realities they deny are shameful and upsetting cruelties.

The messages are received by two very different audiences, those who want to know and those who want to believe; the wider world who can see the emperor’s nudity, and the internal audience who find comfort in the blanket of ideology.