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Churchill on Russia

3/31/2014

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In 1939, Churchill famously said of Russia that it was a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. But he added, there is a key and that key is Russian self-interest. Once again, the West is confronted with the problem of Russia and deciphering its moves in Crimea and the Ukraine.

The most reliable interpreters of Russian culture are their own novelists and philosophers and one of the most celebrated Russian philosopher is Nikolai Berdyaev.  When you witness diverse Russians from
Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot and Putin himself both appealing to Berdyav to support their points, you realize that he deserves a thorough reading.

I have studied Berdyaev and he is indeed a first rate philosopher but not well known. He wrote this interesting article on The Soul of Russia.:

Russia -- is the least statelike, the most anarchistic land in the world. And the Russian people -- is the most apolitical of peoples, never having managed to set its land right. All the genuinely Russian, our national writers, thinkers, publicists -- all were non-statists, all were uniquely anarchists. Anarchism -- is a phenomenon of the Russian spirit, and it has variously been present both in our extreme left, and in our extreme right. The Slavophils and Dostoevsky -- were anarchists essentially the same, as were Mikhail Bakunin or Kropotkin. And this anarchistic Russian nature also found itself typical expression in the religious anarchism of Lev Tolstoy. The Russian intelligentsia, though infected with a superficial positivism, has been purely Russian in its non-statism. In its best, its heroic part, it struggled for an absolute freedom and truth, unrestricted by any sort of state aspects. Our Populism -- is a characteristically Russian phenomenon, with its like unknown to Western Europe, -- the manifestation of a non-statist spirit. And the Russian liberals have always been moreso humanists, than statists. No one has wanted the power to rule, all were afraid of the power to rule, as something impure...

The Russian people does not want to be a masculine builder, its nature defines itself as feminine, passive and submissive in matters of state, it always awaits a bridegroom, a man, a ruler. Russia -- is a land submissive and feminine. The passive, the receptive femininity in regard to the state power -- is so characteristic for both the Russian people and for Russian history...

The feminine aspect of the Slavs makes them mystically sensitive, capable of hearkening to the inner voices. But the exceptional dominance by the feminine element hinders them from fulfilling their calling in the world. Russian messianism has need of a masculine spirit, without which ever again and again there will be a stumbling back into this alluring and constraining primordial element of the Russian earth, which awaits its own enlightenment and form.

Putin with his hyper-masuclinity, his appeal to physical exercise, his personal hunting and exercise embodies this masculine yearning and embodies the Russian body politic. This combintation of passivity combined with masculine agression makes him truly enigmatic. But, as Churchill said years ago, Russians can always be counted on to act in their national interest and therein lies the key. Crimea is now in the Russian orbit and the Ukraine will remain in a limbo neither needed by Russia nor desired by the EU.

PS: In case anybody is wondering what the quotes from Berdyaev tha
t Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot and Putin appealed to, it was this:

Maria Alyokhina:

Humility, is now commonly understood not as a path towards the perception, fortification, and ultimate liberation of Man, but on the contrary as an instrument for his enslavement. To quote [Russian philosopher] Nikolai Berdyaev, one could say that "the ontology of humility is the ontology of the slaves of God, and not the sons of God."

Vladimir Putin

Society falls apart without these values. Clearly, we must come back to them, understand their importance and move forward on the basis of these values.
I want to reiterate something I said in the Address to the Federal Assembly: yes, this is a conservative approach, but let me remind you of Berdyaev's words that the point of conservatism is not that it obstructs movement forward and upward, but that it prevents the movement backward and downward. That, in my opinion, is a very good formula, and it is the formula that I propose.
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Wittgenstein - Sea of Faith

