Wed 11 Jun 2008
One day in 1968, Jane Elliott, a teacher in a small, all-white Iowa town, divided her third-grade class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed groups and gave them a daring lesson in discrimination. This is the story of that lesson, its lasting impact on the children, and its enduring power thirty years later.
Mon 9 Jun 2008
Critics argue that the Soviet Union’s numerous internal failings and subsequent collapse were a direct result of the practical failings of Marxism. Most Marxists on the contrary claim that it was precisely the abandonment of Marxism in the Soviet Union that led to its demise, due to its isolation in a backward country not ripe for socialism according to Marx.
Marx saw more advanced modes of production as growing out of mature capitalism, and needing widespread education and democratic apparatuses to allow the eventual control of the state by the people themselves (and eventually, the “withering away of the state” under a truly mature communism) - only possible with a well educated and democratic populace. Marx did not appear to suggest that a stage of economic development could simply be skipped over, as the Soviet ideology implied. Rather, no nation should realistically be able to achieve socialism (let alone a mature communism) until it had developed a modern capitalist system, and mature communism was supposed to require a level of wealth and technology that would allow the basic material needs of all citizens to be produced with very little labor, on average, per person in a given time period. That achievement would then free people’s time and energies to fully participate in the democratic running of society, and then to finally overcome the alienation that the pattern of technological revolutions had caused throughout history—a giant arc in which societies developed from the “primitive communism” of small bands that had little or no structural inequality, through the great agrarian empires (usually involving slavery at one end and the richest monarchs at the other) which Marx considered to be the pinnacle of inequality, through feudalism and capitalism to the socialist organisation of society in which all can participate equally due to this technological development. The “elites” of feudal and capitalist society become less able to dominate others either through economics or ideology - their role in society is finished - as the working class develops its strength and becomes the “gravedigger” of capitalism.
An intriguing critic of Marx, although he also paid tribute to many of Marx’s basic ideas, was Louis Feuer, the late professor of philosophy at University of California, Berkeley. In his introduction to Selected Works on Economics and Politics by Karl Marx, published in 1960, Feuer argued strongly for the viewpoint, also expressed by others, that Marxism has many of the characteristics of a religion—in other words, that Marxism largely depends upon a fervent kind of faith, not provable scientifically, which is typical of religious believers. Just the same, Feuer in his introduction, and in other works, argued that Marx has had a very enduring and positive influence on the social and economic thinking of almost every modern country, particularly in Western Europe, but also in the United States. He made the interesting comment that Marxism largely depends upon the injection of ethical thinking into economic and political analysis—in contrast to modern trends which prefer to discuss these important areas in a totally “objective” manner without ethical values.
Sun 4 May 2008
I’m keeping this as my favourite OSCommerce contribution list for most of my ecommerce store projects. The most important criterias for the list are stability and usability of the contributions.
- Displays quantity up/down buttons and a remove button for each product. So the customer can manage their cart without going to the view cart page.
Very cool and easy to install!
Sat 3 May 2008
The software used for presentation is called Trendalyzer, a remarkable piece of software for statistic presentation and analysis. Trendalyzer was acquired by Google on Mars 2007.
Public data provided by: www.gapminder.org
Fri 2 May 2008
Tue 18 Sep 2007
It’s a man… NO!
It’s sushi… NO!
It’s a birthday cake!
“I am Chinese(Malaysian),a student at University(UNSW), enthusiastic,energetic, charming and in love with FOOD! I cook daily for my house of 3 with limited resources, free time and very basic culinary skills; however,I take is as good practice. I intend for this journal to be a fun guide and personal reference to keep track of my many cooking adventures. So join me as I embrace my love for cooking, discover new culinary inspirations, improve and mature with my new found skills in the culinary arts; while making a big mess along the way! *cheeky grin*”
Checkout her blog.
Sun 5 Aug 2007