Category: ideas

“In the face of [a] typhoon of data vying for our attention, we find a measure of self-actualization in the 16 ‘likes’ that friends proffer our duck-faced self-portraits. It mixes a sense of desperation, vanity, hunger for attention, and pathos … It’s also a modern mode of ‘bookmarking,’ like carving one’s name in a tree – witness the thousands of visitors snapping selfies in front of the Mona Lisa.” Noah Charney looks at the phenomenon, referencing neuroscience, Magritte, and Bosnian stand-up comedy.

“When thinking about fashion in philosophy, there are four basic categories under which texts, thinkers and ideas can be grouped. By considering the interrelation of these groups, we can begin to glean how an idea becomes fashionable. The four categories are the fashionable, the foundational, the prohibited, and the unfashionable.”

“A quarter-century ago, psychologists began to point out important links between the development of scientific theories and how everyday thinking, including children’s thinking, works. According to theory theorists, a child learns by constructing a theory of the world and testing it against experience. In this sense, children are little scientists – they hypothesise on the basis of observations, test their hypotheses experimentally, and then revise their views in light of the evidence they gather.”

What cars may become is another sort of “third space” – that space traditionally occupied by cafes, pubs and other places where humans socialize. “Some companies have declared explicitly they want their cars to be the new third places. It’s a dramatic reinterpretation of what constitutes a social environment, and maybe not in a way we’re ready to accept.”

A study involving 250 children and 400 adults finds that children aged 3-8 believe one side is better, while anyone older than 8 – but especially adults – has exactly the opposite conclusion.

“In the United States, we believe that worthy people lift themselves up by their bootstraps. This is our idea of freedom. What it means in practice is that every individual is supposed to understand finance so well that they can effectively manage their own retirement funds. And every individual is expected to understand their health risks well enough to make their own decisions about insurance. To take away the power of individuals to control their own destiny is viewed as anti-American by so much of this country. You are your own master. Children are indoctrinated into this cultural logic early, even as their parents restrict their mobility and limit their access to social situations. But when it comes to information, they are taught that they are the sole proprietors of knowledge. All they have to do is ‘do the research’ for themselves and they will know better than anyone what is real.”

“Running campaigns to shape what the public could see was nothing new, but social media created new pathways for people and organizations to get information out to wide audiences. Marketers discussed it as the future of marketing. Activists talked about it as the next frontier for activism. Political consultants talked about it as the future of political campaigns. And a new form of propaganda emerged.”

“When we use the word [dandy] casually, we refer to men (it’s almost always men) who are fussy, even anachronistic. But the figure of the dandy, historically, has been far more subversive.”

The problem is, as Jessica Lahey writes, figuring out what the term does (and doesn’t) mean.