Día de los Muertos / 萬聖節

去年此刻我還住在新英格蘭的小鎮，走路十分鐘有幾座森林與草原，夜晚後院裡有螢火蟲出沒。每周去學校幾次，兩三周去一次隔壁鎮的超市，超市走道邊排列著橙紅色的南瓜，肉桂香氣逼人。楓紅的季節，焦慮著論文與求職，等待第一場雪如往常無聲地降臨。

今年在加州的大城，疫情肆虐，在數據在關閉的店鋪在遠方的屍體，無聲地狂飆。前幾天第一次實體見到同事，隔著口罩與六呎距離，陽光暖和。各家門前，取代千篇一律草皮的，是艷麗招展的沙漠與地中海植物。這裡不下雪。山火在不遠處蔓延。

今年與去年的萬聖節，恍如隔世。

From Lacan to Darwin, by Dylan Evans

When finishing An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis (Chinese translation: 拉岡精神分析詞彙), Dylan Evans was about halfway through the transition from Lacanian Psychoanalysis to Evolutionary Psychology. The process of writing the dictionary revealed to him the "internal contradictions and lack of external confirmation" in Lacanian theory, and the obfuscatory language of Lacan "did not hide a deeper meaning, but was in fact a direct manifestation of the confusion inherent in Lacan's own thought." In an article, From Lacan to Darwin, he laid out the story of his intellectual journey and explained why he rejected Lacanian theory.

Ravenswood

因為報名了企業研究課程，最近必需讀完海量的資料，其中就包括這本書：Ravenswood: The Steelworkers' Victory and the Revival of American Labor (導論連結)

這本書是關於 1990-1992 年間，美國西維吉尼亞州的一個鋁礦加工廠 Ravenswood Aluminum Company (RAC) 的工會，如何在遭到資方惡意鎖廠 (lockout)、引進工賊之後，透過漫長而複雜的鬥爭反擊成功的故事。除了傳統工運抗爭必需的工人團結與組織動員之外 (撐了兩年)，這故事的重點是 "綜合戰" 與 "敵情研究"。

Reading Notes 2018.11.14

# Rob Reich on "Is philanthropy bad for democracy?", from Rationally Speaking
--Many philanthropists donate to fancy schools that really don't need extra money. Maybe public policy should be: tax-deductible donations to support public schools should be conditioned on whether or not the school that you're supporting with your donation has a certain percentage of kids who are on free or induced lunch.
--It's true that the philanthropists could have had put the money into business or politics rather than philanthropy. But when an individual creates a company, as you were describing, or say gets elected to government and then has an opportunity to direct public resources, there are forms of accountability that are kind of internal to the marketplace and internal to the operation of government, that hold that power in check in a certain way. Philanthropic power by contrast is almost wholly unaccountable. >>這一點也是台灣的財團喜歡用財團法人控制企業的原因吧。台灣就連企業都沒有完整的監督與制衡，更別提慈善或公益事業的權力問題了。

# Christopher Chabris on "Collective intelligence & the ethics of A/B tests", from Rationally Speaking
--People who have good social and emotional skills enhance group intelligence more than experts of specific, technical fields.
--Women enhance group intelligence, but there may be a selection bias that the women got selected into the sample tend to be more intelligent than average women.

Reading Notes 2018.10.20

Claude Lévi-Strauss today, by Dan Sperber

[p.72] Faithful to the terminology of Saussure, he [Levi-Strauss] tends to refer to symbolic phenomena as "signifiers," and one might assume that the investigation is into an underlying code which pairs these signifiers with their "signified." Yet, if readers begin looking for the signifieds, they soon realize that the underlying code relates signifiers to other signifiers: there are no signifieds. Everything is meaningful, nothing is meant.

[p.74] If the question asked were: "Why should a given social group consider itself to stand in a special relationship to, say, eagles?," only unsatisfactory answers could be given: "Because they are mistaken about ancestry," or "because they think they resemble eagles and assume this implies a relationship." Explaining strange behavior by even stranger intellectual errors is no explanation at all.

