“When I first heard it, from a dog trainer who knew her behavioral science, it was a stunning moment. I remember where I was standing, what block of Brooklyn’s streets. It was like holding a piece of polished obsidian in the hand, feeling its weight and irreducibility. And its fathomless blackness. Punishment is reinforcing to the punisher. Of course. It fit the science, and it also fit the hidden memories stored in a deeply buried, rusty lockbox inside me. The people who walked down the street arbitrarily compressing their dogs’ tracheas, to which the poor beasts could only submit in uncomprehending misery; the parents who slapped their crying toddlers for the crime of being tired or hungry: These were not aberrantly malevolent villains. They were not doing what they did because they thought it was right, or even because it worked very well. They were simply caught in the same feedback loop in which all behavior is made. Their spasms of delivering small torments relieved their frustration and gave the impression of momentum toward a solution. Most potently, it immediately stopped the behavior. No matter that the effect probably won’t last: the reinforcer—the silence or the cessation of the annoyance—was exquisitely timed. Now. Boy does that feel good.”
— Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Secret History of Kindness (2015)
“I shall not easily forget an “environmental” presentation staged by the New York Museum of Natural History in the seventies in which the public was exposed to a long series of exhibits, each depicting examples of pollution and ecological disruption . The exhibit which closed the presentation carried a startling sign, “The Most Dangerous Animal on Earth,” and it consisted simply of a huge mirror which reflected back the human viewer who stood before it. I clearly recall a black child standing before the mirror while a white school teacher tried to explain the message which this arrogant exhibit tried to convey. There were no exhibits of corporate boards or directors planning to deforest a mountainside or government officials acting in collusion with them. The exhibit primarily conveyed one, basically misanthropic, message: people as such, not a rapacious society and its wealthy beneficiaries, are responsible for environmental dislocations — the poor no less than the personally wealthy, people of colour no less than privileged whites, women no less than men, the oppressed no less than the oppressor. A mythical human “species” had replaced classes; individuals had replaced hierarchies; personal tastes (many of which are shaped by a predatory media) had replaced social relationships; and the disempowered who live meagre, isolated lives had replaced giant corporations, self-serving bureaucracies, and the violent paraphernalia of the State.”
“Nonviolence declares that the American Indians could have fought off Columbus, George Washington, and all the other genocidal butchers with sit-ins; that Crazy Horse, by using violent resistance, became part of the cycle of violence, and as “as bad as” Custer. Nonviolence declares that Africans could have stopped the slave trade with hunger strikes and petitions, and that those who mutinied were as bad as their captors; that mutiny, a form of violence, led to more violence, and, thus, resistance led to more enslavement. Nonviolence refuses to recognize that it can only work for privileged people, who have a status protected by violence, as the perpetrators and beneficiaries of violent hierarchy.”
— Peter Gelderloos, How Nonviolence Protects the State (via shephilosophy)
« It is often said that a person can only read about five thousand books
in a lifetime. It is a small range of books given the accelerating
quantity available to us. This limitation might lead some readers to
rush their reading, thereby increasing the number of books. This
response turns a reader into a tourist, jumping from experience to
experience, noting only the highlights, being able to say he or she has
done it, though not entirely sure what was done. Another response is to
simply and happily acknowledge that life is indeed short, and that our
smaller selection of books represents a unique expression of our
character. This second choice removes the needless pressure from
reading, and restores it as a great pleasure. »
Yesterday (July 18th) settlers and IOF soldiers raided Al Aqsa mosque. They beat women, attacked worshippers and shot live bullets inside the mosque to make way for Israeli Jewish visitors
“Israeli police holding down a Christian priest peacefully walking to his parish in Jerusalem only a few days ago! Israeli occupation does not discriminate in its oppression other than their people! Don’t be blind”
