February 3, 2008 at 11:49 am · Filed under Academic Life, Digital Culture, Extended, Philosophy, Science
I’ve been tagged with a meme by my friend James, and although I don’t always do these things (in fact I rarely do) this is a fun one and I’m interested to see what some other people are reading in this spontaneous sort of way. It demands that I pick up the closest book, which is a good indicator of what sort of work I’ve been doing lately. And I’ll tell you right now, the book that was actually closest was only so because a stack of books on the table fell over toward me and this one landed closest. It was a close call between this and 3 other equally wonderful books!
So here’s the charge:
Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!)
Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.
And here’s my response:
The closest book to me is Descartes’ Error by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio (because I’ve been using it to teach sample classes at job interviews!)
Page 123, first 3 sentences *after* the first 5 sentences:
“Among animals, from insects to mammals, there are unequivocal examples of successful coping with particular forms of environment on the basis of innate strategies, and no doubt those strategies often include complex aspects of social cognition and behavior. I never cease to marvel at the intricate social organization of our distant monkey cousins, or at the elaborate social observances of so many birds. When we consider our own species, however, and the far more varied and largely unpredictable environments in which we have thrived, it is apparent that we must rely on highly evolved genetically based biological mechanisms, as well as on suprainstinctual survival strategies that have developed in society, are transmitted by culture, and require, for their application, consciousness, reasoned deliberation, and willpower.”
As for tagging 5 people, I know many of my blogfriends are as reluctant to engage in memes as I am, but I’ll name some folks anyway, since I’m a nosy sonova bitch who would just love to know what people are reading. How about Dale and Rod (it’ll get both of your minds off of politics for a moment!), TchemGrrl (unless all your books are packed already!), John, Anne (if she’s reading!), and anyone else interested. I hate to just pick 5 people – if I didn’t tag you but you’re reading something interesting, feel free to post your answers in the comments here. This gets you out of having to tag others and it gets you out of having to blog about it!
Permalink
Oh dear. I’m teaching Debord’s Society of the Spectacle this week and it was literally on my lap when I noticed you tagged me. This is sure to be portentious. Flip, flip, flip to 123… Here goes:
The dictatorship of the automobile, the pilot product of the fist stage of commodity abundance, has left its mark on the landscape in the dominance of freeways that bypass the old urban centers and promote an ever greater dispersal. Meanwhile, instants of incomplete reorganization of the urban fabric briefly crystallize around the “distribution factories” — giant shopping centers created ex nihilo and surrounded by acres of parking space; but even these temples of frenetic consumption are subject to the irresistible centrifugal trend, and when, as partial reconstructions of the city, they in turn become overtaxed secondary centers, they are likewise cast aside. The technical organization of consumption is thus merely the herald of that general process of dissolution which brings the city to the point where it consumes itself.
Way to get my mind off of politics, there, Robin, dag!
firepile wrote @ February 3rd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Haha, sorry about that! I should’ve known on a Sunday afternoon you’d be preparing for class instead of sitting precariously close to something fictional and enjoyable 
I’m not convinced there’s any way to get your mind off politics right now, anyway! Probably for the best Thanks for responding!
John wrote @ February 5th, 2008 at 10:55 am
I posted my response over at my site. Cheers!
firepile wrote @ February 6th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Thanks for playing! I’m actually enjoying this meme just because I get to see what people are reading as well as a sample paragraph! (It’s been a nice break from the angst of being stranded in Harrisburg, PA!)
TChem wrote @ February 8th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Heh, I’ve moved, but my stuff hasn’t. There’s about 5 books in the whole apartment…. scary.
AnneC wrote @ March 2nd, 2008 at 12:14 am
Eeek! I’m late. But I will answer this meme anyway, since I did not see any expiration date.
In the interest of full disclosure: this might be considered something of a “cheat” because I am not using the book that was literally closest in proximity to me when I first read that I’d been tagged, since I am not actively reading it right now and the purpose of your meme was stated as being to find out what other people are reading. I am not even using the book that was second closest in proximity to me, either, even though I was reading it earlier today because page 123 of that book doesn’t even have 5 sentences on it (it’s the end of a chapter), which disqualifies it from this exercise by definition.