Levi-Strauss points out that the human-animal relationship can be understood in a third, even more systemic way: neither as a set of dyadic relationships between individual items, nor as a dyadic relationship between sets of individual items, but as a second-degree dyadic relationship between two sets of first-degree relationship:

On the one hand there are animals which differ from each other (in that they belong to distinct species, each of which has its own physical appearance and mode of life), and on the other hand there are men...who also differ from each other (in that they are distributed among different segments of the society, each occupying a particular position in the social structure.). The resemblance presupposed by so-called totemic representations is between these two systems of differences (Levi-Strauss 1963b: 77).

Seen in this light, the resource to animal species provides a unique system of differences. Species do not overlap, they look different, they live differently, they offer an endless choice of opposed features that can be used to contrast human groups......If, for instance, a tribe were divided into three clans named after the eagle, the bear, and the turtle, this might suggest that we concentrate on the natural element of each of these species, and further contrast the three clans as associated with sky, earth, and water.

# Christopher Chabris on "Collective intelligence & the ethics of A/B tests", from Rationally Speaking
--People who have good social and emotional skills enhance group intelligence more than experts of specific, technical fields.
--Women enhance group intelligence, but there may be a selection bias that the women got selected into the sample tend to be more intelligent than average women.

約瑟和他的兄弟們 by 曾慶豹

比起其他高遠的神學研究，此書讀來異常親切，讓我重新理解一些人與事。由此回望，我經驗中的那些「好」顯得無比卑微、天真與脆弱，而那些「壞」原來還有千百個理由可以更壞。我該慶幸自己不曾真正經驗過那核心裡的惡嗎？

[p.2] 有一次在一位老牧師的書架上翻看到一本書《共黨能和宗教和平共存嗎》......令我感到興趣的莫過於是牧師在扉頁註記了一段話：

反共不是政治

「反共不是政治」絕不是一句簡單的話，他基本上反應了兩種情況：一方面是暗示著基督教最好不要涉入政治，堅持政教分離的原則，另一方面則是把反共產黨、反無神論提高到比政治更高的層次，即它的宗教性或基督徒口中所說的「屬靈戰爭」。

Reading Notes 2017.10.21

# An unlikely triumph by David Labaree.
美國許多 college 設在偏僻小鎮，因為原本就是為了炒新開發區地皮而設。大學部學費是主要收入來源，所以課程不能太難，要讓學生開心，與社區民眾及校友維繫感情，經營球隊是方法之一， populism。

# From BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
很久沒讀這種論述性質的東西了。我關心的問題：階級與種族兩線上的運動為何分裂，又如何可能聯合，作者也關心，但只是輕描淡寫地穿插提及。一來，本書的主題固不在此吧，二來，作者始終停留在論述層次，不在意將論述轉譯成經驗命題 (例如，哪些白人工人有強烈的種族主義傾向？為甚麼？)，也不試圖從經驗分析中尋求支持。

Reading Notes 2017.05.31

Contemporary Approaches to the Social Contract, by D'Agostino, Gaus, and Thrasher (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
    1. 古典的社會契約論重視 consent-obligation。當代契約論重視 the problem of justification: what social arrangements we can all accept as “free persons who have no authority over one another” (Rawls 1958, 33).
    2. Contractarian (Hobbesian/reductionist/why be moral) 與 Contratualist (Kantian/non-reductionist/what sorts of moral or political principles meet certain basic moral demands) 兩類理論。
    3. 如果 agents 的異質性太高，可能出現 indeterminacy/equilibrium selection 問題。
    4. Hobbes 以野蠻狀態對照社會契約。當代理論家的另一種論法是社會契約 vs 現狀，或將契約分為兩階段，constitutional 與 post-constitutional。
    5. 共識之形成機制: bargaining; aggregation; EGT equilibrium.
---順帶一提，如這段分析指出，Kant's categorical imperative 只是 symmetric game 的結果，難擴展至 asymmetric 情況。包括 Rawls 在內的一些社會契約論者似也有相同問題。
---從社會契約論的現實功能或用途反觀，是否能找出一些新方向？

陳博志：前瞻4200億軌道建設一定要緩下來！

Reading Notes 2017.05.14

---逝世八十年后，葛兰西如何帮我们理解当代政治 by 张跃然 骆斯航 
此文前半段似乎混淆了政府與國家。批判Trump的自由派拒絕這個政府，但他們的批判表明他們強烈認同美國且積極維護它。

---意外讀到一篇特別的書評：“Original Sin”? Revising the Revisionist Critique of the 1963 Operation Coldstore in Singapore by Kumar Ramakrishna, Singapore, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2015, vii + 167 pp. by Michael D. Barr
不論如何宣告意識型態終結，這些東西還是離我們這麼近。

