Tag Archives: Culture

‘Brain rot’ – word of the year 2024

General, Musings, , ,   2 comments  

My personal word of the year is demonize. But …

A commentary on how “we are using our free time” … an ongoing “cultural conversation about humanity and technology.”

• AP News > “How to sum up 2024? The Oxford University Press word of the year is ‘brain rot’” (December 2, 2024) – chosen by a combination of public vote and language analysis by Oxford lexicographers, it beat five other finalists: demure, slop, dynamic pricing, romantasy and lore.

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Puritan praise & pride – a legacy of conflated piety

Mediation, Musings, , , , , , , , , , , ,   8 comments  

[Draft 11-7-2024]

We supposedly live in a secular society. And yet, sacred speech dominates our polarized politics. The righteous mind is alive and well. Private & public piety pervades our identities, our virtues and values. Dogma still divides. History has lessons which remain unheeded. Social media (and money) amplify an illusion of majority voice. We drift into a divide over the future of our democracy. The role of reason is in retreat.

Can heads, hearts, and hands find common ground to move forward?

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‘Politics is about sacredness’ – overlapping moral orbits

Mediation, Musings, Stories, , , ,   1 comment  

Fables were part of the moral fabric when I was growing up. Perhaps yours as well. Especially some of Aesop’s Fables. (Yet, I was suprised that this was not the case for many of my middle school students, when a public school teacher.)

There’s one fable, in particular, which social psychologist Jonathan Haidt discussed in a 2012 interview (noted below) about his latest book (at that time): Aesop’s The Ant and the Grasshopper.

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Authentic – word of the year 2023

General, Musings, , , ,

My personal word of the year is kayfabe. But …

Otherwise, in the wider, mainstream buzz: AP News, NPR, CNN, CNBC, …

So, in an info-verse awash in fake info, misinfo, disinfo, Merriam-Webster’s word for 2023 reflects erosion of the line between “real” and “fake.” And as traditional news sources are replaced by social media, presentation is everything – performative charm displaces deeper character [2].

[M-W article below] Authentic is what brands, social media influencers, and celebrities aspire to be. … Ironically, with “authentic content creators” now recognized as the gold standard for building trust, “authenticity” has become a performance.

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Generational battles

Musings

The notion that the battles of prior generations are “won” for the next – just doesn’t happen. The battles over civil rights, women’s rights, … realizing the dream of the Constitution. A long slog, a forever journey. An evolution of minds, hearts, … and habits.

And sometimes conflicts are not so much won as just left behind by succeeding generations (without necessarily any linear progress either).

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Two sides to every argument?

Musings

“If there are two sides to every argument – or, more to the point, if there are people willing to take up two sides to every argument – they both must be right or, at least, equally valid.” (1)

So, on any particular subject or topic, there may be two or more opinions. Today I’d trust that no one (hmm) believes that the earth is flat (2); so, let’s rule that out as subject to opinion.

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