Clifton Ruggles Shone Above the Shadows

Clifton Ruggles is described by QWF Literary Database of Quebec English-Lanuage as an “important fixture in Montreal black community, an artist, poet, photographer, and journalist who dedicated his time to ensuring that black youth had proper guidance and role models.”

Fernwood Review of Ruggles and Rovinescu’s (1996). Outsider Blues: a Voice from the Shadows:

”The articles that appear in this book originate in the shadows–those marginal spaces that black people have been forced to inhabit ever since the first slaves reached the shores of North America.” Ruggles tells us that “Black is more than just a racial category, it’s a way of viewing the world.” It is out of this set of eyes that Clifton Ruggles writes a column in the Montreal Gazette. This book is a collection of those columns and of Ruggles’ photographs, which visually illustrate the “Black” experience. He tells stories of Black people’s everyday lives, provides non-stereotypical role models, details their contributions to culture, politics and so on–stories which are often either ignored or underplayed. Among the photographs are two photo essays, one autobiographical and one entitled Shadowlands. The book also includes an article by Olivia Rovinescu entitled “Deconstructing Racism.”

History, Identity and the Politics of Exclusion; Racism and Everyday Life; Reducing Prejudice: The Role of Multicultural Education; Education, Access and Social Mobility; Crossing Cultural Boundaries; Race, Representation and the Arts;
Combatting Social Problems/Making A Difference; racism, marginality, Canada,

Thumbnail biography with CLIFTON RUGGLES (B.Ed., McGill University, Certificate Special Education, McGill University, M.A. candidate, Art Education, Concordia University) has been teaching for 11 years for the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal. Along with Olivia, he has co-authored “Expressions of Montreal’s Youth,” “Exploring the World of Work,” and “Words on Work.” Clifton teaches art and math at Options High School and is himself an exhibited artist and photographer. Clifton is also the co-editor of The Sentinel, a magazine published by the Provincial Association of Protestant Teachers.

This is an excerpt from Outsider Blues:

“I guess practice does make perfect. Every year it seems that Black History Month gets better.

This year is no exception. Performances celebrating black historical and cultural contributions ranged from lectures, art exhibits, music, theatre, dance, film, poetry and even a demonstration of caring for black hair.

Black History Month evolved out of African-American educator Carter G. Woodsen’s 1926 Negro History Week. It has a dual purpose: celebrate the experiences and achievements of blacks and educate blacks as well as non-blacks about that history.

The West End had its share of Black History Month events, “Free Your Mind Return to the Source” as the Loyola Concert Hall featured more than two dozen musicians. It showcased the evolution of black music from the chains and drumbeats from the heart of Africa, to the Americas, from slavery to hip hop.

Came together

In the middle of one of the worst winter storms this year, blacks and whites came together to hear the sounds and the stories of the African diaspora.

One of the most impressive performers was South African vocalist Lorraine Klaasen.

She sang songs that spoke of the black struggle for liberation in South Africa as well as a song based on a traditional cry of joy. And she reminded parents of the importance of teaching children about their ancestors and culture.

Maison de la Culture Notre Dame de Grâce and Maison de la Culture Côte des Neiges had a full array of activities to celebrate Black History month. I was particularly taken with Pat Dillon’s portrayal of a black domestic talking about life, politics and the condition of black women in “Clemmie is M’friend.”

The one-woman play gives historical significance to all the black women who have worked as domestics, my mother included, and who in some ways have been the backbone of the black community.

Reads letter aloud

During the play, she reads aloud a letter she sent to her mother and children in Jamaica. She tells of the police shootings of black men and recounts the bitter irony of how these black men were killed. She concludes her letter by telling her mother not to send her teenage son for fear he might become one of the police statistics.

Even the National Gallery of Canada got involved in Black History Month this year by having a series of talks on such topics as African art and aesthetics and the image of blacks in art.

I attended one of these by art educator Maureen Flynn-Burhoe called “The Positive Presence of Absence: a History of the African Canadians through Works in the Permanent Collection of the National Gallery of Canada.” Even though there weren’t many works in the Gallery’s collection, Flynn-Burhoe managed to use certain paintings in the permanent collection to discuss the social and historical significance of these images to the black experience.

What wasn’t there became as relevant as what was there. One fascinating story was about the portrait of a naval officer, painted for his bravery. However, what was not hanging there, Flynn-Burhoe noted, was a painting of an equally brave soldier who was on another ship at the same time, and who was awarded the Victoria Cross. His name was William Hall and he was black. The omissions speak volumes.

But the most fascinated thing about the art tour was coming face to face with a bronze bust of one of my relatives – Tommy Simmons, who worked as a railway porter and coached an all-black girls’ baseball team.

It is one of the few existing sculptures of a black Canadian person. The bust, by Orson Wheeler, was found in 1975 in a studio at Sir George Williams University.

Reactions vary

Jones, also a relative of Simmons, was on hand to give some historical information about the bust.

The talk reminded me how the contributions of black Canadians have gone missing from the pages of Canadian history. Black History Month came to life for me when these untold stories began to surface.

Reactions to Black History Month vary with the black community. Most of the people I spoke to were very positive about its scope and impact.

One view was that besides giving blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves, Black History Month forces the involvement of societal institutions like governments, schools, art galleries, and various media.

Other people, however, were sceptical of the benefits of dedicating just one month to this agenda.

One person I spoke to expressed concern that there were not enough young people at the events; another that there weren’t enough people of other cultural groups.

One view was that Black History Month should work towards incorporating into the programs events that have a focus on the future.
Black History Month showed the diversity, richness, and talent can be found in the black communities. It was a testimony to the pain, joy and difficulties of the black experience (Ruggles 1995:02-23, reprinted Ruggles and Rovinescu 1996: 68-9).”

Timeline

1971 Ruggles interviewed a Sleeping Car Porter: “Most porters did their work simply because they were afraid of getting fired. Most of these men had families and they wanted their kids to get a good education and they tried to do their work and stay out of trouble. They would have died if someone had taken their jobs away from them for no reason. I was there…I felt these men…you can feel things like that. I’ve seen men cry like babies and shake. I’ve had to hold them back from getting at an inspector or a conductor. Every time I think about it I get so full of rage. All the resentment just errupts in me all over again. I’ve had to control this anger…this hatred for thirty years.” “Unit 7: World War Two: Breaking Down The Barriers” in “Some Missing Pages: The Black Community in the History of Quebec and Canada.”

1974 Ruggles interviewed a Sleeping Car Porter: “In the old days the porters were hired if they were “good boys”. Yes Sir Mr. Charlie. It was just a mask that they wore. That has all changed, as far as the younger porters are concerned. The older one still do it. It becomes habit forming after a while, they’ve been doing it a long time. You don’t teach an old dog new tricks, anything that the management says, they’d accept. They’re not willing to fight for their right. There’s no fire in them anymore. There’s no zest. The younger porters have more spunk. They won’t take as much. They won’t hop when an inspector gets on the train. You should see the old timers kill themselves when an inspector gets on the train. They overwork themselves. We don’t care. We’re a new generation, we don’t say “yes Sir Mr. Charlie, No Sir Mr. Charlie”. That’s dead, and we want it to die, but the old guys are letting it live.” “Unit 7: World War Two: Breaking Down The Barriers” in “Some Missing Pages: The Black Community in the History of Quebec and Canada.”

1975 Ruggles interviewed a Sleeping Car Porter “When I first started, all porters where Black…and every white person on the train had the authority to act as your boss. Any passenger could get us fired. The conductors, our immediate bosses were told to ‘ride the porters’…make them tow the line, make them submissive. The tourist cars were just like cattle cars…soldier, low-life types…poor people who had no business on the train, got on with all their prejudices. They would insult us…humiliate us, and no matter what insult was hurled at us, the conductors were always reprimanding us…apologizing to them, promising them we would be disciplined accordingly. Consequently, a lot of porters were fired for hitting people in the mouth. But how much can a man take? Anybody…any bum could come up to you and tell you that he’s going to get your job just because he didn’t like your face. It gave them pleasure to act superior to Black people.” “Unit 7: World War Two: Breaking Down The Barriers” in “Some Missing Pages: The Black Community in the History of Quebec and Canada.”

1976 Ruggles interviewed a Sleeping Car Porter: “Porters used to have to shine shoes. One inspector used to actually smell them to see if they were freshly shined. I remember one porter got some really smelly cheese and put it in a shoe..this inspector took a whiff…I think that cured him…for a while. Another disgusting thing were the cuspidors or spitoons in the smoke room. These were cups in which people would spit. There was nothing more degrading than emptying these things out. Can anything be more disgusting than cleaning out somebody’s spit?” “Unit 7: World War Two: Breaking Down The Barriers” in “Some Missing Pages: The Black Community in the History of Quebec and Canada.”

1976 Ruggles interviewed a Sleeping Car Porter: “We were treated like five year olds. we couldn’t even talk back. If you did, they’d punish you…they’d put you out in the streets and make your wife come down and beg for your job. This is the reason I never got married. I never wanted my children to be ashamed of me. The porters that survived the best were the Uncle Toms…but I’ve seen these so called Uncle-Toms ashamed of the things they had to do…knowing that their children were ashamed of them. When they’d get home they’d break mirrors and break windows. The company never know about this, or cared about it for that matter. The story of my life is that I have closed this job out of my life. I go through the motions of doing my work to keep these people off my back. If have no respect for this job. As a matter of fact. I do not allow my friends to refer to this “nigger” job when I’m off it.” “Unit 7: World War Two: Breaking Down The Barriers” in “Some Missing Pages: The Black Community in the History of Quebec and Canada.”

1989 Clifton Ruggles published em>Visions of Colour which included “poems were inspired by events and situations which have had a profound influence upon [his] life. Reprinted in “Unit 7: World War Two: Breaking Down The Barriers” in “Some Missing Pages: The Black Community in the History of Quebec and Canada.”

“To me poetry is an inner experience which requires a certain understanding of yourself, of the situation and the conditions which give birth to creative expression. My father worked as a porter for many years. After his accidental death, I became interested in learning about the kind of work he did and how it had affected him. So I decided to take employment as a porter for the C.P.R. Soon after I became acquainted with many of the people with whom he had worked as well as some of his closest friends. It was them who shared their deepest and most cherished memories with me. I was deeply touched by the stories of the men who had worked the trains for many years and one day I decided to write about them. These poems are a result of that experience (Ruggles 1989).”

Ruggles Poetry from 1989

To be nothing more than a figure head a shadow
Of something concrete…
But the shadow is concrete too
Existing in the background
Its hopes, fears, aspirations
Emotionally swallowed up in the foreground
Opaque but striving to be noticed
By whom for what?

The moon grows smaller
But the shadow grows taller
Reaching for the moon
Slowly the moon disintegrates
The shadow is no more
until the Sun rises
If it rises?

The shadow’s plight remains the same
bent and twisted on the walls of shame
A shadow will always be a shadow
nothing more…

From: Ruggles. 1989. Visions of Colour, 1989, Montreal.

Bibliography

Ruggles, Clifton. 1989. Visions of Colour.Montreal.

Ruggles, Clifton, 1995, “Black History Month is better than ever,” The Gazette,” Montreal, Thursday, February 23, 1995.

Ruggles, Clifton; Rovinescu. 1996. Outsider Blues: a Voice from the Shadows. Fernwood Publications: Halifax.

Goddard, Horace I.; Ruggles, Clifton. reprinted 2008. "The nature of black writing in Canada: an interview with Cecil Foster." Kola. 2008: Spring.