Comments on Postone's Time, Labor, and Social Domination

Dear A,

Thanks for introducing me the book by Moishe Postone. I had read the third part of the book, Toward a reconstruction of the Marxian critique: capital. Since I am more interested in his own understandings and implications of his own analyses, I skip the first two parts. Overall it is a good book. But I can’t say that I love it. Most arguments of Postone are familiar to me in one way or the other, and I have been skeptical about them. I do like his argument for the possibility against actuality. But unfortunately he does not clarify the conditions or obstacles for it very much. Below I will outline his three major arguments, and then spell out my critiques or thoughts related to them.

他們為何震驚？憤怒些甚麼？

這次美國總統大選，有很多值得思索的現象。其中最引起我困惑的，就是在川普勝選後，人們表現出來的震驚，以及隨後群起抗議的內容。

這樣說可能有點奇怪，因為眾所周知，川普這號人物之所以引人爭議，就是因為他的種族主義，性別歧視與排外等突破底線的言行，人們抗議的也是針對這些，有甚麼好奇怪的呢？

我困惑的是，川普的這些爭議言行，似乎並不是克林頓敗選/川普勝選的關鍵原因。

Reading Notes 2016.10.19

---王浩威：沒有成為西方的現代亞洲
可以跟東亞福利國家的問題放在一起看。


---A Life Beyond Boundaries, by Benedict Anderson 

[p.191] War, travel, trade and reading kept polities of divergent sizes in constant, if often hostile, contact. Characteristic of this situation is the relation of English to Dutch. Most English people today have no idea that hundreds of English words come from what the huge Oxford English Dictionary categorizes as Old Dutch, but they treasure the hostile expressions 'Dutch courage' (bravery based on drunkenness), 'Dutch treat' (inviting a woman to dinner and insisting that she half the bill) and 'Dutch wives' (solid, hard bolsters for comfortable sleeping).
[p.124-125] The debate was really triggered by Nairn's polemical The Break-up of Britian, which argued that the UK was a fossilized, conservative and imperialistic relic of the past, doomed to break up into its four constituent underlying nations, with Scotland leading the way. The book was strongly attacked, especially by Hobsbawm, who declared that no true Marxist could be a nationalist; Marxiam had been committed from the start to internationalism. I like the book very much, for its own sake, but also as an Irishman (Southern Ireland, after centuries of English colonial rule, had only won its independence, by armed struggle, in 1922).

Reading Notes 2016.10.13

---The empty brain, by Robert Epstein

此文區分了兩種理解大腦運作的方式，一種是把大腦當成電腦，可以儲存與處理資訊，因此有可能想像下載或複製資訊，甚至把某人的心智整個傳上網路。另一種是把大腦當成某種因應刺激做出反應的有機體 (organism)，這有機體不斷地隨著學習與經驗改變自己，因此每個人都是獨特的，以獨特的方式構成，不可能任意加裝或傳輸甚麼資訊。

雖然作者寫得很有趣，但我有點懷疑這種區分在實際研究上有甚麼助益。可能是因為我對認知科學了解很少，我不太懂第二種假說在研究設計上要處理的是甚麼問題。其次，在我看來，這兩種 "假說" 似乎是可以合併的，只要在第一種假說中加上 "大腦這電腦會隨學習與經驗不斷生成變化，而其牽一髮而動全身的複雜性遠非我們目前能掌握" 即可。作者提到的打棒球比喻，在第一種假說的架構中可能只是個演算法問題。至於大腦中是不是有甚麼特殊內核儲存與處理資訊，並不那麼重要。

當然，第一種假說顯然是適應於我們目前對大腦乃至身體運作方式的粗淺認識，失之於靜態與機械。第二種假說反映了對認知運作方式的動態或 "有機" 的想像，看起來確實比較有趣，而且在某些方面更直觀。隨著研究的進展，很可能第一種假說會被逐漸拋棄。但是否就會轉向第二種假說？從科學史的一些例子來看，我仍是存疑的。

和朋友聊到此文，得到另一個看法。電腦的發展可能本就有一部分是希望模擬人腦的運作 (例如文中 von Neumann 的話似可作此解) 。AI 大概是很明顯的例子。因此，與其說研究者把人腦看作電腦來研究，不如說研究者的目標其實是想讓電腦更像人腦。


