Last post then off to school...

People keep asking me where I've learned what I've learned. I don't tend to think I'm that knowledgeable yet... at least I'm nowhere near what I'm capable of and where I should be. Lack of discipline, family, and political obligations keep me too busy to do the intellectual leg work I'd like to do.

But if you like what I have to say I can give you a few recommendations
1. Read often and broadly

2. Read quality blogs (where I've gotten all of my economics for the most part)

3. Read different newspapers from different political perspectives. Most importantly the New York Times since it sets the national media agenda and is the newspaper for movers and shakers in the world. You want to know what they are reading and thinking. Secondly the wall-street journal. I'm sorry to see the decline since Murdock... and they've had some loses because of it. But the WSJ is a great news source. The opinion page is a joke... but the news is par excellance--the reason being if you are going to make good financial decisions you need to know whats actually going on with as little spin as possible. Also Financial Times is a good read as well... NPR in the mornings... when I do watch the news on tv its Jim Leher on PBS. And online news I get at Democracy Now probably THE BEST news source out there. But its so reality based that it sounds as if a news report from mars...

4. COntact people you come across authors, teachers, and other nonprofessional intellectuals you might come across. Stay networked.. ask questions

5. The back of the book... where are the sources and citations go... thats where you learn to leap from...

thats about it. A little tip from me to you. Please feel free to throw out your own in the comments page.

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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

getting people truly innvolved in politics and policy...

Citizen Jay comments:

People tend to place greater priority upon entertainment than serious matters. If you wish to bestow a message upon the masses, you must teach in a way in which they will be receptive to your message. People will be not only listen to your message if presented in an accessible manner, they will seek additional information.

Thats very true.

I am not the greatest in making sure I frame things in a way where people will be receptive. I'm not always accessible--I lean on hyperbole and cynicism too much.

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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

Making shit up department....

In Philosophy class the other day I realized that it shouldn't be called a philosophy degree. It should be called intellectual history. My reason: in class the teacher said that our focus on the last paper should have been directed at what our chosen philosopher thought and why he thought it. If we only briefly mentioned it and then just moved on to our own ideas we were just making shit up.

Now I got a b on the paper so I didn't do too bad. But it got me thinking. This isn't logic, this isn't empirically verifiable. This is just metaphysics and some ethics. All this is is made up shit! Why is Nietzsche or Adorno given more credence than me in the making shit up department?

I see what he's saying... smart people, well educated, spent a lot of effort and have stood the test of time... I get that deal. We SHOULD learn from them and respect them. Most student are going to get cocky--myself included?--and just write there own thoughts. But hell... its still making shit up.

I think philosophy departments should be called intellectual history departments so that no one gets confused. You can have philosophical application classes where you get to use all these neat intellectual tools... but lets be precise in our language.

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Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

quote

"One must, as it were, he said, consider the University as a complex machine with two interlocking parts, a Generator that was devoted to producing excellence in relatively abstract areas of research, primarily scientific research, and then a Transformer which turned the prestige acquired through this excellence into a force of repression, directed at legitimizing the deepest possible cultural and political conservatism. The combination of excellence and a strictly-enforced, backward-looking cultural ethos made the University an almost irresistible magnet for the extensive funding from the alumni, large corporations, and the government that fuelled the Generator." --Raymond Geuss Richard Rorty at Princeton: Personal Recollections

I'm reading/using his textbook this summer...

Changeless economy

Economics is a field where the information changes little from year to year? I’m currently revising the macroeconomic chapters — and everything has changed. We’ve gone from a world in which recessions were mostly generated by the Fed to control inflation to a world in which bursting financial bubbles lead the way, from a world in which discretionary fiscal policy was considered uncouth to one in which both parties feel it’s essential, from a world in which central banks were considered omnipotent to one in which my former department chairman is trying desperately to get some traction — and all of this has happened in just a few years.
I think they could have picked a better example.

Is the world flat?

watch this from the view... to get a feel for the many conversations we have to have in our communities. And I don't post this as a call for more oppositional thinking and us vs. them rhetoric. But just an awareness and sensitivity for what is the outcome of philosophical postions I disagree with.