Horace I. Goddard "The nature of black writing in Canada: an interview with Cecil Foster". Kola.

Learn Quebec. "Work and Identity: The Art of Clifton Ruggles" in "Unit 7: World War Two: Breaking Down The Barriers" in "Some Missing Pages: The Black Community in the History of Quebec and Canada." Unit 7. Features. Social Sciences. Learn Quebec curriculum.

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List of Works on Black Canadian History Recommended by Learn Quebec Curriculum Unit on Black Canadian History
1: Print Sources

Africville Genealogical Society, ed. The Spirit of Africville. Halifax: Formac Press, 1992.

Bearden, Jim, and Linda Jean Butler. The Life and Times of Mary Shadd Cary. Toronto: NC Press, 1977.

Bertley, Leo W. Canada and Its People of African DescentPierrefonds: Bilongo Publishers, 1971.

---. Montreal's Oldest Black Congregation: Union Church 3007 Deslisle Street. Pierrefonds: Bilongo Publishers, 1976.

Best, Carrie M. That Lonesome Road: The Autobiography of Carrie Best. Nova Scotia: The Clarion Publishing Company Ltd., 1979.

Black Cultural Centre of Nova Scotia. Traditional Lifetime Stories: A Collection of Black Memories. Black Cultural Centre, 1987 (Vol. 1), 1990 (Vol. 2).

Braithwaite, Rella, and Tessa Benn-Ireland. Some Black Women: Profiles of Black Women in Canada. Toronto: Sister Vision, 1993.

Bramble, Linda. Black Fugitive Slaves in Early Canada. Vanwell History Project Series. St. Catharines: Vanwell, 1988.

Brand, Dionne. No Burden to Carry: Narratives of Black Working Women in Ontario 1920s to 1950s. Toronto: Women's Press, 1991.

Brown, Rosemary. Being Brown: A Very Public Life. Mississauga: Random House, 1989.

Bymmer, D. The Jamaican Maroons: How They Came to Nova Scotia: How They Left It. 1898. Reprint. Toronto: Canadian House, 1968.

Carter, Velma, and Wilma Leffler Akili. The Window of Our Memories. St. Albert, Alberta: B.C.R. Society of Alberta, 1981.

Carter, Velma and Levero Carter. The Black Canadians: Their History and Contributions. Edmonton: Reidmore, 1988.

Clairmont, Donald H. and Denis William Magill. Africville: The Life and Death of a Canadian Black Community. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974.

Clairmont, Donald H. Nova Scotia Blacks: An Historical and Structural Overview. Halifax: Dalhousie University Institute of Public Affairs, 1970.

Clarke, Austin. Nine Men Who Laughed. Markham: Penguin Books, 1986.

---. When He Was Free and Young and He Used to Wear Silks. Toronto: House of Anansi Press Ltd., 1971.

DeJean, Paul. Les Haïtiens au Québec. Montréal: Presses de l'Université du Québec, 1978.

---. Haitians in Quebec. (Translated and with a foreward by Max Dorsinville.) Ottawa: Tecumseh Press, 1980.

Denby, Charles. Indignant Heart: A Black Worker's Journal. Montréal: Black Rose, 1979.

D'Oyley, Vincent. Black Presence in a Multi-Ethnic Canada. Vancouver: Centre for the Study of Curriculum and Instruction, University of British Columbia, 1978.

Drew, Benjamin. The Refugee: or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada. Related by Themselves, with an Account of the History and Condition of the Colored Population of Upper Canada. Boston: John P. Jewett and Company, 1856. Rpt. as The Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada. Toronto: Coles Publishing Company, 1981.

Eber, Dorothy. The Computer Centre Party: Canada Meets Black Power. Montréal: Tundra Books, 1969.

Elliot, Lorris, ed. Other Voices: Writings by Blacks in Canada. Toronto: William- Wallace, 1985.

Forsythe, Dennis, ed. Let the Niggers Burn: Racism in Canada. Montréal: Black Rose, 1971.

Gay, Daniel. Des empreintes noires sur la neige blanche: les noires au Québec (1750-1900): Rapport final. Québec: Conseil Québécois de la Recherche Sociale, 1988.

Gilmore, John. Swinging in Paradise: The Story of Jazz in Montreal. Montréal: Véhicule Press, 1988.

Govia, Francine, and Helen Lewis. Blacks in Canada: In Search of the Promise. A Bibliographical Guide to the History of Blacks in Canada. Edmonton: Harambee Centres Canada, 1988.

Grow, Stewart. "The Blacks of Amber Valley: Negro Pioneering in Northern Alberta." Canadian Ethnic Studies 6, nos. 1-2 (1974): 17-38.

Hill, Daniel. The Freedom Seekers: Blacks in Early Canada. Agincourt,: The Book Society of Canada, 1981.

---. Human Rights in Canada: A Focus on Racism. Ottawa: Canadian Labour Congress, 1977.

Hill, Donna, ed. A Black Man's Toronto 1914-1980: The Reminiscences of Harry Gairey. Toronto: The Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1981.

Hill, Lawrence. Trials and Triumphs: The Story of African Canadians. Toronto: Umbrella Press, 1993.

Hornby, Jim. Black Islanders: Prince Edward Island's Historical Black Community. Charlottetown, PEI: Institute of Island Studies, 1991.

Jean Baptiste, Jacqueline. Haitians in Canada = Aylsyin Nan Kanada. Ottawa: Minister of State Multiculturalism, 1979.

Kilian, Crawford. Go Do Some Great Thing: The Black Pioneers of British Columbia. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1978.

Krauter, Joseph F., and Morris Davis. Minority Canadians: Ethnic Groups. Ontario: Methuen, 1978.

Lind, Jane. The Underground Railroad: Ann Maria Weems. Toronto: Grolier Limited, 1990.

MacEwan, Grant. John Ware's Cow Country. Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1972.

Pachai, Bridglal. Beneath the Clouds of the Promised Land: Volume 1 1660-1800: The Survival of Nova Scotia's Blacks. Halifax: The Black Educators Association of Nova Scotia, 1987.

---. Beneath the Clouds of the Promised Land: Volume 2 1800-1989: The Survival of Nova Scotia's Blacks. Halifax: The Black Educators Association of Nova Scotia, 1990.

Porter, Kenneth. "Negroes in the Fur Trade." Minnesota History 15 (1934): 421-433.

Riendeau, Rodger. An Enduring Heritage: Black Contributions to Early Ontario. Toronto: Dundurn, 1984.

Ruck, Calvin. Canada's Black Battalion. Rev. ed. Nimbus, 1987.

Silvera, Makeda, ed. Silenced: Talks with Working Class West Indian Women About Their Lives and Struggles as Domestic Workers in Canada. Rev. ed. Toronto: Sister Vision, 1989.

Spray, W. A. The Blacks in New Brunswick. Fredericton: Brunswick Press, 1972.

Sterling, Dorothy. Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman. Garden City: Doubleday, 1954.

Still, William. The Underground Railroad. New York: The Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968.

Talbot, Carol. Growing Up Black in Canada. Toronto: Williams-Wallace, 1984.

Thomson, Colin A. Blacks in Deep Snow: Black Pioneers in Canada. Don Mills: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1979.

Tounkara, Foday M. Un Africain à Montréal. Paris: Pensée Universale, 1980.

Troper, Harold Martin. "The Creek-Negroes and Canadian Immigration 1909-1911." The Canadian Historical Review 53, no. 3 (September, 1972): 272-288.

Tulloch, Headley. Black Canadians: A Long Line of Fighters. Toronto: New Canada Press, 1975.

Walker, James W. St. G. The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone 1783-1870. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.

---. A History of Blacks in Canada: A Study Guide for Teachers and Students. Hull: Canadian Government Publishing Centre, 1980.

---. Identity: The Black Experience in Canada. Ed. Patricia Thorvaldson. Toronto: Ontario Educational Communications Authority, in association with Gage Educational Publishing Ltd., 1979.

---. Racial Discrimination in Canada: The Black Experience. Ottawa: The Canadian Historical Association, 1985.

---. The West Indians in Canada. Toronto: The Canadian Historical Association, 1984.

Williams, Dorothy W. Blacks in Montreal, 1628-1986: An Urban Demography. Cowansville: Editions Yvon Blais, 1989.

Winks, Robin W. The Blacks in Canada: A History. Montréal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1971.

---. "The Canadian Negro, A Historical Assessment." Journal of Negro History 53, no. 4 (October 1968): 283-300.

---. "The Canadian Negro, A Historical Assessment Part II: The Problem of Identity." Journal of Negro History 54, no 1 (January 1969): 1-18.

---. "Negro School Segregation in Ontario and Nova Scotia." Canadian Historical Review 50, no. 2 (June 1969): 164-191.

Winks, Robin W. et al., intro. Four Fugitive Slave Narratives. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1969.

Print Sources Audio Visual Sources Archival Sources

Table of Contents

II: Audio-Visual Sources

Black Mother Black Daughter. Dir. Sylvia Hamilton and Claire Prieto. National Film Board, 1989. 28 min. 59 sec. This film pays tribute to the Black Women of Nova Scotia, who have struggled for over 200 years.

Fields of Endless Day. Dir. Terence Macartney-Filgate. National Film Board, 1978. 58 min. 14 sec. Outlines the presence of Black people in Canada from the seventeenth to the mid-twentieth century.

In the Key of Oscar. Dir. William R. Cunningham and Sylvia Sweeney. National Film Board, 1992. 94 min. A film biography of Montreal jazz pianist Oscar Peterson.

Older Stronger Wiser. Dir. Claire Prieto. National Film Board, 1989. 27 min. 59 sec. A unique history told by five Black women who discuss their lives between the 1920s and the 1950s.

Remember Africville. Dir. Shelagh Mackenzie. National Film Board, 1991. 35 min. Former residents of this historical Black community in Halifax discuss Africville's demolition and their relocation in the 1960s.

The Right Candidate for Rosedale. Dir. Bonnie Sherr Klein and Ann Henderson. National Film Board, 1979. 32 min. 52 sec. The story of Anne Cools, a Black woman, and her bid for the Liberal Party nomination in the Toronto riding of Rosedale.

Seven Shades of Pale. Dir. Les Rose. National Film Board, 1975. 28 min. 37 sec. A Black community meeting in Nova Scotia highlights the different perspectives of the older and younger generations towards the ways of obtaining positive change.

Speak It! From the Heart of Black Nova Scotia. Dir. Sylvia Hamilton. National Film Board, 1993. 29 min. A group of Black teenagers discover the richness of their heritage and learn some of the ways they can begin to effect a change in the exclusionary and racist attitudes in their predominantly white high school.

Voice of the Fugitive. Dir. René Bonnière. National Film Board, 1978. 29 min. 55 sec. This drama follows a group of fugitive slaves travelling North to Canada on the Underground Railroad in the 1850s.

Print Sources Audio Visual Sources Archival Sources

Table of Contents

III: Archival Sources

Black Studies Centre, 1968 de Maisonneuve Street West, Montréal, Québec H3H 1K5, Dr. Clarence Bayne, President.

The Roy States Black History Collection and the Lawrence M. Lande Collection of Canadiana, Rare Books Department, McLennan Library, McGill University.

