Monday, May 19, 2008

Yes Doug Can



Of course, he's Canadian, so he doesn't even get a vote. (Would that I were so lucky! Instead, I have to have a 30 minute conversation with people on why I don't vote (because I'm an agnostic anarchist) and perhaps why they shouldn't vote either (because they're most likely misguided, uninformed and irrational). But I digress. Twice.)

Politics aside, what's not to love about sans serif chalkboard rhetoric? Especially when the message is...has Obama slapped a copyright on this?....dum dum dum: hope.

The nugget Coupland elaborates on--that it is uniquely human to have a sense of time--impressed me when he first broached the thought in the best novel I've ever read involving office humor, start-ups, Microsoft, two dimensional food, emoticons, obsolescence and Legos. (Microserfs, you'll laugh and laugh. I promise.)

His character, Karla, makes an interesting point on this: how would we know we've grown at all if the past has been forgotten?

6 comments:

Katie said...

but doug, what about those birds that hide two kinds of food, one that spoils faster, and depending on when they are recovering it in the future, they know which of the two to pick. I believe they're scrub jays? NYT keeps writing about them. This is why I don't like "x makes us human" statements. They lead to veganism.

Rue Des Quatre Vents said...

Anytime anyone ever gives a "x makes us unique" statement, they eventually get shot down. But maybe we should read this when it comes out?

http://www.amazon.com/Human-Science-Behind-Makes-Unique/dp/0060892889/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211315470&sr=8-1

Katie said...

The cover looks like a lite brite picture!!
Whence comes this need to know what it is that makes us unique? Anything in yr philosophy background to illuminate that?

Kate Greene said...

i loved light brite.

Rue Des Quatre Vents said...

The idea that humans are endowed with a certain set of capacities underlies most discussions in political philosophy about human rights. Just as you say, a lot of animal rights are based on the same thought as well. What is it in virtue of which we are endowed with value? What is it about us that deserves respecting?

And so on.

But the history of the topic is far richer, since it goes back at least to the "great chain of being"...

Katie said...

oh wow, the same great chain of being that led to scientifically institutionalized racism? this just keeps getting more interesting.