Peripatetic Praxis » Continuing Crisis

What I Believe…?

eweislogel — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:05:37 +0000

Take the example of buying chocolate from a corner shop. If I know, or suspect, that the chocolate is made from coco beans picked by children under the conditions of slavery then, regardless of what I say, I believe in child slavery. For the belief operates at a material level (the level of what I do) rather than at the level of the mind (what I tell myself I believe). And I can’t hide in supposed ignorance either for if I don’t know about how most chocolate is made it is likely that my lack of knowledge is a form of refusal to care. For the very fact that there is Fair Trade chocolate, for example, should be enough for me to ask questions about whether other chocolate is made in an unfair way. Or take the example of buying cheap clothes from a department store. Regardless of what I say, if I don’t ask some basic questions about where the clothes come from I believe in sweatshops. Or at best I believe in ignorance, in not asking questions and in the virtue of being an uncritical consumer. Again these beliefs are not ones I will admit to myself (bring to my mind) but rather they are beliefs I enact as a result of my basic desires (arising from my heart). Finally, if I didn’t stand up to protest against rendition flights, if I didn’t voice my disgust at the practices that go on in places like Guantanamo Bay in my name, then I believe in torture.

link: peterrollins.net » I Believe in Child Labour, Sweatshops and Torture

Wendy Brown on the Crisis at the University

eweislogel — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 21:06:19 +0000

This video is part of the series of presentations in the Teach-In on the crisis at the University of California. Have a listen…

“Save the University” – A Teach-In on the UC Crisis

eweislogel — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 21:03:24 +0000

This is an 8 part series of presentations. Food for thought.

Capitalism – You decide

eweislogel — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 13:11:10 +0000

First, an article by Robert T. Miller (an acquaintance of mine, I should note) in First Things on Alasdair MacIntyre’s views (wrong, according to Miller) on capitalism.

Second, an article by Phil Gasper in the International Socialist Review responding to a (wrong-headed, in Gasper’s view) defender of capitalism.

So what do you think?

Can you make a living? PROVE IT!

eweislogel — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:45:08 +0000

Try this game. It’ll be an eye-opener, at least for some….

Tariq Ramadan and Slavoj Zizek on Egypt

eweislogel — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 00:36:42 +0000

It doesn’t have to be true!

eweislogel — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 22:06:25 +0000

Join today!

eweislogel — Tue, 11 May 2010 13:20:18 +0000

What “free market”?

eweislogel — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 15:30:32 +0000

There isn’t one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians.

Politics and food

eweislogel — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 15:05:27 +0000

The damaging and dangerous aspects of our food supply have arisen out of its complete subordination to the dictates of the free market. Maximization of yield, and therefore profits, has trumped all other considerations in growing, and “adding value” is the name of the game in processing. When applied to food, capitalism’s insanity, which in all industries tends toward concentration and overproduction, has had truly perverse effects. Plenty has produced waste, not health; soil science has poisoned us instead of fed us; and technology has intensified, not alleviated, poverty.