Principled Action: Keep alive in your hearts

“Keep alive in your hearts
the feeling of confidence
that the light of knowledge
will inevitably dispel
the clouds of ignorance,
the conviction
that concern for justice
will ultimately conquer
hatred and enmity.
[... The] proper response to oppression
is neither to succumb in resignation
nor to take on the characteristics of the oppressor.
The victim of oppression
can transcend it
through an inner strength
that shields the soul
from bitterness and hatred
which sustains
consistent principled action.” UHJ 2009

There is such a contrast between the use of the term “principled action” when used here for healing the human spirit and the way it is used in writings referring to doing ethics, applied ethics, ethics talk. Is it about words or deeds?

“Keep alive in your hearts” calls to all of us to sustain consistent principled action freed from bitterness and hatred even when oppressed, refuse to resign to victimization,  be careful not to respond to oppression by taking on the characteristics of the oppressor, struggle to continue to believe that knowledge will overcome ignorance, that justice will conquer injustice, nurture and maintain  inner strength that will sustain us through the most ethically distressing dilemmas of our lives, nurture confidence when you feel doubt, seek knowledge instead of vengeance. This far transcends concepts of ethical codes and minimal ethical standards.

“Some people confuse acting in good conscience with “doing ethics”. While personal good conscience is necessary for acting ethically, it is not sufficient.  There is also confusion of so-called “codes of ethics’ which are really codes of professional etiquette – for instance, between physicians or between lawyers – or which define unprofessional conduct, with codes of ethics properly so-called. Just because certain conduct does not breach professional norms, does not necessarily mean that it is ethical [...] “Doing ethics”, especially by an ethicist, requires one to undertake an informed structured analysis that will assist in the identification and prioritisation of the full range of values relevant to, or affected by, the various decision options that are open in any given situation. It is inevitable that one’s own values come into play, but they should be identified as such and the other people involved advised of this. I sometimes imagine that “doing ethics” can be compared with opening a beautiful, intricately painted fan. The struts are the different schools of ethics, or the fundamental bases of the alternative analyses that could be used. The fabric that joins the struts may display one or several scenes. When we all agree on the outcome, although we do so for different reasons, we are choosing a different location in the one scene. When we disagree on the outcome, we are identifying several scenes and arguing that one scene is fundamental and should take priority in setting the overall tone or interpretation of the painting that the artist has portrayed on the fan, and that the other scenes must be interpreted in light of this. We all need to learn how to do ethics, even if we do not always succeed in doing this. “Doing ethics” is not a simple task; it is a process, not an event; and, in many ways, no matter in which capacity or context we do ethics, it is a life-long learning experience. The most important requirement, however, is that we all engage in that process, that is, we all participate in “ethics talk” (Somerville 2006).“

Timeline

1884 Utilitarians have argued that the “truth about morality and justice is so complicated and controversial that it might be necessary to keep it hidden from most individuals’ awareness. For morality often requires much that is contrary to their personal interests. Also sometimes it’s just too complicated for people to understand why their moral duties require of them what they do. So long as they understand their individual duties, it may be better if they do not understand the principles and reasons behind them. So Sidgwick argues that the aims of utilitarianism might better be achieved if it remains an “esoteric morality,” knowledge of which is confined to “an enlightened few” (Sidgwick 1884: 89-90) John Rawls would argue against this in 1971 in A Theory of Justice describing how ”publicity and universality as necessary relates to the conception of the person implicit in justice as fairness. If we conceive of persons as free and equal moral persons capable of rational and moral autonomy, then they should not be under any illusions about the bases of their social relations, but should be able to understand and apply these principles in their deliberations about justice. These are important conditions of the freedom and autonomy (moral and political) of democratic citizens (Freeman 1996-2008. “Original Position.” SEP) .”

1908 John Dewey joined Tufts to write Ethics (1908), at the newly-founded University of Chicago. Dewey, Tufts, formed the core of the so-called “Chicago group” of psychology. According to wikipedia “John Dewey (1859 – 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose thoughts and ideas have been highly influential in the United States and around the world. Dewey, along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, is recognized as one of the founders of the philosophical school of pragmatism. He is also one of the founders of functional psychology and was a leading representative of the progressive movement in U.S. schooling during the first half of the 20th century. Although Dewey is best known for his works on education, he also wrote on a wide range of subjects, including experience and nature, art and experience, logic and inquiry, democracy, and ethics. In his advocacy of democracy, Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society—as being key areas needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. In the necessary reconstruction of civil society, Dewey asserted that full democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully-formed public opinion, accomplished by effective communication among citizens, experts, and politicians, with the latter being held accountable for the policies they adopt.”

1950s Most Anglo-American philosophers were of the school of logical positivism. They considered ethical and political reflection on issues of justice and political authority was being outside the realm of philosophy. They did not study people’s need for norms by which to guide their lives or society To logical positivists the only two legitimate forms of  philosophical inquiry were the investigation of empirical facts and debates on the meaning of words.

1960 Thomas Nagel (1937) earned his PhD from Harvard University under the supervision of John Rawls.

1963 Smart,  J. J. C. 1963. Philosophy and Scientific Realism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Thomas Nagel (1974) considered Smart’s arguments as part of a wave of reductionist euphoria which produced several analyses of mental phenomena and mental concepts designed to explain the possibility of some variety of materialism, psychophysical identification, or reduction while completely neglecting the concept of consciousness which makes the mind-body problem really intractable.

1966 Lewis, David K. 1966. ‘An Argument for the Identity Theory’ Journal of Philosophy, LXIII. Thomas Nagel (1974) considered Lewis’ arguments as part of a wave of reductionist euphoria which produced several analyses of mental phenomena and mental concepts designed to explain the possibility of some variety of materialism, psychophysical identification, or reduction while completely neglecting the concept of consciousness which makes the mind-body problem really intractable.

1967 Brenda Almond, a key figure in the ‘Applied Philosophy’ movement, was also linked to Gilbert Ryle, the Philosohpy Society’s great critic, through Ryle’s editorship of Mind. Ryle published a celebrated article on utilitarianism by Almond in 1967, “An Ethical Paradox”, which argued that to suppose ‘everybody ought to do what they think they ought to do’ was, as it were, paradoxical. The debate continued in Mind for many issues, and served  to establish Almond’s philosophical credentials.

1967 Putnam, Hilary. 1967. ’Psychological Predicates’ in Art, Mind, & Religion, ed. W. H. Capitan and D. D. Merrill. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press reprinted in Putnam, Hilary. 1967. ’The Nature of Mental States.’  Materialism ed. Rosenthal. Thomas Nagel (1974) considered Putman’s arguments as part of a wave of reductionist euphoria which produced several analyses of mental phenomena and mental concepts designed to explain the possibility of some variety of materialism, psychophysical identification, or reduction while completely neglecting the concept of consciousness which makes the mind-body problem really intractable.

1969 Dennett, D. C. 1969. Content and Consciousness. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Nagel, Thomas. 1972. A Review of Dennett, Journal of Philosophy, LXIX . Thomas Nagel (1974) considered Dennett’s arguments as part of a wave of reductionist euphoria which produced several analyses of mental phenomena and mental concepts designed to explain the possibility of some variety of materialism, psychophysical identification, or reduction while completely neglecting the concept of consciousness which makes the mind-body problem really intractable.

1970 Only seven articles were published in English in the world that in the area that is now known as applied ethics (Somerville 2006)“.

1970 Kohlberg “would like to see people advance to the highest possible stage of moral thought. The best possible society would contain individuals who not only understand the need for social order (stage 4) but can entertain visions of universal principles, such as justice and liberty (stage 6)” as in the work of moral and political philosopher John Rawls (Kohlberg 1970 in Crain 1985).

1971 John Rawls (1921-2002) published’ A Theory of Justice, considered by many to be the most influential work in moral and political philosophy since WWII. Rawls’ theory of ‘justice as fairness” continues to shape the social and political life of North American society. Rawls used elements of both Kantian and utilitarian philosophy to describe a method for the moral evaluation of social and political institutions. His concept of Justice as Fairness, consists of the liberty principle, fair equality of opportunity, and the difference principle.

“The original position is a central feature of John Rawls’s social contract account of justice, “justice as fairness,” set forth in A Theory of Justice (TJ). It is designed to be a fair and impartial point of view that is to be adopted in our reasoning about fundamental principles of justice. In taking up this point of view, we are to imagine ourselves in the position of free and equal persons who jointly agree upon and commit themselves to principles of social and political justice. The main distinguishing feature of the original position is “the veil of ignorance”: to insure impartiality of judgment, the parties are deprived of all knowledge of their personal characteristics and social and historical circumstances. They do know of certain fundamental interests they all have, plus general facts about psychology, economics, biology, and other social and natural sciences. The parties in the original position are presented with a list of the main conceptions of justice drawn from the tradition of social and political philosophy, and are assigned the task of choosing from among these alternatives the conception of justice that best advances their interests in establishing conditions that enable them to effectively pursue their final ends and fundamental interests. Rawls contends that the most rational choice for the parties in the original position are the two principles of justice. The first principle guarantees the equal basic rights and liberties needed to secure the fundamental interests of free and equal citizens and to pursue a wide range of conceptions of the good. The second principle provides fair equality of educational and employment opportunities enabling all to fairly compete for powers and prerogatives of office; and it secures for all a guaranteed minimum of the all-purpose means (including income and wealth) that individuals need to pursue their interests and to maintain their self-respect as free and equal persons (Freeman 1996-2008. “Original Position.” SEP) .”

1970s Philosophers introduced the concept of moral standing to deal with controversial ethical issues: the treatment of animals, abortion, euthanasia, the environment. Based on the legal concept of legal standing which gives one the right to bring a claim before a court, a moral standing would give one the right that your claims must be heard. What qualifies one for a moral standing? Do animals, comatose persons, trees, fetuses all have moral standing? (Vaughn 2007:436-7).

1972 “The locus classicus of the early work on global distribution and global liberalism remains Peter Singer’s seminal 1972 article on the moral legitimacy of famine. Singer’s article remains influential, in part because of its singular potency in pointing to the gap between our moral principles and our practical agency in the area of international development. [...]  Since Singer can be plausibly viewed as originating the internationalist movement within political philosophy. [...] Singer’s argument is potent, in part, because of its simplicity. It begins with two premises which, Singer thinks, are likely to be uncontroversially true: [S]uffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad. [I]f it is within our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it. (Singer, 1985) in “International Justice” SEP.

1973 Mary Anne Warren famous article entitled “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion” (1973: 57:43-61.) was published in the Monist.  In this essay she listed person-making qualities. She updated this in 1997. “The question which we must answer in order to produce a satisfactory solution to the problem of the moral status of abortion is this: How are we to define the moral community, the set of beings with full and equal moral rights, such that we can decide whether a human fetus is a member of this community or not? What sort of entity, exactly, has the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Jefferson attributed these rights to all men, and it may or may not be fair to suggest that he intended to attribute them only to men. Perhaps he ought to have attributed them to all human beings. If so, then we arrive, first, at [John] Noonan’s problem of defining what makes a being human, and, second, at the equally vital question which Noonan does not consider, namely, What reason is there for identifying the moral community with the set of all human beings, in whatever way we have chosen to define that term (Warren 1973, 1996) ?” Warren offered these traits as those which are the “most central to the concept of personhood, or humanity in the moral sense, are, very roughly, the following: Consciousness (of objects and events external and/or internal to the being), and in particular the capacity to feel pain; Reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems); Self-motivated activity (activity which is relatively independent of either genetic or direct external control); The capacity to communicate, by whatever means, messages of an indefinite variety of types, that is, not just with an indefinite number of possible contents, but on indefinitely many possible topics; The presence of self-concepts, and self-awareness, either individual or racial, or both (Warren 1973, 1996).” This essay was widely cited.