So…I give you, 3 sentences from page 123 (well, actually pages 123-124, because the sentences spill over a bit) of “Techgnosis”, by Erik Davis (which is the closest book to me that I am actually reading actively):
Whether finding his evidence in Mormonism, the Baptist Church, or the poetry of Emerson, Bloom describes the core of the American religion as the unshakable conviction that there is something in the self that precedes creation, and that, for all our Whitmanesque desire to merge with groups, we can never fully trust external social institutions to care for the aboriginal freedom of this solitary spark, with its “personal relationship” to nature or a gnostic Jesus. In a crucial passage, Bloom writes that the American religion does not believe or trust, it knows, though it always wants to know yet more. The American Religion manifests itself as an information anxiety, but that seems to me a better definition of nearly all religion than the attempts to see faith as a compulsive neurosis or a drug.
Pretty interesting stuff! I love this book lots so far. Davis has a super bit at the beginning where he talks about electricity as being a kind of “alchemical fire”, and as an electrical engineer that kind of thing just makes me squee to bits!
firepile wrote @ March 2nd, 2008 at 12:29 am
I love this book! I read it when it first came out, and I don’t remember nearly enough of it. I think Davis’ work is generally very squee-worthy!! Thanks for playing
AnneC wrote @ March 2nd, 2008 at 11:59 am
It (Techgnosis) really is an awesome book. It is so dense with awesome that you can pretty much flip to any random page and find something +5, Insightful (or at least thought-provoking in some sense). One thing Davis is really good at is “observing culture” — not from an outside vantage point of course (since nobody has that), but without the kind of real-life “genre blindness” a lot of people these days seem to exhibit. I also heard a lecture of his once on a podcast that discussed pharmacology/modification and how these things are giving humans the opportunity to choose from a larger set of “stories” about who/what they are.
One example he brought up there was the question of what “shyness” is — e.g., whether it should be considered a “disease” or just a personality trait someone can work in the context of and integrate into their sense-of-self. And he pointed out that (I’m paraphrasing heavily here, but I think I got the point of what he was saying enough to do so) the person can now basically choose which “story” about themselves they want to be true: the “I had a problem, and now I’ve treated it medically” story, or the “I am a person who has this trait as part of my makeup, and I’m going to develop my strengths in dealing with it” story. I liked that framing of the issue because it avoided the kind of falsely-dichotomous absolutism that similar discussions often tend to devolve into — basically, the idea that there’s no need to (on a wide scale) “choose a side” and apply the same trait-associated story to everyone who has that trait by default or by policy.
The new modification opportunities modern medicine and science offer represent additional choices, not narrow roads that everyone born following their inception must follow. And a lot of modern anxiety and debate and bioethical confusion can be seen to stem from the fact of having to deal with these new choices, when before people had no choice but to live in the context of certain stories. We can’t afford to either ignore the benefits of the new stories for some people, or assume that there is no value in the old stories, or assume that because something is revealed as a “story” rather than something immutable, people have the right to remove the option of living that story for others.
Wow, that was kind of a ramble…sorry about that if it was too long for a comment!
firepile wrote @ March 2nd, 2008 at 12:11 pm
That was excellent – there’s no such thing as too long for a comment around here!
Didn’t Davis speak at the conference where I first met you, also? Or am I thinking of Chris Hables Gray? For some reason I always confuse the two, even though I can distinguish their works easily enough.
I should re-read Techgnosis. I bought it probably nearly 10 years ago now, when I was in a technology and religion in culture phase (especially as related to gnosticism) – I bet I would read a very different book today than the one I read back then!
AnneC wrote @ March 2nd, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Yes, I think he did (speak at the IEET conference in 2006) but I had no idea who he was then and missed his talk!
firepile wrote @ March 2nd, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Oh that’s too bad! His talk was fantastic (maybe he was even on the panel with Chris Gray, which just makes it worse for me!)
I recall being supremely impressed with his talk, but I’d have to look back over my notes to actually remember what he spoke about!
HTML-Tags:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>