Hubricity

An “idea” is whatever comes to mind. Any idea is potentially a component of ideology. Both animals and humans experience the world as sensations, but only humans can nurture their sensations as ideas through reflection and signification and, in combination with other ideas, “empower” them as ideology. Ideology is a social tool capable of changing what is into what can be. Ideologies proliferate in many guises but are often (but not always) identifiable as words that have the suffix– ism.

Professor Donald Baker at the University of British Columbia, a specialist on Korean Neo-Confucianism, published this rather caustic review of my AoI monograph in the academic journal, Pacific Affairs. He and I both served as Peace Corps Volunteers in South Korea during the 1970s.

"Nemeth's muddled description of the impact of Yi dynasty ideology and policy on Cheju island peasants and their surroundings makes Architecture of Ideology of little use to readers seeking accurate information on Korea or practical advice on environmental policy. Misleading for those who know little about Korea and disappointing to those who know it well, this book is recommended only for those determined to read every monograph on Korea ever published."

Keywords: muddled, misleading, disappointing, Neo-Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, 'taking Nemeth to the woodshed.'

(Donald Baker's review of AoI has provided me with some useful feedback. Readers of Donald's review might now also read Professor Willie Stotzner's more positive review of AoI, for the purposes of some richer discussion:

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol22/iss22/12

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol22/iss22/12/

INCEL culture and related domestic terrorism events poster project/K. Panozzo; Ishfaq Rahman/David J. Nemeth

This INCEL poster "mapping" project began as a casual, collaborative, thought experiment involving quantum entanglement theory, and eusociality, toward an exploration of their plausible research/teaching/community service social science applications. Our goal aims to help propagate 'Extreme Human Geography' as vital component part of a timely, robust spatially integrated social science (SISS).

DJN notes, as a sidebar, that: "I may have thought a lot, and occasionally shared my enthusiastic opinions, during the collaborative critical discussion stages of this INCEL poster project, but it was mainly Kim Panozzo and her SISS graduate student colleagues who contributed the "heavier lifting" that brought this gonzo project to fruition. Kim, in particular, deployed her remarkably gifted design and execution talents -- effectively and tirelessly -- during the experiment, culminating in the final poster project that we presented during the ELDAAG meeting/conference convened on October 19, 2019.

"Extreme Geography." 1997. California Geographer. 37:10-31. http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/2690 URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10211.2/2690

A recent editorial in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers (Dixon and Jones, 1996) presented an entertaining deconstructive reading of scientific geography. This innovative essay, titled "For a Supercalifragilistkexpialidodous Scientific Geography" demonstrates how a popular deconstructive method adapted from the humanities might be deployed to facilitate the "self-redemption" of scientific geography from its constraining positivist closure, perhaps paving the way for its alignment with the open-ended and pluralistic world-view of an emerging critical poststructuralism.

Stylistic and methodological attributes of a postmodern attitude permeate the editorial: its postmodern style is a refreshing departure from the usual flat, denotative prose of scientific reporting; the blatant refusal of the authors to marshal validity and reference authority in support of their arguments is a portent of bold, new directions for the discipline's flagship journal; finally, the topic is thought-provoking and timely, motivated in part by the authors' concern about "the absence of a considered debate over the challenges and relative merits of poststructuralism" (Dixon and Jones, 1996,767). The timing of this debate cannot be separated from events and conditions that characterize the postmodern-as-epoch (Dear and Wassmansdorf, 1993). Perhaps that time has already passed: at least one observer suggests that the impact of information technology and time-space convergence on human communication seems to render Dixon and Jones' "considered debate" less relevant in the postmodern epoch (Nemeth, 1997).

Postmodern skepticism thrives on information surfeits. Ambiguous truths are bred wholesale by the speed in the span of cyberspace. This new flexibility in the accumulation of information now feeds a frenzy of popular skepticism about absolute truths that is much deeper and darker than the methodological skepticism in positivist science that continues to invest heavily in their credibilities.

Keyword: quantum thinking;
California Geographer ~ URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10211.2/2690

Abstract Machine: Humanities GIS seems a most unusual academic publication. It is remarkably innovative; an interdisciplinary hybrid rarely encountered these days when academic presses still narrowly target their prospective readerships into sequestered categories denoting traditional named colleges, disciplines, and subject matters: pharmacy, paleontology, peccaries, and so on. The publication is bold and experimental, yet appears at a time when university research libraries are notoriously shedding dusty, old books at a rapid rate. Meanwhile academic presses once tasked with producing new books are fading and folding right and left. As a book reviewer reporting my findings during these turbulent times, it is impossible to predict this particular book's success (however much I find it worthy of a high recommendation). I do wish it wide popularity in an unpredictable and volatile marketplace. Should it flop with its targeted academic audience, it will not be because its contents are boring, predictable, or poorly articulated.

Abstract. There is much yet to be discovered about the related topics of
environmental ethics and power of pace within the epigrammatic brevity of traditional East Asian eco-philosophy. This paper introduces and analyzes some passages and images from various Neo-Confucian classics and geomancy maps. Mencius, for example, may have anticipated the excesses and abuses of science m the service of
technology and growth ideology when he wrote :"There are few in the world that can resist the urge to hep their rice pants grow."