1974 Thomas Nagel. “What Is it Like to Be a Bat?“ Philosophical Review. October. LXXXIII: 4: 435-50. “Bat sonar, though clearly a form of perception, is not similar in its operation to any sense that we possess, and there is no reason to suppose that it is subjectively like anything we can experience or imagine. This appears to create difficulties for the notion of what it is like to be a bat. We must consider whether any method will permit us to extrapolate to the inner life of the bat from our own case,5 and if not, what alternative methods there may be for understanding the notion. [...] Our own experience provides the basic material for our imagination, whose range is therefore limited.”

tree-hydrocarbon problem, is ignored.

“Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable. Perhaps that is why current discussions of the problem give it little attention or get it obviously wrong. The recent wave of reductionist euphoria has produced several analyses of mental phenomena and mental concepts designed to explain the possibility of some variety of materialism, psychophysical identification, or reduction (Examples are J. J. C. Smart, Philosophy and Scientific Realism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963); David K. Lewis, ‘An Argument for the Identity Theory’, Journal of Philosophy, LXIII (1966), reprinted with addenda in David M. Rosenthal, Materialism & the Mind-Body Problem, (Engelwood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1971); Hilary Putnam, ’Psychological Predicates’, in Art, Mind, & Religion, ed. W. H. Capitan and D. D. Merrill (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967), reprinted in Materialism, ed. Rosenthal, as ‘The Nature of Mental States’; D. M. Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of the Mind (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968); D. C. Dennett, Content and Consciousness (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969). I have expressed earlier doubts in ‘Armstrong on the Mind’, Philosophical Review, LXXIX (1970), 394-403; a review of Dennett, Journal of Philosophy, LXIX (1972); and chapter 11 above. See also Saul Kripke, ‘Naming and Necessity’. in Semantics of Natural Language, ed. D. Davidson and G. Harman (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1972), esp. pp. 334-42; and M. T. Thornton, ‘Ostensive Terms and Materialism’, The Monist, LVI (1972), 193-214.) But the problems dealt with are those common to this type of reduction and other types, and what makes the mind-body problem unique, and unlike the water-H2O problem or the Turing machine-IBM machine problem or the lightning-electrical discharge problem or the gene-DNA problem or the oaktree-hydrocarbon problem, is ignored. [...] Apart from its own interest, a phenomenology that is in this sense objective may permit questions about the physically basis of experience to assume a more intelligible form. Aspects of subjective experience that admitted this kind of objective description might be better candidates for objective explanations of a more familiar sort. But whether or not this guess is correct, it seems unlikely that any physical theory of mind can be contemplated until more thought has been given to the general problem of subjective and objective. Otherwise we cannot even pose the mind-body problem without sidestepping it. (Nagel 1974:435).”

1974 Armstrong, D. M. 1968. A Materialist Theory of the Mind. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Thomas Nagel (1974) considered Smart’s arguments as part of a wave of reductionist euphoria which produced several analyses of mental phenomena and mental concepts designed to explain the possibility of some variety of materialism, psychophysical identification, or reduction while completely neglecting the concept of consciousness which makes the mind-body problem really intractable. Nagel expressed earlier doubts in ‘Armstrong on the Mind’. Philosophical Review, LXXIX (1970), 394-403.

1975 Controversial secular humanist Peter Singer wrote Animal Liberation regarded by some as the touchstone of the animal liberation movement. Not all members of the animal liberation movement share this view, and Singer himself has said the media overstates his status. His views on that and other issues in bioethics have attracted attention and a degree of controversy.” Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals, New York Review/Random House, New York, 1975; Cape, London, 1976; Avon, New York, 1977; Paladin, London, 1977; Thorsons, London, 1983. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, New York, 2009.

1980 There were approximately fourteen speciality journals in the same area of applied ethics (Somerville 2006)“.

1985 Tom Regan’s article entitled “The Case for Animal Rights” was published in Peter Singer’s In Defense of Animals. Regan called for “the total abolition of the use of animals in science; the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture; the  total  elimination of commercial  and  sport  hunting and trapping.” Regan rejected the concept that “animals are human resources — “to be eaten, or surgically manipulated, or exploited for sport or money.” He argued that animal rights has reason, not just emotion, on its side. He argued that Rawls theory of justice applied to animals on an equal level with humans. “Whatever ethical theory we should accept rationally, therefore, it must at least recognize that we have some duties directly to animals, just as we have some duties directly to each other.” “All who have inherent value have it equally, whether they be human animals or not.”

1986 Peter Singer published Applied Ethics (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1986.

1986 Paul W. Taylor published Respect for Nature in which he argued for a biocentric outlook on nature that did not place humans at the top of a hierarchical order.

1988 Among those present at the World Congress of Philosophy held in Brighton were A.J. Ayer, Karl Popper, Donald Davidson, Michael Dummett, R.M. Hare and John Passmore World Congress of Philosophy. The ‘use’ of philosophy was discussed at this Conference, something seen as particularly relevant since that year seven university philosophy departments had been closed throughout Britain, including that of the Society’s illustrious Vice President, Brenda Almond, a key figure in the ‘Applied Philosophy’ movement.

1990 There were over 200 centres engaged in teaching, research or practice in applied ethics in North America alone (Somerville “doing ethics”” http://www.philia.ca/files/pdf/DoingEthics.pdf).

1993 Rawls, John Rawls published Political Liberalism.

1996 Seyla Benhabib wrote The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt in which he critiqued the work of Arendt for its roots in the 1920s German “Existenz philosophy” Martin Heidegger. Although she radically transformed these philosophical categories into something original through her experience as a stateless and persecuted Jew (restoring the concept of “being-in-the-world-with” to the center of our experience) Benhabib argued that Arendt failed in disentangling normative justification from moral intuitionism (Orlie 1997).

2004-06 Claude Fussler of The World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Aron Cramer of Business for Social Responsibility and Sebastian van der Vegt from International Labour Organization co-edited Raising the Bar: Creating Value with the United Nations Global Compact. (2004)

2006 The numbers of centres engaged in teaching, research or practice in applied ethics continued to increase in countries around the globe, most notably in Asia and countries such as Iran (Somerville 2006).“

2006 Ethics talk, in scientific research, academia, business, industry, government, health care, the media, or, prominently in light of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy (2006), sport, is main stream (Somerville 2006).“

2006 Margaret Somerville delivered the 2006 CBC Massey Lectures, The Ethical Imagination: Journeys of the Human Spirit (http://www.philia.ca.”

Who’s Who

Brenda Almond is Emeritus Professor of Moral and Social Philosophy at the University of Hull. She is President of the Philosophical Society of England and Vice-President of the Society for Applied Philosophy. Her books include:The Fragmenting Family, Exploring Ethics: a traveller’s tale, Moral Concerns, and The Philosophical Quest. Studied philosophy under A.J. Ayer at University College, University of London. She subsequently held lectureships in philosophy at universities in England and in W. Africa (Ghana), as well as visiting appointments in the USA and Australia . She has lectured widely in Europe and the Far East. She moved from Surrey University to the University of Hull in 1986 and was appointed Professor of Moral and Social Philosophy there in 1992. Brenda Almond is known for her involvement in the promotion of applied philosophy and applied ethics. She was a founding member of the Society for Applied Philosophy and Founding Joint Editor (with Anthony O’Hear) of theJournal of Applied Philosophy. She is the author of a number of books in the areas of philosophy, ethics (including bioethics) and education. She is also the editor of the book series ‘Contemporary Ethical Debates’, published by Edinburgh University Press. Honours received by Brenda Almond include an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Utrecht, where she also held the Belle van Zuylen Chair, and elected foreign Membership of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. She has served on the HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) and the HGC (Human Genetics Commission). She is President of the Philosophical Society of England , Vice-President of the Society for Applied Philosophy, a member of the Executive Committee and the Council of the Royal Institute of Philosophy and of the European Society for Ethical Research.

Seyla Benhabib (1996) The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt.

Andrew I. Cohen, Jean Beer Blumenfeld Center for Ethics, Department of Philosophy, Georgia State University, PO Box 4089, Atlanta, GA

Claude Fussler of The World Business Council for Sustainable Development was the editor of Raising the Bar: Creating Value with the United Nations Global Compact. (2004)

Aron Cramer of Business for Social Responsibility Raising the Bar: Creating Value with the United Nations Global Compact. (2004-06).

Sebastian van der Vegt from International Labour Organization Raising the Bar: Creating Value with the United Nations Global Compact. (2004-06).

Margaret Somerville “is Samuel Gale Professor of Law, Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, and Founding Director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University, Montreal. She has an extensive national and international publishing and speaking record and is a frequent commentator in all forms of media. In 2003 she became the first recipient of the UNESCO Avicenna Prize for Ethics in Science. Most recently she delivered the 2006 CBC Massey Lectures, The Ethical Imagination: Journeys of the Human Spirit, which are also published as a book by House of Anansi Press (Somerville 2006).“

Peter Singer “Peter Singer is best known for his book Animal Liberation (1975), which is the founding declaration, the manifesto, and the Bible of the animal rights movement. Singer is still in the forefront of the struggle against “speciesism,” the wrongful discrimination against animals. His more recent writings on the morality of vegetarianism are an inspiration to many thoughtful readers. A respected Princeton philosopher, Peter Singer has repeatedly been involved in controversy, as some have declared themselves offended by his bold conclusions. In Germany his lectures were closed down by people who mistakenly thought he was reviving Nazi thinking on eugenics (Singer’s parents were Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany). Conservative publisher and Princeton alum Steve Forbes canceled his generous donations to Princeton University when Singer was appointed professor of bioethics in 1999. Singer is also well-known as a fighter against world poverty, who maintains that people in the rich countries should donate part of their income to help people in the poorest countries (Singer himself donates twenty-five percent). Among Singer’s controversial positions: Unfairly discriminating against animals is “speciesism,” which is just as indefensible as racism; Animals should not be used for experiments except where the benefit to humans outweighs the harm done to the animals; It is morally indefensible to live in comfort while others starve, unless one donates part of one’s income to alleviate world hunger; An infant is not a person, and killing an infant is not morally the same as killing a person; Killing fetuses or infants with severe disabilities is sometimes morally justified; ”Brain death” is a bogus category disguising the biological fact that people taken off life support are still alive, and we should therefore abandon any commitment to “the sanctity of human life.” (OpenCourt 2009) Jeffrey A. Schaler, professor in the Department of Justice, Law, and Society at American University’s School of Public Affairs in Washington, D.C. He is the Executive Editor of Current Psychology: Developmental, Learning, Personality, Social, published Peter Singer Under Fire (2009-06).

Paul W. Taylor is a philosopher best known for his work in the field of environmental ethics. His theory of biocentric egalitarianism, was first published in his 1986 book Respect for Nature, and is taught in many university courses on environmental ethics. He is professor emeritus in philosophy at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.

