Really interesting discussion of an issue of which I have only a touching acquaintance on the New Books Network.
“The neurodiversity studies paradigm is one in which autism, ADHD, dyslexia, aphantasia, and other forms of long-term neurological differences are “part of a broader spectrum of human diversity, rather than inescapably associated with deviance, disorder, or impoverished selfhood.””
A statement of the obvious, but frequently neglected: we are all neurodiverse
The history of the ecology of the Bering Coast might sound like a bit of an obscure subject, but this podcast brought it alive.
An interview with Bathsheba Demuth, the academic author of the title of that name, is a fascinating listen.
What really struck with me is the way in which whaling was one more great extraction of resources – energy – from the periphery to the political centres of the colonial era. How much a whale is in practical terms a huge store of energy – all harvested up from the krill that teems so richly in particularly polar regions. On a smaller scale tundra lichen fed caribou, the riches from which were also transported to political centres.
Memorable phrase – “all conversion is a loss.”
The book also very well regarded in this New York Times review.
On the New Books Network, The Case of the Slave-Child, Med.
The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society won her right to freedom in Massachusetts, in a case carefully chosen because previous teen cases had chosen to remain in slavery. And Med was too young to chose.
But Med was placed into an institution, and died two years later. And so it was not the triumphant campaigning story it might have been, so was almost lost to history.
Little is known of Med, her family history or her own thoughts or understanding, but it is still a highly informative tale, and a child’s life that deserves at least to be remembered, even if she probably had scant care in life.
Fascinating interview with Michael D Bailey on the New Books Network, which shows how the whole stereotypical picture of witches as an organised force of the devil was born in the 1430s in the western European Alps, at least in part as a weapon of political struggle. And how even at the time there were people brave enough to scoff at it as nonsense.
The imagining of witchcraft as an organised force spread across Europe and beyond, to cause the death of many thousands of (mostly) women. And still has force today – thinking of the use of the word witch as a word of abuse of Julia Gillard and many other women in public life.
I’m by no means an expert on Hungary, never even been there, but this New Books Network interview with András Körösényi, one of the authors of The Orbán Regime: Plebiscitary Leader Democracy in the Making, was fascinating. (And also introduced me to an aspect of Weber with which I was previously unfamiliar.)
And I’m going to have to think about this a bit more, but as a concept would seem to have considerable explanatory power for the Boris Johnson regime too – as I see it close up, with institutions and (where possible) the law, being moulded to the convenience of those in charge (Brexit deal announced on December 24 and debated in one day by parliament on December 30 anyone?), and conventions in policy-making being tossed out the window (Henry VIII powers being the tool of choice).
As I first started listening to Jeff Broxmeyer’s account of “spoils democracy”, on the New Books Network I thought about the Thailand that I knew in the 1990s, very much a patronage-based society, but where often people needed the modest spoils they got from that to survive.
But it was impossible also to not think of how much of a circle we’ve come in – just the sums have got much larger and the distribution much narrower – whether it is Trump family businesses or the UK’s crony-based distribution of Covid-19 (so extreme it attracted the attention of the New York Times).
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