Here’s some Q &A from the Encyclopedia Britannica online: Quick Facts about Bellow, Saul Biography Q: Who is the author of “The Adventures of Augie March”? A: Saul Bellow is the author of “The Adventures of Augie March” Q: Who is the author of “Dangling Man”? A: Saul Bellow is the author of “Dangling Man” Q: Who is the author of “The Victim”? A: Saul Bellow is the author of “The Victim” …. Quick Facts […]
A couple of years ago, the philosophy professor Harry Frankfurt made publishing history of a sort by allowing his 7,000-word paper “On Bullshit” — which lives up pretty well to the second word in its title — to be published as a book. Bind some printed pieces of paper together, preferably in hard covers, distribute them via bookstores, at a cost of around $20, and voila, you have a book. If you choose not buy […]
“Prostitutes and gigolos are sexual professionals. Through hard work and experience, they are now masters of their craft. The best surely deserve excellent pay for what they do. If we have sex with amateurs and without paying for it, how will the professionals be able to continue to offer their vital services? Our culture will be destroyed. Ancient traditions will come to a halt. And the masters, the real pros, have yet another vital function: […]
1. Howdy, Pardner! Andrew Keen, in his diatribe, the cult of the amateur: how today’s internet is killing our culture, claims to be mainly concerned about “Web 2.0,” though he lards his list of ills with e-mail spam, phishing, online porn and gambling, which don’t really fit. The Internet at present is somewhere between a wild west, a playground, and an experimental laboratory. All sorts of things get tried, standards are few and unevenly enforceable, […]
——Part I of a review of (and riff on) Andrew Keen’s the cult of the amateur. A hundred and eleven years ago, the “modern” Olympic games were born, emphasizing what could have been criticized as a conservative “cult of the amateur.” There were strict rules that only pure amateurs could compete, which meant, of course, that only people of independent means could enter. This neatly kept out representatives of the “great unwashed” or, in other […]
Pay attention! This is IMPORTANT, not just my usual blather! In response to an earlier post of mine, Paul Salomone writes, in part: “…it’s not just that ALL people need to have a more equal share of the attention wealth, but IMPORTANT people and ideas (read: necessary for the healthy and happy functioning of global society) do even more so.” I don’t think this demand makes real sense, understandable though it may be. Meanwhile, in […]
Friendship might be defined as a state of more-or-less mutual attention paying. From little acts of attention, including times when you just are together, talking, walking, or engaging in some joint activity your minds get into sync so that you can align easily (that is pay attention) to what the other is saying or doing, feeling or thinking. Long friendship makes attention all that much easier and full. No wonder people clamor for friends, and […]
Paul Salomone has posted some interesting and I think valid comments about social justice in an Attention Economy. The issue is how do we go about equalizing what has become most important — attention from others. In an economy based on material things and money, governments have certain powers to help equalize things, even though with varying problems and difficulties. They can offer welfare, social security, require a decent minimum wage and provide various public […]
It probably does no good at this late stage, but let me cry foul one more time. I coined the term “Attention Economy” twenty years ago to refer to a completely new kind of economic system — one not based on material goods nor money but rather on the passing around of what is both unavoidably scarce and desirable in unlimited amounts, namely ….TA DAA… the attention that can come only from other human beings. […]
Recently, I happened on an obituary in the NY Times for Rudolph Arnheim, who died at 102. It turned out he had done interesting work on the psychology of visual thinking and visual attention. Since, I have been reading some of his essays. One point he makes [New Essays in the Psychology of Art, p. 78] is that when we are fully absorbed in something, we do not notice time passing. If you are particularly […]