Thomas Nagel (1937-) [editing in process . . .] is a professor of philosophy at New York University. He is well-known for his critique of reductionist accounts of the mind (The question, though often attributed to Nagel, was originally posed by Timothy L.S. Sprigge.) This article was originally published in 1974 in the journal The Philosophical Review but has since been reprinted in several books that are concerned with consciousness and the mind, such as The Mind’s Iby Daniel Dennett and Douglas Hofstadter. (Also reprinted in Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, edited by Ned Block and the book Mortal Questions.), and for his contributions to deontological and liberal moral and political theory in The Possibility of Altruism (1970) and subsequent writings. He is known within philosophy of mind as an advocate of the idea that consciousness and subjective experience cannot be reduced to brain activity. One of his most famous articles is “What is it like to be a bat?”Nagel first argued that the subjective experience of consciousness can never be attained through the objective methods of reductionistic science. Second, Nagel concluded that because of the general problem of subjective experience, “we cannot even pose the mind-body problem” in a sensible way and “it seems unlikely that a physical theory of mind can be contemplated.” While many philosophers of mind and cognitive neuroscientists accept the fundamental distinction between the subjective and the objective, they often have not accepted Nagel’s dismal conclusions. For example, philosophers and biologists such as Daniel Dennett and Gerald Edelman have gone ahead and proposed theories of mind and consciousness. For many years, Nagel has conducted a seminar noted for a dazzling array of guest speakers with his colleague Ronald Dworkin (BiographyBase).”

Lewis Vaughn, secular, rational, humanist,

Various authors glossaries of some key concepts

Applied ethics Applied ethics includes subfields: Bioethics, Medical ethics, Neuroethics, Business ethics, Hospitality ethics, Environmental ethics (e.g. global warming), Human rights issues (e.g. gender ethics / sexism, classism, racism, Capital punishment), Animal rights issues, Legal ethics, Computer ethics, Media ethics / journalism ethics, Research ethics, Marketing ethics,

Education ethics, Sports ethics, Military ethics (e.g. just war theory), International ethics (e.g. world hunger), Public administration ethics

Doing ethics “Some people confuse acting in good conscience with “doing ethics”. While personal good conscience is necessary for acting ethically, it is not sufficient. Doing ethics” “There is also confusion of so-called “codes of ethics’ which are really codes of professional etiquette – for instance, between physicians or between lawyers – or which define unprofessional conduct, with codes of ethics properly so-called. Just because certain conduct does not breach professional norms, does not necessarily mean that it is ethical [...] “Doing ethics”, especially by an ethicist, requires one to undertake an informed structured analysis that will assist in the identification and prioritisation of the full range of values relevant to, or affected by, the various decision options that are open in any given situation. It is inevitable that one’s own values come into play, but they should be identified as such and the other people involved advised of this. I sometimes imagine that “doing ethics” can be compared with opening a beautiful, intricately painted fan. The struts are the different schools of ethics, or the fundamental bases of the alternative analyses that could be used. The fabric that joins the struts may display one or several scenes. When we all agree on the outcome, although we do so for different reasons, we are choosing a different location in the one scene. When we disagree on the outcome, we are identifying several scenes and arguing that one scene is fundamental and should take priority in setting the overall tone or interpretation of the painting that the artist has portrayed on the fan, and that the other scenes must be interpreted in light of this. We all need to learn how to do ethics, even if we do not always succeed in doing this. “Doing ethics” is not a simple task; it is a process, not an event; and, in many ways, no matter in which capacity or context we do ethics, it is a life-long learning experience. The most important requirement, however, is that we all engage in that process, that is, we all participate in “ethics talk”.(Somerville 2006).“

Ethics Lewis Vaughn (2007:544) provides this definition under “ethics” in his glossary “(moral philosophy) – the philosophical study of morality.”

Ethical distress Somerville (2006) used Professor Nuala Kenny’s term “ethical distress” which transpires when “a person involved in a situation firmly believes that there is a breach of ethics occurring, but does not have the authority to stop this. For instance, a junior nurse observes certain conduct towards a patient in a hospital, that she regards as unethical, but she has no power to intervene (Somerville 2006).“

Metaethics – Lewis Vaughn (2007:544) provides this definition under “metaethics” in his glossary “the study of meaning and logical structure of moral beliefs.”

Moral agency A moral agent (eg. a competent and reasonably mature human being) as opposed to an amoral agent (like an act of nature, earthquake, volcano) is one whose actions are capable of moral evaluation. Non-human animals are generally understood to be amoral and therefore their actions cannot be evaluated morally. This is argued by animal rights activists who claim animals have moral standing and therefore moral rights.

Eckart argued that nation states are also moral agents. “Despite considerable moral and material differences among states, the concept of sovereign equality permeates international relations theory and, in particular, normative international relations theory. Most traditions of international ethics incorporate the idea of equality. John Rawls’s Law of Peoples is representative of this tendency. The states party to Rawls’s contractual model of international justice are assumed to be equal. Despite the inequalities among states, the choice to model states as equals is justified to the extent that they all possess some degree of moral agency. As moral agents, states possess an inherent equality that justifies modeling them as equal. Nevertheless, states as equal moral agents would take into account certain aspects of international inequality. In particular, they could recognize the role that Great Powers can play in maintaining order and establishing the preconditions for international justice. This piece explores the extent of equality in normative international relations theory” ["ome of the ideas presented in this paper were initially developed over the summer of 2004 in Jack Donnelly's international relations theory reading group at the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver. Eckert acknowledged the importance of her conversations with Alan Gilbert on the present work (particularly given his own commitments to egalitarianism and democratic internationalist resistance to the very real injustices of the state system] (Eckert 2006).”

Moral community, moral standing “How are we to define the moral community, the set of beings with full and equal moral rights, such that we can decide whether a human fetus is a member of this community or not? What sort of entity, exactly, has the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Jefferson attributed these rights to all men, and it may or may not be fair to suggest that he intended to attribute them only to men. Perhaps he ought to have attributed them to all human beings. If so, then we arrive, first, at [John] Noonan’s problem of defining what makes a being human, and, second, at the equally vital question which Noonan does not consider, namely, What reason is there for identifying the moral community with the set of all human beings, in whatever way we have chosen to define that term (Warren 1973, 1996) ?” Warren offered these traits as those which are the “most central to the concept of personhood, or humanity in the moral sense, are, very roughly, the following: Consciousness (of objects and events external and/or internal to the being), and in particular the capacity to feel pain; Reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems); Self-motivated activity (activity which is relatively independent of either genetic or direct external control); The capacity to communicate, by whatever means, messages of an indefinite variety of types, that is, not just with an indefinite number of possible contents, but on indefinitely many possible topics; The presence of self-concepts, and self-awareness, either individual or racial, or both (Warren 1973, 1996).” This essay was widely cited.

Moral standing Philosophers introduced the concept of moral standing in the 1970s to deal with controversial ethical issues: the treatment of animals, abortion, euthanasia, the environment. Based on the legal concept of legal standing which gives one the right to bring a claim before a court, a moral standing would give one the right that your claims must be heard. What qualifies one for a moral standing? Do animals, comatose persons, trees, fetuses all have moral standing? (Vaughn 2007:436-7).

A being’s moral standing determines the extent to which its well-being must be ethically considered for its own sake. To say that some group of beings have moral standing is to say that, as a moral matter, their well-being must be given some consideration. It does not decide the question of whether they have the same moral standing as people (and thus have “human” rights).

Andrew I. Cohen, of the Jean Beer Blumenfeld Center for Ethics, Department of Philosophy at Georgia State University,  Atlanta, GA argued that “Contractarianism roots moral standing in an agreement among rational agents in the circumstances of justice. Critics have argued that the theory must exclude nonhuman animals from the protection of justice. I argue that contractarianism can consistently accommodate the notion that nonhuman animals are owed direct moral consideration. They can acquire their moral status indirectly, but their claims to justice can be as stringent as those among able-bodied rational adult humans. Any remaining criticisms of contractarianism likely rest on a disputable moral realism; contractarianism can underwrite the direct moral considerability of nonhuman animals by appealing to a projectivist quasi-realism (Cohen 2007).”

Applied ethics: Margaret Somerville (2006) provided this brief history of the field of study called applied ethics: “The rapid development of the field of applied ethics is often referred to as the “ethics explosion”. In 1970, in the entire world, only seven articles were published in English in the area that we would now call applied ethics. In 1980, there were approximately fourteen speciality journals in the same area. And by 1990, there were over 200 centres engaged in teaching, research or practice in applied ethics in North America alone. That number has continued to increase with ethics centres being set up in countries around the globe, most notably in Asia and countries such as Iran. One has only to pick up the daily newspapers to note the perceived relevance of “ethics talk” to much of what goes on in our communities, whether in scientific research, academia, business, industry, government, health care, the media, or, prominently in light of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, sport (http://www.philia.ca.”

“Virtue ethics.  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry (2003-07-18 – 2007-07-08) “Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach which emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that which emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone in need should be helped. A utilitarian will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so will maximise well-being, a deontologist to the fact that, in doing so the agent will be acting in accordance with a moral rule such as “Do unto others as you would be done by” and a virtue ethicist to the fact that helping the person would be charitable or benevolent. Three of virtue ethics’ central concepts, virtue, practical wisdom and eudaimonia are often misunderstood. Once they are distinguished from related but distinct concepts peculiar to modern philosophy, various objections to virtue ethics can be better assessed (SEC).”

Folksonomy, taxonomy

applied ethics, Business Role, corporate social responsibility, CSR, principled action, human rights, vision, decision-making, allocating resources, allocating limited resources, product’s ethical impact, consumer, ethical intelligence, compliance, minimum ethical standards, Global Compact, The World Business Council for Sustainable Development,

Bibliography and Webliography

Annas, Julia, “Virtue Ethics”, forthcoming in a collection of David Copp’s

Armstrong, D. M. 1968. A Materialist Theory of the Mind. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Benhabib, Seyla. 1996. The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt. Thousand Oaks, London, New Dehli: Sage.

Crain, W.C. (1985). Theories of Development. Prentice-Hall. pp. 118-136.

Cohen, Andrew I. 2007. “Contractarianism, Other-regarding Attitudes, and the Moral Standing of Nonhuman Animals.” Journal of Applied Philosophy. 24:2:188-201.

Dennett, D. C. 1969. Content and Consciousness. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Eckert, Amy E. 2006. “Peoples and Persons: Moral Standing, Power, and the Equality of States.” International Studies Quarterly. 50:4:841-860.

Freeman, Samuel. 1996-2008. “Original Position.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Fussler, Claude, Aron Cramer and Sebastian van der Vegt Ed.^Eds. June 2004-06. Raising the Bar: Creating Value with the United Nations Global Compact. Greenleaf Publishing. http://www.wbcsd.org/plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?type=DocDet&ObjectId=5585.

Kripke, Saul. 1972. ’Naming and Necessity’ in Semantics of Natural Language, ed. D. Davidson and G. Harman. Dordrecht: Reidel:334-42.

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MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1999, Dependent Rational Animals, Chicago: Open Court.

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Nagel, Thomas. 1970. ‘Armstrong on the Mind’, Philosophical Review, LXXIX: 394-403.

Nagel, Thomas. 1972. A Review of Dennett, Journal of Philosophy, LXIX .

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Nussbaum, Martha. 1990, “Aristotelian Social Democracy”, in R. Douglass, G. Mara, and H. Richardson (eds.), Liberalism and the Good, New York, Routledge, 203-52.

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Orlie, Melissa A. 1997. “Principled Differences.” (Review of Benhabib (1996) The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt.) Theory & Event. 1:3.

Putnam, Hilary. 1967. ’Psychological Predicates’ in Art, Mind, & Religion, ed. W. H. Capitan and D. D. Merrill. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press reprinted in

Putnam, Hilary. 1967. ’The Nature of Mental States.’  Materialism ed. Rosenthal.

Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Rawls, John. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia Press.

Regan, Tom. 1985. “The Case for Animal Rights.” in Singer, Peter. Ed. In Defense of Animals. New York: Basil Blackwell: 13-26.

Sidgwick, Henry. 1884. enlightened few Methods of Ethics. Cambridge: MacMillan and Co.

Singer, Peter. 1985. “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” in Beitz, ed., International Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985).

Singer, Peter. 2002. One World: The Ethics of Globalization (New Haven: Yale University Press.

Singer, Peter. 1986. Applied Ethics (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Smart,  J. J. C. 1963. Philosophy and Scientific Realism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Statman, Daniel,1997b, “Introduction to Virtue Ethics”, in Statman, 1997a: 1-41

Swanton, Christine, 2003, “75 Virtue Ethics”, in International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Elsevier Science, www.e-products.elsevier.com

Somerville, Margaret A. 2006. “What does “doing ethics” mean?“ http://www.philia.ca/files/pdf/DoingEthics.pdf

Somerville, Margaret A. The Ethical Imagination: Journeys of the Human Spirit. Anansi Press.

Taylor, Paul W. 1986. Respect for Nature.

Thornton, M. T. 1972. ’Ostensive Terms and Materialism’. The Monist. LVI:193-214.

Trianosky, Gregory Velazco y., 1990, “What is Virtue ethics All About?”, American Philosophical Quarterly, 27: 335-44, reprinted in Statman, 1997a.

Universal House of Justice (UHJ). 2009-06-23. Principled Action.

Vaughn, Lewis. 2007. Doing Ethics: Moral Reasoning and Contemporary Issues. Norton Press.

Warren, Mary Anne. 1973. “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion.” Monist. 57:43-61.

Warren, Mary Anne. 1997. Obligations to Persons and Other Living Things. Oxford: Clarendon.

Window Shopping on Fifth Avenue: the Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Following in the footsteps of great Western philosopher’s peripatetic origins (Socrates, Nietzsche, Rousseau, Kierkegaard and Walter Benjamin) Writer and Director Astra Taylor invited Cornel West (Cultural Studies scholar and campaign advisor to Barack Obama), Avital Ronell (who co-taught a graduate course with the late Jacques Derrida), Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Slavo Zizek, Judith Butler and her own sister Sunara Taylor to walk the talk while examining contemporary social and ethical issues in her 2008 documentary The Examined Life. Following Philadelphia curator and academic Aaron Levy’s suggestion that camera shy or timid speakers might be more comfortable walking, and enthused by Rebecca Solnit’s book Wanderlust, “a magisterial history of walking,” Astra Taylor decided to ask the big questions using the peripatetic approach. She filmed Cornel West in the back of a New York city cab as it wove through traffic. Peter Singer navigated Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue , a high-end shopping area with luxury items reflected in windows and on shopping bags flashing behind him. She chose a garbage dump as backdrop for Slavoj Zizek’s conversation on ecology. In this a series of vignettes she attempts to demonstrate the accessibility of philosophy, reiterating Isaiah Berlin and Bertrand Russell that, “the central visions of the great philosophers are essentially simple.” Through this documentary she stresses the urgency for a philosophy with a cosmopolitical point of view as “the myriad problems facing us [in our broken world . . . one beset by problems both interpersonal and political], demand more thinking than ever, not less.” Philosophy helps us to “search for meaning and our responsibilities to others in a [world] full of inequity and suffering.”

 

http://www3.nfb.ca/webextension/examined-life/medias/pdf/ExaminedLife.pdf

www.nfb.ca/examined-life

www.nfb.ca/press-room/photo-gallery

http://www.calgarysun.com/entertainment/movies/2009/04/17/9142811-sun.html

Mount Damāvand and Mount Olympus

Ferdowsi

Imagine Goethe’s inner gaze marveling at majestic Mount Damāvand, the highest peak in the Middle East, immortalized in Persian literature through masterful works like Ferdowsi’s Shâhnameh. From its seemingly timeless lofty heights, Mount Damāvand, remains as unconstrained as the wind, in contrast with the social, political and historical changes unfolding all around it.

I was looking for the fertile, picturesque places with names like warm valley and seven creeks where the judge’s grandson grew up when I came across images of Mount Damāvand and learned of its history.

Illustrations inspired by Abolghassem Mansour-ibn-Hassan Firdausi Tousi (Ferdowsi)’s epic work entitled Shâhnâmeh (Book of Kings) (1010) were submitted by Iran for inclusion inclusion in the Memory of the World Register in 2007. They now host a gallery of illustrations.

“Abolghassem Mansour-ibn-Hassan Firdausi Tousi (Ferdowsi) was a prominent figure in Iranian poetry and the nationalist poet of the Persian Empire. He was born in the Iranian city of Tous in 941 and died in 1020, ten years after he finished his major epic work, the Shâhnâmeh (Book of Kings). This is one of the classics of the Persian-speaking world and is on a par with the ‘Iliad’ and the ‘Aeniad’ of the Greco-Romano cultural communities. An important feature of this work is that although during the period of its creation, Arabic was the main language of science and literature, Ferdowsi used only Persian and therefore helped to revive and maintain this important world language. Today Persian is spoken by over 65 million people in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan and diaspora communities. The Shâhnâmeh has also become an important text throughout Central Asia, India and the former Ottoman Empire. It has been copied countless times and three of these copies could be said to have universal value: the “Demotte Shâhnâmeh” made in the early 1300s for the Il-Khanid patron, Giyath al-Din ; the 16th Century “Houghton Shâhnâmeh” ; and the “Bayasanghori Shâhnâmeh”, which was made in 1430 for Prince Bayasanghor (1399-1433), the grandson of the legendary Central Asian leader Timur (1336-1405). Only the “Bayasanghori Shâhnâmeh” has survived and is kept under lock and key in the Imperial Library of the Golestan Palace in Tehran. The Shâhnâmeh represents the quintessence of aesthetic and literary values of the elite rulers of the Timurid Renaissance who dominated Central and Western Asia in the 15th Century.”

In the nineteenth century, Goethe considered Persian literature to be one of the four main bodies of world literature (Ferdowsi 2006) and his “Verstandnis des West-Ostlichen Divans” was inspired by Persian literature.

“When we turn our attention to a peaceful, civilized people, the Persians, we must — since it was actually their poetry that inspired this work — go back to the earliest period to be able to understand more recent times. It will always seem strange to the historians that no matter how many times a country has been conquered, subjugated and even destroyed by enemies, there is always a certain national core preserved in its character, and before you know it, there re-emerges a long-familiar native phenomenon. In this sense, it would be pleasant to learn about the most ancient Persians and quickly follow them up to the present day at an all the more free and steady pace (Goethe 1819 in Wiesehofer and Azodi 2001: Preface).”

For over 2600 years Persia has been at the geographic centre of trade and cultural exchange, friction If you draw lines from the Mediterranean to Beijing or Beijing to Cairo or Paris to Delhi, they all pass through Iran, which straddles a region where East meets West. Over 26 centuries, a blending of the hemispheres has been going on here—trade, cultural interchange, friction—with Iran smack in the middle.
 

“If we could realize that great works such as the Shahnameh [of Ferdowsi] exists in the world, we would not become so much proud of our own works in such a silly manner (Saint-Beuve cited in Wiesehofer 2001-08-18).”

Notes
1. This UNESCO site entitled Memory of the World hosts digital images like this 1430 illustration from the “Bayasanghori Shâhnâmeh” for Prince Bayasanghor (1399-1433). It illustrated one of the stories in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameb (1010) showing the tyrant Zahhak, nailed to the walls of a cave in Mount Damavand.

2. Some Poems in English

3. “FERDOWSĪ,ABU’L-QĀSEM (329-410 or 416/940-1019 or 1025), one of the greatest epic poets and author of the Šāh-nāma, the national epic of Persia. See also ŠĀH-NĀMA. [...] The sum of such heartfelt, mature, and eloquently expressed views and ethical precepts regarding the world and mankind have led to his being referred to, from an early period, as ḥakīm (philosopher), dānā (sage), and farzāna (learned); that is, he was considered a philosopher, though he was not attached to any specific philosophical school nor possessed a complete knowledge of the various philosophical and scientific views of his time. [His sobriquet or pen name], Ferdowsī means “[man] from paradise” (Khaleghi, 1988, p. 92). From Encylopedia Iranica“

4. The concepts of freedom and human rights allegedly originated in the first Persian Empire, as early as the c. 539 BC with the Achaemenid Persian Shāhanshāh Emperor Cyrus the Great (c. 600/576 BC – c. 530/29 BC). His successors including Darius ruled over a stable global superpower, the world’s first religiously and culturally tolerant empire administrated with the first human rights charter (Farrokh 2007:44, Robertson and Merrills 1996:7, Lauren 2003:11, Xenophon and Hedrick 2007:xiii) with a central government in Pasargadae for more than a thousand years. The borders of the Persian Empire ultimately extended from the Mediterranean to the Indus River, encompassing 23 different peoples and including nations and regions that by 2008 were called Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Jordan, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, and the Caucasus region (Del Giudice 2008-08:5).” It was Emperor Cyrus the Great who freed the enslaved Jews of Babylon in 539 B. C. providing them with necessary funds to rebuild their in Jerusalem through the Edict of Restoration. (Del Giudice 2008-08:5)”

5. Cyrus the Great Cylinder, The First Charter of Rights of Nations: (Farrokh 2007:44, Robertson and Merrills 1996:7, Lauren 2003:11, Xenophon and Hedrick 2007:xiii)

“In short, the figure of Cyrus has survived throughout history as more than a great man who founded an empire. He became the epitome of the great qualities expected of a ruler in antiquity, and he assumed heroic features as a conqueror who was tolerant and magnanimous as well as brave and daring. His personality as seen by the Greeks influenced them and Alexander the Great, and, as the tradition was transmitted by the Romans, may be considered to influence our thinking even now (Frye 1963).”

6. Richard N. Frye (1920- ), now a professor emeritus at Harvard devoted more than sixty years to teaching, learning and research on Persian history. He founded the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard and is the Aga Khan Professior of Iranian history at Harvard University. Frye’s books entitled the Nation of Archers (1954) and The Heritage of Persia (1962) The Heritage of Persia (Bibliotheca Iranica, No 1). Islam and the West. Proceedings of the Harvard Summer School Conference on the …
His mentor and predecessor, Arthur Pope was director of the Asia Institute in Shiraz.

“Thus, to refer to the Sasanian period of Iran’s history, Vahram-i Varjavand, seems to me to be a greatly heroised example of the millenary tradition, for he is a truly messianic personality, even though probably a greatly heroised form of the historic Bahrám Chobin. As I have frequently stated, in the past of Iran, for the people, history was not what really happened, or even what they thought had happened, but what they thought should have happened. This is a fundamental characteristic of the view of the past among a people who have a strong epic tradition and a messianic tradition of time speculation (Frye, 1974:57-69 1964: 36-54 cited in Buck 1998).”

7. Some useful translations
Shâhnameh Shahnameh (Farsi) Emperor
Kūrošé Kabīr or Kūrošé Bozorg Kurose Kabir or Kurose Bozorg (Farsi) Emperor Cyrus the Great
Koresh (Hebrew in Bible) Emperor Cyrus the Great
Dhul-Qarnayn (Arabic in Qur’an) possibly referring to Emperor Cyrus the Great.
Damāvand – Damavand
West-Ostlichen (German) West-Eastern

Webliography and Bibliography

Buck, Christopher. 1998. “Bahá’u'lláh as Zoroastrian saviour.” Baha’i Studies Review. 8. London: Association for Baha’i Studies English-Speaking Europe. pp.14–33.

