It took me most of my young life to figure this out. After growing up as a precocious political junkie I got jaded pretty early. I grew up in a rural conservative family but somehow, deep-down I’m an urban technophile who often hopes there’s no problem that walkable neighbourhoods and Twitter hashtags can’t solve. In [...]
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cities,
conservatism,
democracy,
design ego,
elections,
government,
ideology,
moral psychology,
motivation,
politics,
pragmatism,
progressivism,
purpose,
relevance,
values,
voting,
will to relevance
Here’s the completely unrequested bibliography for Truth, Will & Relevance (minus a few cosmetic references): Adams, Henry. The Education of Henry Adams, 1918. Ariely, Dan; Norton, Michael; “Conceptual Consumption.” Annual Review of Psychology, 60. 2009. Argyris, Chris; Schön, Donald. Theory in Practice. 1974. Arnold, Matthew. Culture and Anarchy. 1869. Barzun, Jacques. Of Human Freedom. 1939. Barzun, Jacques. Clio [...]
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book,
generativity,
relevance,
research,
will to relevance,
writing
A recent tweet reminded me of Clay Shirky’s excellent observation: Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution. Kevin Kelly called it The Shirky Principle, using the example of unions to illustrate: Unions were a brilliant solution to the problem of capital management which tended to exploit uncapitalized workers. But [...]
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change,
clay shirky,
generativity,
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institutions,
kevin kelly,
organizations,
relationships,
relevance,
theories,
trust,
will to relevance
There are some valuable lessons in Andrew Potter’s Authenticity Hoax — lessons most people probably don’t want and won’t accept. Here’s some of the synopsis from the AuthHoax blog (I don’t see the need to rewrite it): For many, the search for the authentic is a powerful source of meaning in a secular age, fostering [...]
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andrew potter,
authenticity,
books,
conceptual consumption,
culture,
diet,
food,
framing,
health,
motivation,
relevance,
the authenticity hoax,
will to relevance
My book is finished and available for purchase, download, or reading online. Sorry if you don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook, where I already mentioned it a few days ago. This is the formal “announcement.” Description: Truth, Will & Relevance outlines an innovative way to understand human nature and conduct — conceived specifically to address [...]
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blogging,
books,
generativity,
publishing,
reading,
will to relevance,
writing
Picking up the Thinking in the 21st Century thread again… I’m nearing the end of the most philosophical stuff. It all turns on this one… Just a reminder to read this as a proposal — a basis for refinement and elaboration (not to mention citations and evidence), not presuming finality. A few weeks ago I [...]
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epistemology,
ideas,
metaphysics,
mind,
philosophy,
process,
psychology,
relevance,
stories,
theory,
think21st,
will to relevance
The premise of this series is to work out a new way of looking at our changing world» Part of the reason we’ve had so much difficulty making sense of the complex events of the past decade is that our ways of thinking — specifically, the metaphors, analogies, and images we resort to — have [...]
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bias,
epistemology,
heuristics,
learning,
meta factors,
metaphors,
metaphysics,
networks,
object bias,
philosophy,
psychology,
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social media,
will to relevance
During the weekend I spent some time writing yet another criticism of old media protectionism. I called it, “Because You Wouldn’t Go to a ‘Citizen Prostitute’ for Sex, Would You?”… this is the tame version. What so many protectionists miss is that telling stories and getting to the bottom of things are basic human motives [...]
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careers,
cultural evolution,
dan rather,
jeff jarvis,
journalism,
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paul berton,
psychology,
social_media,
will to relevance
by OpenConceptual on 07-17-2009
in concepts
In the process of summarizing my last post, Jeff Jarvis suggested I was “searching for a metaphor for what I’ve been calling beta-think.” He’s exactly right — though I wasn’t aware of it when I started writing — so I’m going to take that up with a bit more brevity and focus. The search for [...]
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beta,
beta-think,
heuristics,
human nature,
language,
metaphors,
motivation,
recursion,
relevance,
thinking,
web,
will to relevance
Richard Florida responds to my last post by referencing a 1948 essay by Anatole Broyard, “A Portrait of the Hipster,” via this article: Broyard was less enthusiastic about these supposed new rebels, and saw the attempts to escape from the restraints of society through narcotics, jazz, and general disaffiliation, as merely ways to a new conformity. [...]
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behavioral economics,
fashion,
hipsters,
moral psychology,
relevance,
signaling,
will to relevance
After years failing to get engaged with any fiction, it was finally a TV series — The Wire — that made me enthusiastic enough about character and narrative to pick up a novel and actually read it all the way through. Then the natural author to go to was Richard Price, who wrote a handful of Wire episodes, and [...]
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autotelesis,
books,
fiction,
lush life,
ortega y gasset,
richard price,
self-becoming,
will to relevance
