~ BAIIAAOD ~ Becoming An Individual In An Age Of Distraction

~ AEOAFOT ~ An Ethics Of Attention For Our Time

~ TAC ~ The Attentional Commons

~ TBOSAOTB-TANMDBAEI-YTAOSSCTCAI ~ The Benefits Of Silence Are Off The Books – They Are Not Measured Directly By Any Econometric Instrument – Yet The Availability Of Silence Surely Contributes To Creativity And Innovation

~ OCAGDOSITCOBE ~ One Consumes A Great Deal Of Silence In The Course Of Becoming Educated

~ ICAAWWNLTRFU-TETWBTM ~ If Clean Air And Water Were No Longer The Rule For Us – The Economic Toll Would Be Truly Massive

~ ARR-AAWWBUBSIWTMTUFO ~ Absent Robust Regulations – Air And Water Will Be Used By Some In Ways That Make Them Unusable For Others

~ ARNTBA ~ A Right Not To Be Addressed

~ ETWARCBASOP-IOQRFOWAG-ILOWMRARAPC-ALSOTGOU ~ Encountering The World As Real Can Be A Source Of Pleasure – Indeed Of Quasi-Religious Feelings Of Wonder And Gratitude – In Light Of Which Manufactured Realities Are Revealed As Pale Counterfeits – And Lose Some Of Their Grip On Us

~ WANSMROACWROBACHFMID ~ We Are Not So Much Rational Optimizers As Creatures Who Rely On Biases And Crude Heuristics For Making Important Decisions

~ CJ ~ Cultural Jigs

~ ‘TWIIOBM’ ~ “The World Is It’s Own Best Model”

~ VRAMI ~ Virtual Reality As Moral Ideal

~ TDOTCFEAODIIWTLUFIPAD ~ The Design Of Things Can Facilitate Embodied Agency Or Diminish It In Ways That Lead Us Further Into Passivity And Dependence

~ HSSITGWSTBAISV ~ Having Some Skin In The Game Would Seem To Be An Important Safety Variable

~ ‘CA’ ~ “Choice Architectures”

~ ITDPOC-TABDTFD-TTPOIAKOA ~ In The Darker Precincts Of Capitalism – Things Are Being Designed To Foster Disengagement – To The Point Of Inducing A Kind Of Autism

~ ETAZOAPAHUA ~ Escaping To A Zone Of Autistic Pseudo-Action Has Understandable Appeal

~ TDFMEIMBAGEO-‘AC’-AIHBC ~ The Demand For Manufactured Experiences Is Met By A Growing Economy Of – “Affective Capitalism” – As It Has Been Called

~ OESATIARRFT-MTVRTWHOAGOPWFTLUTTAI-ADTP ~ Our Economic System Assumes That Individuals Are Radically Responsible For Themselves – Maintaining This View Requires That We Hive Off Any Group Of People Who Fail To Live Up To The Autonomous Ideal – And Designate Them Pathological

~ PTTOSOHINDT-‘UHCV’-BIRCTPACPOCNTP ~ Perhaps The Time One Spends On Hold Is Not Due To – “Unusually Heavy Call Volume” – But Is Rather Calibrated To Persuade A Certain Percentage Of Callers Not To Persist

~ TIOCIK-TITSOTLOAA-AOTRORATA-WDTAIAOCH?-IWBIASTWAUAR ~ The Issue Of Consent Is Key – This Is The Source Of The Legitimacy Of All Authority – And Of The Rights One Retains Against That Authority – When Does This All-Important Act Of Consent Happen? – I Was Born Into A Society That Was Already Up And Running

~ TAR ~ Truth As Representation

~ EP ~ Embodied Perception

~ ETS ~ Empowerment Through Submission

~ MIACIAPTC ~ Membership In A Community Is A Prerequisite To Creativity

~ TLBEITSTA ~ To Learn By Example Is To Submit To Authority

~ CRAUIBTR ~ Cultural Revolutions Aren’t Imposed Only By Totalitarian Regimes

~ TSOOTOIASNBTFG ~ The Survival Of Our Traditions Of Intellectual Apprenticeship Should Not Be Taken For Granted

~ OCCATOAB-WDFI-NAAPOOTW-BAOWAII ~ Our Cognitive Capacities Are Those Of A Being – Who Develops From Infancy – Not As A Pure Observer Of The World – But As One Who Acts In It

~ TCPAE-WASABB-NDCOR ~ The Critical Point Against Empiricism – We Are Social And Biographical Beings – Not Digital Cameras Or Recorders

~ JA ~ Joint Attention

~ TFTWLTIASW-ADTT-IFTTKOBWA ~ The Fact That We Live Together In A Shared World – And Do Things Together – Is Fundamental To The Kind Of Beings We Are

~ AI ~ Achieving Individuality

~ TPOTD ~ The Problem Of The Dissident

~ TVABTMAAUPFHE ~ The Values Assigned By The Marketplace Are An Unreliable Proxy For Human Excellence

~ TCOP ~ The Culture Of Performance

~ MATDSC-OFIMP-WITPRFACOIIWC ~ Mobility And The Democratic Social Condition – Our Faith In Mobility Persists – Without It The Public Rationale For A Culture Of Individual Initiative Would Collapse

~ CCAAHPC-BTAWBSLTH ~ Civilization Comes At A High Personal Cost – But The Alternative Would Be Something Less Than Human

~ TEOA ~ The Erotics Of Attention

~ TATDOAAWWIABCFLW ~ The Ability To Direct Our Attention As We Will Is A Basic Condition For Living Well

~ TRTWABSCITIMIHTCWL ~ The Reason To Worry About Being Self-Centered Is That It Makes It Hard To Cope With Life

~ AVR ~ Acting Versus Ruminating

~ TE ~ The Everyone

~ BJBPHAWOBLFATATHIBMF-ABSN ~ But Jokes By Philosophers Have A Way Of Becoming Less Funny As The Absurdities They Have Identified Blossom More Fully – And Become Social Norms

~ TSS ~ The Statistical Self

~ WANCTJEFO ~ We Are Not Competent To Judge Everything For Ourselves

~ TEONBTNP-SOSWTOOSC-TNOS ~ The Expert Of Normalcy Becomes The New Priest – Salving Our Souls With The Offer Of Statistical Communion – The Numbers Offer Solace

~ TSS ~ The Stackable Self

~ RTR ~ Reclaiming The Real

~ WWANS-WCTSTWD ~ When We Acquire New Skills – We Come To See The World Differently

~ AFTWAII ~ Affection For The World As It Is

~ DWF ~ Democracy Without Flattening

~ OBTLUOTJTWBOH ~ Only Beautiful Things Led Us Out To Join The World Beyond Our Heads