Farrokh, Kaveh. 2007. Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War. History.

Frye, Richard N. 1963. The Heritage of Persia: The pre-Islamic History of One of the World’s Great Civilizations. World Publishing Company: New York.

Ghasemi, Shapour. “The Cyrus the Great Cylinder.” History of Iran. Accessed February 24.

Knappert, Jan. Ed. 1999.Encyclopaedia of Middle Eastern mythology and religion. Longmead, UK.

Robertson, Arthur Henry; Merrills, J. G. 1996. Human Rights in the World: An Introduction to the Study of the International. Political Science.:7.

Lauren, Paul Gordon. 2003. The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen. Political Science. p.11.

Xenophon; Hedrick, Larry. 2007. “Xenophon’s Cyrus the Great: The Arts of Leadership and War. History. p.xiii.

Del Giudice, Marguerite. 2008-08. “Persia: Ancient Soul of Iran: A Glorious Past Inspired by a Conflicted Nation.” National Geographic. PP. 34-67.
Ferdowsi, Abolqasem. 2006. Translated by Davis, Dick. 2006. Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings. Viking.

Goethe. 1819. Noten and Abhandlungen zu besserem Verstandnis des West-Ostlichen Divans.

Levinson, Von David; Christensen, Karen. 2002. Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Wiesehofer, Josef; Azodi, Azizeh. 2001-08-18. Translated by Azodi, Azizeh. “Preface.” Ancient Persia: From 550 BC to 650 AD. I. B. Tauris. New Ed Edition.

Nurian, Mahdi. 1993. “Afarin Ferdowsi az Zaban Pishinian [The praises of Ferdowsi from the tongue of the ancients].” Hasti Magazine. 4. Tehran: Bahman Publishers.

Effendi, Shoghi. 1991. “Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster.” The Compilation of Compilations.Volume I. Baha’i Publications Australia.

Effendi, Shoghi. 1944. God Passes By. Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust.

Frye, Richard N. (1992), “Zoroastrians in Central Asia in Ancient Times.” Journal of the K. R. Cama Oriental Institute. 58: 6–10.

Richard Frye, 1974. “Methodology in Iranian History,” in Neue Methodologie in der Iranistik. (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1974): 57-69 [66]. Cf. idem, “The Charisma of Kingship in Ancient Iran,” Iranica Antiqua 6 (1964): 36-54.

http://www.traveljournals.net/explore/iran/map/m5119241/garmabdar.html

http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/map-machine#s=h&c=35.6907639509368, 52.032623291015646&z=9

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Damavand

Imagine the Shape of Capitalism to Come

Imagine a new global financial order, the shape of capitalism to come . . .

“In many cases, economic activity is as much a function of creativity, imagination and sentiment as is the act of writing a poem or painting a picture (Bronk 2009).”

This layered image, a digitage, was inspired by Richard Bronk’s The Romantic Economist: Imagination in Economics (2009). It includes fragments from German Romantic artist Friedrich’s paintingVoyageur above the Clouds, the Merryl Lynch bull and a scene from the film Pandemonium about Romantic poets Coleridge and Wordsworth.Maureen Flynn-Burhoe 2009

“The histories and political economy of the present and preceding century partake in the general contagion of its mechanic philosophy, and are the product of an unenlivened generalizing understanding (Coleridge 1816 cited in Bronk 2009). Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Statesman’s Manual (1816)

“In weakness we create distinctions, then Believe that all our puny boundaries are things Which we perceive and not which we have made.” William Wordsworth, Fragment (c. 1799)

“Standard economics assumes that economic agents are perfectly rational; that is the basis of its predictive equilibrium-based models. Modern versions generally allow for certain types of information problem and market failure, and recognise that institutions and even history play a role; but they still assume that these factors do not call into question the underlying model of agents as rational utility maximisers within those constraints (Bronk 2009).”

Timeline of the Shape of Capitalism to Come

1933 Keynes, in 1933 “in his lectures on his General Theory, said that current yields of firms exercise an “irrational” influence on estimating future worth (Whimster 2009-02-20).” Whimster is associated with the Global Policy Institute (GPI) [1]. 

1971 The foreign currency market arose when the United States went off the gold standard creating a huge market whose volume exceeded the combined trading of the New York, London, Frankfurt, and Tokyo stock exchanges, affecting “every aspect of economic and social order in the U.S. and the other nations of the world (Krieger 1992).” 

1980s Former graduates of the Wharton School of Business, Michael Milken and Donald Trump thrived in the 1980s through junk bonds and corporate takeovers (Portnoy 2003).

1987  Currency trader or derivatives abuser? Andrew Krieger thought New Zealand currency was overvalued so he began betting that the kiwi would fall. He bought then sold hundreds of millions of dollars, triggering a dramtic drop in the kiwi’s value, making a fortune for himself and for Bankers Trust, earning fame or infamy as the best speculative attack in history (The Economist 2004 12:18:108) and creating havoc for a national economy. 

1988-06-07 “Andrew J. Krieger, the successful young currency trader whose departure from the Bankers Trust Company in February set the Wall Street rumor mill buzzing, is quitting his second job this year. Mr. Krieger, who joined Soros Fund Management Inc. in April as senior portfolio manager, announced yesterday that he would form his own trading company, Krieger & Associates (Deutsch 1988).” 

1988-07-21 “Bankers Trust had earned $338 million in foreign exchange trading in the fourth quarter, which at the time was widely believed to be attributable to the complex trading strategies of Andrew J. Krieger. The 32-year-old star trader left the bank in February, complaining that his $3 million bonus was inadequate. At the time of Mr. Krieger’s departure there were rumors that the bank might have to restate earnings, but bank officials denied it, believing then that any impact would be immaterial. Mr. Krieger was known in the markets for taking large, billion-dollar positions in currencies and for trading currency options using highly complex strategies that even his colleagues did not pretend to understand (Bankers New York Times).”

1988 Derivative abuser Andy Krieger of  Bankers Trust mismarked $80 million of currency options. Krieger was also a graduate from the Wharton School of Business where he had studied international finance and trading in foreign-currency options (Portnoy 2003).   

1992-03-03 Andrew Krieger’s book entitled The Money Bazaar : Inside the Trillion-Dollar World of Currency Trading was published. He explained how he manipulated New Zealand currency in the 1980s.  

2002-06 Frank Partnoy’s book (2003) entitled Infectious Greed: How Deceit and Risk Corrupted the Financial Markets examined financial chaos caused by derivatives abusers during the period 1988- 2002 starting with Andy Krieger at the Bankers Trust. Partnoy profiled Nick Leeson “who bankrupted Barings Bank; Robert Citron, who did the same for Orange County; and Joseph Jett, whose “forward recon” trades helped end the independent existence of Kidder Peabody and Long Term Capital Management.” Partnoy blamed Alan Greenspan and Arthur Levitt and other credit rating agencies and federal regulators. Partnoy analysed the collapse of Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing (Reed Business Information 2003).

2008-10-20 European leaders, like French President Nicolas Sarkozy, favor greater international oversight of markets, and U.S. officials like U.S. President George W. Bush, prefer the current model of national regulation. Mr. Sarkozy repeated his call for a new global financial order. “This is a world-wide crisis and therefore we must find a world-wide solution,” he said. The answer “will be all the more effective insofar as we find it together, we speak with one and the same voice, and we build together the capitalism of the future.” Shape of Capitalism to Come, Finance, Economy, George W. Bush, European Union, Financial Crisis, Capitalism, World Economy, Nicolas Sarkozy, Business News (McKinnon 2008-10-20) 

2009-02 Richard Bronk’s book entitled The Romantic Economist: Imagination in Economics was published [2]. Bronks is an Oxford scholar and Visiting Fellow in the European Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science. (Elliott 2009-02-16, Whimster 2009-02-20).” 

Tags: credit crisis, credit system breakdown, financial crisis,  shape of capitalism to come, analysis, subprime, bailout, trust, capitalism, European Union, Nicolas Sarkozy, new global financial order, credit chaos, multiple modernities,  Friedrich, Romanticism, Pandemonium, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge,

impassioned melodrama from the relationship between the 19th-century poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge had a fondness for opium. Linus Roach plays him as visionary and naïve in equal measure, sour-faced, dull Wordsworth, latched vampirically onto the other man in search of inspiration.

Categories: Business, Economy, Politics, Finance, Economics,  World Economy, Business News, 

Notes

1. The Global Policy Institute (GPI) website explained their work in light of our entry into a second wave of globalization that will change the face of capitalism. The current stage of emergent, self-organising globalisation will not strictly adhere to Western consumerist values or even adopt Western democracy. The EU, US and China, who embrace differing values and views, now share status as super-powers (along with a handful of lesser powers). This has shaken certitude in previously held ideas of economics, cultural and political globalisation. The shape of capitalism to come will likely include rational decision-making criteria, political self-determination, and cultural creativity but may change along the way before a global order is stabilized. GPI predicts that

“By 2020-25 it is expected that some 50% of global capitalisation will be in emergent markets. Also by 2020 (on present projections) the euro, the yuan, and the rupee will have achieved reserve currency status and the US$ will no longer remain the default value standard (Global Policy Institute (GPI).”

2. ”Summary of Bronk, Richard. 2009. The Romantic Economist: Imagination in Economics.

“Since economies are dynamic processes driven by creativity, social norms and emotions, as well as rational calculation, why do economists largely study them through the prism of static equilibrium models and narrow rationalistic assumptions? Economic activity is as much a function of imagination and social sentiments as of the rational optimisation of given preferences and goods. Richard Bronk argues that economists can best model and explain these creative and social aspects of markets by using new structuring assumptions and metaphors derived from the poetry and philosophy of the Romantics. By bridging the divide between literature and science, and between Romanticism and narrow forms of rationalism, economists can access grounding assumptions, models and research methods suitable for comprehending the creativity and social dimensions of economic activity. This is a guide to how economists and other social scientists can broaden their analytical repertoire to encompass the vital role of sentiments, language and imagination. Educated at Merton College, Oxford, Richard Bronk gained a first class degree in Classics and Philosophy. He spent the first seventeen years of his career working in the City of London, where he acquired a wide expertise in international economics, business and politics. His first book, Progress and the Invisible Hand (1998) was well received critically, and anticipated millennial angst about the increasingly strained relationship between economic growth and progress in welfare. Having returned to academic life in 2000, Bronk is now a writer and part-time academic, [Visiting Fellow in the European Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science] (Cambridge Biography and Summary).”

Webliography and Bibliography

1988-07-21. “Bankers Trust Data on Restatement.” New York Times. 

Bronk, Richard. 2009. The Romantic Economist: Imagination in Economics. Cambridge University Press. 

Bronk, Richard. 2009. “The Romantic and Imaginative Aspects of Economics.” The Romantic Economist: Imagination in Economics. Cambridge University Press. 

Deutsch, Claudia H. 1988-06-07. “Top Trader Quits to Start Own Firm.” New York Times. 

Elliott, Larry. 2009-02-16. “We are on the brink: perhaps it is time to look to the Romantics for what lies ahead. The mechanistic approach to economics has failed. We need to embrace creativity.” The Guardian.

Hutton, Will. 2008-09-28. “I’ve watched the economy for 30 years. Now I’m truly scared.” The Guardian. UK.