3/16/2014

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Below is a fascinating excerpt from a BBC program on Wittgenstein's spirituality. Wittgenstein was born in Vienna in 1889 and died in Cambridge in 1951. I am using Wittgenstein for a research project I am involved in. For educational scholars, Wittgenstein has some affinity given that in 1920 he completed his training as an elementary school teacher and went to work at a primary school in Lower Austria, where he continued to work as a teacher until 1926. He had been trained in the methods of the Austrian school reform movement, which rejected rote learning and focused instead on developing the child’s curiosity, on encouraging independent thought and on using practical exercises to allow the child to make their own discoveries (McGinn, 1997, p. 3). However, it is as a philosopher that Wittgenstein is best known. As Goldstein (1999) notes, Wittgenstein was one of the central figures (many would say he was the central figure) in twentieth century philosophy (p. 1). His specialty was specifically centered on the philosophy of language, its interpretation and meaning. He was a philosopher fully grounded in the empirical world of language. Wittgenstein doubted that it is possible to have thoughts without language.  “When I think in language, there aren’t ‘meanings’ going through my mind in addition to the verbal expressions: the language is itself the vehicle of thought” (Wittgenstein, 1958, p. 108).  As McGinn (1997, p. 12) explains, for Wittgenstein, language is both a source of philosophical problems, leading to cognitive dissonance and also the means to overcome them. Language is a philosophical problem because we want to uncover what a particular word means, what it represents, and herein lies the problem.

In this presentation, Wittgenstein begins with some familiar terms in spirituality and ethics; God, soul, and mind. One of the problems, says Wittgenstein, is that we take a substantive to correspond to a thing. The words soul and mind have been used as if they actually stand for a thing. What is a soul is a misleading question. And so, asks the narrator, what will happen to morality and religion? Wittgenstein has a deep respect for religion practice but not theory. He thinks of religious beliefs not as factual "things" but the job they do in shaping our lives. Wittgenstein said that it is not how the world is that is mystical, it is the fact that it is. We should renounce the pomps and vanities of the world and this includes grand explanoratory solutions. 
Wittgenstein believed that the answer to the riddles of life lies in the dissapearance of the question! He forces us to return to the ethical reality of the every day. When we see that our common life is all there is, that realization is religon. His view is very down to earth and very agnostic. We can only see how religion shapes our life and that is all, not whether it is "true" in a propositional sense. Belief requires conversion of life, truthfullness, and inner integrity. He is equally clear that this is all that needs to be said. We must be cured of speculative, metaphysical questions because all we can know is what appears before us. Is this a mysticism of the every day or a religious agnosticism, or is this, as it always was, the truth of the matter?

Good source of reflection and springboard for spirituality.

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Self-regulation and learning

3/13/2014

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Embedded in this post is an article on metacongition and learning or as the researchers who studied the phenomenon phrased it, "non-cognitive" learning. I am with the commenter of the article on having difficulty with the term "non-cognitive" as any intellectual process must, at some level, be cogntive. This kind of thinking could, and has been referred to as self-regulation and is a popular area of study, research, and practice in education today. In fact, according to the researchers cited in the article, self-regulation (as I refer to it) is more predictive of success than IQ or other standardized measures:

Heckman has also found that factors seldom measured on IQ or achievement tests--characteristics like persistence and self-control--matter more than academic knowledge and skills in determining life outcomes. Heckman came upon this by studying students who had earned a General Educational Development certificate (GED). Although these students had the same academic abilities as those who graduated from high school, they ended up doing far worse in employment, health, and other aspects of life as adults. Why? Heckman reasoned that the high school graduates were much better able to make plans and stick to them and delay gratification--factors that served them well out of school.

Rothman, in discussing the findings writes:

David Conley goes further and argues that abilities like persistence, goal-setting, and collaboration are in fact "higher form[s] of thinking." He suggests that, in place of non-cognitive skills, these abilities should be called "metacognitive learning skills." While I appreciate his point of view, I'm afraid that term is unlikely to catch on.

While I doubt Rothman reads my blog, there already is a term in circulation to describe this process and that term is self-regulation.

You can read the entire article here:

Two Cheers for "Non-Cogntive" Skills

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    My Pensées

    The title of this blog is an allusion to the famous work of Blaise Pascal.  This blog represents the variety of my interests and thoughts on any given day and are  strung together, like Pascal's Pensees, in no particular order. I work in the field of mental health,  education, and human rights. I write and am a human rights advocate. I enjoy poetry, jazz, spirituality, politics and a potpourri of other interests that you will see reflected in this blog.

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