Deliberate resistance by traditional subsistence farmers to technology transfer is revealed in the classics as ideal ethical behavior. Some underpinnings for the theories and practices of "enlightened underdevelopment" in Neo-Confucian societies are introduced and discussed: Sustainable development, enlightened underdevelopment, ... ... .

It is difficult to avoid science in the service of technology when economic "development" is the objective. Perhaps a mystical enlightened underdevelopment notion can be a more persuasive story about a plausible eco-centrist future in the service of improving the human condition than the unsatisfying story told today by those self-deluding, self-serving spokespersons on the payroll of scientism/capitalism that persist to hawk economic growth ideology? "Klattu barada nikto!"

Let me sketch out here my vision of the cloistered cornucopia of AD 2100: Management of Planet Earth is entirely rationalized. Nature still nurtures. Artificial intelligence is history. The Machine has met its Master. The rich are enraptured. The poor are happy. The ducks of demography are all in a row. Never more is heard the discouraging word. Welcome to my sanguine vision of our future totalitarian utopia. All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. (Voltaire 1758) Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.

“Sorensen's research timetable in Korea permits him to observe Sangongni [Village, ROK] at both ends of its transitional stage. He writes of this transition: Peasants in Sangongni in 1977... thought of subsistence first, and profit as whatever was left after subsistence has been taken care of. By 1983, they were turning into profit maximizers .... (p. 88). Meanwhile, Sangongni had lost thirteen households, and remaining households were rapidly losing their labor sources to urban migration. Moreover, land was being abandoned. Farm size, however, was increasing.”

"Sorensen assumes from the start that traditional farming was "one crisis [mountain] after another" (p. 5). His implication is that the old agroecosystem was unpredictable and unstable, resulting in a generally low quality of life for subsistence farmers.The traditional agroecosystem was not unpredictable, of course. Its long-term cyclic stability and productivity during medieval times resulted in long-lasting dynasties, and explains how large populations became self-supporting despite their scarcity of cultivated lands. The social adjustment to accepting and maintaining predictability in traditional agroecosystems is reflected in the prejudice of the infamous East Asian curse: "May you live in interesting times!" It was not characteristic of medieval Sangongni, but characteristic of Sorensen's Sangongni during its transitional stage of
development, for rural life to be "interesting" and therefore unstable."

"Callum Cant is a PhD student attending University of West London, and a gifted wordsmith. He writes concisely, sardonically, and with admirable clarity about how and why toxic class warfare and on-the-job worker dehumanization by bosses continue to persist into the early decades of the 21st century, enabled by the “new” algorithmic-managed industrial platform economy. His book relates how, in mid-September of 2016, he contrived a plan whereby he could work while a student to earn a living wage and, meanwhile, advance his personal education goals (in particular those pertaining to the successfully pursuit of original substance for his dissertation research).

Callum’s book relates intimately and precisely how he became a bicycle food-delivery courier in the employ of corporate Deliveroo, in Brighton, England. At the time of his hire, Deliveroo was a budding “platform company” aspiring to become a “unicorn” (a fantastically profitable beast-of-a-platform) in a highly competitive and rapidly evolving economic supply niche driven by high consumer demand.

Deliveroo’s proselytizing to entice entry-level bicycle couriers offered to provide its specialized precarious workforce (comprised in large part of poor, struggling, mostly male, college students) freedom and dignity in exchange for their paycheck. The courier work promised newbies that they could be “independent contractors” in this new platform economy. However, technically and legally, they would not be Deliveroo “employees.” And therein lies the rub."

Keywords: gig economy; anarcho-syndicalism; organized labor movements; food-delivery services; 'heroic workerism''; boss-managed platform economy; The  Precriate  ...

"Space prohibits so much, and permits so little." -- Peter S. Stevens


"Through geomantic practices, Neo-Confucian ideology has actively promoted its 'correlative' (as compared to a 'causative') cosmology, wherein everything an nature is assumed to orient itself within an encompassing but impersonal force field without having to be Instructed to do so and without the application of mechanical compulsion. This orientation also applies to humans, of course, who, from the perspective of Neo-Confucian organic naturalism, also have inherent tendencies to move toward certain places. Neo-Confucians believe that the resulting dynamic
equilibrium attained attributes of perfection and beauty when and where humans entered into productive relationships with Nature. Neo-Confucian correlative cosmology holds that initial conditions (the where and when of human entry) determine subsequent productive or destructive outcomes. Geomantic surveys and the maps that result from these efforts represent Neo-Confucian solutions to the problem of choosing the 'correct timing and placement of human beginnings in a
prepotent and productive natural system without disturbing its dynamic equilibrium."

"Extreme human geography is a critique that celebrates odd juxtapositions; it is not to be confused with extreme physical geography, which has its own distinct cabinet of remarkable curiosities. Extreme geography as a recurring subversive idea in the history of geographic thought manifests as fantasy mapping, counterfactual geographies, science fiction spaces/places, and other imaginative social critiques. As an identifiable critical "tradition" in modern Western geographic thought, its convoluted heritage is cross-disciplinary and can be traced in fits and spurts from Homer, through Diogenes of Sinope, Saint Francis of Assisi, Evangelista Torricelli, and Athanasius Kircher, to Guy Debord, Ursula K. Le Guin, and recently a conspiratorial core of radical cartographers at Pennsylvania State University, the founders of GIobehead Journal of Extreme Geography."