Krieger, Andrew. 1992-03-03. The Money Bazaar : Inside the Trillion-Dollar World of Currency Trading. Crown Publishing. 

McKinnon, John D. 2008-10-20. “Rethinking Capitalism’s Contours: Summits Will Address Financial Crisis, but Divide Looms Between U.S. and EU.” Wall Street Journal.com. 

Partnoy, Frank. 2003. Infectious Greed: How Deceit and Risk Corrupted the Financial Markets. New York: Times Books. 

Thurow, Lester C. 1996. The Future of Capitalism: How Today’s Economic Forces Shape Tomorrow’s World. New York: Penguin Group. 

Whimster, Sam. 2009-02-20. “To understand economics, we have to consider emotions too: We need to reassert human values as being superior to those of the market.” The Guardian.

Novel Tourism: Web 2.0

Methodologies change over time in relation to descriptions of haunts and scenes of novels and film productions based on them. Easily identified Parisian settings for Marcel Proust novels evolved into a thriving tourist industry. Web 2.0 Virtual Tourism is yet another way in which we can engage with our favourite stories from the classics and popular culture, situating them in the liminal space between the fictional and real.

In the 1980s television series were filmed in spots that were already booming tourist attractions expanding interest to include geographical features, archaeological sites and objects, architecture, pubs, gardens, estates, colleges, etc. The Inspector Morse series was filmed in the Thames Valley area, mainly in Oxford. The charming countryside along the Thames River has attracted tourists following in the carriage wheels of London aristocracy who built fine and stately country homes like Blenheim around which picturesque villages developed. The Inspector Morse series filled with bodies found floating in the Isis, the Cherwell or the Thames, also overflows with culture-rich references. In every episode there are many photo opportunities for local tourist venues and even tour buses and guides make appearances as memorable “objects.”

Charles Dickens stage was modern with its “lime-lights, trapdoors and elaborate sets (Rideing 1885).” There is a much greater opportunity for readers to identify specific locations through Charles Dickens’ powerful word painting in which he elaborates with great fidelity, minute descriptive details (that would be boring if not humourous) of the furnishings, everyday objects and the haunts of his characters making the settings as memorable as the people who inhabited them. Rideing compared Dickens’ methodology to Thackerey’s. Thackerey’s stage for Vanity Fair (1847-8), for example, was classic “with a dais of drapery of green baize before the time of scenery (Rideing 1885). Dickens localized his characters, Thackerey did not.

Using a gaggle of Web 2.0 technologies, including customized Google Maps, I began to map some of these references as yet another way to engage with nonlinear space and time. Possibilities are virtually infinite.

View Larger Map

Webliography and Bibliography

Rideing, William Henry. 1885. Thackeray’s London: Description of his Haunts and the Scenes of his Novels. London: J. W. Jarvis and Son. King William Street, Strand, W. C./ Boston, U.S. CUPJ-Les, Upham and Co. Isaac Foot Library. Copyright, 1885. Washington, D. C.

Thackeray, William. 1847-8. Vanity Fair.

Thackeray, William. 1847-8. A Roundabout Chapter between London and Hampshire.” Vanity Fair.

The Eternal Return of the Sacred

Nietzsche’s famous or infamous “Parable of the Madman” (1882, 1887) announced the death of God, or more exactly his execution and the murder of religion by western culture making of all westerners the gravediggers of the holiest and mightiest. Zondervan (2005) began his Sociology and the Sacred. An Introduction to Philip Rieff’s Theory of Culture with the enraged speech of Nietzsche’s avatar.

(Whenever I mention the 20th century debate of the disenchantment and secularization of the world, my friend reminds me that only a part of the world – the West – adopted this ideology.)

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!”—As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?—Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. “How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us—for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.” Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves. It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?” (Nietzsche 1887: para 125) cited in Kaufmann 1974:181-2 and online here).

Work-in-process DRAFT do not copy

Keyword: culture, philosophy, post-secular, theory of culture, Freud, Freudian metaphysics, psychology man, modernity, second culture camp, Nietzsche, Jacques Derrida, Foucault, James Joyce, Marcuse, Habermas, Strauss, religion, desecularization of the world, Peter Berger,

illustrations, diagrams:

Timeline of social events related to Western desecularization-secularization

5th century BC The term modernity stems from the 5th century. See Alexander cited in Zondervan (2005: Notes:3).

Enlightenment: the term modernity used with connotations such as scientific, rationality, progress and individualization.

1882, 1887 Nietzsche’s famous or infamous “Parable of the Madman” (1882, 1887) announced the death of God, or more exactly his execution and the murder of religion by western culture making of all westerners the gravediggers of the holiest and mightiest. Zondervan (2005) began his Sociology and the Sacred. An Introduction to Philip Rieff’s Theory of Culture with the enraged speech of Nietzsche’s avatar.

1960s Emergence of the psychological man (Reiff).

1966 Berger, Peter L; Luckmann, Thomas. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge.

1967 Berger, Peter L. 1967 [1990]. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. Anchor Books.

1978-03 Daniel Bell, professor of sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts wrote “The Return of the Sacred: the Argument about the Future of Religion” published in the Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 31: 29–55. There is a pay-per-use copy of this on the exclusive and darkened library of the Deep Internet.

1979 Brian Wilson wrote “The Return of the Sacred” published in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Webliography and Bibliography

Berger, Peter L; Luckmann, Thomas. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge.

Berger, Peter L. 1967 [1990]. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. Anchor Books.

Kaufmann, Walter. Ed. 1974. The Gay Science New York: Vintage.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1882, 1887. [1974]. The Gay Science.

Zondervan, Antonius A. W. 2005. Sociology and the Sacred. An Introduction to Philip Rieff’s Theory of Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Accipiter striatus: raptors at backyard bird feeders

The old lilac bushes, the suckering variety, like the caragana (Caragana arborescens) that border the property, provide a windbreak. The constant chirping chatter and squabbling of sparrows can be heard as we approach their favourite lilac bush, interrupted by moments of silence when we reach inside their radius of protection. As soon as we move out of this threshold of discomfort they begin again.

The common sparrow is resented by some humans for displacing other more charismatic bird species. But the flock that have adopted our collection of feeders hanging on the caragana just outside our living room window, provide an everyday charm for our guests and ourselves.

I thought that the dense growth of the old lilac bushes, the caragana, cedars and white spruce would have provided more cover and therefore safety for them. For several days this week we noticed that the feeders were virtually untouched by the neighbourhood sparrows and chickadees. I thought it was because of the unusually strong winds but then I observed a sharp-shinned hawk perched on the chimney of the garage in the lane behind our home. Sharp-shinned hawks also feed at our feeders, but they are feasting on smaller birds that we have unintentionally provided for them.

The long-tail and short broad rounded wings and a long tail helps them maneuver in flight and they are capable of tight steering and sudden dashes. From their concealed perches, these raptors spot their prey (small birds and mammals) with their keen vision, ambush it, snatch it, carry it off. The they kill it with their long sharp talons.

One morning we found a dead white rabbit obviously pierced by razor sharp talons, then for some reason dropped in mid-air. Perhaps it was an adult who hovered briefly just above our house as it attempted to pass the prey – by kicking it towards the fledgling – to an unskilled youngster, fresh out of the nest, who failed his test.

As more of us northern bird lovers fill feeders in the winter, fewer hawks migrate south apparently, preferring instead to stay farther north near a dependable food source we unwittingly provide: feeder birds (Bildstein and Meyer 2000).

Bildstein, K. L., and K. Meyer. 2000. “Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter striatus).” In The Birds of North America, No. 482 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.

Ontology of the sphere

Draft: New technologies make accessible complex algorithms for the transformation of images through spherical distortions.

Reflections off shiny convex surfaces, such as the pupils of our eyes, the Esherian sphere, vases, teapots, mirror the world in miniature and capture light and space with fascinating distortions.

Adobe Photoshop provides at least two options for creating these distortions by using the Filter tool > Distort > polar coordinates or
Filter tool > Distort > spherize.

For my teapot reflection series I prefer to work from real objects and their reflections.

For the labeling the Rocky Mountains skyline panoramas I have been simply pasting long collages of series of digital images taken at 180 to 360 degrees. The result is virtually impossible to share online. The resolution is always set too low and text as well as identifiable montane features become illegible. What was crystal clear on the PC through the zoom feature is completely loss in Web 2.0.

I have considered using polar coordinate distortions and/or spherize features.

This is a tip from someone who has been working with polarpans longer than I have

This is one section that I spherized using a rather convoluted process. I noted it below so I won’t forget but I am still working on it.

From SpherizeAndPolarCoordinates

reflexive sphere

spherical models

polar coordinates

tips from pros:
http://www.3drender.com/light/PolarPan/index.htm

polar coordinates vs spherize

Adobe Photoshop > filter > distort > polar coordinates

Adobe Photoshop > filter > distort > spherize > 80% with inserted rectangular skyline

digitage/collage of skyline images ie a scroll which is about 1/3 to 1/4 of c. square image to

be spherized. Place inserted rectangle at c. centre not quite at top of a c. square

image size width: 100 cm, height: 65 cm resolution 100 pixel dimensions 28 m: width 3864

pixels by height: 2532 pixels

————————
1. original image to spherize: pixel dimensions 86.3m

width 120 cm height 50 cm resolution 180

2. place rectangle in new file 120 x 120

3. spherize with original rectangle in upper centre

4. experiment with degrees of spherization c. 85%

5. check for resolution

6. PC cannot spherize images that are too large

7. too much loss of resolution makes mountain ranges lose clarity and labels illegible

8. have to find juste milieu

6. clip to detail of spherized rectangular skyline scroll

Mount Blane and the Blade visible from Calgary

On clear days the Rockies are visible from the Crowfoot Library lookout and unique features of specific mountains make them easier to identify. Mount Blane (2993 m), the highest in the Opal Range is distinct because of the Blade, a gendarme or tower on the ridge to the right of Mount Blane’s summit.

From CrowfootLibraryLookout

The map insert situates the Opal Range, which is a long range of peaks directly east of the Kananaskis River.

View Larger Map

This map indicates distances between visible peaks and the Crowfoot Library lookout.

View Larger Map

bivouac.com provides this information on the Opal Range:
“It is bounded on the N by Rocky Creek and on the E by Evan-Thomas Creek and the Little Elbow and Elbow Rivers. KeyPasses: Elbow Pass (2088m – border pass with Misty Range); Little Elbow Pass (2240m – border pass with Cornwall Group); Evan-Thomas Pass (2149m – border pass with Fisher Range) Includes: Includes Tombstone Mountain and ridge that extends to the N. Excludes the Wedge because it is separated from the Range by Rocky Creek and an Unnamed Creek. Terrain: A period that occurred during the Lewis Thrust called the Laramide Orogeny created the Opal Range. The steeply tilted strata are virtually the same in each peak, with softer layers sandwiched between harder layers. These softer layers have eroded, leaving the harder layers in place and forming the deep notches and gaps typical of the range. History: Named by George Dawson because he discovered small cavities lined with quartz and coated with what he thought were thin films of opal. However, it was not Opal but a chert with a similar appeareance composed of silica imbedded with various quartz impurities. Recorded first ascents of the peaks were not completed until the 1950’s and most of the peaks in the range are named for ship’s or people that were part of the Battle of Jutland in World War I. The W side of Mount Blane (13 km NE of Upper Kananaskis Lake). (44 km SW of Bragg Creek). (4 km SE of Mount Evan-
Thomas).”