Category Archives: culture

16. Individualism or the Group ?

Indi­vid­u­al­ism or the Group? Thor May Wuhan, China 2001 The lady on BBC radio was mak­ing a pitch to teach social anthro­pol­ogy to the unwashed masses of the air-waves. There is, she said, a range of cul­tural types whose two extremes are … Con­tinue read­ing

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14. Why Grasshoppers Don’t Have A Problem

If you think of the human men­tal sys­tem in terms com­pa­ra­ble to the oper­at­ing sys­tem of a com­puter, then there is a curi­ous incom­plete­ness about it. Of course the house­keep­ing func­tions, the bits that tell your body to breath and … Con­tinue read­ing

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5. The Art of Disproportion

Every writer cre­ates a pat­tern of dis­pro­por­tions. The pro­por­tion­ate is that checker­board of nights and days within which our lives are gov­erned, the rou­tine of sleep, how you part your hair, when you check for your mail, the trips to … Con­tinue read­ing

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#2–1998 EDINN : Re-spinning Intellectuals into the Social Order

1. What is an intel­lec­tual any­way? Intel­lec­tu­als as a sub-species rate some­what lower than gar­den spi­ders in the pub­lic esti­ma­tion (they are not use­ful, they can sting if you pick them up, and they are eco­nom­i­cally val­ue­less). Maybe it is … Con­tinue read­ing

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20. A Collision of Technology and Politics – Star Wars Revisited

Thor May Uni­ver­sity of New­castle, NSW @10 June 1986 We kid­ded our­selves for a while that Star Wars had gone away. We pre­tended that flower power was win­ning. But in our heart of hearts, in our 3 a.m. night­mares, we knew … Con­tinue read­ing

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