Category: Writing

Anything on the process or results of writing as an activity and a passion

Writing as successive approximation

With the possible exception of short spur-of-the-moment missives or a transcribed stream of consciousness, it seems to me that all writing is a process of successive approximation in which you begin with something which isn’t what you want at the end, but which provides a structure that allows you to reach the objective. In part, this is because it isn’t possible to keep every part of a piece of complex writing like an academic paper in mind simultaneously. Rather, we must rely on a mental map that allows us to make changes in one area while maintaining overall coherence. Otherwise, we could never write anything longer than the longest passage we’re capable of memorizing and reciting, or we could only write documents that lack coherence from part to part, like Montaigne’s cheeky essay “Of Drunkenness“, where he veers about between opinions and moral judgments. In one passage, he calls it “a gross and brutish vice” before going on to praise Germans who “drink almost indifferently of all wines with delight” and saying that the French are “too sparing of the favours of the god” for only drinking moderately at two meals a day.

This process for maintaining coherence has been made salient for me recently through the effort to revise my PhD proposal to meet both my and my committee’s expectations.

It’s interesting to consider the process of successive approximation in writing in light of the concept’s origins in the psychology of behaviour change. B. F. Skinner’s analysis concerned the efforts of one (theoretically more cognitively sophisticated) animal to influence another’s behaviour through differential reinforcement. I love this video on how to trim a dog’s nails as a demonstration.

While it may be undertaken in service of an outside person like a professor or academic supervisor, writing is a process where both the reinforcement and the behaviour are internal (some people give themselves tangible rewards for hitting targets but it’s not something I have ever done systematically). The general question of how to train your own brain is an interesting one, especially for those of us who can sometimes observe self-destructive tendencies in our own conduct.

Academic agenda

I have assembled a pretty comprehensive to-do list for the next while.

I have assignments to grade for the environmentalism and social media course where I am a teaching assistant, and a coordination meeting with the other TA. Tomorrow, I am doing faculty and PhD student portraits for the department of political science. Saturday we are interviewing potential housemates, there is the U of T Judo annual general meeting, and I am performing a sketch with Trevor at Massey’s ‘Tea Hut’ talent show.

Most importantly, I am working toward a set of targets for completing my PhD proposal on campus fossil fuel divestment. By the 28th I am to submit the literature review and hypotheses. Then, select and justify case studies by March 8th, finish up methods by the 15th, and present the essentially finished proposal to my research design class on the 21st.

On May 5th or 6th I am presenting on Canadian climate change policy at the U of T Ethics Centre Graduate Conference, and I need to have my paper on Keystone XL and the Northern Gateway pipeline ready for the Canadian Political Science Association conference by May 23rd.

Dictatorships and the coercive dilemma

Coercive institutions are a dictator’s final defense in pursuit of political survival, but also his chief obstacle to achieving that goal. This book argues that autocrats face a coercive dilemma: whether to organize their internal security apparatus to protect against a coup, or to deal with the threat of popular unrest. Because coup-proofing calls for fragmented and socially exclusive organizations, while protecting against popular unrest demands unitary and inclusive ones, autocrats cannot simultaneously maximize their defenses against both threats. When dictators assume power, then, they must (and often do) choose which threat to prioritize. That choice, in turn, has profound consequences for the citizens who live under their rule. A fragmented, exclusive coercive apparatus gives its agents social and material incentives to escalate rather than dampen violence, and also hampers agents from collecting the intelligence necessary to engaged in targeted, discriminate, and pre-emptive repression. A unitary and inclusive apparatus configured to address significant mass unrest, however, has much better intelligence capability vis-a-vis its own citizens, and creates incentives for agents to minimize the use of violence and to rely instead on alternative means of repression, including surveillance and targeted pre-emption. Given its stronger intelligence capability, the mass-oriented coercive apparatus is also better at detecting and responding to changes in the nature of threats than its coup-proofed counterpart, leading to predictable patterns of institutional change that are neither entirely path dependent nor entirely in keeping with the optimization predicted by rational design.

Greitens, Sheena Chestnut. Dictators and Their Secret Police: Coercive Institutions and State Violence. Cambridge University Press. 2016. p. 4-5

Sheena was in the Oxford M.Phil in International Relations program during the same two years as I was, and we both served on the executive of the Oxford University Strategic Studies Group.

