The Conspiracy Revealed: Jews, Freemasons, Illuminati
Alain Goldschläger and Jacques Ch. Lemaire
Callawind Publications, 2012. 182 pgs.
From political policies to popular novels, the perennial conspiracy mindset with respect to Jews, Freemasons and Illuminati always seems to captivate a devout minority who give such dubious theories their stamp of credulity. Just as effective propaganda or speculative fiction will employ mixed modes of truth and lie to create a semi-plausible account, the conspiracist will freely conflate reality with fantasy in such a way that the former acts as proof of the claims of the latter.
Goldschläger and Lemaire make clear the difference between true and false conspiracies, but also carefully situate these on a continuum indicating the interpretative modes of conspiracy discourse.
For example, a true conspiracy would be the assassination attempt on Hitler in the Wolfsschanze where several members, including von Stauffenberg, had plotted for more than a year and, after several aborted or failed attempts, finally actualized their plot which resulted in failure. Padfield, author of a biography of Himmler, leaves the extent of involvement of Goebbels and Himmler in this event in an ambiguous light, and one may still be uncertain given the ‘palace intrigues’ during this early period of the Fuhrerdammerung.
False conspiracies would include George W. Bush’s complicit foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks.
However, falsity is simply a departure point for where conspiracy enters delirium: as a complete fiction. And this is the domain where the authors guide us; specifically, the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy. What marks the history of like conspiracy theories is their ready-to-hand adoption by those seeking simple (yet flawed) answers to complex questions. Various heightened anxieties become fuel for those in political power to prop up these myths and thus present a totalizing solution that ostensibly ‘resolves’ the populace’s anxieties.
The authors trace this perplexing and fanatical process of using suspicion, ignorance and scapegoating in uniting disparate belief systems as leverage for promoting hatred and violence. The source of the problem – and one the authors claim will only continue – is one part linguistic and another fundamentally psychological.
“Rebellious Doilies and Subversive Stitches”
By Kirsty Robinson
“Craft Hard Die Free”
By Anthea Black and Nicole Burisch
Extra/Ordinary: Craft and Contemporary Art
Maria Elena Buszek (ed.)
Duke University Press, 2011. 306 pgs.
What is craftivism? How have craft artists performed a reclamation of those crafts such as embroidery, knitting and sewing from the emblematic regime of women’s subjugation? Although history may be quiet on the subject of craftivism in the 1970s and 1980s, the events of craft activism were a rallying point for social justice, and one that has seen a revival in today’s craftivism.
As Robinson indicates, the very history of craft activism is imbricated with a variety of sociopolitical causes and the successive developments of feminism, but it is an under-plumbed history. Today’s craftivism suffers under the lens of media intent on focusing on the ‘feminine’ acts of knitting while ignoring the underlying messages inherent to craftivist activity: knitting circles which critique the fragmentation of community, handcraft as critique of globalization and sweatshop labour, radical response to post-Fordist economies, and the reclamation of hitherto devalued domestic arts.
For as long as radical knitting is viewed as simply a spectacle, the content of these movements suffers grievous misprision.
In the article by Anthea Black and Nicole Burisch, the need to re-evaluate curatorial practices with respect to craft ought to be more flexible, and thus evade the corporate or commoditization of craft art which would otherwise conceal or fail to register the more robust political engagement craft art expresses. By not relegating politicized craft art to merely the gallery space, more inclusive registers are required to acknowledge the entirety of craftivist discourse, which includes taking into account the significance of workshops, zines, websites and off-site events that are vital components to understanding and assessing what craftivism means.
Phronesis as Professional Knowledge: Practical Wisdom in the Professions
Elizabeth Anne Kinsella and Allan Pitman (Eds.)
Sense Publishers, 2012. 177 pgs.
A phronetic understanding of the world leads invariably to the practical application of otherwise abstract theories and knowledge, but also embodies a series of reflective practices. As a species effect of economic pressures, we have seen the steady adoption of instrumental rationality which now imbue even our own professional activities. Phronesis, by its very definition as practical wisdom, resists instrumentalization since that would be to abdicate the definition itself.
Accustomed as we may be to the dialectic between theory and praxis, what has long been under shadow since Aristotle has been a more concerted effort to include our disposition in the “equation” of this struggle.
As the editors of this volume point out, phronesis points to a need for cultivating our professional judgment to ask after what is good for our students, patients, clients and society as a whole without (and here’s the tricky part) essentializing the ‘good.’ The volume collects essays that investigate this concept of phronesis, from discerning what can be salvaged from Aristotle’s use of the term, where phronesis is situated in the context of episteme and techne, to appeals of integrating phronetic practice in our everyday professional lives.
Given the disproportionate emphasis on evaluating our professional worth on what actions we perform according to a heavily evidence-based criteria for performance, whither reflection and judgment which are so vital to our character and identity?
This book does not settle the aporia, but it calls our attention to a much overlooked question that haunts our professional lives.