“The goal of education, to shift over to Bertrand Russell, is to give a sense of value to things other than domination, which means we regard a child as a gardener regards a young tree, as something with a certain intrinsic nature, which will develop into an admirable form, given the proper soil, air, and light.”
—Noam Chomsky, Chomsky on Mis-Education
“The success of most films in Hollywood these days, I think, is down to the fact [that] they’re comforting, they tie things into nice little bows, give you answers–even if the answers are stupid.” -Terry Gilliam
“…But at the end of the process, what really creates the sounds that comes out of the instruments is the movement that they make.”
-Uri Vardi (from the video)
“In the world of 2001, people have become so machinelike that the most human character turns out to be a machine. That’s the essence of Kubrick’s dark prophecy: as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.” (from the article)
Click here to read Nicholas Carr’s insightful article in the Atlantic on how technology has changed and continues to change the way we live and think.
Charles Eisenstein‘s seminal work, Sacred Economics, played a pivotal role in inspiring both Slowing Down to Run Faster and The Mass Psychology of Fittism. In the following video by Ian McKenzie, Charles talks about the role that a debt-based money economy has played in fundamentally promoting political oppression, poverty, inequality, war, environmental destruction, anomie, and the severing of deep social ties.
The motor skills of those with neurological conditions can be improved, sometimes to a remarkable extent, with help of somatic practices like Feldenkrais, Anat Baniel Method, Jeremy Krauss Approach, Hanna Somatics and Alexander Technique, as well as by engaging in sports, dance, martial arts, qigong, and/or yoga. This video produced by CBS’s Leslie Stahl reveals the benefits of boxing training for Parkinson’s patients.
The following is an excerpt from Chapter 22 of The Mass Psychology of Fittism (Undocumented Worker Press: ’15)
The Foot
To understand how humans might have looked, felt, moved and behaved before we entered the modern to postmodern era—that is, before the advent of liquid crystal display monitors and multinational shoe corporations—it is instructive to turn once again to Mr. Darwin, the environments in which our human genome developed, and cultures in which efficient and varied movement continues to flourish.
Click here to listen to John Cedric Tarr interviewing Edward Yu about The Mass Psychology of Fittism on the Leap 2 podcast.
While some of the analysis in this documentary is extremely reductionistic, I applaud the high speed filming, which when played back in super slow motion, captures many of details in Asafa Powell’s stride. Look for the metatarsal-tibia-femur connection as well as the metacarpal-ulna-humerus connection in the super slow motion sequences (5:50-6:00 and 11:50 to 12:24). Both connections work in spirals. Also of interest: the role over-efforting and “co-contractions” may have played in Asafa Powell’s loss to Tyson Gay (35:26 to 37:05).
Changing perspectives through an imaginative use of constraints is what leads to learning and breakthroughs–whether in the world of dance, martial arts, sports, mathematics, philosophy, cabinet making, or indeed any field you can imagine. Architect and professor, Hajime Narukawa has created the world’s most remarkable map–one which allows you to change perspective and thereby alter your concept of up, down, right, left, center, East, West, North, and South. Along with the Peters Projection, this is exactly the kind of map–or perhaps more accurately stated, these are precisely the kinds of mapping possibilities, that I have been seeking for the last 25 years.