Related:

Peter Dauvergne on environmentalism as a social movement

Saying mainstream environmentalism now reflects the interests and concerns of the rich is like coming upon a river of spawning salmon and noting the colour red. There are naturally many shades of difference. Not all of the mainstream, everywhere, has to the same extent come to embrace markets, corporations, and technologies as solutions. Nor does everyone have equal faith in the value of economic growth, CSR, and eco-consumerism as ways to move toward global sustainability. And nor is everyone equally pragmatic, calling for “evolution not revolution.” Environmentalism will always be a “movement of movements,” with a great diversity of values and visions surfacing out of a turbulent sea of informal groupings and formal organizations. Environmentalists share a commitment to try to protect the environment, yet sharp differences even exist in the understanding of the word “environment,” from those who mean nature (wildlife and ecosystems) to those who really mean living spaces for humans (cities, towns, parks, and beaches).7 (p. 6-7)

…

7. The phrase “movement of movements” is more often used to describe the global resistance to capitalism and globalization than to characterize global environmentalism. I use the phrase, however, to emphasize the diversity of environmentalism, which itself overlaps with movements against capitalism and globalization (and for global justice). For a discussion of this phrase in relation to anti-globalization activism and alter-globalization campaigns (offering social justice alternatives to globalization), see Tom Mertes, ed. A Movement of Movements: Is Another World Really Possible (Verso, 2004). For a sense of the great diversity of environmentalism, see Further Readings, “Environmental Activism (“insider” critiques of),” “Environmental Discourses and Movements (varieties of),” “Environmental Justice Movements,” “Environmental NGOs and Transnational Networks,” “Environmentalism (developing countries),” “Environmentalism (overviews) and “Voluntary Simplicity, Localization, and Eco-Villages.” (p. 154-5)

Dauvergne, Peter. Environmentalism of the Rich. MIT Press; Cambridge. 2016.

Changing topics in year 5

My supervisors have been encouraging me to switch thesis topics. I find myself resisting because the proposed alternative topic has very little to do with the intersection between environmental and indigenous politics, which I judge to be the most important ongoing change in the contemporary politics of the United States and Canada.

At the same time, while I have made a significant effort to come to grips with indigenous politics in the context of climate change politics, I have also often felt contradicted and confused, unable to discern confidently which interpretation may be most robust and useful. It may well be that I just don’t know enough about them to make a PhD research project with that focus feasible to complete over the next two years.

If you look at my initial long proposal and my subsequent shorter proposal, you can see a few of the reasons why I think this intersection is so interesting and important.

I’m still thinking it through.

Climate change messaging

A paper by Pearce, Brown, Nerlich, Koteyko (“Communicating climate change: conduits, content, and consensus“, 2015) contains some interesting ideas about effective communication about climate change. They cite one “best practice guide” which explains that:

in order for climate science information to be fully absorbed by audiences, it must be actively communicated with appropriate language, metaphor, and analogy; combined with narrative storytelling; made vivid through visual imagery and experiential scenarios; balanced with scientific information; and delivered by trusted messengers in group settings.

It also notes that: “Messages focusing on fear and predictions of adverse events can increase skepticism, perhaps because they disrupt underlying ‘just world’ beliefs and can reduce people’s intentions to perform mitigating actions”.

This kind of research is important. Motivation may be the trickiest part of the climate challenge: getting people to care about the welfare of people impacted all over the world by climate change, and well into future generations. Then making people willing to demand political and economic change to prevent the worst potential impacts of excessive fossil fuel use.

Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America’s Most Hopeful Landscape

My family in Vermont sent me Bill McKibben’s 2005 book (updated in 2014) as a Christmas gift. In it, he recounts a meandering trek through the Lake Champlain region of the Adirondacks. It’s part nature writing, partly an account of the history of the region and the ways his neighbours are tying to earn a living, and partly a meditation on the nature of wilderness and how it relates to human life.

McKibben talks about small-scale farmers and winemakers trying to compete against giant agribusiness corporations by securing premium prices for local food; students keen to establish major vegetable gardens at local colleges; debates about what to think and do about invasive species; strategies for social change; park rangers burning down the illegal cabins of hunters; and the ruin and ruckus caused by all-terrain vehicles and Jet Skis.

The book fits into a theme of environmentally-minded people finding ways to undertake major wilderness excursions, which I also saw among friends before leaving Facebook. I can see the plausibility in how time invested this way can help control the adverse emotions which accompany environmental activism in the face of a public wedded to consumerism and corporations and politicians vigorous in their defence of the status quo. At the same time, it’s hard to undertake when I am always behind on PhD requirements and never really financially secure enough for vacations.

In any event, the book is another good demonstration of McKibben’s eloquence and constant focus on the big questions facing humanity. I hope one day I will get to visit some of the landscape he describes.