---许纪霖：近十年来中国国家主义思潮之批判


---A Life Beyond Boundaries, by Benedict Anderson 

[pp.193-194] Though European nationalism adopted key ideas from the Creole nationalism of the America, it was deeply affected by early-nineteenth-century Romanticism, which was foreign to its predecessors. It had huge appeal for outstanding poets, novelists, dramatists, composers and painters. It was also quite aware of, and felt solidarity with (though not always, of course), other popular nationalisms as fellow movements for the emancipation of the people from despotic dynasties - a solidarity later expressed institutionally in the League of Nations, the United Nations, and many other forms. 

After the world wars of the twentieth century, however, many young nationalisms typically got married to prey-beard states. Today, nationalism has became a powerful tool of the state and the institutions attached to it: the military, the media, schools and universities, religious establishments, and so on. I emphasize tools because the basic logic of the state's being remains that of rasion d'etat - ensuring its own survival and power, especially over its own subjects.* Hence contemporary nationalism is easily harnessed by repressive and conservative forces, which, unlike earlier anti-dynastic nationalism, have little interest in cross-national solidarities. The consequences are visible in many countries. One has only to think of state-sponsored myths about national histories of China, Burma, both Koreas, Siam, Japan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, or Sri Lanka for Asian examples. The intended effect is an unexamined, hypersensitive provinciality and narrow-mindedness. The signs are usually the presence of taboos (don't write about this!, don't talk about that!) and the censorship to enforce them. 

For a long time, different forms of socialism - anarchist, Leninist, New Leftist, social-democratic - provided a 'global' framework in which a progressive, emancipationist nationalism could flourish. Since the fall of 'communism' there has been a global vacuum, partially filled by feminism, environmentalism, neo-anarchism and various other 'isms', fighting in different and not always cooperative ways against the barrenness of neoliberalism and hypocritical 'human rights' interventionism. But a lot of work, over a long period of time, will be needed to fill the vacuum. 

* This is not to deny that contemporary nationalism does not still contain a powerful emancipatory and egalitarian element - the huge modern gains in relation to the position of women, ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, for example, would have been unimaginable without its help.

這段很有趣，也很令人懷疑。19 世紀的民族主義真與國際主義結合嗎？在成功奪取或建造國家機器之前，與其他反封建力量互通聲息可以想像 (你那裡的封建王朝倒台，我這裡的也會難再撐下去)，但奪權之後就是另一回事了。至於當代的民權運動，除了利用公民身分主張權利這一點之外，跟民族主義運動有甚麼直接關係？除非他想的是為了對抗外敵，於是藉由擴大賦權進行社會動員的情況。但那也多半是 1970 年代以前的事了吧。

Reading Notes 2016.01.29

村官为什么涉黑

路走到這裏分手：民主回歸派的落幕 by 蔡子強

新老工人跨越时空的对话 by 吴晓

论南方工人运动与初步清算泛左翼（上） by 秋火

綠社盟「社運參政」的困境：為什麼強調和人民站在一起，卻讓人很有距離感？ by 自由的鬍渣

That was fantastic

找房子時曾遇見一些有趣的屋主。其中一個是位老寡婦，德國人，在美國已經三十多年，但還是會抱怨 "他們美國人餐巾紙一用一大把好浪費"。我去她的小屋時是個濕冷的中午，外頭還飄著大約是那年最後的一場雪。她先是介紹了一圈屋況、房間與各種設備，然後提到過去幾個學生房客，有香港人(送了她一幅花開富貴還掛在牆上)西班牙人伊朗人越南人阿根廷人非洲各國人，當然也少不了各州來的美國學生。其中一個她懷疑是間諜，說是他的行為有點奇怪，後來還搬去跟個警察住。 

她在廚房餐桌邊捧著她的紅茶，有些靦腆地說，他的第一任丈夫就是個間諜，跟他結婚時還得接受美國政府鉅細靡遺的身家調查。後來丈夫被美國政府派去蘇聯出任務，過程凶險，同伴在機場被蘇聯人射殺，幸好他命大活著回來了。她沒怎麼介紹他的第二任丈夫，但牆上有幅他的油畫肖像，橙紅色的背景，蓄著小鬍子的男人，眉目間充滿情意。

