Category: Writing

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

“Star Wars civilization”

Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and the rest of life.

Wilson, Edward O. The Social Conquest of Earth. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2012) p.7 (hardcover)

Now a last-minuter

From a time-management perspective, I seem to have become a much worse student since my undergrad days.

Right now, I am on a computer in my study working on drafts of two papers simultaneously (one due tomorrow, one due Thursday). Occasionally, I am drifting back to the well-lit zone in my bedroom to do the readings on which these two papers are ostensibly based.

Peppering all of these tasks are asides in which I make note of things to discuss at tomorrow’s 350 meeting and try to schedule this week’s remaining obligations.

Mid-February meltdown

Somehow, this coming week is shaping up to be even more insane than the weeks so far this term.

I have to grade all the papers from my international relations students by Thursday (after re-reading the papers they are based on), as well as do the reading for this week’s tutorials and teach them on Monday.

I have two papers of my own to write: a book review for my ‘incomplete conquests’ class and a paper for my Canadian politics core seminar on: “Does the Canadian study of federalism suffer from too much or too little theory?” (I don’t even know what that means!)

I have two sections of the Toronto350.org divestment brief due tomorrow, hundreds of emails to answer (as always), two term paper topics to decide on and begin researching, the Toronto350.org Termly General Meeting on Tuesday night, and all the ordinary reading for next week’s three classes.

I also need to send my 24-70 lens back to Canon because, in fixing the fall damage, they broke the autofocus/manual focus switch. Plus, there is lots of routine stuff that has piled up, like six issues of The Economist to read.

Burke on rights and generations

“The political philosopher par excellence of the organic constitution was the Anglo-Irish theorist and statesman Edmund Burke, who wrote a century after Locke. Burke did not share the Age of Enlightenment’s optimism about the capacity for each rational individual to discern fundamental political truths. ‘The individual is foolish, but the species is wise.’ Instead of abstract natural rights, Burke believed in the real rights and obligations which grow out of the social conventions and understandings that hold society together. For Burke, the social contract which formed the foundation of society was not between individuals here and now but from one generation to another, each handing on to the next the product of its collective wisdom. The Burkean notion of an organic constitution has little appeal for those who, unlike the English, have not enjoyed a long and relatively uninterrupted constitutional history. But it was certainly congenial to the Canadian Fathers of Confederation who, though organizing a new country, did not for a moment conceive of themselves as authoring a brand new constitution.”

Russell, Peter. Constitutional Odyssey: Can Canadians Become a Sovereign Poeple? Third edition. p.10 (hardcover)

‘Hostile brothers’

  • “One of these ‘hostile brothers’ or ‘eternal sons of God’ is the mythological hero. He faces the unknown with the presumption of its benevolence – with the (unprovable) attitude that confrontation with the unknown will bring renewal and redemption. He enter[s], voluntarily, into creative ‘union with the Great Mother,’ builds or regenerates society, and brings peace to a warring world.
  • The other ‘son of God’ is the eternal adversary. This ‘spirit of unbridled rationality,’ horrified by his limited apprehension of the conditions of existence, shrinks from contact with everything he does not understand. This shrinking weakens his personality, no longer nourished by the ‘water of life,’ and makes him rigid and authoritarian, as he clings desperately to the familiar, ‘rational,’ and stable. Every deceitful retreat increases his fear; every new ‘protective law’ increases his frustration, boredom and contempt for life. His weakness, in combination with his neurotic suffering, engenders resentment and hatred for existence itself.”

Peterson, Jordan. Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief. p. 307 (paperback)

Intrigue

From Kipling’s Kim:

“It was intrigue,— of course he knew that much, as he had known all evil since he could speak,— but what he loved was the game for its own sake — the stealthy prowl through the dark gullies and lanes, the crawl up a waterpipe, the sights and sounds of the women’s world on the flat roofs, and the headlong flight from housetop to housetop under cover of the hot dark.”

Climate change and democratic legitimacy

I have finished my final assignment for the term, the essay for my Global Environmental Politics course. It is about climate change and democratic legitimacy:

Many of these ideas are likely to find their way into my PhD thesis, so I would definitely appreciate feedback.