Tag: art

global-chorus-cover

No Other Way

 There’s no other way

That’s what they say.

Economics must put money before people

And medicine must put profit before health.

Education must put management before wisdom

And religion must put war before love.

Technology must put machines before environments.

And politicians must put power before care.

We must follow the way things are done.

There’s no other way

That’s what they say.

But what if economics valued feelings

And medicine fostered dignity

Education aimed for all to flourish

And religion wanted better worlds for all

Technology looked out for justice

And politicians put people first.

If we would just be kind and care for each other.

Then we would have the road less travelled.

A much better way

Than the way they say.

There is never only one way.

This was my little contribution to Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet which has just been published.

Global Chorus is a groundbreaking collection of over 365 perspectives on our environmental future. As a global roundtable for our times, in the format of a daily reader, this book is a trove of insight, guidance, passion and wisdom that has poured in from all over the Earth. Its message is enormously inspiring, and ominous in its warnings. And yet, united in a thread of hope, its contents are capable of helping even the most faithless global citizen to believe that we have the capacity to bring about lasting positive change in our world. Places at this roundtable are occupied by writers, environmentalists, spiritual leaders, politicians, professors, doctors, athletes, businesspeople, farmers, chefs, yogis, painters, actors, architects, musicians, TV personalities, humanitarians, adventurers, concerned youth, concerned senior citizens, civil servants, carpenters, bus drivers, activists, CEO’s, scientists, and essentially those who have something thoughtful and visionary to say about humanity’s place upon Earth. Compiled for your reading as a set of 365 pieces, Global Chorus presents to you a different person’s point of view for each day of your year.

Contributors to Global Chorus have provided one-page responses to the following line of questioning:

“Do you think that humanity can find a way past the current global environmental and social crises? Will we be able to create the conditions necessary for our own survival, as well as that of other species on the planet? What would these conditions look like? In summary, then, and in the plainest of terms, do we have hope, and can we do it?”

No Other Way

~im0000

There’s no other way.

That’s what they say.

Economics must put money before people,

And medicine must put profit before health.

Education must put management before wisdom,

And religion must put war before love.

Technology must put machines before environments,

And politicians must put power before care.

We must follow the way things are done.

There’s no other way.

That’s what they say.

But what if economics valued feelings,

And medicine always pursued dignity.

If education aimed for the flourishing of humanity,

And religion wanted better worlds for all.

If technology looked out for justice,

And politicians put people first.

If we all just tried to be kind to each other?

There surely is a much better way

Than the one that they preach to us everyday.

This week I am launching the first draft of 

A MANIFESTO FOR A CRITICAL HUMANISM IN

SOCIOLOGY

ON QUESTIONING THE HUMAN SOCIAL WORLD

  

 First Presented at the VI Congreso Andaluz de Sociologiá, University of Cadiz, November 2012

To be published in Daniel Nehring: Sociology: A Text and Reader ( Pearson, 2013).

This is the first edition; it is now under revision for a 2nd version. Comments are welcome

Contact Ken Plummer at plumk@essex.ac.uk

you can find it by clicking here: Manifesto


We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. Leo Tolstoy War and Peace, 1869

These then are my last words to you. Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact. William James:  The Will to Believe. 1896

 

SUMMARY

      1. Prologue: A very human animal in an all too human world
      2. On the Human Search for Meaning
      3. On Sociology
      4. The Challenge of Humanism
      5. Righting the Troubles with Humanism
      6. On Critical Humanism
      7. The Human Condition: Obdurate Features of the Human World
      8. On Human Potentials, Capabilities and Rights
      9. The Challenge of Plural Worlds, Ethnocentrism and Cosmopolitanism
      10. On Becoming Human: The Process of Humanization
      11. A Sociology of the People:  Being Practical and Pursuing the Wise Society
      12. We are the Story Telling Animals
      13. The Politics and ethics of Humanism: Living a Better Life and Making a Better World
      14. Dark Hope and Dreaming Ahead in Perpetually Troubled Timers: Key Directions For a Future Humanistic Agenda
      15. Further Reading

        YOU CAN FIND THE FULL MANIFESTO BY  CLICKING ON MANIFESTOS

 

Art and Inspirations: The Golden Stairs

The Golden Stairs

Edward Bourne Jones

A copy of this celebrated painting has been recently given to us  by  dear friends after a visit to the Pre-Rapehlite Exhibition. I spotted this gem in the last gallery of the exhibition – and recalled it from the cover of Umberto Eco’s The Infinity of Lists  (currently one of my favourite books). It hints at my key themes of multiplicities, pluralities and the infinite. We had just been to see the musical Top Hat, and I was in a mood for the Ziegfield Follies or the Busby Berkeley Girls (and Boys!) which this nineteenth century image must have been well on the way to inspiring.


Inspirations: Howard S. Becker

Inspirations: Howard S. Becker Doing Things Together Howard S Becker is one of the foremost sociologists of the second half of the twentieth century. When I was an undergraduate back in the 1960’s, his book Outsiders was one of the most influential around. It gave me a whole new way of seeing things – inlcuding…

Quoting Humanisms

We are all the same race: the human race.

 

I recently found this image and slogan: it was new to me.

I found it on an interesting site for for scholars researching the queer diaspora:

You can find this at:

Queer Migration Research Network  (Click)

http://queermigration.com/

(I have tried to approach the photographer – but no success yet)

So here is the image – and the quote:

Michelangelo: Head

Michelangelo: Study of a Head (in red chalk)

This image was used at the British Sociological Association Conference in 1993 and a copy of it still hangs in the corridors of the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex.

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