她說，跟她住需要忍受的一點是，她每周四會跟著廣播節目唱歌劇，一唱一個下午。"電台播的是大都會歌劇院的演出，真的非常好"，她露出小孩看煙火時的表情，"我去紐約看過現場，that was fantastic。"

Greig - Vanished Days

Lisboa Rainha do Mar by Madredeus

Reading Note 2014.08.13

农村老人平静自杀：喝农药上吊投河比亲儿子可靠

“汉奸”：想像中的单一民族国家话语
...在真正实现了单一民族国家形式的国度里，反而不会有类似“汉奸”这样的话语。比如，日语中就没有“日奸”或“和奸”一词。日本人用以表达出卖民族利益者之意时，用的是“卖国奴”或“里切者”（背叛者）一词。朝鲜语中也没有“朝奸”一词，原来只用卖国奴（maegugno）。到了二十世纪，韩国人才称李完用为卖国奴（maegugno）、亲日派（chin-ilpa）或者是“民族的叛逆者”（minjog-uimban-yeogja）[51]。其中“民族的叛逆者”一词，又是他们从日语中引进“民族”一词、开始学习近代日本走“民族国家”之路，但这是韩国遭到日本侵略之后才被迫“发现”的话语。单一民族国家反而没有“汉奸”话语，是因为单一民族国家中民族与国家一致，自然没有必要强调种族主义的意义。

...清末民初革命派的“汉奸”话语，其实是他们企图在多民族国家的母体上，人工催生一个“汉族”单一民族国家时出现的怪胎。二十世纪初革命派接受近代民族主义的目的，其实不在于确认“民族”，而在于建立一个新型的国家──“民族国家”。民族不过是手段，国家才是目的。然而，因为现实的中国不可能成为单一民族国家，“汉奸”话语最终不过是强化了本来只是手段的民族意识而已。2002年末，有人以多民族国家为由表示不宜称岳飞为“民族英雄”。对此国人表现出来的愤怒，就是近代民族主义造成国人将自己的政治认同最终归结在民族，而不是国家的最好写照。

中国油企在伊拉克闷声发财

Vietnam, China and the Oil Rig Crisis: Who Blinked?

Reading Notes 2014.07.21

如何看待河南 19 岁少女在「戒网瘾学校」被虐至死？
---現實總是比作品殘酷。

中国大使：部分华商恶习缠身 在非洲窝里斗
「有些企业还在当地政府内部去寻找代理人，各自收买一批为自己说话的当地官员，2012年，两家公司把坦桑尼亚的交通部长、副部长同时搞垮了，他们为了争项目挑起正副部长的内斗，结果总统把两个人都撤了。」

陈嘉映对话向京：这个世界会好吗

「我们是属于那种为风雅人进行生产的...我说贝多芬不风雅——这个我们都知道——但是听贝多芬的很风雅。...有时去参加某些 “社交界” 的活动，他读你的书，会把你当作一个风雅的人，也是一个社交人，但你知道你不是，你写书，埋头工作。...一个生产者一旦入了风雅圈，生产力就大大下降。如果他习惯了这种圈子，那他作为一个生产者就基本上没什么用了。」

Reading Notes 2014.07.12

The Fragility of a Deteriorating Arabic? by BY MLYNXQUALEY
-- I am not sure how true is this. It's not easy to write poems or novels in a foreign language.
-- This Iowa workshop has been quite famous. There must be some reasons for that.

第一批非洲留学生为什么离开中国？ by 程映虹
-- 聽一個來自肯亞的老師談過，非洲有過各種前綴詞的社會主義，不是因為真的心向社會主義，要發展甚麼新社會主義模式，只是因為在爭取獨立與發展的過程中，必須跟殖民者，無一例外是資本主義國家，劃清界線。
-- 文中提到的台灣青年學者是淡江大學的劉曉鵬。

山西永济蒲韩乡村社区的综合农协实践  by 杨团

为什么要暴乱？

"当我们每次听到一个战后婴儿潮出生的人说我们这一代是怎么养尊处优，以及他们是怎么在夏天的时候为了挣大学的学费而工作的时候，我们会在心里面计划怎么把他们开膛破肚，然后在黑市卖了他们的器官来偿还我们的学生贷款。"

賴建寰：誰還記得國會關說案！？
-- 其實，我覺得重點只有一個：誰還記得？