Heyo!

The Politics of Control/Stimuli/Behavior: FlackCheck.Org

You might enjoy an entertaining look at "truth out of context"... dare we call them lies?  Manipulative for sure.  For more, visit flackcheck.org or listen to an interesting interview [here  click listen on "Political Ads of the 2012 Race].

Take Control of P-Club!

Post your suggestions/directions/topics/questions...
...where does P-Club go in December?

(You need to accept an invitation to become a member of this blog and post comments... sorry, too much spam if we don't do it this way.  Please email Mr. B by going to www.scituatehighschool.com, clicking on faculty, and sending me an email request.  PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR NAME so I can be sure that you're not a spammer.  Thanks!)

Milgram Experiment

Here is a longer video of a contemporary confirmation of Milgram's results.  Sorry about the commercial inserts.

Control, Stimuli, Behavior

A combination of our three main ideas.

The control and introduction of stimuli such as information into our environment that can or may influence our behavior or behavorial patterns or normal behavior of a person.

Supermarkets and Store Organization

I thought this was an interesting bit about markets and how they are organized to influence the decisions of what to buy. If you ever run in the market for milk or a dairy product you will most likely realize you walk through the entire store to reach it. This is specifically designed by people for there market to encourage you to buy more stuff. A trip through the store is going to make you more likely to buy things then a short trip to the front of the store.

C/S/B: Propaganda (Part III)

'Brandwashing'... ...before you were even born?! Have a listen to [this].

C/S/B: Propaganda (Part II)

Control/Stimuli/Behavior: Intro to Propaganda (Part I)

Click this link to a page about wartime propaganda.

First Topic 2011

I was impressed with our members' willingness and ability to come to a thoughtful consensus on our first topic. Thank you :)

Can you weave the three elements pictured above into a provocative, personal question that will drive your philosophical inquiry? If so, post your question to this thread!

I will do my best to find interesting avenues into this trivium, but remember that THIS IS YOUR CLUB and student leadership is where it's at--if you want to share a thought, song, poem, video, or lead an entire discussion, just let me know! -mrb

Brainstorm for First Topic/Question of 2011

Please add further ideas, questions, or refinements of the above suggestions to this thread...

Welcome to P-Club 2011-12: (Winning?) The Salt and Pepper Game

Here is a link to the yet-to-be-discussed essay by

Jean Paul Sarte, We Write for Our Own Time.

Feel free to post a reflection on today's Salt and Pepper Game,

a response to Sarte's essay, or suggest a new topic/question

for the club to explore...

Inception

The movie inception is mainly about dreams and being able to control your own dreams.

Welcome to P-club 2010-2011

Greetings thinkers!

Let's use this thread to post new topic/question ideas. Over the next two weeks we'll brainstorm and then narrow down our ideas... until our first topic/question emerges. Because there is a Period 9 assembly next week, our next P-club meeting will on Oct 28th. In the meantime...

What's on your philosophical mind?

Should we continue to explore the mystery of individuals/individualism? If so, how do we begin to explore this? If not, what else should we explore?

PS: Scroll down two posts for links to In the Waiting Line lyrics and music video.

WAR, WORKING OUT: What is it good for?

In 1967, a satirical book was published that was later deemed a "hoax" by some. It raised many critical and challenging issues pertaining to the nature of industrial society and war, including questions about the 'purpose' and 'benefits' of environmental and social waste--our chronic waste of natural resources, and the waste of human life itself. Here's one excerpt:

The production of weapons of mass destruction has always been associated with economic "waste." The term is pejorative, since it implies a failure of function. But no human activity can properly be considered wasteful if it achieves its contextual objective. The phrase "wasteful but necessary," applied not only to war expenditures, but to most of the "unproductive" commercial activities of our society, is a contradiction in terms.

"... The attacks that have since the time of Samuel’s criticism of King Saul been leveled against military expenditures as waste may well have concealed or misunderstood the point that some kinds of waste may have a larger social utility." [13]

In the case of military "waste," there is indeed a larger social utility. It derives from the fact that the "wastefulness" of war production is exercised entirely outside the framework of the economy of supply and demand. As such, it provides the only critically large segment of the total economy that is subject to complete and arbitrary central control. If modern industrial societies can be defined as those which have developed the capacity to produce more than is required for their economic survival (regardless of the equities of distribution of goods within them), military spending can be said to furnish the only balance wheel with sufficient inertia to stabilize the advance of their economies. The fact that war is "wasteful" is what enables it to serve this function. And the faster the economy advances, the heavier this balance wheel must be.

But we needn't stir up a war if we have disposable income and/or energy we wish to expend. Consider the juxtaposition of the people/activities below (a laboring peasant featured on the cover of a Led Zeppelin album, and a pastime familiar to us in the West):

Is there something tragically wrong with accumulating excesses of natural resources, energy, food, calories--time itself--and then just burning off those consumptive excesses whether it be the flaring of landfill gas [pic] [commentary] or simply 'working' out (playing) to burn away 'extra' calories in our 'free' time? José Ortega y Gasset wrote:

Men play at tragedy because they do not believe in the reality of the tragedy which is actually being staged in the civilized world.

What are your thoughts?

In The Waiting Line

Lyrics [here].

In Distrust of Movements by Wendell Berry

If you'd like to read more of Wendell Berry's essay, here's the link. Remember to wear outdoor-appropriate clothing for next week's meeting, and bring something to sit on if you weren't a fan of today's logs...

The Stranger (Chapters 1-4) by Albert Camus

Here are four different covers

to Camus' The Stranger...

Some space to post your thoughts

and questions as you read Chapters 1-4...

.

Philosophical Backpacks

Well, Sam Toohey asked me to post this, apparently I wasn't the only one having trouble posting new topics. I found it, in case that hasn't been made clear.

"How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life... you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV... the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home... I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office... and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks."

Bob Dylan Interview

Not sure if anyone got anything out of today's video... members seemed more excited about the 'date from the future' and the 'jesus' avatar at the end... I've listened 4 or 5 times, and I seem to grasp something different each time.